Ultra Dispensationalism

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said,.

�But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you. In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King. Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Hyper-Dispensationalism and the Question of When the Church Began

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. Mike Abendroth here with Pastor Steve Cooley, who�s technically on vacation, but No Compromise, the bell always tolls for you.

I phoned in from, you know, where am I? Storyland? Storyland. Yeah. Bible land? Mm-hmm. What about Bible Storyland? That would be awesome. Would that make much money? No. Actually, there is sort of like that in Orlando, right, that fake place down there?

I think so. And what about the Creation Institute or museum and the ark and dinosaurs and all that?

You know, I�ve never been to that, but I mean, it might be fun to just go see it.

I think Roger, our friend who works there, I think he can probably get us some backstage passes. You think? What if I want to control the The ark? The T-Rex. Yeah, the ark. Can you imagine building that ark, no rain, and just hammering those nails and the people thinking you�re the weirdest ever?

I honestly, I know the Bible response, but I don�t really want to look like a kook in front of my neighbors. As if we don�t already, right? I mean, I�m willing to be. They see me drive off on Sunday morning, da-da-da-da-da, but.

See, I probably want to build that ark in my garage so that nobody would know that I was building it. Peace by peace.

Steve, we got an email the other day, and they said, �What is hyper-dispensationalism And I thought, �You know what, that�s a good question. Is that anything like hydro-dispensationalism? Well, yeah, there are not too many hydro-dispensationalists who are infant Baptists.

The hydro part, you know, it�s all water. It�s all wet. Most dispensationalists are Baptists, though, right, don�t you think? Yes. Yes, okay. Now, when I say hyper-Calvinist, that just means somebody that�s more Calvinistic than I am, right?

That�s typically the lingo. But there�s a specific thing about a technical category, a Biblical slot for hyper-Calvinism, correct?

Yeah, and I would say, you know, just generically, I would say that typically is somebody who believes that you ought not to preach the gospel to the non-elect, which is really a tricky thing, right?

How do you make sure that somebody�s not elect? Well, I can�t preach the gospel to you because you�re not elect. That�s right. You have to run around and make sure that they don�t have an E in their back or something.

Phil Johnson�s article on hyper-Calvinism is probably my favorite article, and he, I think, says that hyper-Calvinists see no need to pray and, you know, pray for the unsaved, no need to preach the gospel to people, right?

God will save anybody he wants anyway. And then I think he adds a third thing, that there�s no love of God to the non-elect. And of course, Phil sees there�s a difference between a salvific love and a common grace type of love, but there�s love of God for the non-elect even though it�s not a salvific.

Love. So they err on the sovereignty of God. They believe that God is so sovereign that man has no responsibility. I remember once, I probably told this story, but at a men�s group thing at Grace to You and Phil was there and somebody started saying that the offer of the gospel to the non-elect was not genuine.

And boy, oh, boy, man, oh, man, Phil started breathing fire.

I remember Phil, I think on his website, at least it used to be on there, he refers to a Dabney, a Robert Dabney article about the discriminant, non-discriminant giving of the gospel to the non-elect.

I remember that little conversation you had or heard.

Phil Sandberg Yeah. I just don�t know why we would want to be discriminant, you know, in terms of preaching the gospel. We preach the gospel and we trust the Lord to work as he wills, right? Not as we will.

So� Mark Bailey. Part of this has to do with A .W. Pink. And when I read Pink�s Attributes of God, I haven�t read it for a little while. I used to read it once a month. I can�t think of anything off the top of my head that I disagree with.

His section on foreknowledge is excellent. His section on omniscience is excellent. When I read his Sovereignty of God book, I don�t think I have any disagreements. But he did not like to have a love of God to the non-elect.

And so there are some hyper-Calvinistic tendencies that MacArthur even addresses in the Love of God book, which is, I think, one of John�s best books.

Well, I mean, obviously, he has some love for the non-elect, otherwise he�d just send them straight to hell.

Mark Bailey I think Pink would argue against the modern nomenclature that we use �common grace. I don�t think he wants grace used at all for any non-elect people. So maybe he might say �common mercy� or something like that.

