Tonight we're resuming our series on Amalennialism 101, and this is part two of a lecture entitled interpreting biblical prophecy, and we spent last time going over the basic methodological presuppositions that both Amalennial and dispensational Christians bring to the discussion Bible prophecy. Now I have concentrated on those two specific systems of thought because by and large, dispensationalists stand pretty much outside or different from the rest of historic Protestantism, and last time we talked about Amalennial presuppositions in the context of those general presuppositions held by Protestants. From the time of the Reformation, people who would have formed the five solas, grace, long faith, long Christ, long script, long glory to God alone. And then as we move a little farther along tonight, we'll talk more about those methodological presuppositions and how to analyze them, and then in the next lecture we'll move from kind of that broad generic Protestant historic Protestant hermeneutic, the analogy of faith and so on, to a specific reformed covenant hermeneutic, and we'll talk more in particular detail as we move along. So we're going from the broad and winnowing and getting narrower and more precise as we go along. So I wanted to tackle big picture questions first and they get more specific as we go along. So keep that in mind during our question and the answer session if you would. We want to kind of keep tonight on the broader big picture stuff and I guarantee you as we move along in the next couple weeks anyway, we'll get into very specific focus specifically the importance of a Christ-centered hermeneutic as opposed to an Israel-centered hermeneutic. This is a huge thing to grasp and it's very important to grasp and we'll start moving into that in the next several lectures. But tonight what I would like to do then is take up a very important point related to our understanding of Bible prophecy and how we interpret Scripture and that is the analogy of feeday or the analogy of faith. Now this essentially means that the interpretation of any biblical passage must be made in light of clear and unambiguous passages that speak to the same subject. So when the dispensational says to us, I hold to a literal interpretation of Scripture on its face especially among people who take the authority of Scripture seriously unlike say a liberal Protestant or Roman Catholic equates tradition on the same footing with Scripture. That sounds like a very compelling thing. Well of course I want to take the Bible literally. The question is are all genres in Scripture intended to be read literally? And the other question is what do we do when a New Testament writer does the very thing a dispensationalist says should not be done when for example a New Testament writer spiritualizes an Old Testament prophecy and applies an Old Testament passage that had referred clearly to Israel to the Church. What do we do then? What is the literal interpretation of that passage? So on its face literal interpretation sounds like the position every true Bible-believing Christian would hold and of course we're in sympathy with anyone who defends and affirms the authority of Scripture as God's word written. It's not a question of the authority here it's a question of the intention. Do we look at the Bible literally or do we compare Scripture with Scripture? And the analogy of faith in the analogy of faith is toward Protestant understand Scriptures not that we read the Bible literally but that we look at difficult passages and interpret them in light of clearer passages. Scripture interprets Scripture is the basic Protestant hermeneutic. So as we'll see when we're talking about passages that tend to be historical narrative passages where the context tells us that a literal thing is in view of course we interpret it literally but as we'll see tonight there are a number of cases we'll look at one in particular where it's very clear that the writer takes an Old Testament prophecy about Israel and applies it to the Church and that has to be dealt with on a case by case faces. Now when we talk about last things there therefore we've got to do in eschatology what we do everywhere else and that is interpret clear passages get a good schema from passages that are crystal clear and then look at more difficult passages in light of the clear ones. A classic case here given we're talking about millennial views is Revelation chapter 20. Now in a passage like that where John opens with a vision and I saw an angel coming down out of heaven who sees the dragon who is that serpent Satan bounding with the chain through him in the abyss shield him up for a thousand years am I to read that passage literally? On its face no if it were in second kings or in chronicles I'd read it one way. If it's in a book of apocalyptic literature like Revelation heavily loaded with symbols when the author is clearly pointing me to the Old Testament the symbols use in Revelation come right out of the Old Testament there if you you know my my thesis is get a empty three you know ESV new Americans stand or whatever listen to it the book of Revelation allowed you can just go on the internet and find listen to Revelation read aloud and tell me that a Jew in the first century who knew the Torah and the Psalter and the prophets wouldn't know pretty much what every illustration every figure of speech John uses in Revelation would apply directly to an Old Testament passage those things would just be almost immediate to a Jew steeped in the Old Testament but to us we're far removed from that world it's harder for us to make sense of the symbols in the book of Revelation so when we come to a passage like Revelation 20 all of it is to say we need other passages that are clearer to help us understand Revelation 20 and we went through this two weeks ago two lectures ago so bear with me we're going to a fair bit of repetition for example the Bible is very clear that when Christ comes back he raises the dead we know this from 1 Corinthians 15 verses 12 through 57 that great passage where Paul discusses the nature of the resurrection body he speaks of the resurrection of Christ as the triumph over sin and death he speaks in almost mocking terms of death where O death is your victory where O death is your your sting Christ resurrection is the the hope of the church 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 where Paul speaks of Christ's return his words are to those who are still alive until the coming of the Lord will be caught up to meet those in the air and the dead in Christ shall be raised passages that describe the general resurrection at the end of the age tell us that occurs when Christ comes back so before we even come to Revelation chapter 20 we know from clear passages that when Christ comes back he raises the dead what happens to those who are not believers well we know that judging the curse at that same time Matthew chapter 25 Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats and he says that when the Lord comes back he separates the sheep and the goats at his return and they're judged at that particular time so we know judgment occurs when Christ comes back right clear passage we know this also from the end of Revelation chapter 20 by the way verses 11 through 15 the end of that monial