QUESTION: With Israel very much in the news these days, can you comment on the position of the nation of Israel, with specific reference to the Abrahamic covenant, the land promise, other Old Testament promises in the prophets, the New Covenant, and special promises of national salvation according to Romans 11, and also some inside on the history, pros and cons of replacement theology?

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Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

israel, good, read, church, jesus, old testament, book, god, bible, promises, people, abraham, confession, dispensational, dispensationalism, new testament, word, text, preach, genesis

SPEAKERS

Dr James Renihan, Dr Richard Barcellos, Pastor Jim Butler

Pastor Jim Butler  00:07

So let’s see Rich. Good question: with Israel very much in the news these days, can you comment on the position of the nation of Israel, with specific reference to the Abrahamic Covenant, the land promise, other Old Testament promises in the prophets, the new covenant and special promises of National Salvation, according to Romans 11. And also some insight on the history, pros, and cons of replacement theology that could probably take us to the end of our of our session. There is a lot of good stuff in there, so I’ll just throw it out. What do we think of, maybe just to boil it down, on the one hand, what should we make of ethnic Israel today, and how is that consistent with our views of the Abrahamic covenant, Old Covenant, New Covenant. Well, we were sharing.

Dr James Renihan  01:08

I don’t use the word share. I teach my students not to use the word share. Okay, you don’t stand up in the pulpit and ever say, I’m sharing with you….

Pastor Jim Butler  01:16

I meant we’ll share the response, not share. But we might not agree. I’m not into sharing.

Dr Richard Barcellos  01:23

We might not agree, as

Pastor Jim Butler  01:25

I was taught by my mentor, you don’t want me to share my heart.

Dr James Renihan  01:30

[undecipherable]

Dr Richard Barcellos  01:37

yeah, so ancient Israel, and I say in the modern…

Pastor Jim Butler  01:41

You know, obviously the context, Israel is in the news a lot with the dispensational theology that has been rampant over, you know, the last 100 years,

Dr Richard Barcellos  01:52

The way I read Scripture, the modern state of Israel is not a fulfillment of Prophet amen.

Pastor Jim Butler  01:56

Amen!

Dr Richard Barcellos  02:02

Israel was used by God to prepare the world for the Messiah. And when the Messiah comes, Israel went with it as a national entity. You know, especially there the religious side of it, the temple was destroyed. I think that’s telling us something. The church doesn’t replace Israel. The church is the is the eschatological Israel of old testament, prophecy. Okay, so when then the church as the fulfillment of those of the eschatological Israel of old testament, prophecy texts comes, it uses new the language of fulfillment. Okay?

Pastor Jim Butler  02:41

What about supersede? I think I saw that on Twitter recently from a guy we love and appreciate, and he was countering this charge, or this idea of replacement theology. And it seems to me that he made much of supersede.

Dr James Renihan  03:03

He used it positively?

Dr Richard Barcellos  03:05

yeah, it’s usually not used positively, yeah,

Pastor Jim Butler  03:08

I don’t want to misrepresent him. I don’t spend a lot of time exegeting things on Twitter.

Dr Richard Barcellos  03:15

The father of Israel was a Gentile, which is very interesting. Israel came into existence through the Abrahamic covenant promises. And I think we have to distinguish the Abrahamic promises, the ones that terminate in Israel, in Abraham’s physical carnal seed,

Pastor Jim Butler  03:36

Because there was something actually, there was some actually, real going on.

Dr Richard Barcellos  03:39

But what’s connected to that is the older Mosaic Covenant, where you have most people think that’s temporary. They want to go back to Abraham say it’s not temporary, because he uses the language of forever. But just like we talked about eternity in God and eternal life for us, are not one in the same. The word olam is used, you know, covenant,

Pastor Jim Butler  04:02

the word it’s in covenant too, certain covenants. Yeah.

Dr Richard Barcellos  04:06

The word olam forever, everlasting can mean a long time, or it can mean God’s eternal is over. Yeah. So I think the land promises ultimately fulfilled the eternal state, because, because the spiritual seed of Abraham, Christ, is going to be a blessing to the nations of the earth. Israel was a means through which God set the world up to do what he did in his son in the incarnation. Now, there are some things that terminate in Christ and His kingdom that come from the original promises, like, like the land promises, I think they’re extended to the I think it’s not fulfilled until the eternal state. So I know there’s some, some guys, they’re real good friends of mine, that think even the land promises were fulfilled already. The progressive covenantalists hold the view I hold. And I didn’t know that until just recently. I’m going, Oh, I hold that view. But there is a book, Owen Martin, is that his name?

Pastor Jim Butler  05:04

No, Oren Martin, good book in the land. NST series, yeah.

Dr Richard Barcellos  05:10

I thought that was very, he starts, you know, the land starts before Israel and Abraham. It goes back to the garden. I think you have to go, you know, if you, if you look at Adam, you go, Okay, did he have a land? Yeah, what was he supposed to do with it, cultivate it, but also extend its culture outside Earth? Yeah, throughout the earth. He didn’t do that. Who ultimately fulfills that? The Lord Jesus!