Anyway, that leads us to this next hyper-discussion. And hyper-dispensationalism, maybe some would think, �Well, that�s believing in a rapture. But there�s a technical category of hyper-dispensationalism.

And so I want you to know, Steve, I pulled up Theopedia, hyper-dispensationalism, and you know Steve McLaughlin Are we talking like Zene Hodges? Is that what we�re talking about? Mark Bailey No, but it�s even more interesting.

Steve McLaughlin Oh, really? Mark Bailey Stuff that I did not know before. With hyper-Calvinism, many people think that means, �Oh, you�re a five-pointer. You�re hyper. No, but there�s a technical category that Steve and I just made reference to.

Hyper-dispensationalism isn�t the guy�s pre-trib, you know, the guy�s got a future for Israel. He likes Darby, Schofield, and who else? Steve McLaughlin I don�t know, but they have to come in three, right?

Darby, Schofield, and who�s another great Mark Bailey Schofield�s Notes and Moody Press. Is that right? Kind of Dallas Seminary, you know, compared to Masters as a hyper-dispensational. So that would be the modern language, but there�s something technical.

Hyper-dispensationalism, according to Theopedia, are sometimes called ultra-dispensationalism. Right? Steve McLaughlin I like that, ultra. Mark Bailey What does ultra mean? I think sometimes Steve McLaughlin Uber.

That�s right, ultra. As opposed to traditional or classic dispensationalism, views the start of the Christian church as beginning with the ministry of the Apostle Paul after the early part of the Book of Acts.

Although variations exist in specifics, all hyper-dispensationalists view the four Gospels and many of the New Testament epistles as applying to the pre-Pauline Jewish Christian church or to the future Davidic kingdom, not directly applicable to the predominantly Gentile church of today.

Ultra, Uber. Mark Bailey. See, now, I�ve heard things like that about the Sermon on the Mount, but never, you know, to all the Gospels.

That�s quite interesting. Steve McLaughlin Fascinatingly, they quote here, and the quote, I think, is from Bollinger, because E. W. Bollinger was the big folk, although this is from Elwell Evangelical Dictionary�s article written by G. R. Lewis, �Dispensationalists distinguish Israel from the church and so look for a point in history at which God�s redemptive program changed from one form of administration to another.

So, in other words, just to interrupt his quote for a second, if you�re covenantal, you will see the church discussed in Genesis 3 or a little bit later in the dispensational circles. You will hear the church starts at Pentecost, okay?

But here, with ultra-dispensationalism, it�s got to start somewhere, so now they�re arguing when. The article goes on, �The most common dispensationalism finds beginning of the church in Acts 2. From the standpoint of Acts 2 dispensationalism, two other views seem extreme or ultra.

That�d be a good kind of nickname for a comic book character, don�t you think? Like Ultron?

Yeah, that�s right. Or about ultra-Bible church. Oh, you know what?

You�ve just�no, no, no. Steve, what you do is you have a great idea and I just refine it and make it a little hipper. Okay. Lead on. We don�t say church. We don�t say community. We don�t say synagogue.

We just use one word. Ultra. Ultra. Oh, nice. What do you worship? Ultra. Ultra. Wow. Now, wouldn�t you want to go to a church that�s called Ultra? I mean, not just kind of good, but ultra.

Bring your offering to the altar at Ultra.

Now, you know, when it comes to Jesus in the book of Hebrews, compared to the prophets, Jesus, Ultra. Ultra. Well, yeah, that�s a good use of Ultra. When it comes to the angels, they might be good, but Jesus, Ultra.

So then you�re saying Ultra is a good name for a church, right? That�s right. It�s all about Jesus because he�s Ultra.

According to Acts 13 dispensationalism, the church began when Paul started his mission to Jews and Gentiles. According to Acts 28 dispensationalism, the church began toward the end of Paul�s ministry with his reference to Israel�s rejection of the kingdom of God and sending of God�s salvation to the Gentiles.