passage they have a very clear picture of the judgment when the beast and the false prophet are throwing in the lake of fire then we have the cosmic renewal second Peter chapter 3 where Peter tells us when the Lord returns the heavens burn up with a roar the elements are destroyed and there's a new heaven and a new earth that happens when Christ comes back so if based on clear passages we know that when Christ comes back he judges the world he raises the dead he makes all things new now we come to Revelation chapter 20 with its symbolism and try and make sense of it then after looking at these other passages that are clear everybody with me on that it's a it's a basic exercise in interpreting scripture clear passages first obscure passages later when you do that it's really clear before you even come to Revelation chapter 20 that there can't be people on the earth in natural bodies after Christ comes back why not because everybody's been raised judged and there's new heaven in the earth now we come to Revelation chapter 20 all of a sudden we read of thrones well where thrones in the book of Revelation they're not on earth they are in heaven so all of a sudden these things start to make a whole lot of sense and we have other clear passages to give us our interpretive grid so while it on its face interpreting the Bible literally sounds like that would be the way to go the better way is to argue for script reading self interpreting meaning that scripture interpret scripture and that we work from clearer passages to more difficult passages especially the Bible prophecy it would be easy to go to a very difficult or obscure text as many do and develop and that's got a logical scheme from the weird passages you know Ezekiel's wheels within wheels or some other such thing and look at that passage and isolation from everything else and create a disaster so this sounds pretty basic but I don't think people grasp the importance of clear passages unclear passages not a literal interpretation how do you interpret an unclear passage literally that's not an easy thing to do now this becomes especially the case when New Testament writers show a particular Old Testament passage actually pointed forward at Christ in this fulfilled in him um we our Christians were not Jews and when we come to the Old Testament now we have on our Christ's inner glass as we look at the Old Testament through the lens of Christ's fulfillment of everything promised in the Old Testament and so now we look back at the Old Testament and we see it as a book in which Christ is hidden in type and shadow so we look at the Old Testament as a common continuum with a New Testament Christ in type and shadow Christ comes in his first incarnation steps out from the shadows into the center of human history and now the New Testament writers after Jesus looked back at the Old Testament and they see based on the things Jesus himself has told them where that Old Testament passage pointed forward to Christ and as we'll see in next couple lectures Christ is the true Israel Christ is the true temple all of these things pointed to Christ he's the one that fulfills all those Old Testament motifs we know that because he told us he tells us as much so this is this is a really important thing to keep in mind as we proceed further now one writer has said in this regard and I this common is framed in light of the dispensational concern that okay that sounds good but in practice you all millennial people you spiritualize passages and we all know this is a really fluid method so you can make a passage save pretty much whatever you want it to say because you're not interpreting it literally this is a statement from a reform writer Floyd Hamilton back I think the book was originally written in the 20s but listen what Hamilton says about how we as omelinarians interpret biblical passages and see if you don't think this is pretty judicious and see if you don't think the dispensational criticism is overblown and I'll read this quote in entirely this is from Floyd Hamilton the basis the millennial faith quote but if we reject the literal method of interpretation as the universal rule for the interpretation of all prophecy how then are we to interpret them well of course there are many passages in prophecy that were meant to be taken literally in fact a good working rule to follow is that the literal interpretation of the prophecy is to be accepted unless a the passages contain obviously figurative language or B unless the New Testament gives authority for interpreting them in other than a literal sense or C unless a literal interpretation would produce a contradiction with truths principles or factual statements contained in non symbolic books of the New Testament
another obvious rule to be followed is that the clearest New Testament passages in non symbolic books are to be the norm for the interpretation of prophecy rather than obscure or partial revelations contained in the Old Testament in other words we should accept the clear and plain parts of scripture as the basis for getting the true meaning of the more difficult parts of scripture that's always been the historic Protestant hermeneutic and it just floors me when our dispensational friends will say to us yeah but you guys have no external controls you spiritualize prophecy if we're doing that without biblical warrant for it the criticism holds I'll grant the point if we're actually doing that the criticism holds as we're going to see in a minute that's not what we're doing and I think Hamilton gives us a pretty good working method as to how not to do that now the homelunial position holds that the New Testament is the final arbiter of the Old Testament and that we must interpret all Old Testament prophecy as to the writers of the New and so the Old Testament prophecy therefore must be placed in a certain historical context if it is to be interpreted correctly what I recommend that you do is to just kind of mentally have a timeline you know Genesis 1 1 Christ coming Christ 2nd coming and see where the writer is on that timeline if you've got Abraham you're back in the age of the patriarchs if you're talking about judges or Joshua you're in the time of the conquest and the blessing of Canaan you're in the era of David you're in the kingly rule if you're after David you're in the prophets you can kind of keep in mind where you are and then look at how the authors of the New Testament look back on that period and you have to ultimately allow the New Testament writers to make sense of Old Testament passages and we're going to have a case of this coming up in just a second so I want to move from theory to practice so you can see how this works so all that is to say get a book like Carson and Beale's commentary and the New Testament use of the Old Testament if you haven't seen that by it's worth even having an interest pain on your credit card it's so good it's so valuable and a book like that is in practice going to do great damage to dispensationalism because it shows us repeatedly how the New Testament writers drew on the Old Testament and as they draw on the Old Testament they reinterpret the Old Testament in light of the coming of Christ that's a huge point hermenutically as I mentioned last time our dispensational friends will say I'm in the Old