Pastor Jim Butler  05:33

And in Romans 41:3 doesn’t Paul say he would be an inheritor of the earth. It’s not Abraham because he was a great guy. It’s Abraham’s seed. And I think, too, the seed, you know, Jesus, is the true Israel. Jesus is what the Old Testament prophesied.

Dr Richard Barcellos  05:50

Even the seed, the seed promised to Abraham? Where’s the first seed promise given? It’s not Abraham, the land, Genesis 3. It’s Genesis 3:15, so you have land actually precedes Abraham. Seed promise precedes Abraham. There was another, oh, this is getting off the subject. So I was gonna say sufferings and glory precedes the New Testament. It’s all over the prophets. But where is it first revealed to us? I think Genesis 3:15, you know, so, so you have, you have a lot of stuff happening before Abraham that I think you have to account for. Once Abraham comes, and Israel’s unique covenantal status most people hold, as far as I know, except dispensationalists, who believe that Old Covenant ceremonial laws will be enacted in the millennium, which, to me, is weird, like backward. Read the book of Hebrews. Yes, so backwards. Most people believe the Mosaic Covenant was temporary and it was a this world thing. But the problem is, you read Abraham, it looks like, well, it goes to Gentiles. And that’s my point. It’s not just a Jewish thing. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a human thing. It’s a sinners thing, that are saved by. And he says, not to seeds, but to seed. That is Christ. You know, that’s right. So I think we, we often take, we don’t read it the Old Testament, like Christians. And I think traditional especially dispensationalism, has trained us to think that, it’s their book. You know, just like one man in Southern California, a certain large congregation in the San Fernando Valley said the Old Testament is Judeo centric, I fell off my chair when I heard that. What are you talking about? Listen to the Lord Jesus. That’s right.

Pastor Jim Butler  07:45

If I could just kind of continuing in this theme, Romans 11. The questioner asks about Romans 11. I remember many years ago, my mentor had said that Ian Murray book on Puritan hope was very good, revival, and then I changed my mind.

Pastor Jim Butler  08:05

So I think the I think it’s a legitimate orthodox position that there is going to be a gathering of ethnic Jews into the kingdom of Jesus through faith in Jesus. So, so that’s legitimate. I know that. You know, when I read that, it helped me understand, at least, I thought the Romans 11 sort of emphasis. I think O. Palmer Robertson offers another view, or corrective to that.

Dr Richard Barcellos  08:28

So have you read that? Palmer Roberts?

Pastor Jim Butler  08:31

An article on the Israel? I think so. But anyway, maybe just speak a little bit to that. So Romans 11 does seem to envisage or envision, and that’s always real. Yeah. So how would we understand that?

Dr James Renihan  08:47

You’re asking him?

Pastor Jim Butler  08:48

I’m looking at you!

Dr James Renihan  08:49

I know you are.

Dr Richard Barcellos  08:49

He said, Because we could disagree.

Pastor Jim Butler  08:52

You know, Ian Murray makes the observation in that book that, you know it was this, this understanding of a massive in gathering, a big end gathering of ethnic Jews that impelled much of the missionary enterprise, and, you know, caused them to, you know, Westminster, larger catechism, pray for the conversion of the Jews. I think that’s still in my experience here in a three forms of unity town, there is that, there is that concern for Israel, and it’s not a dispensational-ish concern. So there’s a bit of, you know, overlap, but the Romans 11 option or position, I think it’s not heretical. It’s John Murray’s view. John Murray, yeah, definitely. I don’t know. I haven’t read Haldane, but I would be probably thinking it would go that way. Hodge, that seems to be the way that it was dealt with. So, so does that make sense in terms of this view of the Romans 11, sort of fueling the missionary enterprise or evangelism, or things like that?

Dr James Renihan  09:56

I’ll tell you a story. Okay, good. It’s always good to be a storytelling.

Dr Richard Barcellos  10:00

You’re gonna Are you gonna share it?

Pastor Jim Butler  10:01

Are you gonna share? [No, I’m gonna tell it.] Okay, share your heart.

