The
following message was delivered by John
MacArthur Jr., of Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 90-36,
titled “I. F. C. A. Meeting (6-26-89)” Part 1.
A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box
4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE.
I have made every effort to ensure that an accurate
transcription of the original tape was made.
Please note that at times sentence structure may appear to vary from
accepted English conventions. This is
due primarily to the techniques involved in preaching and the obvious choices I
had to make in placing the correct punctuation in the article.
It is my intent and prayer that the Holy Spirit will
use this transcription to strengthen and encourage the true Church of Jesus
Christ.
Tony Capoccia
Independent Fundamental Churches of America (I. F. C.
A.) Meeting
Part 1
by
John MacArthur Jr.
Copyright 1989
All Rights Reserved
Brother Gregory: A number of years ago, when I was pastoring
here, we had Dr. MacArthur scheduled for a prophetic conference, and I remember
sitting in my office, when I got a call from him, and he said, “Brother
Gregory, I was just talking to my elders the other night, and they said that I
needed to cut back a little bit on my schedule, could I ask if I could please
be excused from coming for this “round-robin” prophetic conference. That’s the closest I ever got to having you
come here, John.
I have had the opportunity to get to know Dr.
MacArthur personally on several occasions when I visited Southern
California. He is a member of the
I.F.C.A., not by convenience but by conviction. He is one of our brothers.
He is one of our family. He has
had a very high exposure in terms of his radio ministry, his tape ministry, and
his writing ministry. I would hate
personally to have everybody picking apart everything I said, but then again
I’d be in a lot more trouble than anyone might say you are, John, across the
country. But because he is one of our
number, one of our family, and because there have been part of our family who
have had certain questions about certain things that Dr. MacArthur has written
or said. We have opted for the proper
way of dealing with that kind of
situation. You see we are seeking for a
oneness. We’re seeking for solutions,
not for winning of one side over another, for understanding. So we’ve invited him here today in order
that you might be able to receive individual and personal answers.
I trust today that as we listen that we’ll listen with
ears that are eager to hear rather than to block out. And I pray that the Holy Spirit of God—this is my prayer—that the
Holy Spirit of God will enable us to come to a clear understanding. Now I don’t ask you all to agree, “heaven
knows” this many independents together,
we’d never agree on a lot of things.
Someone said that if you get three of them together you got five
opinions. But we are asking to
understand so that we might really be able to say “I know what he believes” or
“I know what I believe” and then we can make decisions and make them in a
proper, godly way.
Dr. MacArthur is serving in the Grace Community Church
in California. This is the site of the
convention next year according to the action of the committee in November, as
we have been told. If there is going to
be any change it is going to be because we understand, not because we have
reacted.
So I have asked Dr. MacArthur to come—we as a
committee have asked him to come—and he has graciously agreed to come. He is not on trial, he is here as our
brother. So John, come and share with
us. I told him that he has to come
across the auditorium to get up this way.
John MacArthur: (Long Applause) I think I’m glad to be
here. I’ll know for sure in a little
while. The last time I stood like this
before a rather large and erudite group of I.F.C.A. people was at my
ordination. I was ordained into the
I.F.C.A. having graduated at Talbot Seminary and that was a very imposing
ordination process, and the ordination process that we now use at our church is
a child of the I.F.C.A. process and I trust equally as thorough. I even to this day remember some of the
questions like: “Name and date all of the postexilic, preexilic, and exilic
Minor Prophets,” which I’ve had tremendous occasion to use in my radio ministry
through the years. (Audience Laughter)
I keep it fresh for no other reason—the devotional value of such
information. (Audience Laughter)
But I was ready on that day, perhaps more ready than I
am today. I am very glad to be here and
I just want you to know it’s a joy to share in fellowship with you. My father was, for a number of years, very
involved with the I.F.C.A.. I have
maintained my interest and my passion for the things that you hold true, and I
do count myself as your brother in Christ, and in terms of where we stand
doctrinally, and I want to do anything I can to clarify the things that I
believe the Bible teaches.
I am not going to stand here and say there are no
errors in my theology. The problem is I
don’t know where they are. If I knew
where they were I’d change them and so would you. You’d change yours. But
none of us is claiming infallibility.