Testament I'm looking into passage referring to Israel therefore standing at this vantage point I know what the New Testament writer has to say because the Old Testament writer says Israel's Israel he's got to mean Israel when we come to that in the New Testament because the Old Testament writer says so does that trouble you it should it really should and by the way that was John McArthur's argument in his speech at the Shepherd's conference with which I took issue no I've got to stand over here's a Christian and look back at the Old Testament from the perspective of Christ coming and his fulfillment of those Old Testament prophecies how did Jesus and the Apostles interpret that they tell me what the Old Testament was about so you've got to mentally have that timeline and move up you know where you are when you're reading an Old Testament passage if you're in judges if you're in you know Amos as we'll see in a bit kind of figure out mentally that it's on that continuum and biblical history and it points ahead if you're in the Old Testament the New Testament it not only you look back and see fulfillment but there's also an additional fulfillment with the second advent of Christ and you'll get a copy of Bill and Carson just see how the New Testament utilizes the Old Testament I think you'll see how dispensation is just coming apart at the seams with reference helps like that so the historic Protestant here I'm speaking generically again it's going to see eschatology is much more comprehensive and closely linked to the ebb and flow of redemption history than do many of the popular dispensational writers who she eschatology is almost exclusive concern with future events surrounding Israel in the return of Christ the irony is the reformed all millenarian has a much more comprehensive view of prophecy because we see so much of it as having a present impact on the church and give you a couple of concrete illustrations the kingdom of God if you're a dispensation you believe that Jesus came he brought an offer the kingdom to Israel what did Israel do with that offer they rejected it what did Jesus do with the kingdom he would drew the offer he took it to heaven and now dispensations argued there's some kind of meditorial kingdom in place now but it's not the kingdom of God that's not manifest fully until the millennial age Jesus and John the Baptist both said the kingdom of God is at hand the biblical writers in the New Testament speak of the kingdom of God as a present reality and what angered the religious establishment about Jesus was they were wanting Jesus to make that kingdom a geopolitical kingdom restore the throne to Israel and beat the crud out of the Romans and Jesus refused to do that because he kept saying my kingdom is not of this world it's not going to have a flag it's not going to have a country it's not going to have a CEO or a CFO it's not going to have a logo it's not going to have a PO box it's a heavenly kingdom is it present absolutely anytime you hear the gospel preach and witness a baptism or receive the Lord suffer the kingdom of God as at hand is it consummated yet no but it will be when Christ comes back another one our dispensational friends don't like the moonless triplets which is an important part of reform Christology even jucleus tend to operate on the savior Lord distinction the classic Protestant view has always been that Jesus is Prophet Christ and King so take for example Christ kingly office if you're a dispensation list the kingly office isn't fulfilled until Christ sits on David's throne in the millennial age the kingly office is a huge category for reform Christians because it's related to our doctrine of sanctification Christ in his current kingly rule is doing what he's ruling he's ruling in my heart through word and sacrament killing off the old sinful nature strengthening the new nature and so my sanctification isn't part the outworking of Christ present kingly rule so if you push that off into the future you have you lose a very important part of the Christian life in that Christ rules manifest in my own sanctification in the present not to mention Christ rule over his church the church isn't planned be by the way the church is not the big oops until God goes back to the thing with Israel again the church is the manifestation of the people God on earth during the new covenant era Christ kingly rule not only extends to his church he rules as Lord of his church and he says the gates of hell won't prevail against it he rules that it's king and his kingly rules manifest every in should be in every proper litter church in the office of minister elder and deacon so all of this stuff is his impact on the present we believe so the irony is those who talk about n times the most actually had the least to say while the reform on the other have virtually every part of the Christian life treated eschatologically because we see all these things as present realities not pushed off into the future so it's a big point now the historic Protestant hermeneutic as it's worked out in big picture stuff and again we'll get more specific in coming lectures exercises a very important role in the relation between biblical eschatology and current events scripture interpret scripture so that individual biblical passages cannot be interpreted in light of current events that's why you don't have an omeleneal halunzi we don't believe that the bible predicts a specific war or a specific earthquake we believe the bible tells us that the general pattern will be through the course of this age until christ comes back and ever intensifying cycle of war and peace they're going to be earthquakes they're going to be lots of wars they're going to be lots of famines there's going to be a lot of upheaval intermittent periods of peace and as jesus himself says this is like birth pains it starts to cycle until you get to the end and you if you've ever been present for delivery the child you know once those contractions start rocking and rolling it's kind of hard to tell if this is a break or this is it you don't really know and that's exactly what jesus describes the course of history so although the bible speaks to all areas of life this means that biblical prophecy isn't to be interpreted in light of the late breaking cable news channels and news magazines but it's the uncanny ability of these popular dispensational writers to link every sensational current event to a particular biblical text that gives them such a big edge in capturing the mind of so many evangelicals i can't explain to you every current event and appeal to a particular passage i can tell you that every my model explains every current event generally but not specifically but you watch some of those guys howl indian others and and this is why they're they're prophecy programs that basically turn into news analysis programs because they're watching current events and looking for specific biblical passages whereas reformed all colonial guys historic Protestants are going to be doing exegesis we're not going to be looking for particular current events we're going to be looking at the biblical understanding of eschatology and then basically letting that inform our understanding of the age around us so historic Protestants can't do that because eschatology requires this larger