Isn�t that fascinating? That is fascinating.

I don�t know how they made that up. Yeah, that�s interesting.

So, now when people write us and they ask us about hyper-dispensationalism or Ultra-dispensationalism, we�re not necessarily talking about when the rapture is, but maybe these mid-Act hypers and these Ultras, Acts 13, Acts 28.

I mean, I don�t really like it, but yeah, that�s interesting.

What else is on this particular Wikipedia article on hyper-dispensationalism? It�s also known as Bollingerism, a Protestant doctrine that basically views the teachings of Paul both as unique from early apostles and as foundational to the church.

So what would they do with Peter�s works? Maybe Peter, he, what if it was uber-Ultra and it all started in Acts 2, 4, 5 or something?

I mean, I don�t like that because right away it sounds like you�re definitely creating a, like Paul is greater than, he brought a greater message than the other apostles did, you know? So, did he have a different message than Jesus?

Matter of fact, when he met with some of the other apostles, he said, I, by the way, was off in the middle of nowhere and I have a different message to bring.

And even if I bring that different message, Galatians 1, 8, hmm.

Now, we�re talking minor here with the emphasis on minor. Ultra-dispensationalism is a minority Christian doctrine regarding the relationship between God, the Christian church, and human beings. In all my years of study, I do not think I�ve ever come across this, and so it takes a no-code listener to ask the question.

Pete Well, I like where it says there that it�s a niche doctrine or a niche doctrine of Christian belief that believes the Christian church began with Paul�s statement made to the Jewish, you know, and, well, wait a minute, they�re saying they�re near the end of Acts 8, Acts 28, 28.

Pete. In the year 2828, if the church is still alive.

That doesn�t even rhyme. Steve. That�s just, that�s just interesting,.

But it�s silly. Pete I don�t know what the practical ramifications of ultra-dispensationalism are, but they do have four, according to this article, pillars that they like to teach, and the thing is, along with wacky views, they have some good things that they would teach.

You know, if you just had four wacky things, who would follow? Steve Right.

Well, what about that as the name of a church? How about just pillar?

Pete Pillar would be good. Yeah, I mean, the only people that just believe like uber-wacky, ultra-wacky, that would be like Seventh-day Adventists. They don�t even try to have any semblance of anything.

Here�s the four truths they have, in order of loss. Why would the article have that? The four truths in order of loss. Steve I don�t know. Pete I don�t know what that means. The distinctive message and ministry of the Apostle Paul.

So, that�s like the basic tenet, Paul�s ministry.

Steve. See, I ultimately don�t like that because, again, I think it just creates a false bifurcation between Paul and Christ.

The other night, actually last night, I�m sitting there with my girls, Gracie and Maddie, and then my wife, Kim, and we�re going through Ephesians, and we�re memorizing, I was going to say kind of memorizing.

We�re memorizing Ephesians, and then I give a few nights a week, kind of five or ten-minute little devotional from Ephesians, the section we�re memorizing. And so, I said to the girls last night, �In these last days, God has spoken to us through His and they said, �Son.

Right, that�s Hebrews chapter one. That�s why early on in Ephesians one, it says, �Paul, an apostle, a sent-out one by Jesus Christ, for Christ Jesus. So, you know, how does God speak today? Not in dreams and Urim and Thummim and all these things, but He speaks through His Son, and His Son is in heaven, and so He has sent out these other apostles to speak for Him.

But according to this, maybe only Paul got sent out. What do we do with Peter?

What do we do with James? What do we do with Hebrews? Trevor Burrus So far, I�m not liking this whole ultra-dispensationalism. Paul No, see, I�m not liking it at all.

The second thing on the list is pre-Trib Rapture, difference between Israel and the church, justification by faith alone. So, you can feel in number two and three a regular, wry, irregular, Walverdian dispensationalism, difference between the church and Israel and the other.

Keep going.

You get to read that part. This is going to be fun. Trevor Burrus. This is weird to me. Okay, hyper-dispensationalists reject water baptism, which divides them from mainstream.

