Why am I a Dispensationalist?

Why am I a dispensationalist? I dare the Covenant theologians to listen to this entire episode because You may just agree

Hmm dare you Welcome to the rap report with your host

Andrew Rapoport where we provide biblical interpretation and application This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the

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Welcome to another edition of the rap report I'm your host Andrew Rapoport the executive director of striving for eternity and the

Christian podcast community of which this podcast is a proud member We are here to give you biblical interpretations and applications for the

Christian life and what I want to do in the episode Today is to provide for you

Well, the answer that I the answer to the question I get has to very often

Why are you a dispensationalist? You know, I want to first encourage you to listen to the entire episode the reason being is that many people claim they understand what a

Dispensationalist is and they believe that they will that they are

Maybe they grew up Dispensational whatever it may be. They end up arguing that they understand dispensationalism.

They think it's wrong and Usually they claim to know Dispensationalism better than dispensationalist just saying now.

I know that I have been accused of being a leaky Dispensationalist.

Okay, I get it that may be true, but let me at least explain why

I Hold to the topic of dispensationalism and I'm going to find it in a moment and See whether or not you might say, you know what at least the way

Andrew believes in dispensationalism I can agree Maybe maybe not and I will ask that if you find this helpful

Please share it with your friends, especially those covenant theologians so that they might hear what

I'm saying maybe even Engage now, I will give you a way that you can engage with me if you disagree with me

Just go to apologetics live Calm on a Thursday night 8 to 10

Eastern Time That is a show where anyone can come in and challenge me with anything so if you disagree with me may

I encourage you to come to apologetics live comm on Thursday nights and Let's discuss debate

Throw down whatever you want to do. We'll do it there. All right, let's get into this.

So first off dispensationalism versus covenant theology Let me start with what?

Dispensationalism is not and then give a definition of those two words.

I just mentioned if it's new to you Dispensationalism is not an end times

View it is not a pre -millennial view as many will accuse many think of dispensationalism just as pre -millennialism as a view of end times where there's going to be a rapture followed by a thousand -year literal kingdom of Jesus Christ reigning on earth

Many people that believe on millennialism There is no millennium post millennialism that Christ will come after the

Millennium and the Millennium could be a long period of time not at literal thousand years Those two groups will end up saying and you also have historic pre -millennials that wouldn't agree with dispensational pre -millennials

All these differences, but the reality is that what you end up seeing is That they have their views

That Dispensationalism is just an end times view. That is not what dispensationalism is

Pre -millennial dispensationalism is a by -product of Dispensationalism it is not a definition of it meaning that Dispensationalism is a hermeneutic that word just means the art and science of interpretation and So it is the rules that we follow different than covenant theology on interpreting

Scripture it's really that simple and So it comes down to how we interpret

Dispensationalism is going to interpret God's Word differently Than covenant theology and that is what we're talking about.

We're not talking about the view of end times We're not talking about the dispensations and how

God works through history Yes, all of that is part of the differences between dispensationalism and covenant theology but that's not the definition of dispensationalism now for those who hold the covenant theology

You would not appreciate if I said what's historically true That covenant theology comes out of the

Catholic Church Because well, it does that hermeneutic came from the

Catholic Church What you actually hold to is not really covenant theology though.

That's the term we know It's actually reformed theology. In other words, the reformers took their

Catholic backgrounds they still interpreted Scripture with the same mindset of the symbolism and But what he did do is they rightly got rid of the magistrates and the traditions and said no

We're just gonna look at what Scripture says about itself and that is reformed theology

This is why I struggle when people ask me if I'm reformed because it matters on what they mean by that In a historical sense.

I would not be reformed because I wouldn't interpret the Bible with as much symbolism as reformed theologians would as a dispensationalist and so Why would a covenant theologian be upset if I say that they're believing in Catholic theology?

Well because it wouldn't be true Yeah, that's right. It wouldn't be but historically that's where that hermeneutic came out of and Let's be clear.

