April 26, 2023 Show with Jerry Johnson on “A Brotherly Critique of Dispensationalism”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father

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This is a radio platform in which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed with whom we converse and directed to have a view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

And now here's your host, Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is

Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Wednesday on this 26th day of April, 2023.

I'm always thrilled to have back as a returning guest on the program my old friend

Jerry Johnson, who is also one of my favorite people to interview. Jerry is a

Reformed Christian apologist, documentarian, and producer of the successful DVD series

Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism. Today we are going to be addressing a brotherly critique of dispensationalism.

I emphasize the word brotherly because I have very dear friends for many years, and even modern -day heroes in the

Christian faith who are dispensationalists, such as John MacArthur, for instance.

So we are not here to be nasty, to tear down the reputations of anyone.

We are just giving a brotherly critique of a system of theology that neither my guest nor myself holds to as our own.

And I think that's a very right, proper, and reasonable thing to do, and I'm looking forward to hearing what

Jerry has to say today. But it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jerry Johnson. Thank you,

Brother Chris. Good to be back. And how many years ago did that amazing

DVD series Amazing Grace, the History and Theology of Calvinism—how long ago did that come out?

Now, that was probably—you're asking me to do math.

Like 18 years ago. And we did come out with one on dispensationalism.

Now, let me say this. It was called The Late Great Plan of Church, and of course, we're trying to work to get you to have that.

I'm going to give you the copyright on it. But I just want to make sure the audience does understand.

I used to be a dispensationalist. And the second thing is,

I would say this is an in -house debate. It is a debate among Christians.

And I know a lot of dispensationalists also. Some of them are the best

Christians that I know. And honestly, a lot of them are better than I am.

All right? So even though I believe the system is corrupt,

I'm not saying that they're not Christians. So I want everybody to understand that.

In fact, did you not feature some or at least one dispensationalist Calvinist in the

Amazing Grace series? In the Amazing Grace? Was MacArthur a part of that?

I can't remember. No, he wasn't. He wasn't. I'm trying to think.

I'm probably just misremembering. That's okay. Yeah, I don't think we did.

Okay. But obviously, he would have been an excellent person. Yes, he would have. I mean,

I would have interviewed him. But unfortunately, I could never get a hold of him. I got a hold of R .C.

Sproul. I got a hold of D. James Kennedy. I got a hold of Walt Gentry at Banner of Truth.

But I couldn't. I got to tell you a funny story. I was interviewing

Dr. James R. White for the Marks of the Colts DVD. And he said to me at one point, he goes,

Hey, why didn't you ask me to be on Amazing Grace? And I said, Brother, do you know how many times

I tried to reach you? And he goes, You did? And I was like, Yeah. And so it's your fault.

But also, I got to tell this little story. When we had reached out to R .C.

Sproul, and evidently, he never got the invitation. But his staff did.

And they shot us down. And I thought, Well, fine. We'll just get his son,

R .C. Sproul Jr. You know, at least we'll have the name R .C. Sproul in it. And I was interviewing him.

And who calls up but his dad? And his dad goes, What are you doing? And he goes,

Oh, I'm doing this interview for this documentary, Amazing Grace. The guy's actually a friend of mine.

And his dad goes, Well, why wasn't I invited? There was a pause there.

And Jr. goes, Dad, you were. Well, that sounds like my own experience with R .C.

Sproul. Because I had tried to get R .C. on my program numerous times.

And there was a brick wall of protection by the staff at Ligonier.

They would not even relay the message to him. And then one day, by God's good providence,

I get a call from R .C.'s secretary. Who said, Mr.

Arntzen, there is a growing fan club here at Ligonier Ministries of your show. And Dr.

Sproul would love to be on it. I was like, Really? And so he came on. And I also said to his secretary afterwards,

Could you ask R .C. if he would write a commendation for the show, if he really enjoyed himself?

And sure enough, she called me back about a week later and said, Mr. Arntzen, Dr.

Sproul has typed out a commendation for your show. He does not use a computer.

So I could either mail this to you or I could scan it and e -mail it to you. I said e -mail it to me because I wanted to see it right away.

And she did that. And I have that proudly displayed on every printed publicity material that I have and also my

Web site. That is one of the treasures from God that I value among the most greatly valued treasures of anything connected to my radio show.

I'll tell you this. Dr. Gene James Kennedy was the same way. He didn't use computers.

But when I did, I think his secretary, her name was Marion. And I would e -mail her.

And what I did was it took us like six months to write the section on total depravity.

And we e -mailed it to her and she printed it off and gave it to Dr. Kennedy. And he wrote me a letter and he said that is the best explanation

I have ever read of total depravity. I thought that was good.

And I wish that I had had the opportunity to have Dr. Kennedy on the program before he entered into glory.

But I never did. He passed away like in 2007. And I will tell you this.

I went to Knox Seminary because at the time they had a professor there named

Calvin Beisner. Oh, yeah. I know Calvin. You know Calvin? And we had gone, my wife and I had gone to a

Ligonier conference. I think it was in 2004. And I made

Calvin talk and talk and talk about how great Knox Seminary was.

Then I made him take me to lunch. And I said, okay, you bought lunch. I'll go to Knox Seminary.