theological framework and that's where we have a series like omelonism 101 to kind of work out that larger framework and make sure we have it before us well how then do we start analyzing these various presuppositions work obviously kind of continuing the material we covered last week as well as we start to wrap up at the end of the day how do we evaluate our operating assumptions and our presuppositions well first thing it's a little minute we're all guilty of this so let's cop to it and try and do better there's a great deal of ad hominem argumentation on both sides omelon writers are often accused of being anti-semitic as as being basically Protestant liberals are accused of spiritualizing the Bible or not taking the Bible literally dispensationalists are accusing literalists and so on so let's try as best we can to be charitable of the other side and to talk about this on a textual basis arguing clearly avoiding the name calling him a label that just doesn't help that doesn't that doesn't get us any place we've got to look at our presuppositions we've got to put them before our eyes and say this is where I start these are my assumptions do they make sense from the passage do the passages speak to them and continue to read and form that's what we have to do or else there are two trains on parallel tracks that never meet and we just can all we can do is call each other names now it's also apparent that you know dispensations aren't literals in every every sense they get a lot of things right omelonarians don't spiritualize prophecy I think I'm gonna make a case here that we believe in a literal albeit spiritual reign of Christ we come to the conclusions we do because we have different presuppositions it's not a question of intelligence it's not a question of Christians versus non-Christians this is a division within the household of faith that the test is ultimately going to be which set a presuppositions fit with the biblical data and which presuppositions explain the greatest number of biblical passages with the least amount of tweaking and fudging that's going to be the test at the end of the age and it's important that we quote the best dispensational writers and it's important that dispensationalists read the best omelonial guys I frankly and if you're dispensations you're listening to this just so you know what gets under my skin is when someone like John MacArthur offers a criticism of omelonialism and I don't recognize my own position that's just not a proper approach you should know better and I think it goes to us as well we need to do our homework we need to quote from the best dispensational writers not the coups not it's it's improper to quote Hal Lindsey as though that's what dispensationalists believe quote Walward quote Pentecost quote Rierie quote the better dispensational writers and and dispensationalists need to do that with us as well read my court and got a promise and write a critique of that book read my case for omelonialism read Anthony Hookah was Bible in the future but don't just call us anti-Semites or do what Barry Horner did and just basically say well you're just regurgitating the the shameful errors of Romanism anyone who knows me knows I don't have a Roman bone in my body I'll say it again just for the record I think the masses of blasphemous idolatry I think Rome's view of the kingdom of God on earth as the institutional agency of the Roman Catholic Church I think the reformers were just in a certain sense to speak of that as an anti-Christ so let's not go there and let's stop that let's actually look at arguments and passages and it behooves us to try as well as our dispensational friends to try now another point that we have to consider here so we look at presuppositions is that omelonialism is a species of post-melonialism remember in my initial lecture I made the point that all omelonarians are post-melonial and that we believe Christ comes back after the millennial age not all post-melonarians are omelonial everybody got that so structurally there's a lot in common between omelon and post-mel the difference of opinion is over the nature and character of the millennial age and that's why when I wrote a case for omelonialism a lot of people said well you weren't hard enough on the predators or post-melonarians I wasn't writing to predators or post-melonarians I was writing to a garden variety evangelical influenced by dispensationalism in this series as we go along we'll devote some time to a critique of post-melonialism and the difference is how we understand the present millennial age now that being said the post-melonial position in that broad sense not of the contemporary theonomists the contemporary evangelical post-melonials but the omel-post-mel position has been the historic position of Christian church that's important to be aware of listen this quote from John Walburn I think this is very telling us to how significant this is this is quoting from Walburn's book the millennial kingdom quote because omelonialism was adopted by the reformers it achieved a quality of orthodoxy to which its modern inherent can point with pride they can rightly claim many worthy scholars in the succession from the reformation of modern times such as Calvin Luther Millington and modern times Warfield Boss Kuiper Mason and Berkhov if one follows traditional reform the origin many other aspects it is natural to accept its omelonialism and the weight of organized Christianity is largely been on the side of omelonialism and I say in response to that thank you that's exactly the point that's a huge huge admission now since omelonialism has its true deep in historic Christianity and especially in the Protestant reformation that means the burden of proof lies with the dispensationalist to prove his case and Evan joklaus just simply assumed the opposite because they happen to raise in dispensationalism and just assume that well you know my pastor's dispensational therefore it's gotta be true well how does that argument differ from the medieval Roman Catholic they said you know I don't know anything about the Bible my priest believes it so okay um it doesn't mean omelonialism is true but it means that the newer position dispensationalism assumes the burden of proof they have to overturn the tradition not only of Rome but the tradition all the Protestant reformers and all of those churches that help in the Protestant reformation so dispensations is a new kid on the block it assumes the burden of proof dispensationalist of the ones that have to make the case that the traditional position is wrong therefore we as omelonial people can't get our shorts in a lot when dispensationalist challenges that's what we're asking them to do but to assume that dispensationalism is what every bible within christian should believe and anyone who doesn't believe that is a liberal or sympathetic Roman Catholicism is as many contemporary dispensations argue is just nonsense in a lot of the historical record now I don't know about you I would rather be on the side of the major thinkers in christian history Augustin and Aquinas and Lutheran Calvin in addition the great mass of reform and Lutheran scholastic theologians all of the Lutheran and reform creed by the way we're fucked omelonial viewpoint it doesn't mean they're right but I like having those guys on my side I think when the great lights of christendom agree on something I think that's an important point and I'm going to be attracted to them as opposed to somebody who's not part of that tradition