Dr James Renihan  10:08

I don’t know, November or December. Friend of mine contacts me. He says you just blew up such and such a church’s Facebook page. I don’t do Facebook, I don’t do social media, and I’m saying what? What’s going on? Well, here’s the story. I spoke at their church in last year, in the fall on and it was Chapter Seven of God’s covenant leading up to it. The pastor of the church, I have no problem with him doing this. He created a meme of my head, a floating head. And the words to this effect, the church does not replace Israel. The church is Israel. Yeah, okay, that’s what I said. I own it. You stand by it. I’m not afraid of that. Well, apparently it gets shared and shared and shared, and a bunch of dispensationalists began to get really upset. They called me a heretic for saying those things. There were a couple of terms that they used that were really very strong language. It didn’t bother me at all. I knew they can say what they want, but it’s not true, but it’s a very real issue, because a lot of people who are dispensationalist and in the charismatic and prosperity movement have been influenced by uh Left Behind and all of those Tim LaHaye novels. And so anytime that you say something that indicates that the church is the people of God, is the Israel of God, not to neglect the reality of Jewish believers who are brought into the church. But there are no two strands. There’s no two people of God in on parallel tracks. They’re they’re brought together in one the New Testament, over and over makes that point, doesn’t it that the wall of partition is broken down, and we, we are one. So to think in terms of a something special that belongs to Israel is to undermine the very nature of what the gospel is about that brings together Jew and Gentile. [amen.] So, you know, I know one of the other. I was a heretic. I was advocating replacement theology or supersessionism. No, I wasn’t. The dispensationalists don’t understand this. We don’t say the church replaces Israel. We say that the church is Israel. We’ve been grafted in. We are part of it, so that all of the promises that were given to Abraham belong to us. We are the children of Abraham. That’s who we are. You know, my brother used to make a point in, is it in early in Luke’s gospel, where Jesus says God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones, my brother would ask the question, would they be genuine children of Abraham if God raised them up from the stones, and the answer is yes, because God said that they were [right]. God said that they were if, if he chose to do that, they would be genuine without children of Abraham, without any DNA. That’s right. So, you know, that belongs to us. We need to claim it. We don’t replace Israel at all. Israel and the church are brought together, so that there’s one people of God. When you have a picture of the heavenly throne room, you have 24 elders, which I think is a really interesting number, because you take 24 you divide it by two, you have 12 apostles, and you have 12 tribes. And those 24 elders represent the totality of the people of God surrounding the throne. So, you know, I sort of brought it, brought a smile to my face to read all of these posts, because I thought these people really, they’re passionate about this. I never use that word, but I just did, they’re passionate about this. [You share] and there’s a reason that I don’t use that word. Know what it is. They don’t, they don’t know, and they don’t understand. They’re they’ve just been badly taught, yes, and they make these, these charges, you know, I could, it’s like water off the the duck’s back, proverbially, didn’t trouble me at all. Just accept for them, and the fact that they, they are deep into this thing. So that’s how I would view it.

Pastor Jim Butler  14:18

Good. I want to backtrack. Maybe he didn’t say supersede, so I don’t know, but real quick, I want to hear what you have to say. Your observation is correct. I think it’s just bad teaching, and it’s unfortunate that it’s so rampant and that some of the bigger gun famous preachers hold this position, because when you disagree with that, how dare you know it’s almost no liberal. You’ve just spiritual, spiritualized away the Bible, and it’s a rhetoric.

Dr Richard Barcellos  14:50

I think what, what feeds that is is a lack of allowing the entire canon to assist in interpreting the parts. You lose the forest for the trees, or however that goes.

Pastor Jim Butler  15:04

And just listening to Paul, you know, behind, yes, that is Galatians 6, peace be upon the Israel of God. Or we are the true circumcision. Or he’s not a Jew who’s in, you know, externally circumcised. Its internal.

Dr Richard Barcellos  15:19

I can one up you. You read the red letters of the New Testament, Jesus interprets himself in relation to the Old Testament, not as a new he doesn’t. He’s not sling casting new meanings on old texts. You know, you know the motif, and especially Matthew, but Acts and the sermons. This is that. What we’re experiencing now is that which the Prophet said would take place. It’s the fulfillment of what God revealed would happen. And when you go back in light of that, and you read the Old Testament, you see the servant, the Messiah, coming out of Jerusalem with a small remnant around him. And then they’re going out from there. They’re taking light, first to the Jewish people, and then, like, to the Gentiles. And where does that? Where’s that first, where we first told about light, Genesis, one actually. But it goes back through the prophets. It goes to Moses, matter of fact, in Numbers 24 is it one of those weird Balaam texts, you got light. You got it’s the torch of Revelation. And then you have the line of the tribe of Judah. You know, it’s all there. All that language is it’s all connected. And it comes to its consummation in the events surrounding the sufferings and glory of our Lord, and then the proclamation of it, and then the written revelation, the recording of the of the ministry of our Lord, and then the interpretation of it in the rest of the New Testament. The New Testament is, should, I mean, especially when Jesus, he does this is that it’s like, okay, game over! This is the way we interpret the Bible. It’s good enough for Jesus. I mean, that’s a glib statement, but it should be good enough for us. And then the apostles understood our Lord in relation to the Old Testament, just like Jesus did. They didn’t always get it right, by the way. Yeah, remember, but who do you say that I am? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God? Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jona, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father, who is in heaven. And then Jesus says, I gotta go to Jerusalem, I’m going to suffer according to prophets and all.

Pastor Jim Butler  17:22

Oh, Lord, yeah, not going to happen.

Dr Richard Barcellos  17:26

.. Get behind me Satan! But when you get to Acts 2 and Acts 3, the two big Petrine sermons in the book of Acts, he’s preaching like Jesus. He sounds like Jesus.

