https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-ofKxfYqGw
In recent weeks, as the media focused on the seventy-fifth
anniversary of Israel's founding, I have been musing on Dispensationalism and
its geopolitical influence. I happened to come across a video of John MacArthur
appearing on the Ben Shapiro show back in 2018.
I was of course appalled to see a Christian leader cavorting
with Shapiro who is unworthy of respect, worthy of condemnation, and by
appearing on his show – MacArthur (who almost fawns over him) grants him
standing in the Calvinist community. It was disappointing but hardly
surprising.
I was however a little surprised and put-off to hear
MacArthur airing dirty laundry and internal doctrinal debates with this
unbeliever – surely a case of pearls before swine. I've seen the same thing
occur with Christian and specifically Reformed leaders appearing alongside
Glenn Beck. Why do Christian leaders 'go deep' with this lost man who follows
the Mormon religion? Do they think he's saved? What possible wisdom could
someone like Shapiro (an Orthodox Jew) or Beck offer to a Christian leader?
Subsequently I have discovered that others were also put off
by MacArthur's performance and his egregious statements suggesting that
non-dispensationalists are (or potentially are) anti-Semitic. To say this on a
lost Jewish man's talk show struck me as particularly problematic. If MacArthur
the Dispensationalist really feels this way, then why does he appear on stage
with sundry Covenant Theologians who are also A- and Post-millennialists, men
that reject his eschatological paradigm – men that are supposedly anti-Semitic?
If MacArthur's ethics were already in doubt, this simply
amplifies the argument against him – and to disparage these Reformed
theologians (who I'm sure count him a friend) on a Right-wing Jewish man's
television show – a lost person who lives by lost thinking – I can only ask,
what was MacArthur thinking?
MacArthur should be ashamed –first, for his hypocrisy, second
for his foolishness, and third (and much worse) for his outright lies about
non-Dispensationalists.
Studying MacArthur over the years has revealed that he lacks
a basic understanding of the Bible's structures. That certainly hasn't stopped
him from promoting himself has it? Misunderstanding the broad strokes of
Biblical structure, his hermeneutics are also off base. The New Testament is
often subordinated to his Judaized reading of Scripture which tends to
prioritize Old Testament concepts over and against their elaboration and
elucidation by New Testament authors. He openly affirms this at about the 52:00
mark of the interview – a clear statement of his Judaizing hermeneutic.
MacArthur is often held up as an opponent of the cheap grace
proffered by mainstream Evangelicalism. There is an element of truth to this
but it seems clear enough that in the end MacArthur's understanding also falls
short of the New Testament. Listening to his criticisms of the Charismatic
Movement a few years back, I found myself on a roller-coaster. One minute his condemnations
were refreshing and incisive only to be followed by errors and appeals to the
lamest and most unscriptural expressions of 'Once Saved Always Saved' when
touching on issues surrounding assurance.
MacArthur's cheap grace gospel isn't as cheap as his Evangelical
brethren but it still fails to reflect and falls short of the full orb of New
Testament teaching.
One result is that his ethics are ill-informed and askew.
Between Cheap Grace and his Judaized reading of the New Testament, he seriously
loses his way and this has only become more evident in recent years. His
conduct and contempt for people he disagrees with, his political forays, but
most of all his rank mammonism demonstrate just far he has wandered from the
New Testament path. His behaviour and deceit surrounding Covid was contemptible
and unworthy of a follower of Christ. This is not for a moment to suggest that
the state of California was right – but certainly that MacArthur was wrong.
And as is always the case, mammonism muddles thinking and
corrupts ethics through and through.
He thinks it an error to expect the president of the United
States to be a moral figure – breaking with past convictions and objectives of
the Christian Right, but then he still seems to have an expectation of a moral
order – apparently one without the Holy Spirit. While it sounds like he retains
a healthy detachment from the concerns of Christian politics, he seems to
assume that culture as of fifty years ago or so was in good shape (when
evaluated by his criteria) and thus resents those who sought and even now seek
to challenge it. He believes in challenging immorality (itself a kind of
activism) but often seems to slip into pragmatism in his approach – but then
resents anyone else who might do the same. He tries to pretend like he's aloof
from politics and makes what in other contexts would be some strong and
praiseworthy statements to that effect – but a tree is known by its fruit. He's
all about politics and mammon and the fact that he's appearing on a Right-wing
talk show and is treated as a celebrity in that context apparently doesn't faze
him nor does it cause him to question his own views, consistency, or reflect on
how he's being understood – or would he say misunderstood? An activist for
'conservatism' let alone Right-wing causes, is still an activist. And whether
he realizes it or not, he's not impassive and detached but rather actively
engaged in and with the system and relying on it to enact his interests.
His narratives regarding Church history, the Magisterial
Reformation, and the Enlightenment are unconvincing, off-base, and even naive
and he falls into some rather odd Fundamentalist-style arguments regarding the
number of books in the Bible and even chapter enumerations – such as the fact
that there are sixty-six chapters in Isaiah which matches the number of Old and
New Testament books. This is just bizarre and makes one wonder just how much he
even understands about the canon and text of Scripture! As he should know, not
only are the book counts arbitrary in some respects – the chapters certainly
are. Even the Protestant canon's thirty-nine books can be counted differently
as traditionally the histories are combined and even the Minor Prophets are
counted as a single book. It was a strange moment reminiscent of King
James-Only types that fall into bizarre and contrived numerologically-informed
theology regarding supposed theological patterns in the chapter-verse divisions
and the like. It's all the more curious as MacArthur is a critic of the
Traditional Text and even something of a zealot for the Critical Text – and is
quick the excise and dismiss passages from the New Testament that the Church
had always embraced until the late nineteenth century. The exchange was just
plain weird, and while my estimation for MacArthur has been in freefall in
recent years, let's just say this little episode did nothing to restore my
confidence in him.