so it doesn't mean that omelonialism is true because it has great historical support but it's impressive point and it should be noted as walver did and I think it it says something that we ought to consider as an external check on our presuppositions now furthermore it has to be noted on the flip side of this that dispensationalism has a questionable pedigree that is a relatively recent origin I as a dispensationalist used to bristle when I would hear people talk about how dispensationalism started with Margaret McDonald and some little girl had a vision and that's the whole thing they came out of the Irving Heights well there's some sense in which that may or may not be the case I think we have to treat dispensationalism as a species of premelonialism that arose with Don Elson Darby who was not a cuck it comes out of the brethren movement their antecedents to it in other places in church history not many but they're there but and again that doesn't mean dispensationalism's faults but it means that it is a somewhat new system of thought and it's been widely accepted by a rather a historical American church when we talk about why dispensations were so widely accepted in just a second and that adds weight I think to the arguments that dispensations bears the responsibility of proof this is the newest interpretation its origins are a bit questionable let's look at them in the best possible light sincere Christians coming to them what they think is the truth in scripture but it's recent and their clouds around it that's just how it is and dispensationalists need need to consider that now they're also a number of important social and cultural factors that give us a pretty good amount of evidence as to why dispensationalism has been so popular among American evangelicals now if you haven't read the book by George Marsden entitled Fundamentalism in American Culture you need to read that book it reads like a novel Marsden explains why it was that conservative evangelicals in America who were post millennial after the civil war by the time of rule war one are switching in mass numbers to dispensationalism what caused that great change from people who were overwhelmingly optimistic about the future into people who were incredibly pessimistic about the future what happens in American culture well Marsden looks at that question and he also shows why it was that the confessional reform Christians were so marginalized at that time confessional Protestants were the majority by the end of this kind of shift in evangelicals and were the minority now one of the things that comes up for examples prohibition the reform did not like prohibition there's the famous story of John Murray professor Westminster seminary Phil Delphi during the days of prohibition who was known to have some very fine single malt scotch hidden away and there's a famous story of the student who fainted and everyone rushed to his aid and the student said I felt really bad you want really help just be just a little taste professor Murray and professor Murray and his best Scottish brogues said I laddy you're not men enough Westminster's always kind of fit on that that historic Protestants didn't see alcohol as something that was unknown for Christians moderation certainly was the rule of the day so in the mainline Presbyterian Church this debate over prohibition and you have the evangelical left the Protestant liberals thinking alcohol was the great social evil so if you follow the historical progression you see the the liberal left in America today they were totally opposed to alcohol consumption Walter Rauschen Bush and others this was the great evil wrecking our cities who was if it sided with the liberals in the Presbyterian Church that came to their decision on it was the evangelical wing and so the reform confessional folk who for theological reasons who didn't feel it right to bind the man's conscience to something scripture didn't forbid who ended up becoming marginalized by those who thought this was the big social crusade of the age so Marcy is a good job of explaining how it is the confessional process because of their they didn't stand on the left or the right end up getting kind of just pushed out of everything so if you have read Marcy's book you really really need to one of the things that comes out of that book is the rise of the prophecy conference prophecy conference came in response largely to churches that were starting to see this radical German criticism come in attacking the authority of scripture and one of the ways in which Protestants identified themselves as conservatives who opposed liberalism was they affirmed the virgin birth the deed of Christ the bodily second coming and they began then to organize prophecy conferences as a way of expressing this allegiance to Christ's imminent return and now that Bible prophecy conference movement comes basically this massive increase in the number of evangelicals who are dispensational so Marcy does a great job of describing that now what was World War One called the Great War the war to end all wars so the Chicago world's fair in the 1880s was the height of American optimism you had the the famous exhibit of the train that laid its own track I mean it was onward and upward nothing could stop us World War One comes along and over that that see 30 year period in between there all the sudden things go from optimism to pessimism World War One is the war to end all wars all of Europe's men folk are wiped out most of France and Belgium are inhabitable because of mustard gas in the fields you know landmines everywhere trenches it's it's horrible after World War One comes the Great Depression not only across all of Europe but certainly the United States the Depression Europe the post-World War One moves Europe in a more radical existential way philosophically Europeans having very dark view of the world very gloomy very pessimistic meanwhile the little pressure wallpaper hanger is starting to organize political parties and anti-Semitism the sweeping everywhere across Europe World War Two comes on the scene and God bless the greatest generation for