Dispensationalists. Paul. We reject water baptism. Well, you know, I just was thinking about Jesus when the two apostles, so they weren�t apostles yet, but it was James and John, I believe. Let�s preempt Peter.

We know the inner circles, Peter, James, and John, and there�s only two seats, one to the left and one to the right, probably after a throne, and we will I know, Jesus, you�ve got to go die, but, you know, who gets to sit there?

And before Peter gets in on this action, you know, maybe we should. And Jesus talks about, you know what, you�re not able to drink the cup of propitiation, to use the terms loosely, but you are going to drink the cup of persecution.

Does that sound theologically fair? And with the baptism in which I have to be baptized, there�s no way you can do it. Now that�s not this kind of baptism here that we�re talking about. This is the water baptism.

After you say you believe, they say, we reject it? Why? Why would they do that?

Pete. Well, because, well, just thinking about when they say the church started, right? Peter was baptizing pre-church, right? So repent and believe, or, you know, believe and be baptized.

Paul. That�s all some kind of John the Baptist-like baptism, most likely. Interesting. It says here that they believe in one baptism made without hands and without water by the Holy Spirit, which occurs when one believes in Christ as their Savior, whereby one is identified with Christ, death, burial, and resurrection.

And there are baptisms in the Bible that have nothing to do with water. And so they�re saying, okay, probably like in Ephesians 4 type of deal, right?

Pete� Yeah, in 1 Corinthians 12, yeah, where you�re baptized into the body, therefore you don�t need a water baptism, but I just think this misses the mark because, you know, the Old Testament baptism was symbolically done to show that you were washing yourself, but you did it yourself.

Nobody else was involved. And so when John the Baptist and Jesus come along and they�re baptizing people, it had a whole different tenor to it.

Peter� Steve, my grandmother-in-law, Evie Nichols, died several years ago, and she left me her library. And some of her library was just awesome, and I have Hebrews commentaries and Calvin�s Institutes and all kinds of stuff.

And there was a guy named Sir Robert Anderson, and I have a few of his books. And I never knew who he was, and I just looked down at this paper and it says, �Other writers holding this position, the Acts 28 dispensationalism, include Sir Robert Anderson.

Also known as Hans Christian. I just looked at their monitor there, and the little Morant�s Professional Digital Recorder has an over button. And I think it needs to be called an ultra button now. Because you went uber, but ultra.

Oh, come on. All right. What does it say here about Darby? You know, lots of people like Darby, but when you read his quotes about denying the act of obedience of Christ, I think he�s a little ultra. Yeah, he was a little out there.

I mean, you know, people say, �Well, dispensationalism started with Darby. I don�t know, but it sure took a wrong turn with Darby, I�ll tell you that right now.

See, that�s why when we go into the New England mode here in Worcester, Massachusetts, we have to just kind of, I don�t know, we just make it rougher. So you kind of don�t like him as much.

It�s Dabby. Dabby. Dabby. Well, I mean, let�s just make it simple. We don�t want to be in the habit. We sometimes call ourselves Calvinists or whatever, but we don�t want to be in the habit of following any man.

I don�t care if it�s Calvin, if it�s Darby, if it�s Schofield. We compare what we teach with the scripture. And if it doesn�t match up, we change what we teach. So we would not be ultra dispensationalists by any stretch.

Steve, within this non-homogeneous grouping of ultra hyper dispensationalists, they�ve got something else here called post-acts dispensationalism. So okay, when�s the church start, if you�re dispensationalist, you�re not going to be thinking back in the Old Testament, you�re going to be thinking Acts 2.

They say, no, that�s no good because Paul�s not around yet.

I mean, he�s on the earth, of course. Isn�t there a problem with that though, post-acts? Because I mean, aren�t some of the books of the Bible letters written during the book of Acts?

And so. Well, I always think of Acts 18. Paul was at Ephesus, I mean, was he at Thessalonica for 18 months or was he at Ephesians for 18. I think it was Ephesians. It�s Ephesians for 18 months, yeah.