It isn't a perfect conclusion to say well came out of the Catholic Church because rightly

There were genuine Christians that existed before the Catholic Church that used a similar way of interpreting using much a lot of symbolism

We see it in the early Church Fathers When I say the Roman Catholic Church, I'm referring to the church that exists today

Which really didn't technically exist until about what a thousand eleven hundred A .D

So they would claim they go all the way back to Christ, but their doctrines they hold to today weren't really solidified until then and so that would be something that we could debate about but Just as I would not say that Covenant theology is

Catholic Roman Catholic theology Any covenant theologian would get upset with me and I could say rightly so but I say this to say be careful because when you make accusations about Dispensationalism that it's just about end times or it's just about the charts or the different dispensations the way

God works through history with his people That's not what dispensationalism is Any more than arguing covenant theology is

Roman Catholicism Both are bad arguments So I hope at least you'd see that I will defend

Against bad arguments dispensationalism make against covenant theologians as well now

Some will argue that covenant theology is more biblical because the word covenant appears in the

Bible well, when we do look at what a Dispensation is it's based on the

Covenant. So Dispensationalist would hold to you know, five covenants seven covenants because they would or dispensations

I should say because they see five or seven covenants in the Bible Covenant theology would have three we can get into that in more detail

Maybe on a later show what I want to focus here on is mostly about the interpretation styles

Maybe if I have time at the end, I will address the different dispensations So I think it's a bad argument to say that covenant theology is more biblical than Dispensationalism because the word covenant appears in the

Bible because a covenant and covenant theology are two different things Therefore it's a fallacy of equivocation.

You're using the same word two different ways One is a covenant a contract between God a man.

The other is a theological system really a way of interpreting scripture so with that said

Let's address what we're talking about. How do we interpret the Bible? There are three things that we would say are the sine qua non of Dispensationalism that is

Latin for that which is without so in other words, you cannot have Dispensationalism without these three elements

The way it's the first one is often referred to as a literal or some would use normal I actually prefer a friend of mine

Keith Foskey's with language of a Literal heart. Sorry a literary hermeneutic.

He's not dispensational He would be what's called progressive covenantalism.

It used to be referred to as new covenant theology And so even though he and I would not agree completely

I think his use of that word fits well because what the idea of it is that we are going to take the scriptures in its literary context in other words, we're going to see it in its literary style and interpret it that way and the the idea of a literal

I think is Problematic and many dispensationals do because the way it's been attacked is to say that we take everything completely literal

If I am say if I say I'm so hungry. I can eat a cow None of you believe

I can eat a literal cow Only because you've never seen me eat

I Say that because I have eaten a lot of beef in one sitting but it was not a whole cow, but it was five pounds

And so the reality is you understand that as an idiom you understand that it's not meant to be taken literal and So that would be they call it a literary a literal style.

I Think that that's problematic because people say oh you have to take everything literal Well, I think that many dispensationalists tried to accommodate for that and try to correct it and use the word normal what they mean by normal is that different genres or styles of literature have different rules and You would follow the normal rule for that literature.

I Think that that still becomes a little problematic Because it

What it does is when you compare Dispensationalism to covenant theology and you say that dispensationalism is normal What does that say about covenant theology

Well, the conclusion many would make is that it's abnormal. I Don't think that's a fair assessment either.

So I don't I don't like the normal because of the implication it has on covenant theology

So I really like the word literary and a literary hermeneutic is the idea of interpreting

This the passage of scripture that we have based on the literary style and the rules that apply to that literature

So that's the first thing so I may be a little bit more unique in calling it a literary hermeneutic or literary style rather than a literal or normal a second major issue and this comes out of this literary style of the looking at The way we interpret scripture in what some used to call literal others call normal.

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What do we believe book calm? the outcome of that is seeing more of a separation between Israel and the church now notice

I said more and Not a complete distinction between the two a lot of the issue between covenant theology and dispensationalism is the issue of how much continuity and discontinuity there is between Israel and the church

I think that many dispensationalist accuse covenant theologians of seeing them as Completely one that's not true for all

Covenant theologian and when I say covenant theologian, I also I'm really referring to reformed theologians

I'm using that sort of interchangeably because I know that most people when they talk about covenant theology

They're really talking what we call reformed theology just historically.

Okay, so please don't beat me up over those terms They are I'm trying to be as careful as I can but at the same time use the language many people are using so where you have a

People in covenant theology that would say that dispensational see a hard divide that is there's no similarity between Israel and the church

I don't think that's true either. I think that both groups see that there's some continuity and discontinuity

Now for those who want to say that covenant theology doesn't see a discontinuity between Israel and the church

I would ask the question. Do you keep kosher? Do you?

Celebrate the Passover which is commanded to be celebrated forever.