basically eliminating totalitarian anarchy and preserving our our rights culture shifts again to more optimism but the Cold War begins and you have this an eye group in a culture where I'm older than most of you here I recall in elementary school having to get under my desk and turn my back to the window for a duck and cover drill in case somebody dropped a nuke on the Los Ole Miss Naval Air Station that was the world in which I grew up in fear of the Soviet Union communist could be in our government then as the Cold War starts to to intensify you have the Middle East situation and it was a Soviet Union who saw in these the Arab Brotherhood states like Egypt and like Syria potential clients that could oppose the West and so the Soviet Union starts arming all these tinhorn dictatorships in the Middle East and ratcheting with the pressure and of course the natural enemy of all of that's going to be one tiny little democratic state Israel and so that whole situation arises and throughout that whole time of upheaval and fear of world war fear of nuclear war one theological tradition says ah that's all explained in scripture why is it that when Lake Great Planet Earth is published in 1969 it becomes the best-selling book in the United States for the next 10 years the best-selling book in the United States because how long he could explain all these events they were foretold in the biblical Hebrew prophets it all centered around Israel and so we end up in a situation where when people aren't certain about the future when they're afraid of what might come to pass dispensationalists can assure them that when things go from bad to worse the church is going to be raptured off the earth and that Christians aren't going to be around to experience the great tribulation of the wrath of any Christ it's the natural answer to the angst that everybody was feeling so it's interesting I've grown up in this stuff it's interesting to watch how dispensational literature has changed there was great fear of the rise of the 10 nation Roman Confederacy how many nations in the EU now like 17 or 18 or 19 have lost track that doesn't work anymore what about the rise of Egypt and Syria and Iraq those were going to be the nations from Ezekiel 38 God and may God rest from the north well it's the Soviet Union and now the Soviet Union is gone I think the most interesting thing to look at is dispensational literature popular stuff written in the 40s and 50s identifying Israel then as the beginning of this generation and watching them read through the course of the years as to how many years or a generation this generation will not pass and all these things happen well first it was 25 years and then it was 30 from the day of the Balfour Declaration the birth of Israel you start adding 20 years as 1968 1978 1988 98 were past a generation which just generally can see this 40 year so it's interesting to just watch the evolution of this is these things haven't quite played out the way they're supposed to play out so when you tie your wagon to cultural change you know you have the embarrassing problem of it not coming to pass and that's why we have to be very very careful about interpreting credit events and a lot of biblical prophecy now if we're consistent with our own hurting community then we can't do this and the fallout of this is that I don't think dispensational themselves are aware of how much there is this kind of a symbiotic relationship between the culture and Bible prophecy sometimes Bible prophecy influences culture sometimes it's influenced by the culture you have a for example Paul Boyer's book when times will be no more making the case that this dispensationalism has now made its way to the Christian right which is made its way into several republican administrations as the dispensations are directing American foreign policy I think that's a lot of who we I think this is grossly overborn by guys like Boyer but the fact that the questions even raised you know ought to be one of these warning lights that says culture is going to influence how we interpret prophecy why is it that all of a sudden in the reforms circles there was a rise of theonomy during the Reagan administration things are starting to get better maybe that millennium could actually happen on earth so culture does influence this and I again I don't agree with Boyer's position but I think it's it's important to point out that people are asking the question and we have to consider it upside down there we go now the difference between these two millennial viewpoints than as we've said are largely different are largely based upon our presuppositions we bring to the text and because of this literal interpretation prophecy the dispensationalism has to see the Old Testament as the determinant of category the classic example of this is that the book of Revelation must be interpreted by the book of Daniel how could I say that well John Walbert's same as commentary on Daniel bears this out Daniel the key to prophetic revelation it seems to me that when Daniel closes up his vision what happens at the end of Daniel Daniel chapter 12 Daniel's order to do what seal up the scroll what is John doing the book of Revelation the angel opens the scroll there's only one word to open the scroll so that which Daniel had been ordered to seal John now sees unfolding before his eyes so which is it is Daniel the key to the book of Revelation the book of Revelation tells what Daniel was prophesying and it's obviously the latter and that's why dispensationalism is so problematic now this leaves the dispensationalist in the very awkward position of having to insist upon an Old Testament interpretation of a prophetic theme it's been reinterpreted in the New Testament we're going to get very specific here now although the dispensationalist claims to read scripture literally in actuality the dispensationalist ends up reading the passage literally whenever they downplay or ignore how a particular Old Testament passage is interpreted by the authors of the new and so at the end of the day the irony is the literal sense of the passage is the Old Testament text interpreted by the New Testament writer although the dispensationalist says know the Old Testament text is ultimately determinative in the manual question and so what this means for our discussion is then the dispensationalist doesn't interpret these passages literally at all rather the passages are applied with this literalistic sense that circumventes the plain meaning of the passage all right that sounds great in theory let's get real specific here turn your Bibles to Acts chapter 15 that famous Presbyterian passage the meeting of the general assembly those of you who know the debate in Reform Church government I'm making a joke everything decently in good order very important passage but some men that came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers unless you were circumcised according to custom Moses you cannot be saved who were these men who came down from Judea that the Judeaizers they had been plaguing what congregation Galatia and after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension in debate with them Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were pointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question so being sent on their way by the church they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria describing and detailed the conversion of the Gentiles and brought great joy to all the brothers and when they came to Jerusalem they were welcomed by the church the apostles and the elders and they declared all that God had done with them but some believers who belonged to the part of the Pharisees rose up and said notice we still have believers in the church belonging to the part of the Pharisees we're still in a transitional phase here it's pretty clear it is necessary to circumcise them and order them to keep the law of Moses this is the big question in the New Testament as Gentiles become Christians they're eating stuff at the church potluck that is just grossing out Jewish Christians if you can stuff it into an intestine some German Christian had probably done it brought it it gets you know here some Jewish family all of a sudden has to look at Aunt Martha's you know