So Acts 18, 18 months, where was he for 18 months?

I�m just reading it and laughing because I�m like, oh, Corinth? No, let�s see.

While you�re looking that up, I want to talk a little bit more about, I mean, in my mind, I think it�s got to be 18 months, Acts 18, where was he? He stayed with them for six months.

It�s got to be Thessalonica. Many of the Corinthians hearing believed Paul and were baptized and the Lord said, �Paul, it�s Corinth. He was at Corinth for 18 months?

Yeah, that�s what it says. Okay, I stand corrected. Well, so do I. Okay, post-acts dispensationalism they have now. So now you don�t have the church starting until after Acts. So what does that do? How do we work through all these things?

I don�t know, but now you�re going to have to go through the Bible and sort out what was written when and, you know, what has to be excised.

Yeah, but if you just call yourself ultra, you don�t have to say church anyway, so you don�t need to know when the church started. So you just say, �We don�t have any baptismals. We don�t have any fonts or anything.

Come the font of every blessing. When you think about it, we really don�t have a baptismal. We have a bad bathtub is what we have.

Charles Welch is also a person who would be into this, J .C. O�Hare and others. Did you say Jack Welch? Sorry. What does it say here? Okay, that�s something a little bit different. So we would say when it comes to the church and uber and ultra, I guess that�s a good way to just make people not like something.

I mean, if you say you�re a hyper-Calvinist, we�d push back, wouldn�t we? Yes, we definitely would.

And we want to push back. We don�t want to be hyper-Calvinist. Because we believe in the responsibility of man.

Yes, and we believe in the love of God for the non-elect. And we believe you�re supposed to pray for people and preach to people. And hyper-dispensationalism, we�re against that too. See, is there anything we�re for?

I mean, we�re against so many things. Are we just kind of like the typical master seminary grads where they�re just after.

I think we�re very much for the gospel. I think we�re very much for scripture. We�re very much for expositional preaching of the scripture. You know, I think, boy, if you were trying to just slap a label on us, I don�t even like the sorry, with all due respect, I love the master seminary.

I wouldn�t even want that label slapped on us because, you know, it carries its own baggage. I think you just have to look at what we teach and, you know, you can put whatever label you want on it.

No Compromise Radio, Labels, and Refusing to Compromise

Steve, in the old days, we used no-compromise radio. Front-loaded with �we�re not going to compromise� and when other people do, we call them out. I have since, and hopefully with maturation, I�ve modified that.

So now there�s three reasons why we�re called no-co. Number three, we don�t want to compromise. Number two, at Calvary, law and love were not compromised. And number one, Jesus, can you imagine when he said in John that you�re preaching through now?

I always do what�s pleasing to the Father. Jesus never compromised. And so we like to talk about Jesus. We like to talk about the crucifixion, death, burial, and resurrection. And then we like to talk about Bible truth.

Here�s something Jesus never said. You can look it up yourself. Meh, that�ll do. When I hear that, I always think of babe. Well, I saw it not too long ago. That�ll do, little pig. That�ll do, little pig.

That�ll do, theology. I don�t think Jesus was an ultra-dispensationalist, do you? Was Jesus a hyper-Calvinist? No. Do you remember James Boyce�s series, Jesus Was a Calvus? Now only Boyce can get away with it.

He was trying to have a play on words saying that Jesus in John, especially John 6 and John 10, taught sovereign, distinguishing grace. And there�s no escaping it.

I mean, if you read through the Gospel of John, you cannot escape the idea that the things Jesus said had to do with the sovereignty of God in salvation over and over and over again.

See, we were going to talk a little bit today about the Wheaton College article about that gay guy in Christianity Today, but remember we said we were done with Christianity Today. Remember, it was over.

Oh, so we can�t talk about it? No, we ran out of time. All right, well, maybe another show. It was pretty horrendous, though. It�s awful. Well, to quote my father, he used to love that motorcyclist that wore the red, white, and blue awful knuffle.

It�s bad. Anytime homosexuality is accepted on a Christian college campus, you�ve got a real problem.