So if There's no distinction then all

Christians should be keeping the Passover forever. It's a command So That would be an issue now, obviously they don't keep kosher

They don't keep the Passover most and and therefore there is some distinction that they are recognizing

Between Israel and the church now. The only question is how much distinction do we see?

and so Where I would see more of a discontinuity

So Israel and the church would be more separated Covenant theologians would see more continuity meaning that they would see more similarity between Israel and the church

Now I do think some of this comes out of the Catholic Church Wanting to try to claim they are

Israel claiming an authority that the church didn't have That specific group of peoples especially after they split with the

Orthodox Mm -hmm. So I say this just to say that I think that some of The influence may be from the

Roman Catholic Church there, but there are a lot of similarities there Okay, I'm not disputing that now we see in Romans where Paul will say that not all

Israel is Israel and this is the area where we have People that's what we'll argue.

So you see it says not all Israel's Israel therefore This must be the case that we have all of You know, it's the church is

Israel now what they mean by that is That When a covenant theologian would say that is that God has his people

Hit the believers and he works with them through two different administrations

And so you have God's people God's chosen people those who are redeemed both

Old Testament New Testament. And so they would say the those are Old Testament say

Old Testament Church and New Testament Israel, it's in other words.

It's the same body of Believers but summer in the Old Testament summer in the

New Testament two different administrations but one body of believers I Could agree with that as a dispensationalist

Okay, but yet I see a distinction between the church and Israel as I said

Israel has to keep the Passover keep kosher the church does not so Let me try to explain this in a way

That might be helpful Maybe it won't be but I always like to start with areas that we would agree.

So if you believe in coven theology, I Think you could agree with me that during the the dark ages

There was a view of the church That to help define the church that the theologians came up with a term that we were referred to as the visible or local church versus the invisible universal church

Let me explain those if those terms are new to you The universal or invisible church was referring only to believers and believers

Everywhere as the body of Christ. This is No matter what church you go to if you are redeemed in Christ, you're part of this

Universal invisible church. It's made up only of believers and believers everywhere the

Local or visible church is where people would gather that would be made up of believers and unbelievers

So it's not for believers only and it's local to that that group that fellowship on a

Sunday for the worship of God Now I don't think anyone's gonna disagree with me on that whether covenant theology or dispensational theology

Taking that thinking what I'd like to do is apply that To the

Old Testament Israel. Okay, so instead of looking at Israel's one body.

I Think some of the distinction comes into just as in the Dark Ages Middle Ages There was a fight over the church of distinguishing between a local group that gathers and those that are the universal church

They tried to define that and and separate that I think we need to do the same thing with Israel Israel had a group as a nation.

It was made up of redeemed people and unredeemed people so as a nation what

I would call national Israel is equivalent to that local or Visible church, let's say local or visible

Israel. It's made up of believers and unbelievers Where the spiritual

Israel as Paul refers to I'm gonna say that's equivalent to the

Invisible or universal church. In other words, it would be Invisible or universal Israel.

I call it spiritual Israel In other words that is made up of only redeemers and were the redeemed everywhere

In fact, I will argue that that might include those who were not born of Abraham such as you know,

Nebuchadnezzar I Believe that in Babylon. He he came to redemption.

We'll find out in heaven if I'm right lots of debate over that You can have your view Disagree with me.

Hey apologetics live .com. Come join me But what

I do want to point out is that as we look at that It's the idea that there is a distinction between that Visible and invisible

Israel what I call national and Spiritual Israel just like we make that distinction in the church

So if you can accept that that there could be that distinction Maybe you can agree with me and it's that distinction that helps me to understand

Israel of the Old Testament There was many who would in a sense be

God's people God's chosen people Because they're born from Abraham But that doesn't make them redeemed.

They were not believers and we won't see them in heaven So just recognize that They would be part of that local visible

Israel national Israel But then there's a separate part. That's just the those that are redeemed just like in the church that you go to Your church has those that are redeemed and probably some who are not

Hard to think about yeah, I get it This is the distinction that I try to make with it just in my understanding third point so first is a

Literary hermeneutic versus I didn't mention what covenant theology would have more of a spiritual hermeneutic

The I should actually explain that a bit more So in a literary hermeneutic the example,

I always give is song of Solomon because I just think it's easiest I would look at song of Solomon and look at that as a

Wedding procedure and honeymoon That's the way it's laid out.

