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

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Iron Sharpens Iron and the Call to Mutual Edification

It's Iron Sharpens Iron. 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 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 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.