Over the years of teaching the word of God, without a lot of
presuppositions, I tend to conclude whatever I believe the exegetical process yields and that’s why I’ve arrived
where I have. Unfortunately, everything
I say is spread all over the place.
It’s a very serious responsibility.
Somebody said to me one time, “We’re going to record your message. It’s not that we want to hear it again, we
want to hold it against you when you’re wrong.” There’s a sense in which that kind of overexposure does leave some
question so I certainly would want to clarify anything I possibly could. And I would want you to help me to better
understand the Word of God. I have no
personal agenda. I want to understand
the God’s Word in all its truth, and I think till the day I die I trust I’ll be
a learner and open to whatever input can give me a better understanding. So thank you for giving me this opportunity.
Board Member: Before we begin I’d like to ask Dr. Gregory to lead us in prayer.
Brother Gregory: Thou art our Father. O our God.
And we want to thank You for the privilege of being able to say that You
are our Father. To know Thee, to walk
with Thee. And we pray that in these
next few moments and perhaps hours, that as we stand before Thee, that we might
remember that we stand before a God who knows the thoughts and the intents of
our hearts, and we thank Thee for this, because we know that the heart is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. So we pray Lord that in
these next few moments that You will give us all a desire to know the truth,
and not only to know it but to commit ourselves to live by it. In Jesus name. Amen.
The Blood of Christ
Board Member: The first category will be concerning the blood of Christ. Question number one, Dr. MacArthur, what do
you believe is the shedding of Jesus’ blood in the redemptive process?
John MacArthur: Well let me
address question of the blood of Christ in a direct way, because this is such
an important issue, such a potentially volatile issue. First of all let me say, the blood of
Christ is precious, and I would not equivocate on that—it is precious
blood. I believe that blood, the blood
of Christ, the term “blood” is the chief New Testament term to describe the
atonement. I think it is a comprehensive
term and I think that when it is indicated in the New Testament, it is indicated
as a term encompassing the atoning work.
I do not believe that the New Testament teaches that
the blood of Christ, in the epistles when it’s used, simply refers to the fluid
in the body of Christ.
I believe that it embraces the atoning work.
For we have been redeemed by the shedding of His blood—that encompasses
all of the atonement. It is interesting
to note that though Jesus shed His blood at the cross He didn’t bleed to death. It’s very clear that He yielded up His life
at least three hours before His heart was pierced—His side was pierced, and
when He died and there rushed forth blood it indicates that He had not bled to
death. There was plenty of blood still
there, apparently to have sustained His life.
He died, not because He bled to death, but because He yielded up His
spirit.
Now what are people teaching about the blood?
There are some teaching today that it was not human, but it was it blood of
God. And typically they use one obscure
interpretation of one verse, Acts 20:28, which talks about the church, which
has been purchased with His blood. They
make the antecedent of “His”—“God” .
That is an arbitrary use of the Greek.
The antecedent of the blood could equally be Christ in that
context. But even more importantly
there is no reference in the New Testament to the blood, as the “blood of God”
ever. Every mention of the blood
connected with a personality is connected with Christ. It is always the “blood of Christ,” the
“blood of His cross.” Never does it say
the “blood of God.” That is a rather
new interpretation, by the way, of Acts 20:28, that I have never been able to
find in any commentary.
Secondly, some are teaching today that it was eternal
and incorruptible.
They use I Peter 1:18, and I’m sure you’re familiar with that. They try to push the parallel there,
“knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold
from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious
blood,” and so they want to say that since you were not redeemed with
perishable things you were redeemed with precious blood, the precious blood
must be imperishable. But that’s not
the parallel. The parallel is between
perishable things and precious blood.
And nothing in this text says that it is eternal and incorruptible
fluid.
Others are teaching that this eternal, incorruptible
blood of God, following this line of thought, is now preserved forever in
heaven.
In other words, it was somehow collected at the foot
of the cross, carried in some kind of receptacle into the presence of God, and
now occupies a place in heaven.