So. Well, you have reminded me to invite Cal back on the show.

Calvin and I said hello. He was one of my professors at Knox. Yeah. Good man.

And doing some great work these days. Yeah, Cal and I, we went to the

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D .C. together. That was a great time.

But they have their press corps thing. And I forget what they call it.

They might just call it the press corps room. And there was a piano in there. And evidently when, oh man,

I'm going to forget his name. Truman was vice president. There was a picture there of the piano.

And, oh man, I can't remember. Some famous woman like Gene Kelly or somebody like that sitting on the piano.

Gene Kelly was a man. Oh, are you sure? Yeah. Gene Kelly, are you talking about the famous actor, dancer, singer?

Yes. Yeah, that's a man, Gene Kelly. It was the one that was in the movies with him.

Oh, I can't remember that right now. Grace Kelly. Grace Kelly, I'm sorry. Oh, okay. Grace Kelly. And she was sitting on that piano.

And Barry Truman was playing the piano. She was singing. And I went right to where she had sat and I put my hand on it and rubbed it.

I thought that was funny. I hope there was no necromancy kind of thing going on there.

No, not at all. But anyway, brother, what

I really wanted to talk about, and this is something I've become very passionate about.

Now, do remember, I'm not saying that these people are not Christians. But I mentioned to you, and I really believe this, that dispensationalism is not a theology.

It is an eschatology that then goes and forces all of its theology into its eschatology.

And that is the major problem with dispensationalism. As I look, and this is one thing

I tell people when I'm talking with them, if you go to a really hardcore dispensational church, the first place they take you is to the last book of the

Bible. They want to make sure they have your eschatology straight. And then they, like I said, they force all of their theology into their eschatology.

Now, the two biggest issues I have with them is the issue that they divide the

Word of God in such a way that the Old Testament is not applicable to us.

Some will go as far as saying the Gospels are not applicable to us, only

Paul's epistles, because they believe that the Word of God can be broken when it says the

Word of God cannot be broken. Second thing is their view of the church and Israel.

Now, dispensationalists classically believe that they are two separate groups.

I believe that the church or Israel, I'm sorry, in the Old Testament was kind of like the seed, and the church in the

New Testament is the flower. And I don't divide them. I believe the church is

Israel. Yes, I had a program on that very subject recently affirming the same thing.

Now, I just want to make sure that you did not misspeak. I think, and I could be wrong, that you intended to say dispensationalism is not an eschatology, but it is a theology that forces its theology on us.

No, no, it's not a theology. It is an eschatology. It starts with this eschatological presuppositions.

Okay, okay. That's why if you look, there really hasn't been a successful systematic theology of dispensationalism ever.

What was his name? Louis Ferry Schaeffer wrote one. And, you know, just to tell people, he was the founder of Dallas Seminary.

And I always found this funny, but most of your dispensational churches are also believers' baptism.

Louis Ferry Schaeffer himself was a Presbyterian who believed in infant baptism.

Until his death, he never changed? Say it again, sir? Until his death, he never changed?

Never changed. Same with Schofield. Same with Larkin. Actually, I don't know about Larkin.

I might be wrong on that. Since my stroke, I haven't really done much reading.

I find it very hard to concentrate on reading materials, so I might be wrong on that one.

Well, why don't you start after that introduction by giving our listeners a definition of dispensationalism.

And there will be no doubt frustrated or angry or at least disappointed listeners who are dispensationalists who are saying that you are not rightly describing them because it is a multifaceted group.

Not all dispensationalists are in lockstep with each other. In fact, most of John MacArthur's enemies, after he wrote the

Gospel according to Jesus, John MacArthur being a dispensationalist, when he was insisting that repentance is necessary for salvation, most of his enemies were and are dispensationalists.

Yeah. You asked me for a definition. The thing is, it's really hard to give a clear definition because there are so many branches.

Most of them do not agree with Schofield up to Schaefer. Riley came along and did what was called normal dispensationalism, or at least he called it that.

But they overturned a lot of stuff that Schaefer and Schofield believed, and even

Darby. And then there's the, they still hold to the separation of the church and Israel, which

I really believe is the defining key of dispensationalism.

So, if you believe Israel and the church are separate, you're a dispensationalist pretty much.

If you believe that they're the same thing, you're not. So let me do this.

Yeah, I just lost my train of thought. So while you're trying to remember what you were going to say,

I want to recommend that our listeners, after the show is over, of course, listen to a recent interview

I conducted with my friend Gary George, who is the pastor of Sovereign Grace Chapel in Massachusetts.

I can't remember the city right now. Southbridge, Massachusetts. And he and I had an interview recently that I think was very enlightening and fascinating on is the church

Israel today? And his answer to that question was and is yes.

But that interview took place on March 23rd of this year. So if you go to the

IronTripandZionRadio .com website and enter Gary George into the search engine, that will be the very top link that you will see there.

And I'm sure that my guest today, Jerry Johnson, may have some differences of opinion with Gary, but on this issue, they are very much similar, if not nearly identical.

Yeah, let me just comment. Gary's wrong and I'm right. Well, if you listen to the interview, you'll find an enormous harmony with him on that very question.