Pastor Jim Butler  17:35

“This is that” which I spoke, yeah, the prophet Joel, yeah,

Dr Richard Barcellos  17:38

Which, by the way, reading JC Ryle on the Gospel of John. He’s got some very pastoral observations when, when disciples, not just the apostles, but others, say, like, is Martha, she has a wonderful Christological statement. And then, and then, afterwards, you’re going, do you really believe that? Yeah, you know, he says, We need to be careful not to impose the entirety of the New Testament on these disciples, they’re still connecting dots. Yeah, that’s right. They don’t have the resurrection yet. They don’t have this, oh yeah, they don’t have Pentecost.

Dr James Renihan  18:09

Even immediately after the resurrection, they’re still [unintelligible].

Pastor Jim Butler  18:11

They’re still scratching their heads a bit. Yeah, yeah, you the resurrection

Dr James Renihan  18:15

day on the road to Emmaus. Yeah. And they’re, they’re downcast. Though they’ve heard of the resurrection over they know that it happened and and Jesus is the one who, incognito, explains to them. And then they rush back to Jerusalem to tell their brothers. And then you have Thomas, and you have a week,

Pastor Jim Butler  18:32

I see, I’m not totally

Dr Richard Barcellos  18:34

Yeah. And then you have after the resurrection, before the ascension, in Acts 1, you know when, when you’re gonna, will

Pastor Jim Butler  18:44

When will you restore Israel?

Dr Richard Barcellos  18:46

Which, by the way, there’s a book called, it’s a really good, Alan Thompson from us, from Sydney, is the author.

Pastor Jim Butler  18:55

Is it a book on Scripture?

Dr Richard Barcellos  18:57

The acts of the risen Lord Jesus. That is a good book and a section on acts one, six through eight. Outstanding, outstanding book, Jesus basically is doing what, what they asked. And he started in the first century to the risen Lord Jesus. And by the way, in Acts 28 just all you have to do is read it, thinking about all this stuff. Paul was reasoning with the Jews, about Christ and the Kingdom of God from the Old Testament,

Pastor Jim Butler  19:25

And he refers to it as the hope of Israel.

Dr Richard Barcellos  19:27

The Hope of Israel. That’s a good book, too. Yeah. That new book by that guy’s name, he’s, he’s Westminster seminary, Pennsylvania Prof. It’s, it’s, yeah, Hope of Israel. Good book makes all these connections. And just shows that that “this is that” motif is very important. This Christ and the complex of events surrounding him, His sufferings, glory and Pentecost is that which the prophets said would take place. As a matter of fact, this is in one of my lectures. So it’s fresh in my head, but when Peter is preaching on Pentecost, you know he’s going to. End up quoting Joel 2. Before he quotes Joel 2, he says, God said this would happen in the latter days, or something like that? That’s not in Joel 2, but it looks like it, but it’s not. It’s Isaiah 2:2. It’s Micah something or other. And you know where it first starts, the book of Genesis. Genesis 49 the sceptre, the Shiloh prophecy. There’s a lot latter days, okay, the latter days are connected to this Shiloh person, I think it is, who has dominion over the peoples. And you trace that through Daniel and all over the place you go. All right, wait a minute. He’s putting the context of Joel’s fulfillment in a wider canonical context by using two words: latter days. Yeah. So it’s a trigger mechanism for good readers of the Old Testament. By the way, you can’t understand the New Testament unless you got a good old Yeah, that’s right, and the other way around. So Peter, before he quotes Joel 2, puts Joel’s prophecy in a larger eschatological context that’s first indicated to us way back in the book of Genesis, connected to the Shiloh character there. And it’s just a lot of stuff.

Pastor Jim Butler  21:14

And you mentioned the weird Balaam prophecies. There’s a lot going on there too. I’m supposed to get back into Numbers. We’re going through the Pentateuch on our Wednesday night studies and the Balaam prophecies. I’ve heard Beal, or I’ve read Beal, I kind of think I get it, but at the same time, Balaam is just an odd duck, pages of Holy Scripture. Yeah, yeah.

Dr James Renihan  21:37

Before we you go on, let’s reiterate here, okay? Because this is really important, and it’s widespread and rampant among many professing Christians. We do not believe that there are two peoples of God on a parallel track. We believe that the gospel brings them together, and there’s one people of God, who will enter into the eternal state, forever, so that the charges that are made of supersession or replacement theology are slanderous. Really. They really are. And they, I can say easily, they need to stop. They do need well, they won’t. But I can say that, and I would appeal to people who may be listening, to recognize that that is a miss, a misrepresentation of what we believe. We do not believe that the church replaces Israel. We believe that there’s one people of God, so there’s no superseding. There’s no replacement at all.

Pastor Jim Butler  22:36

Right, yes, and for me, since we’re sharing here, by God’s grace, we got converted, and six months later I met him (Richard), and I’m not sure that’s the part of God’s grace only, No, I’m kidding. He’s been very influential, very helpful, so, but one of the things that I’m thankful in my Christianity is that I didn’t have to go through a lot of things. I went he had already gotten into the Confession, so I didn’t have to do some time and dispensationalism or Arminianism, it was just, you know, nurtured in a good environment. So much of, at least back then, what I learned of dispensationalism, I would hear from from Rich, and I just, for me, it’s always been, how could you possibly believe that? And I don’t mean that in a unright, and I probably do, because I got my issues, but in Ephesians 3, Paul takes pains to tell us from the two he’s made one new man under Jesus Christ. So then you’re going to come along and separate that and say, Well, you know, that’s only for a time, and then? It just doesn’t make sense.