It's a wedding Ceremony and honeymoon ceremonies, so that's what

I would see it is But if you're a covenant theologian and you have the hermeneutic that everything must point to Christ We'll get to that in a moment.

Then you got to find Christ in the song of Solomon. How do you do that? Well, then you say song of Solomon is actually talking about Christ and the church now this becomes issue because as a dispensational as I say, yeah, but that's a thousand years before there was a church a

Covenant theologian would say no the Old Testament Israel is the church in the Old Testament Okay, and so and I hope that you're seeing

I'm trying to be fair with both sides Point out the problems of both sides point out the good things of both sides I don't think either one of them is heresy and I don't think

I personally do not think we should be Dividing as people do on social media over these issues

I would really really really hope that this podcast would help bring unity less division more unity

So we as believers would gather together to fight where the real fight is and that's what the world and not each other ouch

So a Covenant theologian would say the song of Solomon as more about Christ and the church which

I wonder about because there's some pretty sexual connotations in there and that's not what

I would think of with Christ and the church But because they have to find

Christ there they're looking for that. So they're going to make it more symbolic Where I'm gonna look at it more literary style and see it as a wedding

We could look at this is why a by -product of dispensationalism is premillennialism and I say it's a by -product and not the purpose of it but a by -product of it is when we come to Revelation 20 a dispensationalist in a literal style would look at the the thousand -year kingdom that's repeated six times in six verses and There's we would look at that and say it's a literal thousand years because the text seems to indicate that a

Covenant theologian would look at that say no the thousand years is symbolic for a long period of time

Everything that it's describing is symbolic That would be the difference between what people used to call literal versus figurative or normal versus spiritual and so I'm gonna say

I will use the terminology between a Literary hermeneutic versus a

Christus centric hermeneutic why do I say Christus centric because it tries to focus on Christ in every passage and Looking for him it

Through throughout every verse of Scripture and the reason that they would do that is the third

Distinction that we would have the third point of dispensationalism. So you have the literary hermeneutic you have the

Distinction great greater distinction between Israel and the church and the third is Dispensationalism would be what we call doxological versus covenant theology, which would be more

Christal Christological meaning a Covenant theologian would be seeing

Christ in every passage of Scripture So they would look to find where that is and a dispensationalist would see

God's glory. That's what doxological Means God's glory is the purpose of every verse of Scripture so I can look at Song of Solomon say this is the description of the love that we have in that that beginning part of marriage in that honeymoon phase and That is a godly marriage the way we should be in our marriage and this is something that we should have and I could see a

That as Describing the love we should have for one another in marriage and continue to have that granted

Solomon didn't quite do that. So well, but that should be and that brings

God glory where a covenant theologian Christologically is looking for Christ and and looks for the church in That so the church is the bride the groom not being

Solomon is Christ Now when you do that because it's Christological You're going to now in a book like that say well, then

How do you apply this a thousand years before there was a church? Well, you start to see more continuity between the church and Israel and therefore it fits

Okay. Did you hear that covenant theologians? I actually can argue that you have some consistency in your position because it is system that works together

But just because a system works together doesn't make it right because every religious group has a system that works

Because when they're challenged they find a way to make it work if they need to so just because a system fits together

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SFE Okay, so I hope that helps just with a definition of terms

Lots of explanation to it. I understand and Maybe some dispensational so throwing me out of the kingdom already

So are the Covenant theologians, but you guys could get together and throw me out of the kingdom so with that Let's get into why

I am a dispensationalist. I think the real core issue that we have between Reformed theology and dispensational theology as I said comes down to how we interpret scripture reformed theology is

Going to take more Liberty in my view Take more Liberty with the

Word of God in in saying things that it may not say now notice

I'm not saying it doesn't I'm saying I just don't know that it does in other words.

I Will want to be a little bit more restrictive to what the text

Like says in it the authorial intent of the meaning and not try to find either a

Spiritual meaning a dual meaning some meaning that I would take other than what is clear there now

When you are looking to find a Christological meaning you're going to you're going to look at the scripture

Sometimes more symbolically than I would be comfortable with Let me give an example a friend of mine

Matt slick we we've debated a bunch of things We're good friends disagree theologically on many things.

I'm Baptist. He's Presbyterian. I'm a cessationist He's a continuationist. I'm dispensationalist.

He's a covenant theologian You know baptism. I mean there's we can go on with different things.

We disagree him now Matt and I were discussing and debating Dispensationalism versus covenant theology and one of an interesting discussion that we got into is the offering of Isaac Okay Matt says

That the offering of Isaac is a type of Christ. In other words, it's a foreshadowing of Christ The way he looks at it is that there's so much similarity that this was a type of Christ.

I Take a more Conservative position in saying that it has a lot of similarities

There's a lot of similarities between the offering of Isaac and the offering of Christ But I don't say it's a type of Christ why?

Because there's nowhere in Scripture where I see the offering of Isaac described as a type of Christ Now was

Jonah described by Christ himself as a type Yes, so was

Jonah three days and three nights in the belly of a fish a type of Jesus being in the

Body in the in the in the grave three days and three nights. Yes Jonah was a type of Christ why?

Scripture says so notice the one what I did there now for any

Presbyterians Let me appeal to you The Presbyterians and not all

Presbyterians some reform for other reform folks would have this as well is a view that we would call

When it comes to worship There there's this view of worship that that people have that One would some would say that as They look at it that there is

When we come to how we should worship some argue we should only Worship God the way scripture

Explicitly says to worship God. This is called the regulatory principle So scripture has to explicitly say it for us to do it in worship

The normative principle is that if scripture doesn't say you can't do it, then you're okay to do it

Let's give an example Can you have drums in a worship service?

Regulatory principle would say no because scripture didn't explicitly say that you can have drums Stringed instruments.

Yes, so maybe a piano counts for that but drums. No Where normative principle though scripture doesn't say you can have drums

Therefore you can Okay, do you understand how see how that works? I Apply the regulatory principle to how

I interpret scripture. In other words if scripture doesn't explicitly say Something then

I don't hold to it That's why essentially that is why I am a dispensationalist

Because I do not want to go beyond what scripture is going to say we can do

So what I look to do there is say If scripture is going to say hey, this is something then

I say that If it doesn't say it I do not feel at liberty to look at other passages of scripture and start to apply a meaning

That may not be there even if it works really good that you can put a whole system together and go from scripture verse to scripture verse to come about a conclusion okay, and so That's really what causes me to be a dispensationalist.

I I am afraid to stand before God and have God tell me That I said something was

God's Word God spoken that he didn't say Now may

God tell me that I did not go far enough He very well might But I don't want him to say that I went beyond his word and said it was his word

Does that at least make sense So if you accuse me of of being bad being a heretic being a you know

This dispensationalist that has false teaching all these things. I've been accused of Because of my view because I claim to be dispensational at least hear this part the reason that I hold to these views of how

I interpret scripture and hold to dispensationalism is because of the fact that I fear

God and I'm afraid to go beyond God's Word saying it's

God's Word So at least understand why I do that If I'm wrong,

I'm wrong because I fear God Too much. I don't want to go beyond what he says my view with some

Notice where I said some I'm not saying all the view I have with some Covenant theologians reform theologians is that I fear they take too much

Liberty with God's Word jumping all around the Bible and saying this is the way scripture is and What they've done is jumped around and proof -texted a bunch of things and gave

God's Word a meaning that God's Word didn't have now when Colts do that.

I Argue that that's satanic. Now. I'm not saying reformed theology is satanic, but it is

Satan who twists God's Word Right now. I'm not saying that any covenant theologian or reformed theologian is doing that purposefully

They're doing it because they have a view that God's Word is not a normal book.

I as a dispensationalist am going to interpret God's Word using the rules of language a a

Covenant theologian or reformed theologian is going to say that God's Word the

Bible is not a normal book So you don't interpret it with normal rules?

Now I agree that God's Word is definitely not a normal book But I don't think we need different rules for it and the reason being is

God gave us his word in Language and he gave rules for language.

And so we know how to interpret in language and therefore

I look to those words and say this is how it should be so that is why

I hold to this view because I look at the language of Scripture the styles whether it's historical narrative whether it's poetry whether it's prophecy

Whether it is instructional And I will interpret it in that style using those rules of that genre of literature

Rather than seeing the whole Bible as if it's one style of literature and interpreting it with a

Christocentric view of seeing how it how we take one passage of Scripture and another past scripture because it uses the same words or Language and say well they have the same meaning

I would interpret each of those separately and then understand the meanings of each separately to see if they are together

So we're a covenant theologian would look at the Old Testament say that the we use the

New Testament to interpret the Old Testament I Would say that the

New Testament informs our understanding of the Old Testament, but we must interpret the

Old Testament in its context its Literature style in its historical context its spiritual context all of that grammatical context

We interpret that Then we interpret the new but the new will inform the old

Great example in the Old Testament. We have a reference to Israel the nation of Israel coming out of Egypt out of Egypt.

I will call my son But in Matthew that refers specifically to Jesus Christ Now if you had just the

Old Testament that passage would apply to the nation of Israel But the

New Testament informs us so we see is that God had a double meaning there.

We would not I don't want to add a double meaning but when God puts a double meaning

I'm okay with it because Well, it's God's Word So when he speaks of Israel out of Israel, I will call my son

In the Old Testament, I'm going to interpret that as Israel in the Old Testament, but when

I come to Matthew, I'm gonna say but God had that as a prophecy for Israel if Notice I said if if that was exactly what

Matthew was quoting Because we actually don't know that because Matthew did not say and I'm drawn a blank right now

I think it's Micah. He didn't say the prophet Micah said he just referenced something and So was that a reference that people knew at the time as a prophecy of the

Messiah that wasn't recorded in Scripture That's possible. I Do think it might be

Referencing the Old Testament passage if if it's in Micah, I can't remember exactly right now, but But I think that's okay.

Then God would have a dual meaning So but what I'm gonna do is interpret both

Old Testament New Testament in their individual context and then I'm gonna let the

New Testament inform the old Where it's giving some more information because I believe in a progressive revelation

That the revelation came about and we we got more revelation more information

That's what we learn from the covenants or what we might call dispensations

So what we see here is that I Am taking a dispensational view because out of a fear of God I want to be more restrictive in my interpretation and not go beyond what

I think God's Word says Can you agree with me that that's a fair thing to do

I'm not saying that I'm absolutely right. I'm not saying covenant theologians are absolutely wrong But I am saying that when

I stand before God I Want to be able to say that I didn't go beyond his word

I did not take something that he did not say and say he said it and a dispensational view leads to that Let me take a little bit of time since I have to explain the dispensations

As I said, I believe in progressive revelation. We throughout history got more revelation with more revelation we got more understanding of God and how he deals with people each of the covenants that we see in the

Old Testament whether it's the one with Adam or Noah or Abraham or Moses or David if you want to debate whether that is one or what

I will what we would call the New Covenant, which is with Christ Or what some would see in dispensationalism.

We would see a seventh covenant being the Millennial Kingdom but When we look at those covenants, what do we have?

we have New revelation because God is speaking. We have new rules.

Don't do this and do this new instructions of how God's gonna deal with his people and In each of those times there's changes that he makes

To the way he will work with his creation his people those created in the image of God and So with each covenant comes new instruction each of those covenants we would call a dispensation

Now do God's people change Again, it depends invisible versus visible.

How are you going to deal with that? I would say that there is a if you want to say universal people of God that spans all of creation

That there are those who are universally God's people redeemed people that are all believers everywhere throughout time and All of them that I could agree with that but it doesn't mean that everyone throughout time was believer our believers, so You just understand how

I'm using that So when we we see the dispensations it deals with the way

God works in different periods of time with his people and they are all tied to a

Covenant that God makes with his people for that time period

So I hope that helps you to understand a Little bit about what

I mean, maybe not others, but what I mean when I refer to a dispensation Therefore I personally believe

I'm more covenantal than Covenantalist because I hold to you know, seven covenants and not just three

So I Hope this is helpful. I hope that You you got something out of this to realize some differences

My real hope in doing this episode is to encourage each of us

To maybe put down our arms against one another Have a little bit of forbearance and long -suffering with those.

We might disagree with theologically I can guarantee one thing to all of you listening and myself

We are all wrong in our theology somewhere That's right We don't know where because if we if we knew where honestly knew where we were wrong we would change that but we don't know where that is and That's why we don't change it.

And so because of these two different views people come to different conclusions in scripture and So a covenant theologian may not all

Presbyterians would come to this where Baptist wouldn't to an infant baptism Because they would see the covenant that the covenant is for the family

And therefore when a child is born, they're born into a covenant relationship with God Until they get to some either age of accountability or point where they're accountable for their own actions and So they would be baptized as a sign of being in the covenant.

That doesn't mean they have a guaranteed ticket to heaven any more than baptism sorry circumcision did for the

Jewish people and so they see an equivocation between baptism and circumcision and they see a

Circumcision was something that was done as a sign to the the Jewish males to bring them into a covenant relationship with God Such is baptism and therefore that would be done to children

That's a consistent view with the covenant Perspective Now there's reformed

Baptists who would disagree with that They would still say that they hold to a covenant theology

Of course, there's those covenant theologians that say that those people aren't really covenant But that is something that we end up seeing

There is still distinctions even within covenant theology. So I Pointing this at all out just really with a heart's desire to get you to see that We need to have a little bit more unity within the body of Christ.

That's that's my goal and my hope for this episode So if you if you disagree with me again

Apologize live .com Thursday night. Come on in. Let's discuss it the second hour

Usually if we have a guest we will deal with the guest for the first hour, but if there is a

You know the second hour we deal with different things anyone that can come in so If if you want you could challenge me there, but I do hope at least

This has been helpful to understand my perspective on why I hold to dispensationalism

You want to call me a leaky dispensationalist or is my one of my co -hosts on apologetics live says

I'm the leakiest Dispensationalist he's ever known because I agree with him on a lot of things as far as the views of Israel in the church

You might accuse me of being so leaky that I may not be dispensational Well, maybe you have a different view of dispensationalism than dispensationalists have or maybe

I have a different view Maybe I shouldn't call myself that well,

I can call myself a report Ian because my last name is Rappaport and But I I'm just trying to be faithful to God's Word and not go beyond God's Word So I hope this is is helpful

You know, I'm doing this partially because if if you haven't seen The art of the magazine fight laugh feast magazine has a entire magazine issue devoted to Basically attacking dispensationalism and fine

They asked whether I would write an article giving my testimony coming from a Jewish background and no,

I'm not dispensationalist Just because I'm from a Jewish background but they wanted to get my testimony coming from Jewish background coming to Christ in a

In an issue where everything else I probably disagree. I haven't read everything yet But I have read some and so I think that I might disagree with some of the conclusions.

They've come to But I'm okay with writing an article in there. Why because I think we need to have a little bit more unity where we agree and I think we need to stop

With tribalism within Christianity dividing what is it

Satan would love more The enemy would love Christians to be divided and so often we are helping his cause

So I plead beg Passionately of you as a listener

To please consider unity over division Can we disagree?

Yes Clearly you see I disagree with those that hold two Aspects of covenant theology does that mean

I can't get along with them? No, I can get along with them and I can see where they make valid points and and maybe there's times where they make better points than I make

But I want to be faithful to my understanding of God's Word and they want to be faithful to their understanding of God's Word and Let's try to work together in that to learn from one another

Am I convincing you to be a dispensationalist No, I think that's really up to God to do.

I would say that I Just would encourage you not to go beyond what God's Word says and let's be careful in that That's that's my biggest concern.

I would hope it's one for you as well If you're convinced convinced by covenant theology

Congratulations But it's it's something that I'm just not going to be convinced of at least right now or hold to because I am too scared of going beyond what

God says and so I Hope that that explains my view

Hope it gave you if nothing else food for thought. I Hope that this gave you something to think about Please I don't care if you believe in covenant theology reform theology

But don't misrepresent Dispensationalism and if you're a dispensationalist, please don't misrepresent

Covenant slash reform theology let's be faithful to what we hold to and Honest with what others hold to not misrepresenting them because it makes a better argument for us so therefore

I Just want you to consider that I want you to think about that. I want you to pray about that Go to God's Word and see

I hope this has been encouraging to you. I hope that is exalted

God edified and equipped the Saints If you are a believer in Christ, I hope this was edifying to you if you're not a believer in Christ, may

I? Evangelize you and tell you that as a someone who is not a

Christian you have Broken God's law just as I have and you need to repent

You need to turn from trusting yourself as a good person Trusting your good works turn and trust

Jesus Christ That's what all of us must do to be converted So I hope that that is helpful educational and encouraging to you

May you share this episode with others let others know about this so they too May learn maybe maybe you know a covenant theologian that needs to hear this

Because maybe they're too strong on the issue. Maybe a dispensational is too strong on the issue share it with them

Maybe you just want to encourage others So it would be a great help if you wouldn't mind sharing this such this episode with friends go

Text it out to five friends right now Just share this right now in whatever app you have share with five friends via text that would be wonderful and So I do thank you for listening all the way to the end and encourage you to Continue studying out

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