The only difference that he might have with you is that he is a new covenant theology advocate.

Yeah, I've got friends that hold to that. And I don't agree with them. But, you know, there are times

I do agree with them. But I am what they call classic covenant theology.

Now, dispensationalism is intrinsically linked to pre -millennial eschatology, although I was going to say and pre -tribulational eschatology, but I stopped myself because I do know some dispensationalist pastors who are friends of mine who changed their eschatology to a mid -trib or a pre -wrath rapture view.

And from what I understand, they still describe themselves as dispensationalists. So I'm assuming that pre -trib isn't necessary, but obviously you cannot be an amillennial or postmillennialist and be a dispensationalist.

At least from what I've seen. Or historic pre -millennial, for that matter. Yeah, somebody may surprise me.

But let me give you really quick a brief history of dispensationalism.

Excellent. It started in the 1830s with a guy named J .N. Darby. He even called it the new light.

All right? And it really didn't go outside of the

British Isles until C .I. Scofield. He had published his Bible, and that is when it really became popular.

The Scofield Reference Bible. But see, one of the things dispensationalists, and a lot of them, a lot of the old -timers, will even say, how did a person get saved in the

Old Testament? And they will tell you by keeping the law. And, you know, the

Bible makes it clear in Romans that no flesh has ever been justified by the law.

No flesh. Old Testament or New Testament. They always were a, if you will, they always were saved by the covenant of grace.

So Abraham believed God. Now are you saying the early dispensationalists or all dispensationalists?

Yes. Okay. That's a good thing.

But a lot of your old -timers will. Because there would be no one saved in the old covenant if that was the case.

Right. I mean, you see passages in the Old Testament where God removes their heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh.

We call that being born again. And so the Old Testament saints kind of look forward to the

Messiah, and the New Testament saints look back towards the

Messiah. And that's the way that Reformed theologians have described it for years.

I mean, so. But you had Scopio write his

Bible in 1909, his Reference Bible. And I think it was around 1917, they did a remake because they republished it.

Because there were a lot of mistakes in the original 1909. And I actually had a copy before I had my stroke.

I ended up giving it away. But then in 1967, they redid the

Scopio Reference Bible, and they corrected it again. Now, Charles Ryrie wrote the book at that time that kind of became the textbook for dispensationalism.

And let me say this real quick. And I know people are not going to like this, but I'm going to go ahead and say it.

I read Ryrie's book three times. And every time I read it, he lost credibility with me as a scholar.

I really don't think he was that good. He was probably good in the original languages, which

Dallas is good in the original languages. But when it came to theology proper,

I mean, I wasn't impressed. Around, what was it, the late 80s, the early 90s was when progressive dispensationalism came along.

And you had, what was it, Craig Blasing and Darrell Bach out of Dallas.

And they had conceded a lot of stuff to covenant theology. At least these men were honest in that regard.

I really think they should have stopped calling themselves dispensationalists at the time.

I remember one time I spoke with Keith Matheson. I don't know if he's still with Ligonier, but Keith was a very smart guy.

He had graduated from Dallas, and that was one thing he noted also, that they should stop calling themselves dispensationalists.

Yeah, he actually edited an excellent book on against hyper -preterism. Yeah. Yes, he did.

Now, would I be, I don't know if you've ever searched for a survey of any kind, or if you know of one, but in my experience as a born -again believer, which occurred by God's mercy and grace in the mid -1980s,

I would assume that the vast majority of evangelical Christians are dispensationalists of some kind.

Am I right? I would agree also. Okay. And some emphasize that fact in a much greater way than others do.

The only time dispensationalism really bothers me personally is when it is the dominant thing, a particular pastor, preacher, author, teacher, the predominant thing that they discuss and teach and preach, and when they also slander those who do not agree with them, like for many years, could be even over a century now.

I don't know if this is a part of their original rhetoric, but the common rhetoric even today is that if you are not a dispensationalist, you're a liberal, and if you're not a dispensationalist, you're anti -Semitic.

So those kinds of things boil my blood. But other than that, if someone has that aspect of their belief system in a proper lower rung of importance on their ladder,

I am fine with that. I'm not saying that I'm fine with error, but all of our brothers and sisters in Christ, including ourselves, have error in some way.

And I do not pick a fight or isolate myself from dispensationalists just because they are dispensationalists.

Right. I would agree. Now, let me do this also. I want people to put on their thinking caps, all right?

And think about this really hard. You cannot equate premillennialism with dispensationalism.

There were premillennialists prior to dispensationalism.

Spurgeon was a premillennialist. Now, a lot of people in the past, they didn't call it historic premillennialism.

That's what we call it. But they called themselves covenantal premillennialists.

And really, the major difference between covenantal premillennialists and dispensational premillennialists is the dispensationalists will see, at the second coming,

Christ sets up a thousand -year kingdom and reinstitutes all of the

Old Testament sacrifices. Now, most of them have not really thought through that.

We'll get to that in a moment. Covenantal premillennialists believe that the thousand -year reign is going to be a golden Christian era.

The dispensationalists seem to believe it will be a golden Jewish era. Now, I don't have anything against the

Jews. I believe they need Christ just like Irish or Scottish or Chinese or whatever.

