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

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

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

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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

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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 Trip and Zion 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 Calvary, how long ago did that come out?

Now, that was probably, you're asking me to

do math, like 18 years ago.

Okay.

And we did come out with one on dispensationalism.

Now, let me say this.

It was called The Late Great Planet Church.

And of course, we're trying to work to get you to have that.

I'm gonna give you the copyright on it.

But I just wanna make sure the audience does understand.

I used to be a dispensationalist.

So, 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.

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 gotta 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 gotta 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 give his son, R .C. Sproul, Jr.

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. Arnson, there is a growing fan club here at Ligonier Ministries of

your show, and Dr. Sproul would love to be on it.

And 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. Arnson,

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 email it to you.

I said, email 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 website.

That is one of the treasures from God that I value among

the most greatly valued treasures of anything connected to my radio show.

Yeah, I'll tell you this.

Dr. Dean 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 email her.

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

total depravity.

And we emailed 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.

Wow, 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.

Yeah, he passed away like in 2007.

And I will tell you this.

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

Calvin Beisnart.

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 Cal 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.

Yeah, Cal 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 there a 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 gonna 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.

And so, she came all of a sudden.

Cal thought that was funny.

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

No, 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 this

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 a church.

No, no, it's not a theology.

It is an eschatology.

Okay.

It starts with this eschatological presuppositions.

And then it's all about theology.

That's why if you look, that there really hasn't been a successful

systematic theology of dispensationalism ever.

What was the name?

Louis Ferry Schaeffer wrote one.

And 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.

Till 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 because 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, and 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.

Reilly 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.

So, 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.

Well, 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 irontripandsironradio .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.

No!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Well, if you listen to the interview, you'll find an enormous harmony with him on that very

question.

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

Yeah, and 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.

And, 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 a post -millennialist and be a dispensationalist.

At least from what I've seen.

Or a historic pre -millennial for that matter.

Yeah, somebody may surprise me, but let me give you really quick a brief

history of dispensationalism.

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 till C

.I. Scopio, he had published his Bible and that is when it really became

popular, the Scopio 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 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?

Not all of them.

Not all of them.

They really don't believe that anymore.

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, 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 gonna like this, but I'm gonna go ahead and say it.

I read Ryrie's book three times.

And every time I read it, I lost, he lost credibility with me as a

scholar.

I really don't think it 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?

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 it.

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.

Yes.

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 dispensationalists.

There were premillennialists prior to dispensationalism.

Spurgeon was a premillennialist.

Now, a lot of people don't, in the past, they didn't call it historic

premillennialism.

That's what we call it.

But they called themselves covenantal premillennialists, and that 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'll 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 Jerry 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 Jerry Johnson, so don't go away.

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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 would really like 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, yell 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 nine,

starting in verse six, 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 wanna call the other Israel is fine with

me.

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

Now, one thing I gotta 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.

Then out of it, 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 three says it just like that.

So I had, when I was at Knox 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 three, how could he, as a

dispensationalist, read Galatians three 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 of, 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 gonna believe it.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

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.

Oh, wow.

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 wanna get off into this subject, but I don't believe Van Til was much of a

presuppositionalist.

I'm not a Presuppositionalist either, yeah.

Really?

Yeah, it's very popular to jump on the Van Tilian bandwagon, but

Van Til, I mean, even though he was a godly man and probably

more godly in one finger than I could have been or I am,

I love Van Til 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 Van Tilian?

Bonson did, but when he went into it, see, the problem with Van Til, and I don't wanna get off on this

subject too much, the problem with Van Til is he is Dutch,.

And the Dutch...

No, 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 gonna 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 email 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.

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

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Don't go away, we're gonna 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

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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 Bible conference in Lancaster,

Pennsylvania.

That is Friday, September 15th, through Sunday, September 17th.

That is the weekend before the G3 Conference, and we do not yet know the theme

of that three -day conference.

We do not know the exact location in Lancaster, Pennsylvania yet where it will be held, but I am working in cooperation

with my friend, Pastor Joel Saint, and the Mid -Atlantic Reformation Society

on arranging and hosting this three -day Bible conference with Dr. White, so please mark your calendars.

That's September 15th through the 17th, which is a Friday through Sunday.

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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?

All right, first thing I wanna do is 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 a saint, but the Bible tells us that sometimes, without ever even

knowing it, you are entertaining angels.