That particular viewpoint, basically, they draw from
Hebrews nine [9:11] when Christ appeared as high priest of good things to come:
“He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with
hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats
and calves, but through His own blood.”
They would translate the preposition there “with his own blood” which
again is an arbitrary translation A
better translation is “through” as noted in the New American Standard. He
entered into the holy place through his own blood and not with
his own blood. But again there are
those who choose to identify it as with and say Jesus' blood
somehow was collected, given back to Him, and transported by Him into heaven.
Furthermore, this new view of the blood, that is
becoming quite popular, says that it is still being poured out on the heavenly
mercy seat even today. That when a
person is saved there is some kind of a pouring out and regathering of that
blood. I've had that conversation with
a number of people who have taken issue with what I have said. They use Hebrews 12:24—“the sprinkled
blood.” That statement regarding the
“sprinkled” blood to indicate that it is constantly being sprinkled in heaven
as an ongoing, incessant offering for sin.
Then they say further that the blood is never a symbol
for death in the New Testament—It always is the fluid.
In fact, there was a group of Baptists that met sometime
back and they voted on that in their statement, that whenever the blood of
Christ is mentioned in the New Testament it is always referring to the fluid
and blood is never a symbol for death.
Unfortunately they again turn to Hebrews chapter nine to try to
“proof-text” that, verses 13 and 14, where it just says, “the blood of Christ,
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself” and so forth “without blemish
to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God". So they say it's the actual fluid that
somehow cleanses you. One person said
to me, “I don't know how, and I don't know where, and I don't know what it
involves, but somehow the real fluid is poured out on my sins.”
Furthermore, this view has also held, that [there] was
“in the body of Christ,” a blood form, that was not derived from Mary.
Have you heard that? And since Jesus
had no human father . . . I remember DeHaan used to teach, “that the blood of
the father comes into the son or the child and the blood of the mother never
does, and thus the sin nature was never passed on to Jesus because he had no
earthly father.” My brother-in-law is
the head of anesthesiology for one of the largest hospitals in Los Angeles,
Cedar Sinai, and he says that is medically not true. The blood of the mother does pass through the fetus. It has been tracked because they can “tag”
blood cells. They know that as a fact.
Now where does all of this come from? Let me give you a little bit of
history. This all comes basically from
a man named J. A. Bingle (sp.) who lived from 1687 to 1752. And what we are having today is an echo of a
Bingleian heresy that the church rejected in the eighteenth century, that held this very mystical view of the
blood of Christ.
First of all let me just briefly answer these things
and I think we can put the whole issue to rest.
1. Number one,
they say it was not human blood. Not
human blood.
You cannot base that on Acts 20:28, that is a completely arbitrary statement,
because it says "the church of God which He purchased,"
that therefore the He must modify God and therefore the blood is
the blood of God. As I said before,
there is no biblical reference to the blood of God at all. That is an arbitrary choice of antecedents
in that passage.
Furthermore we know that Jesus produced His own blood like every other human
being produces his own blood. The blood
of a mother that passes through the fetus in the womb is minimal. The blood of any human being is produced by
that human being and any medical doctor can give you the background. The largest single portion of whole blood is
comprised of erythrocytes (or red blood cells) derived from the liver and later
the bone marrow. A smaller portion is
made of white cells manufactured in lymphoid tissue also in the bone
marrow. The red cells as you know
sustain life and the white cells fight infection. More portions of blood; platelets, clotting factors, and
immunoglobulins, and albumins, and those kind of things are also produced in
the liver, the lymph system, and the bone marrow. The point is this: Every human being, every fetus, produces;
generates its own blood system. Every
embryo. Jesus had blood that developed
in him just like it developed in any other human being.
I want to say at this point I reject the Apollinarian
error. I reject the view of Apollinaris
who said, that Jesus Christ was the combination of God [and] man only in the
sense, that God entered a human body and nothing more. I believe that Jesus was fully man, not only
in body but in personality, and in nature.
He was man, one hundred percent fully man and in order to be fully man,
which you remember the councils affirmed that He was back as early as 381. He had to be all that a man is. Not some kind of human, some bloodless human
with some infused divine substance.