So, one thing I want people to think about is you had in the history of the church 1 ,800 years before dispensational truths were discovered.

That means that for 1 ,800 years, and think of the men, Augustine, Irenaeus, Polycarp, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, on and on,

Spurgeon, they weren't dispensationalists, so they didn't have the dispensational truths.

And God made it quite clear that he never kept any blessing from his people.

He gave them all blessing. In fact, let's pick up right where you left off there because we have to go to the first commercial break.

All right, good enough. And if you have a question for Gerry Johnson on dispensationalism, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Let's say you are starting to rethink your dispensationalism and you're in a church that is dispensationalist and you don't feel comfortable identifying yourself at this point in time in your journey.

You might even be a pastor who is rethinking his dispensationalism. Whatever the case may be that would compel you to remain anonymous, we will respect that request.

But please, if you're just asking a general question on history and theology in regard to this subject, please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and country of residence.

We'll be right back with Gerry Johnson, so don't go away. James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here.

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We're now back with Jerry Johnson reformed Christian apologist, documentarian, and producer of the successful DVD series

Amazing Grace, The History and Theology of Calvinism. We are discussing a brotherly critique of dispensationalism.

If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com, chrisarnzen at gmail .com.

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. We do already have questions coming in,

Jerry, but before we take those, when we went to the break, you were talking about the historic novelty of dispensationalism.

It is less than 200 years old. It is something that is often referred to by its advocates, especially if they're fundamentalists, as the old -time religion, but the old -time religion isn't very old, is it?

No, it's not. And I'm going to change gears here, because remember

I said that dispensationalism is not a theology.

It is an eschatology. The main thing that I have noticed through all my reading is there's separation of the church and Israel.

All right? And one of the things that really hit me when I started down this path of not being a dispensationalist was what

I call now, I made up a term. So anybody that uses it, you owe me $5.

So what I did was, I was reading a book, and the guy was talking about who better to interpret the

Old Testament than Christ and the apostles. And I ended up calling it the

Christo -Apostolic Hermeneutic. And if you read the Old Testament and let

Christ and the apostles, who are the best interpreters of the Old Testament, very quickly, you'll stop being a dispensationalist, and that's what

I did. And one of the things that got me also was in Romans 9, starting in verse 6,

Paul writes, for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children.

Oh, man. But in Isaac thy seed shall be called. Now, let me make two points here.

You see, God says, for not all Israel are of Israel.

I mean, no matter which way you slice it, there are two Israels there. Not all of Israel are

Israel. And I start thinking, wait a minute. Because I was taught when

I was a dispensationalist, that if the Bible says Israel, they mean Israel. If they say the church, they mean the church.

And never shall the twain meet. But here, God is telling us that there are two

Israels. There is an Israel after the flesh, and whatever you want to call the other Israel is fine with me.

Second thing is, neither because they are the seed of Abraham. Now, one thing

I've got to remind people, Abraham was a Chaldean out of the land of earth.

What was special about his blood? Nothing. And God, in this passage, we see that it passes down.

It goes through Isaac. It goes through Jacob. Then there are 12 tribes. And funny enough, the favorite son,

Joseph, is not even mentioned among the 12 tribes. Then the 10 tribes are lost.

Two tribes remain, Judah and Benjamin. And eventually, Judah absorbs

Benjamin, and they all become of the tribe of Judah. And that is where the word

Jews come from. Now, in the Old Testament, they weren't called

Jews. They were called Hebrews or Israel. In the New Testament, they are called Jews.

But actually, let me read to you the Gospel of John.

This is Christ saying this, or at least what we've expected to be

Christ. Or it might be John. Which were born, verse 13, 1

John, which were born not of blood. All right?

Being born, again, is not of blood. Being born into the spiritual ancestry of God, because all who believe are children of Abraham and children of the promise.

But here he says they're not born of blood. They're not born of the will of man or the will of the flesh.

And I use this passage quite a bit when I'm talking with Armenians, because it's not the will of man.

You don't decide. God chooses you, and you respond. You do not choose

God. I mean, in a sense, you do. But that is because he chose you first.

But anyway, so it's not of blood. And that's what I try to get across to people, is if you are born again, you are a child of promise, a child of Abraham.

In fact, Galatians chapter 3 says it just like that. So I had, when

I was at Notch Seminary, I had this professor, R. Fowler White, great guy.

And Fowler was a graduate, had a PhD, I don't remember in what, from Dallas Seminary.

But he had abandoned dispensationalism. And we sat there, and he took us through New Testament theology.

And I will never forget, I asked him, when we got to Galatians 3, how could he, as a dispensationalist, read

Galatians 3, and still come away being a dispensationalist, believing that the church and Israel were two separate entities?

And he looked down at his Bible, and he paused for a long time, and then he looked up and he said, you know what?

We just ignored those passages. And I, you know,

I really believe a lot of dispensationalists do. Years ago, I heard an interview, because he had passed away before I got to see him, but that was

John Gerstner. And John Gerstner said, he was teaching on election at this church.

It was like in the 1940s. And this woman came up to him and said, Dr. Gerstner, I don't believe in election, because I don't believe election is in the

Bible. All right, fair enough, he said. If you don't find election in the Bible, then by all means, do not believe in it.