But it is his statements regarding the Old Testament vs. the
New that are most startling and perhaps his most glaring and serious error in
this interview is his suggestion that the Jewish and Christian God are the
same. Has he not grasped that God is revealed in the Person of Jesus Christ and
since the Jews reject Him – the god they worship is no longer the God of
Scripture? You cannot know Jehovah apart from Jesus Christ, because as the New
Testament's use of the Old makes clear – Christ is Jehovah, and the fulfillment
of the Old Testament and its prophecies. Post-Old Testament era Judaism has no
standing. It is a form of apostasy but under MacArthur's Dispensationalism it
remains viable – a true religion in a state of arrested development that awaits
– not its fulfillment but its restoration and ratification. There are still
promises yet to be fulfilled – not in Christ, but in the Jewish people and
their historic lands in the Levant.
If we're going to resort to name calling, then let's be
clear. MacArthur's error grants validity to both the concerns and Judaizing errors
exhibited by the Galatians and the recipients of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
His theology stands condemned.
The magnitude of MacArthur's error on this point needs to be
understood – it is fatal. As previously stated, I had written him off some time
ago but after this more recent elaboration – I am literally not interested in
hearing this man teach Scripture. He does not understand it on even the most
basic of levels. When I hear his voice on the radio, I change the station.
He may be alarmed about the rise of Amillennialism – must of
which is defective as it is still dominated by Dominionist categories, but the
truth is that Dispensationalism as a popular system has failed, a point even
others are starting to make. Even as it reached its wider cultural apex during
the Hal Lindsey to Tim LaHaye epoch of the 1970s to early 2000's – from The
Late Great Planet Earth to the Left Behind series, it was already on shaky
foundations. The school had come under such withering assault in the decades
prior, that leaders sought to re-frame the system as early as the 1960's when
they began to eliminate some of the notes found in the 1909 Scofield Reference
Bible. The system does not stand up to scrutiny and yet due to its
sensationalist presentation and popularity it continued to grow in popularity
during the 1970's and after. Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth was one of the
bestsellers of the decade and it seems like every Christian household had a
copy – mine certainly did and I grew up reading and re-reading it. And then of
course LaHaye's novels which emerged in the mid-1990s became a multi-million
dollar media franchise and even today many wrongly assume that a literal
reading of Scripture results in the Dispensational system – an eschatology
which only emerged in the nineteenth century and did not find widespread
acceptance until the publication of the Scofield Bible.
And yet not even twenty years after the Left Behind series
was completed, Dispensationalism continues to decline. People have been
startled to discover its dubious history, that it stands on shaky exegetical
ground, and that its premillennialism is not the premillennialism that was
common in the Early Church – and for that matter the Early Church was not even
exclusively pre-millennial to begin with.
We can argue all day long about biblical interpretation but
it's safe to say Dispensationalism is a house of cards. If the fundamental
distinction of the Dispensational system which is God has two separate plans for two separate people (Israel and the
Church) collapses, the entire system is found to be without standing.
Factor in the lack of exegetical standing for another nearly
essential component, that of the so-called pre-tribulational rapture (as
opposed to the Second Coming), and the system has nothing left. It collapses
and the basic assumptions must be revisited.
Some are doing this. The still burgeoning New Calvinist
movement (which in many quarters has appropriated MacArthur and made him a
celebrity) still retains a great deal of Dispensationalism within its ranks but
as time progresses the men within that movement are reading both historical and
contemporary Reformed authors – and they're finding that Dispensationalism is
incompatible with the Covenant Theology that emerged from the Reformation.
I think the startling point for some is this (and rightly so,
I might add) – if the system is revealed as false, then it's also revealed to
have a very ugly side in terms of geopolitical application. In fact the system
has hands dripping with blood as it has played no small role in shaping US foreign
policy in places like the Middle East and in particular with regard to its
policy vis-à-vis Israel. And given Shapiro's well documented fascistic
statements defending Israel – the fact that Dispensationalist MacArthur appears
on his show and effectively endorses political Zionism, should be offensive to
all New Testament Christians and needs to be condemned.
In a strange turn, MacArthur's words to Shapiro about the
Church losing its message by means of endless compromise – also apply to him.
His compromises in the realm of New Testament ethics, politics, and money
represent not faithfulness, but a capitulation to the world and its values. There
are certainly more egregious examples of error and moral compromise to be found
in the Evangelical sphere – but that doesn't let MacArthur off the hook and
given his claims, he should actually be held to a higher standard.
I'm glad he knows that women shouldn't preach – a sad
testimony to our times that something so basic has become such a controversial
issue. But the fact that he abandons New Testament teaching on so many other
points – that are not picked up on by his fan club (or even most of his
Christian opponents for that matter) is lamentable and also a sign of the
times.
Viewed from every angle, one cannot help but be sickened by
the lack of judgment on display, the hypocrisy, and the doctrinal error
represented in the views of John MacArthur. And it is a sad testimony to also
discover the lack of discernment as exhibited in the YouTube comments section
which offers almost universal praise for these two men. Some of them are rather
over the top and testify to how off-base and far afield most Christian thinking
is at this point even within what would be considered the most conservative
sections of the American Evangelical movement.