There are so many problems with that particular viewpoint, not the least
of which is: Where was this blood of
God before Jesus? Where was it floating
around? Because if it was the blood of
God we're going to have to answer that question and then we're going to have to
answer the question: how can a spirit have blood? Jesus said a spirit has not . . . what? . . . flesh and
bones.
2. The second thing that they say is that it was
eternal and incorruptible, but nothing indicates that in the New Testament
either.
The parallel as I said is between perishable things
and precious blood. Nothing says it was
imperishable or eternal. What the
atonement accomplished was eternal.
These people who say that His blood was eternal might have to also deal
with the fact that what about the rest of his bodily fluids? And what about His fingernails and His—you
don't even want to get into that kind
of fantasy. The Bible says nothing
about that—absolutely nothing.
3. Thirdly they say, “it was preserved in
heaven.”
I pointed out that, “He entered into heaven through
His blood,”—not with His blood.
Furthermore they say that, “it is being poured out on a heavenly mercy
seat, the sprinkled blood being continually poured out.” I just warn you against this error. I'll tell you why. That is nothing but Roman Catholic/Anglo-Catholic theology of the
perpetual offering of the blood of Christ.
That is not a Protestant viewpoint.
That is heresy. The sacrifice of
Jesus Christ is not repeatable. It
cannot be repeated. You can't have some
mystical dumping of blood going on incessantly in heaven without somehow
convoluting the statement—the clear statement—that, “He has by one offering
perfected forever them that are sanctified.”
There is no repeatable characteristic in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Then for people to say blood is not a symbol for the
atonement.
It is a symbol for the atonement. It
has to be. It is not the fluid that can
save or Jesus could have bled into a chalice, taken the thing to heaven and
poured that out, if it was in the fluid.
His atoning work demanded that He die.
Now let me add at this particular point, I do not believe for one moment
that Jesus Christ could have died any other way than the way He died. I've heard people say, “Well, He could have
been beaten to death, He could have been stoned”—not on your life. He had to be lifted up, that's exactly what
He predicted would happen. He had to be
put up on a cross because it said that way back in the Old Testament, “cursed
is everyone who hangs on a tree.” There
was no other way, then that Jesus would be crucified and He had to pour out His
blood. He had to have those great
wounds where blood was shed because He was the fulfillment of all Old Testament
sacrificial imagery. There was no other
way that He could have died then the way in which He died. I have never said
anything to the contrary, never would.
But at the same time, it was not the fluid that saved us, it was the
death of Christ. You see Roman Catholic
theology teaches that you take a cup of wine, the priests somehow
transubstantiates that into blood. You
drink that blood and it ministers saving grace. We reject that heresy. It
is not the fluid. That, by the way,
that strange view is elaborated by a man names Hicks (sp.), in a book written in 1930 called The Fullness of
Sacrifice. It's another
Anglo-Catholic book. We want to be very
careful that we're not delving into some of these things.
Now blood does refer to death. Check Kittle. It says in there "blood stands for death". That's a quote. Alan Stibbs (sp.) has written the most significant journal
article, on haima which is the Greek word for blood, that I've
ever read and he says that, “blood is the symbol of sacrificial death.” So wherever you see the “blood of Christ” it
embodies the whole atoning work. I can
give you a list as long as your arm of Scriptures that indicate that.
Now all of this I'm just trying to point out to you
indicates to me that those people who are saying Jesus had the blood of God are
on the one hand denying His full humanity.
Secondly, they're confusing the issue of God as a spiritual being. Those who say that the blood is eternal and
incorruptible and that it goes on existing forever and ever have taken that
right out of the air, because the Bible does not teach that—and what about the
rest of that sinless Christ. What is
the rest of the residue of His humanness doing? Is it still floating around somewhere? That it is preserved in heaven is strictly a choice of theology
based upon the implication of a selected translation of a preposition. And that it is still being poured out on the
heavenly mercy seat again twists and perverts the single character of
sacrifice.