And I thought that was good advice. At the end, it was like a four or five day conference that he was speaking.

At the end of it, she came back up to him and said, Dr. Gerstner, you've proven to me that election is in the

Bible, but I'm still not going to believe it. By the way,

Dr. Gerstner was one of my heroes of the faith, especially as a new Christian. And I loved his book,

Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth. Yes, and at Nicene Council, we actually got permission to republish that one time.

So yeah, of course, it was after he had passed away. But I listened to a lot of his theology.

I don't agree with him on apologetics, but on everything else, I thought it was pretty good.

Yes, he was not a presuppositionalist and even wrote a book defending classical apologetics as opposed to the presuppositionalist.

He wrote that along with R .C. Sproul, actually. Yes, he did. And I will let you know,

I don't want to get off into this subject, but I don't believe Vantill was much of a presuppositionalist.

Really? I'm not a Presuppositionalist either, yeah. Really? Yeah, it's very popular to jump on the

Vantillian bandwagon. But Vantill, I mean, even though he was a godly man and probably more godly than I, in one finger, than I could have been or I am.

I love Vantill in certain things, but on his apologetic, I do believe he was wrong.

Now, funny enough, I believe Greg Bonson was better than he was.

But didn't Bonson claim to be a Vantillian? Bonson did, but when he went into it—

See, the problem with Vantill, and I don't want to get off on this subject too much, the problem with Vantill is he is

Dutch. I don't mean anything by that.

I don't mean it that way. If you look at the Dutch confessions, they start with, of God.

They argue they're apologetic ontologically, and I think they're mistaken, because you can't argue ontologically.

You have to argue epistemologically. So I argue axiomatically.

My point of beginning is the Bible is the Word of God, and that is what

Presbyterians believe. It's also really what the Baptist Confession of 1689 believes.

If you go to the Belgic Confession or the Heidelberg Catechism, they start of God.

And the thing is, where do they get this concept of the triune nature of God?

The only place you get it is from the Bible. So you have to say the

Bible is the Word of God, and the God that is defined there is defined by the

Bible. We're going to have to pick up where you left off there after our midway break,

Jerry. Yes, sir. And we'll have you continue that thread, and then we'll take some of our listener questions that have already come in.

If you want to join those who are already waiting to have their questions asked and answered by Jerry Johnson, send in your e -mail to chrisarnson at gmail .com,

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Also, please use this time wisely.

This is the longer -than -normal break in the middle of the show because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1 FM in Lake City, Florida, requires of us a longer break in the middle of the show because the

FCC requires of them to geographically localize Iron Trip and Zion Radio and all of their programming to Lake City, Florida.

They do so with their own public service announcements and other things while we simultaneously air our globally heard commercials.

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And we hope that means you will often purchase their products, use their services, support their parachurch organizations, and visit their churches.

But when you cannot do any of those things, there's one thing that every single person listening can do if you're not too lazy and you love this show and you don't want it to disappear.

Contact our advertisers, as many of them as possible, and simply thank them for sponsoring

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So send in your questions also to chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We're going to be right back with Jerry Johnson after these messages.

James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here. I'm very excited to announce that my longtime friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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Before I return to my discussion with Jerry Johnson and his brotherly critique of dispensationalism

I just have an important announcement to make or a few actually. First of all, please mark your calendars for the weekend of Friday, September 15th through Sunday, September 17th because my dear friend,

Dr. James R. White of Alpha and Omega Ministries has finally accepted my invitation to him to be the keynote speaker at a three -day

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That is the weekend before the G3 conference and we do not yet know the theme of that three -day conference.

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I have extensive lists spanning the globe of biblically faithful churches and I may be able to help you find a church just as I have with many people all over the world in the irontriplezionradio audience sometimes even within a couple of minutes from where they live then that may be you too so send me an email chrisarnson at gmail .com

and put I need a church in the subject line that's also the email address where you can send in a question to Jerry Johnson on his brotherly critique of dispensationalism chrisarnson at gmail .com

chrisarnson at gmail .com give us your first name at least your city and state and country of residence Jerry what else would you like to say about dispensationalism in your critique before we go to any of our audience questions alright first thing

I want to do is uh I know my wife is listening we just had our 35th wedding anniversary and I wanted to give a shout out to her and tell her

I love her well that's fantastic yep and she's a good girl she's put up with me for 35 years so she's the same but the bible tells us that sometimes without ever even knowing it you are entertaining angels

I think I married one so anyway on dispensationalism

I did want to say this I had a guy and he was a lovely man and we went through the new testament and we went through all of the passages that were really dealing with the fact that the church is

Israel now and he agreed with that after we got done but he said one thing that I think does need to be addressed he said what about and he had just heard it that uh

Israel has never occupied all the land I don't even know if that is a dispensational truth now but under rivalry it was and really before then and uh

I took him to Joshua 21 verse 45 and I want everybody to listen to this real close not one of the good promises which the

Lord had made to the house of Israel failed not one everything came to pass and remember that was when the land was divvied up and I told him

I said you're not believing the truth whatever it is whatever you heard it is wrong as God did not fail to give one good thing to the house of Israel everything came to pass and he looked at me kind of shocked and he looked at his bible and he looked back at me and he said you know what you're right and I didn't really want to be right

I mean not me but the word of God was correct and when he saw that he stopped being a dispensationalist wow so well uh should

I go to the listener some of the listener questions right now yes sir okay we have Gregory in St.