stuffed intestines or roast hogmuckles or something and Jews are thoroughly grossed out by the stuff Gentiles eat in addition Gentiles engage in what you can only call sexual promiscuity and so the Gentiles are saying to the Jewish Christians who's this Moses guy you keep talking about while the Jews are looking at Gentiles and saying but Paul look at them they still live like dogs and so that's the issue here and the Jewishers come into this period of time and they're saying no no no no unless you were circumcised you cannot be saved so Paul and Barnum has to deal with that that historical problem and the apostles the elders together together consider this matter for seven and after it's been much debate Peter stood up and said to them brothers you know that in the early days God made a choice among you that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe and God in those the heart were witnesses to them giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us now later on in the New Testament that's interpreted the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles as if the film of what God promised Abraham and we'll talk more about that in coming weeks and he made no distinction between them and us having cleansed their hearts by faith now I thought they're two productive programs one for Jews and one for Gentiles God made no distinction between them and us oops having cleansed their hearts by faith now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither are fathers nor we've been able to bear the law crushed us without the gospel but we believe that we'll be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus just as they will now Gentiles are going to be saved by the grace of God through faith and Christ just as Jews are saved by the same same gospel and all the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnum and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles now put yourself back in this time if you were a Jew you see Jesus as your Messiah you're still living as a Jew and all the sudden Gentiles start coming out of the woodwork and coming to church they love Jesus but they don't get it what's going on and it troubles the conservatives because all these new people are coming in and so this has to be settled after they finish speaking James replied brothers listen to me so who spoke in Peter James listen to James speech carefully brothers listen to me simmine has related how God first visited the Gentiles to take from them a people for his name
and with this the words of the prophets agree the words of the wet the prophets agree
just as it is written after this I will return and rebuild the tent of David that has fallen I will rebuild its ruins and restore it that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles are called by my name says the Lord who makes these things known from of all that by the way is a prophecy of the book of Amos therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God we can't make them be Jews or Gentiles but we should write them to abstain from things polluted by idols from sexual immorality and from what has been strangled and from blood from the ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him for he's read in every Sabbath in the synagogues so to keep the peace Gentiles are going to be instructed not to do certain things not to be justified but to keep the peace in the church now why is this passage so important most passages huge in Acts 15 Barnabas and Paul were pointed by the church in Antioch to go to Jerusalem and report on the salvation of the Gentiles and see kelp and resolving the question that had been troubling the church as a result should Gentile converts be circumcised in order to be saved that's the questions dividing the churches now taking issue with this unwarranted connection between ritual circumcision and and deliverance from God's wrath Paul Barnabas went down the Jerusalem to seek the guidance of the elders in the apostles and that's by the way why we believe that a church is ruled by the elders assembling together in a general assembly to make decisions that affect the church body once in the city Paul Barnabas report on all the things that God was doing among the Gentiles which was you know unbelievably dramatic and sensational if you're a Jew this just would have rocked your world this would be like all of a sudden as Christians finding say the the atheist society all of them once becoming Christians or at the local mosque all of a sudden they've left the mosque they're all in church now and we'll be going what on earth is going on that's exactly how the Jews are they can't believe what they're seeing and so in certain Pharisees expressed their opinion that Gentiles must be circumcised in obeying the law of Moses Peter addresses the assembly and he refused the Pharisees arguments by pointing out that it was God who had given these Gentiles the Holy Spirit remember that had been promised to the descendants of Abraham now we suddenly learned that Gentiles are descendants of Abraham I wish I could do Jewish accents there's just you know there's a perfect line we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved just as they are now after listening to Paul and Barnabas recount the amazing things God's doing among the Gentiles then James gets up and speaks in verses 13 and following God at first showed his concern by taking from the Gentiles of people for himself the word of the prophets are in agreement with this as it is written the prophets agree that God has taken a people for his name and James cites the passage from Amos chapter 9 verses 11 and 12 after this I will return rebuild David's fall intent it ruins I will rebuild and I will restore it that the remnant of men may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who hear my name says the Lord who does these things that have been known for ages now what's significant about that is that James sees this passage this prophecy as fulfilled in what's going on in Acts chapter 15 this passage is fulfilled in Christ resurrection his exaltation and in his reconstitution of all of these people coming to Christ as a new Israel furthermore the presence of Jew and Gentile in the church is the proof that the prophecy of Amos has been fulfilled David's fall intent that Jews believed to be referring to Israel is now clearly been rebuilt by Christ and so in the Amos prophecy after this indicates that as originally uttered the prophecy refers to what God will do for Israel after the exile and Israel comes back to the promised land but then in Acts chapter 15 James how dare he applies this prophecy to the church now our dispensational friends standing over here looking at the New Testament have said no Israel means Israel and we come to a prophecy like that New Testament it has to be Israel because the prophet says Israel when we come to a New Testament fulfillment James and Peter the Apostles look at a passage in Amos and they say oh that makes perfect sense in the light of Christ you all see how significant that is in other words is James spiritualizing an Old Testament text or was James reading the Old Testament through a Christ center lens typical of the greater light of the Post-Messianic age you put on your Christ glasses the prophecy of Amos now makes perfect