I think I married one.

Anyway, on dispensationalism, I did wanna 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 Israel

has never occupied all the land.

I don't even know if that is a dispensational truth now, but under Ryrie,

it was, and really, before then.

And 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 kinda 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 wanna 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, should I go to 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 wanna make sure that I didn't, when I enlarged this, I wanna 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 through 28, in a non -dispensational way?

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 children, 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 in 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'll 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 thoroughgoing 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 the 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 -.

Direction, 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 gotta 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.

All right, the second question from David is, will there ever be a Late Great Planet Earth volume two?

Oh, no, probably not.

We did volume one, and the Late Great Planet

Church volume two, I will tell you about it.

It's, we were gonna use the acronym, Ichabod.

The glory of the Lord has departed.

And we were gonna do the I was gonna be Israel, the C was gonna be church,

the H was gonna be hematology, the A was gonna be, I don't

know, 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 gonna 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 Blazing 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.

Oh, I didn't even hear about that one.

Yeah, 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 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 Prismatic Chaos,

or was that Pink Handograph?

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.

We have C .J. from Lindenhurst, 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?

All right, I mean, what I would say, there are actually three.

There was a guy named, oh man, I could 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 Schofieldite.

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 could get ahold 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 could 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 in Israel, the

separation of the Bible, 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.

Yes, 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 wanna 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.

So, or he might now.

Anyway, Jerry Falwell, he got involved in politics, and I tell

Christians this all the time.

The Republican Party, just like the Democrat Party, is not the savior of

America.

Only Christ can save America, and only if he chooses it's 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 the First.

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 gonna be a misguided Christian, but yes, they can be a Christian.

And I agreed with him.

I mean, the idea of

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.

Yes, 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 the Christ's return, and it doesn't happen.

So I'm assuming you would agree with me on that as well, that 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 Sande one time, and he made a comment.

He said, it seems like the 19th century was drunk on the millennium.

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.

Yes.

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 a Presbyterian, remember, C .I.

Scopia was a Presbyterian, and Lewis Ferry Chaper was a Presbyterian, and I tell

people all the time, when Presbyterians make cults, we do it great.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

So I'm not necessarily, the thing that gets me is you've got a lot of these

fundamentalists that have grabbed onto 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 gonna 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 gonna 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 -.

Oh, you don't think.

Hal Lindsey allegorized when he -.

You know, I've never read any of his books.

Locusts are cobra helicopters and things like that.

And I mean, you could go on and on with stuff like that.

Yes, he spiritualized them, is what he did.

And what I would say is, when you gotta 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 gonna do with that passage?

And they don't wanna take that one so -called literally.

It's figurative.

John the Baptist was the Elijah that come.

And if they had taken it the way dispensationalists took it, you would actually

expect Elijah the Heshvite 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.

Yes, now the dispensationalists would actually believe that's a

memorial.

And remember, this is what kind of 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.

Yes, they do, they do.

I know that.

But it all came down to what the word is,

is.

So Bill Clinton was right.

Christ said, this is my body.

Lutherans and Roman Catholics think that there was a mystery there.

They had 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 where Luther, or Baptist, believed it was an ordinance.

So it's not being taken literal by many fundamentalists

on their definition of literal.

And besides, how do you define what is literal?

If you look at Ryrie, he says, the plain meaning of the scripture.

All right, 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 gonna be right back with Jerry Johnson.

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

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Puritan Reformed is a Bible believing kingdom building devil fighting church.

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Hello, my name is Anthony Uvinio, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Corum, New York,

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Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Ivino, and thanks for listening.

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Hi, this is John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona.

Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the Iron Sharpens Iron podcast.

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So 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.

All right.

What I would say is really people need to employ that Christo

-apostolic hermeneutic.

What, give Christ and the apostles preeminence in interpreting the Old Testament.

Don't let dispensational authors do it, or the newspaper, or whatever,

tea leaves.

But like Christ and his apostles interpret the Old Testament.

They are the most, they are authoritarian.

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, and it was a very good book with Curtis Grayshaw.

Yeah.

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.

And by the way, is -.

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 them 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.

Had nothing to do with what was taught in that interview.

There must've been some kind of technical error.

Yeah.

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.

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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 Savior than you are

a sinner.

Amen.