Kitts in the West Indies St. Kitts? yes the island of St.

Kitts? I'm assuming it's in the West Indies yeah I've actually been there it's down in the Caribbean it's a beautiful island well he says let's see here

I want to make sure that I didn't when I enlarged this I want to make sure I didn't cut this in half or something he says how do you understand the uniting of the two sticks one for Judah and the other for Joseph in Ezekiel 37 15 -28 in a non -dispensational way

I don't know I can't answer that question I don't know the thing is

I would have to study it out and since my stroke like I said I can't really read long things so I really don't know but I do know this

God always is making the election smaller and that is what

I would tell him and when you get to the Jews the son of David was the

Jew and he had offspring and everybody who believes in him is now a child of Abraham a child of the covenant so I don't really know about that one

I would have to look at it so I would tell my dear friend at St. Kitts I don't know well that's an honest answer and perhaps if we revisit this subject we will give

Jerry more time to study that specific series of texts and we will have a better answer for you thank you

Gregory for listening and keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio and the West Indies and beyond we have another listener

David in Albuquerque New Mexico what about progressive dispensationalism is it moving in the right direction any better and he has a second question that I will read after you answer that and I have friends who are both traditional dispensationalists and progressive dispensationalists and neither one of them it seems want to be confused with the other they have very serious problems with one another and my friend

Ron Glass who is a thorough going Calvinist but he is just as much committed to his dispensationalism as he is his

Calvinism he, knowing that I'm not a dispensationalist was one of the very first people to sponsor my program and when

I relaunched the show in Pennsylvania was a part of the purchasing of equipment

I needed to start the program again and so I thank God for Ron Glass and his love for me and this show but he was very leery and opposed to some significant aspects about progressive dispensationalism but if you could yeah, what

I would say are they moving in the correct what do you call it direction is what the thank you

I'm having a senior moment here but I would say yes but like I said earlier if they ever come to that position that the church is

Israel now remember I said in the Old Testament Israel was kind of the seed physical

Israel in the New Testament it's the church and that is really what they've got to really come to grips with is the church

Israel and until they abandon that they're still dispensationalists but I don't know what they're doing now because I really haven't kept up with it alright, the second question from David is will there ever be a

Late Great Planet Earth Volume 2? oh no, probably not we did

Volume 1 and the Late Great Planet Church Volume 2

I will tell you about it we were going to use the acronym Ichabod the glory of the

Lord has departed and we were going to do the I was going to be Israel the

C was going to be Church the H was going to be Hematology the

A was going to be I don't know if I can remember the whole thing but we actually myself and Dr.

Ken Gentry had written out the script but unfortunately things just the

DVD market dried up and so we're not going to be able to make that I wish we could we have

BB in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania who wants to know can you provide us with a list even if it's relatively small of dispensationalist authors that you actually enjoy

I'm not talking about a book on dispensationalism but they just wrote about a subject that you agree with and loved reading about and the author just happened to be dispensationalist there were a lot of books by Charles Swindoll that I would read every once in a while and I thought he was really good

I also read Blasing and Bonk's book on progressive dispensationalism I did enjoy that but I would say they didn't go far enough honestly

I haven't read a lot of dispensational books throughout the years every

John MacArthur book I enjoyed except that one what was it The End Times According to Jesus I think he was off the mark on that one

I didn't even hear about that one I might not have the title right but R .C.

Sproul had done one The Last Days According to Jesus and then

MacArthur did one and I can't remember what it was called so he was responding to R .C.'s

adoption of partial preterism yeah I don't know if if he was responding to it like I said it's been probably 10 years ago since I read it but there were a lot of MacArthur books

I did enjoy and I think he did one called charismatic chaos or was that Hank Hanegraaff no that was definitely

John MacArthur John MacArthur and I thought that was good the lordship debate

I thought was good so I guess there were a couple of them that I really did enjoy and I think

MacArthur was really right on that lordship thing oh yeah so we have

CJ from Lyndonhurst, Long Island, New York who says could you summarize please what are the most dangerous aspects of dispensationalism that do harm to the church in your opinion alright

I mean what I would say there are actually three there was a guy named oh man

I can see him playing this day Philip Morrow and Philip Morrow wrote a track called

I Was Robbed and it started because a guy came up to him and said

I was robbed but tonight you've restored the whole bible to me because dispensationalism taught that the old testament and the gospels were for the kingdom age they were not meant for the church and the guy said you've restored the whole bible to me

I thank you for that you've done a great job and by the way Philip Morrow was a dispensationalist at one time and he actually was a

Scofieldite and I mean Philip Morrow just to let you know was a champion considered a champion in fundamentalist circles he wrote the brief that Williams Jennings Bryan used during the

Scopes Monkey Trial and he also wrote a voluminous defense of the

King James Version so he was not a slacker if you get a hold of a book by Philip Morrow it is a good read he wrote one called