Finally to say that blood is not a symbol for
atonement is to confuse things. Blood
is a symbol for death, to be sure, you can go all the way back to Genesis. When it talks about it in Genesis it says,
“Whoever sheds mans blood by man shall his blood be shed”—what does that
mean? If you make somebody bleed, they
get to make you bleed? That means if
you kill someone. Blood has always been
the symbol of death. It is just a
graphic way to describe death and in reference to Christ—the fullness of His
atoning death.
I just want to affirm to you that I believe Jesus
Christ was fully man and that He had the body of a man and He had the nature of
humanity. And as the councils have said
throughout the history of the church they were not mixed and they were not
confused. Fully man, fully God. And because He was fully man: He had the
blood that every man has because it was produced in Him, and I believe that
when He died on the cross, He died as a sacrifice and the only way that He ever
could have died—crucified—and I believe that in being crucified He shed his
literal blood and He was a literal sacrifice for the sins of the world, but
that the atoning work needed more than bleeding it required death. And so whenever you talk about the blood you
must embrace the whole sacrificial death of Christ. Otherwise He could have covered our sins in the Garden of
Gethsemane and avoided the cross all together.
Board Member: Ok, are there any questions from the panel? I have just one other question—there were
several questions, but you pretty well covered that in the answering.
John MacArthur: I tried to. (audience laughter)
Board Member: This question, had quoted you and you cleared up much of what was
said, but here is a question that was added to this: “How are you different in
this issue than Bob Theme?”
John MacArthur: I'm not sure that that matters. I'm not sure what he believes about
that. The only issue would be whether
it's Biblical. I certainly am very
different than Bob Theme in a lot things—almost everything I can think of. So I certainly don't want to identify at
that point. You know there may be times
in the past when I've said something that left something unclear, but you know
the man who doesn't offend with his tongue is the perfect man and there may be
things that would make someone assume something like that. Somebody asked me, and in fact I get asked
all the time, do I ever listen to my own tapes, and my answer is, only when I
want to find out what I believe.
Because I teach constantly you know and I have for all these years and I
forget what I believe about something, but I don't think I hold the same view
as Bob Theme, I'll leave it at that.
I'm not sure what his view is.
Board Member: There's a question, Mr. Parson.
Mr. Parson: You mentioned the death comprises the atoning—the blood relates to
death to the atoning work as in Leviticus 17:11. My question is: Does death only comprise the whole redemptive,
atoning work and my thought is along this line—the blood points to life, a life
poured out. Pointing always to the
perfect Lamb of God. Blood presents—the
blood presented because the bloodshed isn't enough, the blood is presented, and
the blood is the life received, and the blood is precious, it is life possessed. In other words the Lord Jesus Christ went as
the Lamb of God. He is the perfect
priest, the perfect sacrifice. He
perfectly satisfies God. My question, I
guess, is when death is spoken of in your tapes or that which—you sent us a
master tape. You may not have, but it
came as the official tape. In there it
is said—nothing is said of this other—that death would be the beginning and end
of blood—blood equals death by metonymy, period, done. That's my question: Is
it finished in your mind, then, in other words, would I represent you properly
if I said “Blood equals death period—A big one (period)?”
John MacArthur: I’m not sure how to answer that, believe it
or not, even though you clarified it a couple of times. What I am saying is that the atonement for
our sins necessitated a death. It
necessitated the death that Jesus died in the very way that He died and in no
other way. What I am simply saying is
that while blood does not equal death totally because the blood-shedding of
Christ and the sacrificial element of that was a part of the death of Christ,
yet as the New Testament writer refers to blood he is equating it with the
whole atoning work which embraces the blood and the death.
A parallel to that would be the blood of His
cross. Now there is no blood in the
cross. You also have it talking about
that we’ve been saved by the cross of Christ.
Now what does that mean? The
wood didn’t save us. The wood didn’t bleed
for us. But whether you’re talking
about the death of Christ, the blood of Christ, the cross of Christ, you are simply
using terms which embrace in one graphic way or another the whole atoning work
of Christ. That is the only way that I
can explain it. I don’t know . . . .
Brother Gregory: Just a
point that may help. If I was left with
listening to the tape that was sent, and we played that for the regional
men. It would have been very difficult
for us to go beyond—from the tape—beyond “Blood equals death period.” I think all these others—I’m not saying you
don’t say them—you just did not say them, and I think that may trigger a great
deal of reaction.