Dr Richard Barcellos  23:47

Well it does in their system, which is, which is built off of a hermeneutic, a Judeo. So I said before, and you said, Amen. I said, You gotta, you gotta allow the scripture to help you interpret the Scripture. Or else you’re going to, you’re going to bring your own hermeneutic to an Old Testament text without, without considering the New Testament whatsoever. It was Walter Kaiser, who has this principle of the the analogy of antecedent revelation. Okay, so antecedent, afterwards, if the timeline is going this way, Genesis, Revelation, you’re in this text. You can’t use texts over here, like, like, when Jesus expounds on a text.

Pastor Jim Butler  24:31

You can’t use that, but you can use Calvin.

Dr Richard Barcellos  24:35

You can use Calvin, or you can use lexicons created by liberal Germans who are in hell to help you. Help you with that. Yeah. So, I mean, people don’t think that way, but I try to push him to think that way. Now, wait a minute. I can use Calvin or somebody else to help me with this text, but I can’t use Jesus or the prophets pick it up, Moses, you know, whoever. So I think it’s a hermeneutical. It ends up being a blind spot for them. When I was in seminary. And I did go to the Master Seminary, and it was very thankful for but I got there my our systematic theology prof was a friend of Vern Poythress, and they had a dispensational think tank where they had Wayne Grudem, I think, and Mark Mueller, my esteemed professor, and Vern Poythress and others were involved at ETS for a few years there. And he says, you know, in my discussions, we have all come down to this conclusion, the difference between the various forms of Covenant Theology and dispensationalism is, at bottom, an issue of hermeneutics.

Pastor Jim Butler  25:39

And I think he was right. And another thing I think, that complicates it at a practical level is the political rhetoric as well. If you if you question dispensationalism, it has been, I think Hal Lindsay made this observation, “you’re anti semitic”. That’s a heavy one to lay on a person.

Dr James Renihan  25:59

Well, that’s another charge that was laid against me

Pastor Jim Butler  26:04

Dispensationalism, therefore you’re anti semitic? That’s a that’s a baseless attack. Oh, absolutely is very rhetorically powerful and hard to get away from. You get branded as an anti Semite in the 21st century in North America, that’s career ending! You can be canceled. So, you know, a theological difference amongst, you know, interpreters of Scripture over however many years, that’s that’s perfectly legitimate. That doesn’t commit me to anti semitism. And I would also say that, you know, a historic pre mill, obviously an orthodox, not one I agree with. You know, it’s not my my favorite, but not it isn’t bloated with the same sort of baggage that dispensationalism is. And, yeah, it’s just a really, because there’s been this combining of the political and the theological. And, well, there must be this really makes it tough.

Dr Richard Barcellos  27:00

Yeah, one of the big issues when I was dispensationalist was, was the Davidic Covenant, the promises of Second Samuel 7:23, and Psalm 89 and are they fulfilled in the church age or not? Church Age already talking like them. But are they being fulfilled now? Are they impartial fulfillment? And then there’s a millennial fulfillment, you know what? What’s all that? And the more I just, I just read the New Testament thinking, okay, Abrahamic covenant, Davidic Covenant, Mosaic Covenant, all that stuff, the more I just came to the conclusion that the New Testament reads the Davidic promises as terminating in our Lord’s first coming.

Pastor Jim Butler  27:48

We mentioned Matthew 16. Matthew 16, 2 Samuel 7, yeah, a son of God will build a house for God. Yeah. What is happening there? So Jesus or Peter, and what’s the house? Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God? Well, this is Davidic Covenant.

Dr Richard Barcellos  28:05

What’s the son’s house?

Pastor Jim Butler  28:06

It’s a church, church, local,

Dr Richard Barcellos  28:08

yes and universal throughout the age.

Pastor Jim Butler  28:13

Yes that’s right, yeah. And it’s glorious, glorious, wonderful.

Dr Richard Barcellos  28:17

Yeah, awesome. And all by all, by the way, that’s all connected to Adam in the garden.

Dr James Renihan  28:24

Since sharing is the word of the day, let me share one more thing, please. It comes to mind as a result, our generation, many of us, were converted out of or in a dispensationalist circumstance. I mean, when I was a teenager, we use the new Scofield Bible and some I can remember the youth pastor in the church one time standing up saying, if you have the right kind of Bible, turn to page such and such. If you don’t, then please turn to the text,

Pastor Jim Butler  28:53

Have mercy on you repent.

Dr James Renihan  28:57

I can immediately think of a whole lot of young men today who are not raised in a dispensational environment and so don’t have that baggage with them, and are doing some really wonderful things in helping to restore an older, more consistent hermeneutic and theology. I am really encouraged by the next generation, the younger men and what God is doing and raising them up. I pray that they will stay faithful and that their lives will not be ruined by indulging in any kind of evil, but if they are kept in the way. I think the future is really very bright, yeah, obviously, a lot of very fine young men.

Dr Richard Barcellos  29:46

you brought up him. You brought up hymns, right?

Pastor Jim Butler  29:50

I don’t think I mentioned hymns.

Dr Richard Barcellos  29:53

You did okay, yeah, it’s fascinating. You think about older, more traditional hymnology, the hermeneutic required to get to those lyrics, was not dispensation. And yet, I’ve sung those, some of those hymns, at dispensational worship services.

Pastor Jim Butler  30:08

And I think, you know, you had touched on this earlier. But just to reiterate, you know, the problem with dispensationalism isn’t a pre trib Rapture. That’s just a fruit of, you know, one of the issues, it’s hermeneutics. And if you go in and you end up with a two people of God, you divide what Jesus has brought together. In my mind, you need to go back to the drawing board and examine those hermeneutics, because that’s not where you want to end up. You don’t want to say, Well, Paul must be speaking about just this time, because there’s going to be this great divide. No, the whole point, the mystery is Christ as the Savior for Jew and Gentile! Gentile inclusion and the covenant, promises of God goes all the way back to Genesis.

Dr James Renihan  30:53

Yeah. Maybe we can say that the 20th century was a parenthesis?

Pastor Jim Butler  30:57

There you go, a theological parenthesis. I like that, yeah, but it’s still, it does still last, though. And I, you know, the political angle too, really just adds a whole lot of fuel to the fire. And I’ve heard, you know, it’s hearsay, but you know, pulpits, dispensational pulpits, really, using the modern scene in Israel in ways that I don’t think is good. I don’t think it’s helpful. It just stirs the pot. And then, of course, Covenant Theology guys are the bad guys, because we we deny, you know, the place of ethnic Israel and God’s political plan. That’s a lot to heat up on. You know, I’ve got my issues, but I like to think that’s not necessarily.

Dr James Renihan  31:43

It’s a reminder of the fact that when we stand before God’s people, we must speak his words and not our own opinions, nor the opinion opinions that are swayed by current cultural mores and ideas, which I think very regularly happens in Christian pulpits, and we need to be really careful, but it’s another argument for two things that Rich and I both love, and that’s confessionalism and historic Christianity. What has the church said? Well, let’s get beyond the what did CS Lewis call it the tyranny of the, no, chronological snobbery, right? Yeah, let’s get by that thinking that we we have the answers now, you know what that is? That’s progressivism that’s entered into Christian theology. Let’s hear the voice of Christians through the ages believing the promise that Jesus gave, that the spirit would lead his people into all truth. That’s right, and let’s conform ourselves to that.

Dr Richard Barcellos  32:46

Yeah, we’ve said this at a conference together. I think it was, was it last fall, one of those conferences we wanted to get this message out for especially younger guys. You’ve, you’re not a younger guy, but you, you’ve already done this a long time ago. Matter of fact, you told me this one time, do you read commentaries chronologically? And I said, You cited him. I said, no, why you go, dude? Because you because you go from 20 to 4 in Southern California, because you go from 20 to 4 commentaries real fast. Yeah, you weed out. And usually just keep you know the older ones, because anytime the newer guys say what the older guys said, there’s no it’s redundant, yeah, but what the newer guys usually tell you is the size of their toga or something, you know, and the history of togas in the first century and, and you’re going, I’m not going to preach that to a woman who’s got a, you know, jerk for a husband. Half the time they fought on the way to church. They have seven kids, and I’m gonna preach about togas. That’s not preaching, you know, that’s, that’s background stuff that might help you in your study. But you don’t need to give that to your people. So the older guys you read, it’s just Scripture. They deal with the text. They try to show the relation with other texts. And they try to, you know, encourage you if it’s about Christ, or if it’s about, you know, promise of God for individual souls or whatever.

Dr James Renihan  34:07

They’re not afraid of doctrine, of drawing theological.

Dr Richard Barcellos  34:10

Recently a friend. I sent a text. A friend of said, Hey, this professor of Old Testament guy said this about background material. And I told you guys this earlier, and my friend says, Who cares? Shut up and do theology or something like that.

Pastor Jim Butler  34:26

Well, I have to say, as a pastor in our in our movement, if I can use that language or confessional Reformed Baptist churches, I’ve been very thankful for both of you men in terms of some emphases that I think have become more pointed and conspicuous the longer you guys do what you’re doing. And I really appreciate the theological interpretation of Scripture. You know there is that mind well, you got to read 15 books on what was going on in first century Israel to really get at what the text means. God seems to think that people that have the Spirit and the Bible that can be overdone, “all I need is me and the Holy Spirit”. But based on, you know, in Acts 4, or I’m sorry, in Ephesians 4, Christ ascends on high. He leads captivity. Captivity gives gifts to men. Those men teach, those men preach, those men write good books. And it’s not necessarily the socioeconomic conditions going on in first century Israel. It’s, it’s, what are other texts saying? What is the theology of God’s word as a whole? Saying, to me, that’s always been more important in some of that, like you said, it can be helpful. You know, the revelation three. You know, because you’re neither hot nor cold, it helps to know that, you know, one city had hot springs and the other city had cool, refreshing water. But you don’t need that to get Jesus message out of revelation three. And I think when we teach people that you need that in order to get this, we’re missing something there. So the Bible comes, packaged in such a way that, you know, the law of the Lord makes wise the simple. If you got the Spirit and you put your mind to it, and you read and you’re prayerful and dependent upon the Lord, we hope and expect that you’re going to be, you know, decent theologian. The woman that’s got the struggles got the problem with her husband. She needs good theology, and she can access that good theology without dead Germans that wrote lexicons that are in hell, as you so kindly put it a few minutes, picturesquely, picturesquely, yeah, so I just, you know, as a pastor on the ground, you know, seeking to preach through Scripture and do so in a confessional context, I really have appreciated both of you guys, and as I said, the emphases that you bring to the table. And I’m just glad you’re with us for this weekend, but glad that you’re available to us, because I think I’m not speaking alone. I think if you were to take my my comrades in arms, the guys at the local church level, we would all say the same thing. And I’m sure you’re going to hear that from the guys that are here this weekend. They’re probably going to come up and say, Dr Renihan, thank you for your exposition of the confession. It’s helped me tremendously. Thank you for your book Trinity and Creation.

Dr Richard Barcellos  37:14

Thank you for your exposition of the Bible. So you’re known for helping guys with a confession. I’m known for the exegesis.

Pastor Jim Butler  37:22

You’re both known as men that are committed to the authority of God’s Word. And have seen that the Second London Confession is a wonderful summary statement of that Word. I don’t get, and this is another thing in my own experience, I don’t get this antipathy to the wheel. If the wheel works, let’s use the wheel. Yes. Why would we reinvent it? The 17th century, Confessions have stood the test of time. They’re wonderfully biblical, they’re wonderfully robust. And I have found going through the confession in our own church, you get more practical out of these old, dusty, dry orthodox treatments. Who writes chapters like assurance in our Second London, or perseverance, or the recognition that you know what? There’s times it’s like God withdraws his smiling face. You gotta persevere through that. You gotta deal with that. The typical self help Christian approach is, you know you’re doing something, fix it and God’s face will be on. Our guys are a lot more biblical, much more thoroughly practical. I just don’t get this argument that is dry orthodoxy.

Dr Richard Barcellos  38:35

Can I say something, you brought up theological interpretation of Scripture? I think I have a section in my lectures for the conference on that, but, I was, you know, in the 90s, I started reading biblical theology more, and after a while, I realized a lot of the books are kind of redundant, saying the same thing, okay? And then I got to know Dr Renihan in the late 90s, and what he helped me with was a theological slash or dash, historical reading of the confession. And I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this, but the way you read the confession is the same way you read the Bible. You read it sideways. So tell us what you mean by read the confession sideways, and how that relates to reading the Bible sideways.

Dr James Renihan  39:22

Well, I use that a more refined term more often, now horizontally. Well, when it comes to the Confession, I would argue that early on in the chapters, they’re laying down a foundation. The latter chapters are building on that foundation. So I try to teach my students pay attention to what is stated in the first few chapters, early chapters, let’s say, up through chapter six, and notice, then later on, how those threads are woven into everything that comes afterwards. And when you’re later on in the confession, think through what what is this picking up so that, for example, the doctrine of. God, okay? The doctrine of God is foundational. Every time that you see the word God in the confession, you ought to think of chapter two and what chapter two says, if I remember correctly, I think there’s 15 chapters where the first word or the first phrase includes the name God in it, that you’re so you don’t just treat that as Okay, the divine being, no, you think about all that you’ve learned back in chapter two, who is the one who grants repentance or gives faith, or who brings us to the end in eternal life, or who is the one who willed that his Son would be head over the church? All of those things. So that’s reading it horizontally. Or I used to use the word sideways. It’s a good word, but horizontal means it’s easier for people to grasp like that. And that’s how we have to think about the Bible as well. You know, sometimes I I wonder if an illustration of it is, let’s say that you are suddenly dropped down in a foreign country that you don’t know the culture, you don’t know the language, but you’re right in the middle, and you have to figure it out well, where you are is influenced by everything else that happens in that country and its history and its culture, and as you grow in your understanding of the language, the culture, the food, the geography, as you grow in all of those things, you’re becoming more and more one who is able to live in that country. Well, that’s, in a sense, that’s what it’s like with the Bible. The more that you know about the whole picture from beginning to end, the better that it is. So I go back to what I said before. We must assert that the Old Testament is a Christian book, and that we read it as Christians in light of what the New Testament says. I think Rich has done some great work even within the Old Testament, showing how the more recent Old Testament books are interpretations of the previous Old Testament books, and how the prophets don’t add anything new. Rather, what they’re doing is giving us understanding of what was laid down, for example, in the Law of Moses or the Torah, the Pentateuch, etc.

Pastor Jim Butler  42:12

So, I remember just real quick. Here I remember because there’s a New Testament use of the Old Testament commentary. And I remember you saying, and I agreed that there needs to be an Old Testament use of the Old Testament. I have subsequently heard that Junius did something like that. I think yes, but there is a volume now that is the Old Testament use of the Old Testament. Just quick question, have you used it at all? Is there is? Yeah, it’s a, I think Dolezal recommended it.

Dr Richard Barcellos  42:40

Oh, yeah, we can talk about that later. But I think G.K. Beale and a team of contemporary scholars are working on an Old Testament use of the Old, corresponding to the New Testament commentary on the New Testament use of the Old Testament. Okay, so your confession, you said, start the first six chapters. Those are foundational. Take them with you as you interpret. Go through the rest. Dude, should you do the same by taking the rest of it back then coming through here, and reading the whole in light of the whole over and over and over again and and things start jumping. You go, you have aha moments. And you’re going, the text hasn’t changed. It’s, you know, the confession is the same, same thing with the Bible foundation. You know, was it? Sinclair Ferguson? Genesis 3:16, to Revelation 22 is a footnote to Genesis 3:15.

Pastor Jim Butler  43:39

yeah, one to three. So, yeah, yeah,

Dr Richard Barcellos  43:43

there’s so much foundational stuff there that’s just assumed by the subsequent writers. Yes, and if we need it, we need to assume it. It’s there, it’s revelation, and it’s, it’s an interpretive grid or a help for the subsequent passages. But just like with the confession, you have aha moments. It’s it’s even more so with scripture. Yeah, you know, somebody be preaching like you’re going to preach Psalm 15. I guarantee you most of the people, if not all, I’m saying most, because maybe Mike’s heard you preach this before are going to go. Most of the people that have are more seasoned. Okay, the more you know that Bible, the better it is to understand the depth of some of these things they’re gonna say. I’ve read that. I never saw the connections. It’s so clear to me now. So he’s not inventing connections

Dr James Renihan  44:31

And I’m not doing anything that’s esoteric

Dr Richard Barcellos  44:36

How about 40 years ago, could you preach this sermon? [No, no.] So you know, I’ve had students, especially at a certain seminary in the United States, text me or email me and say, Why didn’t you and Dr Renihan come out on this issue 15 years ago? I said it would have been half baked. Yeah. You know, there do you learn you get older? You’re able to see connections more that, you know, there’s a concept called uh, inter biblical, exegesis, something like, there’s different phrases, yeah, the Bible within the Bible, that’s right, [intertextuality, yeah], there’s various forms of intertextuality. One is, you know, all texts are related to other tents. Okay, one is quotation, another one is illusion, another one is echo, echo

Pastor Jim Butler  45:26

And ask G.K Beal,

Dr Richard Barcellos  45:31

He’ll say an echo is a weak illusion. And I’ll talk about these things. But the more your blood is biblien (C.H. Spurgeon), the more you see the connections. And then going back to traditional hymnody, and I’ve done this with my people a lot. I said, look, think about what it takes to get to some of these poetic lines here, and ask yourself, is this just poetry disconnected from the Bible, or is there an interpretive method

Pastor Jim Butler  45:56

We couldn’t write that!

Dr Richard Barcellos  46:01

With, with the more modern hermeneutic, we couldn’t write the big confessions of the church, or certainly the early creeds, right? The early creeds just reduce massive swaths of scriptural truth into short, pithy statements. You know.

Pastor Jim Butler  46:21

I’ve said it often in our Saturday morning I’m glad they did it, because I’m not convinced we could do it right. Nicene, the Calcedonian and Second London.

Dr Richard Barcellos  46:32

But when you see the logic of it, the order, the theological order, and you’re just going, this is

Pastor Jim Butler  46:39

There were giants in the earth.

Dr James Renihan  46:40

They were giant and they and they were very careful exegetes, yes, the summary is simply bringing together threads from Scripture.

Pastor Jim Butler  46:49

Absolutely,

Dr James Renihan  46:50

It’s the fruit. It’s not Jesus, yeah, it’s not Greek philosophy imposed upon Christianity. I know that’s that’s a lie from the pit of hell.

Pastor Jim Butler  46:59

That’s right. I agree. How do we protect “In the beginning, was the Word, the Word was with God. The Word was God. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” We have got to protect that. We’re going to use words outside the Bible, words to protect those inside the Bible

Dr Richard Barcellos  47:15

Words not in the Word, to explain and protect the Word. That’s right.

Pastor Jim Butler  47:18

And nowadays it’s like, yeah, we don’t need that. Yeah, you know, I’ve been using the illustration because we’re going through John’s Gospel dealing with some Trinity stuff. And, you know, guard rails on the road. Imagine you drive up to your friend’s house and all these cars are off the side of the road. You say, Well, what happened? Well, we used to have these guardrails. This is playing off of Simply Trinity adrift in Barrett’s book. We used to have these guardrails, but they took them down. Well, you think if you put the guardrails back up, it would keep the cars from all flying off the we’ve taken down the guardrails, and we’ve got bad Trinitarian theology, yeah? But I agree there’s many good things to be encouraged about, yeah, in terms of guys writing now, you know, doing doing good work, so I don’t want to end on or get close to ending by…