The Hope of Israel that was really good and you can probably find that on Amazon Now as far as any of the significant ways in which dispensationalism in your opinion as the listener asks that are harmful that are harmful

I would say the separation of the church and Israel the separation of the bible you know believing that it can be broken or that it is broken up it doesn't apply to the

New Testament church as in their words and lastly

I would say their eschatology is very defeatist so that's what

I would say are the three things that I really think dispensationalism has missed the mark

Yes and of course there are people who are guilty of what is called blessed inconsistency who are dispensationalists but do not function as defeatists as much as I had many problems with Jerry Falwell and even the moral majority there were elements of that that would be along the line of a dispensationalist almost acting as a post -millennialist

Now do let me make this point because I met Jerry Falwell numerous times

I mean he wouldn't have known me from a hole in the wall so I don't want to give the idea that he knew who

I was but I knew who he was and I had met him I also met John MacArthur and I doubt

R .C. Sproul remembers me or he might not but now

Anyway Jerry Falwell he got involved in politics and I tell

Christians this all the time the Republican Party just like the

Democratic Party is not the savior of America only Christ can save America and only if he chooses this right and good to do so I always equate the two political parties as a combine going in the direction of a clip you might believe that the

Democrat is actually going faster but they're both going in the same direction and I'm not saying there aren't

Christians that are involved in the Republican Party or even the Democratic Party I remember one time

I went to China on a mission trip and there was this guy there and he was a real good guy his name was

Clement I called him Pope Clement I but I asked him

I said do you think a Christian can be a communist also and he sat there and he thought for a while he said they're going to be a misguided

Christian but yes they can be a Christian and I agreed with him I mean the idea of you know giving money or the state giving money that is the misconception actually your money because I consider it stealing but if they're misinformed they could still be a

Christian and be a communist I think it's highly unlikely because the communist system says there is no

God but there are a lot of Chinese people that still believe in God, still believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, still believe in the gospel and they also happen to believe in communism and I don't like it but that's where they are.

And of course not all Chinese Christians believe in communism because some of them are underground for that very reason

I would agree In fact the most theologically sound

Chinese Christians are in the underground church. Yeah and I will tell you this

I met many wonderful Christians over there I mean many wonderful Christians and I was kind of shocked at how many

Christians there were but I tell people America used to send missionaries to China but really

China needs to send missionaries to America Just as the

Koreans are For me to add anything to what you've said in addition to what

I already said in the very beginning of the program as far as things that bother me about some dispensationalists not all but to repeat what

I said earlier there is a significant portion of dispensationalists especially those who have platforms like radio and TV programs and who write books and so on who slander those outside of their camp who call everybody who is not a dispensationalist either a liberal or an anti -Semite and the vast majority of historically accurate and biblically faithful Calvinists are not dispensationalists and they're also not liberal in any way, shape, or form or anti -Semites and the other thing that I would add to that is the vast majority of people who make false predictions about the return of Christ have always been dispensationalists.

I'm not saying every single one has been a dispensationalist but the vast majority have always been dispensationalists and that actually brings reproach upon the church.

It makes the church look foolish in the eyes of the world, especially when emphatic statements are made with the certainty of dates and so on or at least approximations of Christ's return and it doesn't happen so I'm assuming you would agree with me on that as well but that's another big problem with much of dispensationalism.

Yes, in fact do let me tell you this I was reading a 19th century historian,

I think his name was Carl Sandy one time and he made a comment he said it seems like the 19th century was drunk on the millennium and I started thinking about it and when dispensationalism came on the scene do you know how many

I mean what we would call today aberrant or theological cults came out after that and they were all millennial cults

I mean the restoration movement the Adventist movement the

Jehovah's Witness, the Mormons I mean a bunch of them came out and they could all trace their roots back to dispensationalism and by the way just let me say as the

Presbyterian remember C .I. Scopia was a Presbyterian and Louis Perry Chaper was a

Presbyterian and I tell people all the time when Presbyterians make cults we do it great so I'm not necessarily the thing that gets me is you've got a lot of these fundamentalists that have grabbed on to that and one thing that really gets me is that and I don't have the script anymore it's on an old computer so I'm probably not going to quote things correctly so I don't even remember who said them but their interpretation they say literal interpretation and what they really mean is real they don't mean literal because literal simply means literary so how are you going to interpret the

Bible literally? What the heck does that mean? Right, in fact there's a question from a listener that relates directly to that we have

RJ in White Plains, New York who says how do you respond to the claim by dispensationalists that Reformed people and other non -dispensationalists do not take the

Bible literally and allegorize the Bible? Now that is a false claim because of course there are allegories in the

Bible and there are figures of speech but also dispensationalists are just as guilty of that charge they just use figures of speech and allegorize different passages than Reformed people do yeah, now

I would actually say they don't allegorize they do use a lot of figures of speech but the figures of speech

You don't think Hal Lindsey allegorized? You know I've never read any of his books

Locusts are Cobra helicopters and things like that you could go on and on with stuff like that He spiritualized them is what he did and what

I would say is you've got to think of the prophecy about John the

Baptist and when you get to the New Testament and this is where that Christo -apostolic hermeneutic really comes into play

Jesus said John the Baptist or Elijah I'm sorry, Elijah that John the

Baptist came in the office of Elijah so he was the

Elijah that the Old Testament talked about but if you took it in their view quote unquote literally it was true but was it real?