John MacArthur: Sure, I understand that, and that’s the
difficulty you know in being taped, and that’s why Martin Lloyd Jones in his
book on preachers and preaching said “those infernal tapes” because you can’t say
everything about every theological issue every time you bring it up, so what
happens is you get a point here and there, but you just don’t cover the full
thing. I hope that clarifies what I
believe. I’m not necessarily asking you
to believe it. I’m not mandating that,
but I think it’s consistent with Scripture.
That’s where I stand.
Dispensationalism
Board Member: Alright, we will move on to
the next category of dispensationalism; here’s the first question. If view of some statements that seem to cast
doubt on your position of being a dispensationalist, please clarify what your
true position is. Are you mixing
Reformed covenant views with dispensationalism? Elaborate your views by reviewing the number and characteristics
of dispensations.
John MacArthur: And we’re back to the preexilic kings—Well,
I just want you to know that I am historical dispensationalist,
pretribulational, premillenialist. I
believe that from the Scripture—please note—from the Scripture, not the notes
at the bottom of the page, emerges a dispensational hermeneutic. I believe that dispensationalism is a
hermeneutic. But, I don’t believe it’s
a presuppositional hermeneutic; I
believe it is a hermeneutic that rises out of an understanding of the text. So, I am a historic dispensationalist. I have never wavered on that—I have never
moved from that position. What do you
mean by that? What I mean primarily by
that, is that you must distinguish in the way in which God rules in this world
or the economy by which He mediates His rule in this world at different points
in time.
Obviously, there was a point in time in which God
mediated His rule through an innocent man.
I have no problem with that at all.
God walked and talked directly with Adam and Adam did what God told him
to do without any interruption or hindrance whatsoever. God mediated His rule on the earth through
man who had become king of the earth.
When man fell, God had to mediate His rule in a different way. God then began to mediate His rule in the
world through a fallen man and He had to use the revelation of Himself, which
He did, first of all, to the patriarchs; which He did, by then giving the law .
. . I believe that God’s mediated rule on the earth is much more sophisticated
after the law. There were obviously
times and seasons which God overlooked: pre-law, as there are times and seasons
which He was gracious with: pre-grace, if you want to make that
distinction.
So, I see a difference before the fall, after the
fall—before the law, after the law—before the cross, after the cross—before
Christ comes and after He comes and then the eternal state. Now, I don’t know how many of those there
are—I haven’t counted them all up. I’m
not sure I want to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s on human government
and conscience and all that, but I do know that once man fell, God had to
mediate His role on the earth through His Spirit, and His Spirit worked through
conscience, and His spirit worked through the patriarchs, and then His Spirit
worked through the prophets and the priests, and His Spirit, of course, brought
the law and God mediated in that way.
Then, of course once we come to the new covenant, God mediates His rule
on the earth by the Spirit of God indwelling the church. The day will come when the church is
raptured out and God will mediate His will on the earth in a direct way as He
pours out judgment on the earth, takes the earth back, and then mediates His
rule in the millennial kingdom for a thousand years, with Christ reigning on
the throne until the eternal state, in which everything falls into the blending
of God’s sovereignty in the final form of our existence.
So, I would be a very historic dispensationalist. People ask me all the time, “Are you
Reformed?” The Reformed people don’t
know what to do with me because they hear things that sound thrilling to them and
then somewhere down the page they get confused again because I don’t buy the
“whole ball of wax.” To be honest with
you, all I’m doing is going in my church every week and preaching the next
passage. That’s all I’ve done for 20
years and so I just try to understand what it says. Somebody will say, “Oh, that sounds Reformed!” Somebody will say, “Oh, that’s really
dispensational.” I’m just trying to be
biblical. I really am. I’m not trying to build a system or advocate
a system; I really do believe in a biblical theology, more than that, an
exegetical theology.