sense Amos is predicting Gentile salvation Amos is predicting that these Gentiles coming to faith in Christ is the rebuilding of David's tent and that question lies at the heart of the debate between dispensationalists and omulinarians now the problem with dispensationalism can be seen in this very passage in the famous notes of the Schofield reference Bible from 19 and 9 Schofield says look this speech is the most important in the New Testament wow okay why does Schofield say that well according to Schofield James is describing what will happen after the church age concludes after this that is in the Millennium when God will reestablish the Davidic rule over Israel now think about that let me read it again James is describing what will happen after the church age concludes after this in the Millennium when God will reestablish a Davidic rule over Israel now if true that means that when Paul and Barnabas seeking resolution for a matter in the present the pastoral problem facing the churches in Acts 15 and when the cases cited that both Jews and Gentiles are presently being saved by God's grace that's why everyone is rejoicing and yet why everyone is perplexed James instead supposedly points to the future Millennium thousands of years away is that what James is doing and the answer is absolutely not and this is one case a clear cut case where dispensational presuppositions absolutely get in the way of the plain sense of the text Schofield cannot interpret the text literally at all but literally you get some contemporary dispensational writers who realize the reform have picked up on this and use this as a club this is one of our strongest arguments some dispensational writers will say in response will you just nullify Israel nullified Israel no I'm basically trying to follow what Paul and Barnabas and Peter and James say is going on with Gentiles getting saved this is what was intended for Israel all along this is how Israel is the failed this argument about replacement theology just doesn't cut we don't believe that the church replaces Israel we think that God has one people and the Old Testament are mostly ethnic Jews although certainly some repentant when Jonah preached in Nineveh there are some repentant when Josh Leonard's in the Canaan and their Gentiles also but it's probably Jewish and all of a sudden you know when Christ comes all of a sudden or a few Jews remaining now and God adds a gazillion Gentiles and the issue is here God's added a gazillion Gentiles and the Jews are going what on earth is this and James Jesus's brother stands up and says that's what Amos predicted Schofield says no no no no that is not to the morning now I just scratch my head and say that's not what the text says and why I scratch my head I can say I scratch it too hard the point is that the dispensations has already said that verse can't mean what it says because of their presuppositions when you come to that passage you can't read it as it's written because you've said no no there are two purposes one for Jews and Schofield says this is the most important speech in the New Testament okay I'll take you for granted it's the most important speech you can't make sense of it that's a big problem so some dispensations will say well you all millennial people can see that it has yet a future of him as well absolutely this is the start of something this doesn't end it the David's fallen tent is still being rebuilt but it started then it doesn't start in the millennium so as we go through the following sections then in the coming weeks I'm going to I'm trying to do this from a number of different places where in practice the dispensations just ends up having to reinterpret any New Testament passage it doesn't fit his data in what I think you all see as a pretty contrived man or in this one of the big weaknesses of dispensationalism now ironically dispensational presuppositions don't fit with much of the interpretation supply to Old Testament data by New Testament authors and so that's why we'll spend in coming weeks some time on a thorough survey of New Testament and Old Testament categories that I think will continue to make this very point more importantly a survey like that gives us the proper framework that we need to interpret biblical prophecy with external controls remember dispensations are rightly concerned about us spiritualizing not having external controls well we're going to argue the external control is what the apostles themselves say about the Old Testament I think that's a pretty safe control do you not would you not agree that's a pretty safe what the apostles say about it's a pretty good control and so the great irony at the end of this discussion is that the dispensationalist very bold assertion that all prophetic texts have to be interpreted in a literalistic fashion actually amounts to a repudiation of the historic Protestant hermeneutica in the principle of the analogy of faith dispensationalists are out here when the rest of Protestantism is over here they really have gone out on a limb and they're kind of saw in the branch off behind themselves and so it is the dispensationalist who ends up ignoring the eschatological framework of the New Testament thereby overriding the interpretation the New Testament gives of the Old Testament and its types and shadows now on the other hand if the Omnilinarian adopts the New Testament writers interpretation of the Old Testament it's he not in fact following the literal sense of scripture even if the New Testament writer universalizes something that is limited to Israel in the Old Testament giving another case the land promised Abraham it runs on two tracks Moses interprets it according to the blessing works principle about Sinai but Abraham interprets it is never asking promise Romans 413 Abraham is the heir of Israel he's the heir of the world that's Paul that's not an Omnilinarian universalite that's Paul so the dispensationalists then have to say no that passage can't mean that Romans 413 can't mean that the Abraham promises to extend the world because Israel means Israel and no James and Peter can't mean that the church is David's fallen tent rebuilt because Israel means Israel and so the irony is it's the dispensationalists at the end of the day who can't take the text literally and is not the Omnilinarian taking the apostles interpretation reading the text literally because it's the apostle who spiritualizes the promise and so this is why it's so important that we be clear that this lyristic practice of reading prophetic passages can't be confused with the literal reading because the literal reading allows the New Testament to interpret the Old and so it's the Omnilinarian then I would argue who follows the literal sense of how the New Testament writers interpret Old Testament prophecy and I think the dispensationalists ends up defaulting it at a number of points well time for questions so you can mosey up to the mic if you have any and just I'll let you know next time we'll talk about what I think is the internal architecture scripture and that is the covenant theology we see unfold throughout the pages of scripture so we're going to move into covenant and then the following week start to talk about some of these specific themes that are found in the Old Testament reinterpreted in the news