Was it actual? The thing is many dispensationalists would say well what are we going to do with that passage and they don't want to take that one so called literally it's figured him

John the Baptist was the Elijah to come and if they had taken it the way dispensationalists took it, you would actually expect

Elijah the Hishvite to have appeared but it wasn't.

Jesus said it was John the Baptist and the same thing with the woman at the well she wanted to take the well literally but Christ told her no, you're mistaken many of the

Jews in the first few centuries they used to take the Shema of Israel where it said you will have the law of God as a front lid before your eyes they actually walked around with a strap on and they had the law of God on a box in the front of their eyes they took it so called literally they didn't take it figuratively and in front of their eyes did not mean to have it strapped onto their forehead, but they did that anyway, a lot of the

Pharisees did so anyway if you read the Gospel of John the first four chapters when you get to the word or you think about literal it was figurative, a lot of the incidences were figurative in fact every dispensationalist disagrees with the church of Rome over their heresy of transubstantiation when

Jesus said this is my body and this is my blood they are being just as figurative and less literal as the reformed folk are now the dispensationalist would actually believe that's a memorial and remember this is what split the

Lutherans and the Calvinists, now the Lutherans did not believe in transubstantiation some people say they believed more in a consubstantiation and some

Lutherans deny that by the way, I've had many conversations it all came down to what the word is so Bill Clinton was right

Christ said this is my body Lutherans and Roman Catholics think that there was a mystery there a non -rational view the

Calvinists said it was a memorial but that Christ was in over and under the elements, so they believe that the sacrament of the

Lord's supper is actually a sacrament and Baptists believed it was an ordinance so it's not being taken literal by many fundamentalists on their definition of literal, besides how do you define what is literal if you look at Ryrie, he says the plain meaning of the scripture, alright, then what is plain?

And by the way, we have to go to our final break our final commercial break it will be much shorter than any of the breaks but if you have a question that you would like to ask of Jerry send it in immediately because we're rapidly running out of time chrisarnson at gmail .com

don't go away, we're going to be right back with Jerry Johnson James White of Alpha Omega Ministries here,

I'm very excited to announce that my long time friend Chris Arnson of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio and I are heading down to Atlanta, Georgia again for the

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Chief End of Man Conference and that is May 4th through the 6th.

We are now back with Jerry Johnson and Jerry, I'd like you to summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners about this brotherly critique you have been providing of dispensationalism.

What I would say is really people need to employ that Christo -apostolic hermeneutic.

Give Christ and the apostles preeminence in interpreting the Old Testament. Don't let dispensational authors do it, or the newspaper or whatever.

Key loose, but let Christ and his apostles interpret the Old Testament. They are the most, they are authoritarian and they're never wrong.

So that is one thing and I say as soon as you do that, do you remember a guy named

Grover Gunn? Oh yes. He wrote, co -authored a book that was a critique of dispensationalism, right?

Yes, it was a very good book with Curtis Grayshaw called Dispensationalism, Yesterday Today and Forever.

That's right, that's right. Yeah, I just looked on Amazon. Unfortunately, it's out of print.

There are a couple of used ones, but that is a very good book. But anyway,

Grover Gunn got his PhD from Dallas and Grover was a good guy.

I can remember speaking to him or I was speaking at a conference and he came up to me and we started talking and he said that Christo apostolic hermeneutic, that's really great because I can remember professors

I had at Dallas used to say to me, never read the New Testament into the

Old Testament. And I'm telling you, that is exactly what you need to do. Dallas is wrong about that.

So, give Christ and the apostles preeminence in interpreting the Old Testament and your dispensationalism will go away.

We have time for one last question. Bobby in Hartsdale, New York asks, was Charles Finney a dispensationalist?

No, he was not. By the way, I hate to say this, but Charles Finney was a

Presbyterian. Yes, I know. And by the way, you did a remarkable documentary called

Beware of False Prophets, The Case Against Charles G. Finney. Is that still available? Is that still available? You know what, that is another one.

I hope we have a copy of it somewhere and if we can work out a deal, really, the deal is

I'm just giving it to you. I don't want anything from it. And by the way, folks, if you want to hear an interview

I did with Jerry Johnson on that very documentary, it was an excellent interview back in 2015.

I will email you the link. For some reason, it is not right now on the Iron Trip and Zion Radio website.

I have to ask my webmaster how that happened, but I will make sure that it is put back on there.

It had nothing to do with what was taught in that interview. There must have been some kind of technical error.

But excellent interview and I hope that anybody listening, if they want it,

I will email you the link. Well, folks, I want to thank you so much for listening today, especially those who took the time to write.

I want to thank Jerry Johnson for always being such a superb guest on this program. I look forward to your frequent return to the program,

Jerry. I want to remind our listeners of our urgent need for your financial help.

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1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM 1 -800 -NOW -HURT .COM I want to again thank everybody who listened today, and I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater