September 29, 2015 Show with Phil Johnson on “Will the Real Charles H. Spurgeon Please Stand Up! Separating Fact from Fiction About the Prince of Preachers”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's our host.

Chris Arns. Well good afternoon Cumberland Valley, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arns and your host of Iron Sharpens Iron wishing you all a happy Monday on this 28th day of September 2015 and I'm so excited to have back on the program one of my very favorite guests.

He is probably somebody I've interviewed more than anyone else on the planet, maybe rivaling with Steve Camp, but he is a dear friend and I'm so delighted to be speaking to him today on a very important issue and it's an it's important the issue because of the fact that we are speaking about Charles Haddon Spurgeon and he is one of the most beloved figures in church history and people do disagree widely about what Spurgeon actually believed and preached and stood for which is amazing that people disagree over that because he is quite frequently published.

There are many things in print by him but we're going to try to set the record straight as we address the subject. Will the real Charles Haddon Spurgeon please stand up. Separating fact from fiction about the prince of preachers and our guest today is Phil Johnson the executive director of Grace to You which is the tv and radio ministry of John MacArthur and Phil has been closely associated with Dr. John MacArthur since 1981 and edits most of his major books.

Phil also maintains several popular websites including the Spurgeon Archive which is spurgeon .org sp-u-r-g-e-o-n dot o-r-g the Hall of Church History and the Pyromaniacs blog. He's an ordained elder and pastor at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron once again Phil Johnson.

Thank you Chris good to be with you. Oh it's great to have you back and I can't thank you enough for taking the time to spend two hours with us today to discuss the prince of preachers and I want to immediately give my email address for those of you listening who want to ask a question of Phil Johnson please try to stick to the subject in regard to Charles Haddon Spurgeon and the email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com that's c-h-r-i-s-a-r-n-z-e-n at gmail .com when you email us please include your first name your city and state where you reside and the country where you reside if you live outside of the United States that's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

We just last Monday had the privilege of interviewing Tom Nettles. Phil and Tom Nettles addressed specifically his book Living by Revealed Truth the Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles Haddon Spurgeon and we did go over some of the background of Spurgeon's life but since we're really going to be talking more directly about his theology and the controversies surrounding his theology in regard to especially Calvinism I'd like you to just give an abbreviated version of who Charles Haddon Spurgeon is.

Most of my listeners I'm sure know who Charles Spurgeon was I should say but there are listeners to Iron Trump and Zion who are not evangelical and there are some who are certainly not Calvinist and there are listeners that we have that are Muslim and Roman Catholic coming from all different kinds of backgrounds so tell us something about this man that we are.

Talking about today Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Well as you said he's one of the most beloved figures in church history and everybody seems to want to claim him. You know I know Presbyterians the bigger problem is the Arminians who want to turn Spurgeon into an Arminian.

Yes. And his church subscribed to the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith which was a revised version actually the Westminster Confession. So it does have a lot of and but not in the area of. So he waged war on two fronts during the really the whole 50 years of his war against a serious problem in the Baptist Church's 19th century.

And there was some kind of himself against the hypercat that you know you shouldn't even invite unbelievers that they have the free we fought against hyper. On the other front though he fought against Armin find.

Uh really you can study Spurgeon from the time he set foot and began to be print date back and um uh he had a start and uh Spurgeon was a young man at the time. He studied doctrine before he preached on it and so what he preached at the beginning of his ministry and what he preached at the end of his ministry that he didn't waver or change ruin the depth of his understanding but he didn't move around.

Yeah that's a very important thing to bring.

Up because that is one of the very charges you will occasionally hear from an anti-Calvinist who says that uh Spurgeon as he got older got wiser and may have been some kind of a Calvinist and name only but really was not truly consistent with the theology he held to on paper.

Now uh obviously just in an abbreviated way. Uh if you could uh define what we're talking about uh would you say that in a very uh summarized way that Calvinism is the belief that God is sovereign over all things including the salvation of men and whom are to be saved and hyper.

Calvinism would be those who agree with that but they go above not only Calvin but more importantly beyond the scriptures and teach that God uses no means to bring about the salvation of.

His elect including the evangelism of the lost yes and hyper Calvinism and Arminianism share a priest a wrong presupposition. In common Arminians and hyper Calvinists believe wrongly that the sovereignty of God nullifies human responsibility and the Arminian response to that presupposition is that you can't nullify or God must not be rejected on both fronts the the idea that God's sovereignty would nullify human responsibility.

Now when you say his ministry was.

Calvinistic from beginning to end. Uh what about his home life. I know that his father I believe was a pastor a Congregationalist I think and was was Calvinism taught in his home as he was being.

Raised um you know it was actually he. He grew up as a young child in his grandfather's home. Okay um victorian uh biographies are often discreet about his younger time his his uh next youngest sibling was born he was sent and uh he didn't actually come back to live or whatever read and comprehend what he was reading.

And uh he taught. I don't think he was a library full of before he was even five works in their original form it's not necessary and an amazing memory for details. And he was reading John Owen by the time nevertheless had all I think was Calvinism.

Now why. Why. Uh I'm sure. Uh well I'm assuming you agree with me that this is a very important subject. Uh one of the reasons that I believe it's important is because of the defense of the truth and if someone is being misrepresented by numerous Christians as to what uh he believed that's important.

But it's also important because of people adopting heroes and misapplying uh what they taught to their own teachings and practice and using this figure from history as their hero publicly and yet this is not what the their hero uh believed or or practice at all.

Tell us why you think the issue of Calvinism in and of itself is an important subject. Because a lot of people as you know Phil they think this is ivory tower uh stuff for conversations amongst scholars as they sit around uh with brand with uh snifters of brandy and smoking cigars and it doesn't really need to go beyond the walls of these kind of discussions and certainly shouldn't be a prominent part of our pulpits.

What do you think about Calvinism. Yeah and I understand that.

Perspective. Because when I was a very young Christian I was zealous for evangelism and and I didn't understand why anyone would want to sit at a fine point when we could be out giving the gospel. And and I still hate to debates on theological minutiae and ignore this isn't that sort of issue where it's all just minutiae and it really doesn't make any difference out in the role of God versus the role of man in.

And so when you're out there evangelizing what gospel are you going to proclaim. What do. What is the good when we share. The Calvinism is often called name. Because I think the fact that what we're talking about here is the nature of God's bent on self-destruction and I understand what that means.

Armenians. Poverty of man. They have to himself to make the right choice and he has to do that and so he can't be as fallen can't be totally in bondage to sin if you follow Christ. Far do you think the human race has fallen.

How much do you think we need the grace of God. And and how much credit goes. Honestly and it's not about following a man that's your nickname given to a system of theology that. And I know I've brought this story up before.

So I hope.

My listeners will bear with me if they've heard it and they're already getting bored with it the moment I speak but uh they're legit to prove the point of how biblical these issues are. Years ago uh I had I received a phone call from a orthodox Jewish journalist who is a retired journalist uh elderly man quite uh smart quite uh brilliant uh and he said that he wanted to buy three hours of time on the Christian radio station.

I worked for to debate a local fundamentalist Baptist and this individual uh happened to be anti-Calvinist but my uh the Jewish callered had had no knowledge of this. He just wanted to debate on the authenticity and reliability of the New Testament and so on because he considered himself a New Testament scholar.

And during this debate with the Baptist who uh he said to the uh the pastor now let me get this straight you believe that before the foundations of the world God chose a certain number of people to be saved and he passed the others by and let them die in their sin to be condemned.

And the pastor interrupted him and said Ira Ira you've got it wrong you're talking about Calvinism and and Ira said what's that he said I've I've read your New Testament your Bible your Bible the Christian Bible over a hundred times and that's what it teaches what do you tell what's this Calvinism.

And he kept every time he brought up something about unconditional election not by that term but uh using just biblical texts and so forth. Uh the pastor kept interrupting him and insisting this was a Calvinistic teaching and the man was totally the Jewish man was totally confused because he thought that all Christians believed the these things that you and I are talking about right now.

Yeah and uh whenever you can you can shoot to uh any quotes that you care to uh give but the one thing that I wanted to bring up right off the bat and and I don't know if you have this specific quote in front of you by Spurgeon but the uh Spurgeon actually said that Calvinism is the gospel.

And some people may get heart palpitations hearing that because the immediate assumption is going to be by many. Well that means that if if Calvin I mean if Spurgeon believed that Calvinism is the gospel that means that those who disagree with Calvinism are certainly damned if they have a false gospel if you could give a a further explanation and on that quote.

And why.

You think Spurgeon said it and what he meant by it. Yes. Spurgeon. Yes. And you have to read the quote in context it has been taken out of context. And when Spurgeon said that what he means is that the principle that underlies God is sovereign and that salvation is the work of God.

Or in fact in that context you're preaching that uh to anyone that their salvation is something that hinges on something like two kinds of Arminianism. There's evangelical Arminianism which recognizes the doctrine of justification by faith and and yet an evangelical Arminianism.

You you have to say Spurgeon is simply pointing out that that really is the principle that underlies claim that our salvation is God's work from beginning to end. It's the same thing Paul says in Romans 8 29 that you know God foreordained us for he predestinated us and he guarantees our glorification.

Yes. And.

Don't you think that another reason why this denial of Spurgeon's calvinism exists is because people just totally misunderstand what calvinism is and they think that all calvinists are hyper calvinists.

They think that being a five-point calvinist is equivalent to hyper calvinism. So therefore when they see or read Spurgeon giving the free offer of the gospel and earnestly preaching to sinners to repent and believe and be saved and so on they say well obviously he is not a calvinist.

Or at least at the very least he's not consistent with his calvinism. Or perhaps he altogether abandoned any calvinism that he once had. If you could continue on that.

Yeah yeah in fact you can trace the genealogy of that argument in the 1970s or so a man named Samuel Fiske yeah wrote a book called divine sovereignty and human freedom and in it he has a whole chapter and you'll find that pretty much every anti-calvinist writer gone back and quoted the same sermon excerpts.

And uh uh they always hunt they hunt. Actually almost despite right you know i carried on uh quite an extensive uh exchange of letters and and he never did acknowledge that he misrepresented Spurgeon.

But he kept changing the claim. He starts out in the book saying his exact words are that Spurgeon uh rejected the doctoral language but then when pressed on the point and people showed him quotations urgent not from Samuel Fiske's book but what Spurgeon actually said to prove that changed his art.

My question to Dave Hunt was what happened to the unequivocal language if he's contradicting himself. And I actually met with Dave Hunt and challenged him on this and uh and challenged him to acknowledge he got it wrong.

And he needs to correct the notion that Spurgeon the atonement he never did. But I don't think he ever admitted that he got it wrong to Fiske's book. And if you gave it to a typical college professor he might conclude that yeah well we know that Dave Hunt knows better now.

And uh.

The uh in fact I think one of the things that he misquoted Spurgeon on and if it wasn't him it was some other very popular anti-Calvinist apologist uh who took half of Spurgeon's attack on limited atonement and they didn't realize what he was saying was that the Armenians truly limit the atonement because they limit its power not everyone for whom it was intended in Armenian theology will be saved so therefore it is not as powerful as the Calvinist atonement which truly atones for everyone for whom it was attended.

Right. And and uh how do you. Do you think that uh Spurgeon. Some folks believe Spurgeon perhaps went too far when he compared the god who would once again punish in hell sinners for whom he had already died for and paid for their sins.

He compared it to the the god of all kinds of monstrous idolaters and so on. Do you think that.

That was uh an overstep of his in his language and his fervor there. No I don't I I think it is. It is a kind of hyperbole in the sense that I don't think any evangelical Armenian really entertains monster.

I mean they don't. They don't believe that god is monstrous break down their theology and and you know look at what it means that was punished for Judas's sins and now Judas is also paying in hell. Then then that makes god in some sense unjust or that's a monstrous idea.

And I think that's what Spurgeon was saying. We all tend to use hyperbole and in Armenians certainly do that all the time. Yes they do. In fact Dave Hunt's Dave Hunt's book was was full of accusations and I think he genuinely believed that.

I don't think he understood. No he didn't.

In fact uh it's interesting that uh James White has two separate recordings of our late brother Dave Hunt where on one occasion when he debated James on the radio it was just a friendly conversation. Really that was uh sort of a debate it wasn't like an officially moderated uh timed.

Debate or anything like that. But during the radio interview yes right right Dave Hunt said I'm very ignorant of uh the puritan or the reformers. The reformers. I'm very ignorant of reformers. And then six months later right.

Also on a radio program he said I think I know more about Calvinism than the average Calvinism. Calvinist. Yes. And he also at one point said.

That he had a uh library filled with their writings and and initially he said that he'd never read any of the the reformers teachings right. So uh quite uh an interesting individual. We're going to be going to our first break right now if you'd like to join us on the air and we do already have some listeners from different parts of the country who have who have emailed us questions.

If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for Phil Johnson uh preferably on our subject uh Charles Adams Spurgeon. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com and please include your first name your city and state of residence and your country of residence.

If you live outside of the USA we'll be right back so don't go away.

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Tired of bop store christianity of doing church in a warehouse with all the trappings of a rock concert. Do you long for a more traditional and reverent style of worship. And how about the preaching. Perhaps you've begun to think that in-depth biblical exposition has vanished from long island.

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Call them at 631 -929 -3512 for service times 631 -929 -3512 or check out their website at wrbc .us. That's wrbc .us. Welcome back. This is chris arnes and if you've just tuned us in we have on our program today phil johnson who is the executive director of grace to you the television and radio ministry of john mccarthur.

And before we go back to our discussion i just have a couple of events that i want to promote. One is including uh our guest today phil johnson. But first i want to let you know that pastor bruce bennett and the word of truth church in farmingville long island invite you to join them at their sixth annual bible conference on october 2nd and 3rd.

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He and philip reichen will both be addressing this topic at this conference the princeton regional conference on reform theology. For more information go to alliance net dot org that's alliance net dot org and click on events.

Uh well we are back to our discussion now and we do have some listeners who have taken the time to write us questions phil and uh first of all we have a question from liz in holtsville new york. She says.

I've tried to find out for years whether or not charles dickens ever met or corresponded with spurgeon. I guess they had to be the two of the most well-known figures of the day. And as a teacher i'd really appreciate any information mr johnson could share.

The closest i've ever come to anything was when i spoke to dickens great-great-grandson last winter. He was very intrigued by the question as as himself and and he claims to be a christian and said he would try to research it for me just really curious.

If your guest knows i don't believe they ever met. I had the same question actually. And uh years ago when uh the spurgeon library was uh at william jewel college in kansas city. By the way they've just reopened that now at midwestern seminary there in kansas city but uh the spurgeon library was on display there and i i went there.

Two references to dickens in in the autobiographies. Some of charles dickens works are worth reading although he has given gross caricatures of the rest. For the general run of novels being now issued in such shows you will probably wise to leave them alone.

A few of them would probably be would be likely to do you any good and many of them are tainted or worse. So i think he wasn't he didn't give. Or the value of his works yeah.

But you don't know if they ever met. There's no mention of it there. No. And if they had ever met.

I'm sure someone would have mentioned it already. Well you may be. What i wonder is if if dickens ever actually went to hear spurgeon preach because well the uh answer uh to liz's question may have.

Somewhat disappointed her. But liz i'm very happy to tell you that you are the winner of charles haddon spurgeon's lectures to my students and this is a massive 911 page hardback volume given to you compliments of banner of truth.

And i know from your letter that you sent your email that you are the wife of a pastor so i'm sure that both of you uh will get a lot of value out of this book especially since you already know who charles haddon spurgeon is and i'm quite certain that your husband does.

So uh we will be shipping this off to you very soon and we thank you for the question. We have another listener uh this one in cumberland county pennsylvania christian christian asks. With all of the talk that we have all been enduring recently regarding pope francis's visit to the united states i was curious if charles haddon spurgeon had anything.

Significant to say about the papacy. Yeah quite a bit. Actually uh just look up. I mean every reference he ever made to the pope was was negative. I think the most interesting thing in all of spurgeon's public published works are his travelogues that were published.

Ha ha ha ha ha. Hey you start talking about calvinism. Yes uh not that i think he was cruel or unduly prejudiced. He was very careful to represent them have a lot of patient tendency. Catholic. Uh say that you know anti-catholicism is inherently bigoted and all of that theology.

And uh. And i think he gave a fair reading also. I mean he would not be one of those guys out there.

Glad handing. So he would not be uh imitating rick warren uh during this event in our history.

Yeah i can't imagine him taking a selfie with pope francis. And the issue. The issue i think with pope francis would be normal social ideas primarily on moral issues when we're calling to spurgeon. And one thing.

That uh perhaps you'd like to clarify. Uh obviously the term anti-catholic is often used as a pejorative term against people like you and i and they try to equate that with bigotry like for instance the ku klux klan has a history of being anti-catholic and they're actually against individuals who are catholic.

Yeah whereas you really meant anti-catholicism in more of the.

Yeah that's what i mean when i say his complaint was personal issues. It had to do with the teaching of the catholic church and dogmas that go. That's where he made fun of the pope but uh catholicism who i think used those tactics to leave making fun of the post style at all actually critical of roman catholic and that i share with him.

I'm definitely not. And he lived. Of course there was no.

Uh uh violent persecution of protestants in spurgeon's day by the church of rome. But he lived closer to that day and living in england i'm sure. That was quite well known to folks that the the streets ran red with blood uh with when the uh the catholic when the um the royal throne.

In england was occupied by roman catholic right. And. And uh you know not just there but all over europe. Uh there's another interesting article from the sword and the trowel that i put online.

And i i am almost certain perhaps you could uh uh either confirm this or disagree with it but i'm almost certain he used the the language of at least the original edition of the 1689 london baptist confession that identified the pope as the antichrist.

Yeah i think that's right.