I’m just trying to hammer that thing through and
refine myself and I know that maybe there are times when it’s
contradictory. I spoke one Sunday night
on why the antichrist will be a Jew, and somebody came to me and said, “You’re
wrong. He’ll be a Gentile.” So I studied all week and the next Sunday
night I preached on why the antichrist will be a Gentile. (Audience
Laughter) So, I don’t know. For all I know, he might come from Pennsylvania—I
don’t know. (Loud Audience Laughter) I
put my pants on just like you, go down to my little study, get out my books and
do the best I can and have at it. I’m
not trying to develop some sort of secret hidden agenda; I’m just trying to
understand the Word of God. But, I do
believe . . . and the major dispensational issue for today is—I believe with
all my heart and soul that you cannot come up with a covenant view of theology
and maintain any kind of coherent hermeneutics.
If you come up with covenant theology which assumes
then that the church is the new Israel and all the promised blessings to Israel
are now fulfilled in the church, if you come up with that view you have
violated the basic premise of biblical interpretation, because what you have said
is this: All of the curses of the Old
Testament that were on Israel were fulfilled literally. Is that not true? Nobody argues that. It’s
a question I ask every covenant theologian, amillennialist, I ever meet and we
have a discussion.
You tell me: were the curses promised to Israel for
their sin fulfilled literally? They all
say the same, “Yes!” Then answer this:
the promises given by the prophets in the same breath, you’re telling me, are
all going to be fulfilled figuratively? That is an impossible hermeneutic! That is a divided hermeneutic!
You can’t have it both ways.
They are either all literal or they’re all figurative, but not one or
the other. So, I believe that you
literally confound the Scripture. Since
I also believe in a literal, historical, grammatical, contextual, rule of
interpretation, I’m stuck with a literal interpretation, so I have to have a
literal Israel, in a literal kingdom, with a literal Christ, reigning in a
literal Jerusalem, for a literal thousand years. (Audience Amens!) The best part is I’m going to be there
(Audience Laughter) and so are you and we’ll all get along perfectly (Audience
Laughter). I tell my church this, you
know, I say, “Look. Some of you people
are very difficult to work with, but if you think you’re going to give me
ulcers or get me upset or make my life miserable, you’re wrong, because I know
something and what I know is someday you’re going to be perfect, and I’m not
going to lose my sanity trying to get you where you’re going to get anyway.”
(Audience Laughter)
Board Member: O.K., this is the final
question on dispensationalism; it has to do with your book “The Gospel
According to Jesus.” The question
states, “that it [your book] is heavily footnoted with Reformed theologians, as
well as including two prefaces by a Reformed man. Could you find no one from the dispensational, “premill,”
“pretrib” position, to write support for your views?
John MacArthur: I’m sure we could—the publisher made the
choices. We had a number of people
write those forwards. Part of the
reason for that is to show . . . and I quoted a lot of people because I think
through the years the Reformed theology that has come out of the Reformation,
or the doctrine of salvation has been most carefully and thoughtfully preserved
in Reformed circles. I think their
soteriology and even their pneumatology has really been a very strong backbone
for the church. I do not hold to a
Reformed view, say, of ecclesiology or eschatology, but I think they have, in
many ways, been the preservers.
Doesn’t that seem right? I mean, if Martin Luther got everything else wrong and he got one
thing right and that was the heart of it, and he just about did get everything
else wrong, by the way. But, he got the
part right about “the just shall live by faith.” He got the part of “salvation by grace through faith plus and
minus nothing” right and that is the backbone of Reformed theology . . . has
maintained that strength and that’s why I quote those people because through
the centuries, they have been the most articulate proponents of the doctrines
of salvation. They stand in good stead
and I think—as far as I know—isn’t James Boyce dispensational? From my viewpoint, he was a premillennial
dispensationalist with Reformed soteriology and was…
The other reason we chose those two forewords: because
they were really positive and we thought it might sort of get the people in the
book and not think that I was coming off the wall with some new view (as many
have thought.) I tried to mainstream
myself a little bit in that way.
[Note: this message ends here because the session was
longer than one cassette tape. The
second tape completes the session. The
transcription of the second tape should soon appear on Bible Bulletin Board www.biblebb.com ].
Transcribed and Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur Collection" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 314
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986