He did make some revisions to the 1689 confession. I can look that up real quickly for you if you like but i don't think that was one of the things he. Well if you uh find that during the discussion.

Feel free to read it. Yep um we uh let's see we do have a listener in lindenhurst long island cj. Uh he writes do you think that charles haddon spurgeon has become an idol to many christians and that the level of reverence and uh discussion that surrounds him has bordered on sin and.

Idolatry yeah i mean i don't think that's a widespread problem because uh those of us who love spurgeon generally uh are willing to acknowledge you know that he's not like infallible he's who i would put on a and i want to let both christian and cj know that you are both.

Receiving a copy of the same book i just mentioned before this beautiful 911 page volume ch spurgeon's lectures to my students uh compliments of banner of truth. And by the way most of the books if not all of the books that we mentioned here on iron sharpens iron can be obtained by going to solid-ground-books .com solid-ground-books .com which is one of the sponsors of iron sharpens iron.

And of course another uh sponsor loyal sponsor of our program is cumberland valley bible book service and their website is cv as in valley bb as in bible book s as in sam service .com cvbbs .com. And a portion of all the books that you purchase from cumberland valley bible book service of course a portion of the money actually goes to iron sharpens iron radio.

So we thank those folks there and you can rest assured that anything that they are offering in their catalog is theologically sound so you don't have to be worried. And phil as you know most christian bookstores or internet book warehouses should have a warning that says.

Enter at your own risk don't you agree. Yeah that's true. At the state of christian publishing the appointment of the father is vested in a supreme and sovereign manner all power for the institution order and government of the g is that antichrist that man of sin and son of perdition who exalts him so it is called god.

Now i uh want you perhaps to come back on this show to.

Focus on some of what i'm about to say but the thing i've been getting a lot of heat from roman catholic friends of mine i actually was raised roman catholic went to catholic school for eight years was an altar boy.

Have a number of catholic friends who are wonderful people uh and they have gotten quite upset some of them with posts that i have put on facebook and so on. Uh and related to the pope's visit they see this kind gentle soft-spoken grandfatherly man who all he wants to do is spread peace and love peace and love.

How on earth could you have a problem with that and tear a man like that down. If you could comment on that maybe answer that question for me.

Whether he's reliable theologically or not you have to. In fact we're commanded by scripture clear teachings in scripture. Right. And claims to be the head of the church. Yeah. And uh i mean that's been a problem with every pope.

Yeah. No. And i had uh robertson genis who is.

A roman catholic apologist. I had him on my program because i wanted someone uh from the roman catholic church who is a communicant member in good standing. He's not under discipline he hasn't been excommunicated he hasn't uh been silenced by a bishop or anything.

And he was one of the reasons i had him on my program. And people some people misunderstood this as a platform for modern ecumenism or something. Had nothing to do with that because they made it clear throughout the entire program that robertson genis and i had different gospels and but robert had the courage to say very critical things about pope francis not only denying things that were clearly biblical and historically christian but even things that would fly in the face of catholic history.

And he was robert admitted to being fired from ewtn the eternal word television network probably the most well-known roman catholic tv network because he was critical of pope john paul 2 in the same light of because he was having ecumenical prayer meetings with pagans and all kinds of people.

So so this has nothing to do with hating people or trying to be nasty. And of course some people can be hateful and nasty when they oppose a figure like the pope. But this has to do.

With a love of truth does it not. Yeah it does it does. And uh uh you know i don't understand how the uh the groups like catholic answers and those who've catholics who've devoted themselves to i don't see how they stand to stay in business under this pope.

It seems to me that his mind.

Everything they've ever tried. We do have uh another listener. His name is corn cornell. No i'm sorry it's uh richard. I'm sorry looking at the wrong name there richard in patterson new jersey. He says i was planning on attending the conference that phil johnson is speaking at in november until i discovered that the conference is being held at a pc usa church which is an extremely liberal denomination.

So my question is why is it being held there and does phil see any problems with this. And that resonates with home because i was attending a church uh a number of years ago. A couple of years ago that was worshiping in a an episcopal church that they were renting an episcopal church that had a female minister.

Uh they were definitely towards the liberal end and people were uh highly insulted uh and upset that we would dare worship in a place like that and and the pastor made sure that all icons and things of that nature were covered so there was nothing like that on display.

But obviously you're speaking at this church so you couldn't be too upset about that. But what is your opinion about renting a facility that has a false god where the.

Owners of that facility have a false gospel. Yeah actually i'm uh sponsored by the alliance of confessing evangelicals. The correspondence i have with them at miller chapel on the campus of princeton theological seminary the campus chapel.