Bible, Theology & Philosophy

Republished with permission from Dr. Reluctant. In this series, Dr. Henebury responds to a collection of criticisms of dispensationalism entitled “95 Theses against Dispensationalism” written by a group called “The Nicene Council.” Read the series so far.

Thesis 75

Despite dispensationalism’s “plain and simple” method that undergirds its millennial views, it leads to the bizarre teaching that for 1000 years the earth will be inhabited by a mixed population of resurrected saints who return from heaven with Jesus living side-by-side with non-resurrected people, who will consist of unbelievers who allegedly but unaccountably survive the Second Coming as well as those who enter the millennium from the Great Tribulation as “a new generation of believers” (Walvoord).

Response: The “former dispensationalists” among their number ought to have been able to explain this “problem” to their brethren on the Council.

1. Concerning the “unaccountability” of unbelievers in the Millennium, Robert Thomas writes: “the battle of 19:19-21 resulted in death for all those not faithful to the Messiah. However, the redeemed but nonglorified population on earth survives the battle, enters the Millennium (cf. 11:13, 12:13-17), and reproduces offspring some of whom do not become saved as they mature. These unredeemed will comprise Satan’s rebellious army at the Millennium’s end.” (Revelation 8-22: An Exegetical Commentary, 410-411)

To the question of whether moderns know more than their predecessors, Richard Weaver (one of the three fathers of modern conservatism) responded by noting that “everything depends on what we mean by knowledge.” Then he offered this observation: “[T]here is no knowledge at the level of sensation.” From the perspective of anyone who is not a modernist, Weaver has to be right.

Sensory stimulation alone conveys no knowledge. Sensation alone is meaningless. Sensations do not even register in the consciousness until they have been construed. The act of construal is an interpretive act in which a sensation is connected to other sensations within a web of meaning. Humans never know a thing simply as it is: they know the thing only as it has been interpreted.

The universe has a structure in which everything is related to everything else. If the mind were utterly tabula rasa, no amount of sensation could ever lead to knowledge. Knowledge requires correct interpretation, and correct interpretation requires an interior, mental structure that matches the outer structure of reality—if not in its details, at least in its outlines.

Only one Mind fully comprehends the structure of the universe. It comprehends, not because it has exhaustively studied the universe, but because it planned the universe. Its knowledge is not derivative and inferential, but immediate and intuitive. It never studies and never learns, but simply knows. That Mind is God’s mind.

Consequently, we can speak of reality existing at three levels. One is the external reality of the universe in which all objects and events are related to one another in causal, moral, and personal ways. That reality, however, is secondary and derivative. It exists only because of a prior reality that exists in the mind of God. What God thinks constitutes the pattern, what He creates (or allows to be done) becomes the copy.

Reprinted with permission from Faith Pulpit (Jul-Sep, 2011).

“Now behold, one came and said to Him, ‘Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?’ So He said to him, ‘Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.’” (Matt. 19:16, 17).

If someone asked you how to obtain eternal life, what would your answer be? We know¹ that eternal life comes by believing in God’s Son, as John 3:14-18 tells us, rather than by keeping the commandments. We know this is true because we were saved by believing in Christ, not by trying to keep God’s commands. So how are we to understand the words of Christ to this person? This passage is one in which acquiring the skill of identifying and distinguishing law, gospel, and grace is crucial to its understanding.

What are they?

Romans 3:20 teaches us two truths about God’s law: (1) by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in God’s sight, and (2) the law brings an awareness of sin. Law always refers to some demand by God which brings condemnation and death (cf. 2 Car. 3:7-9). Now we understand that the words of our Lord about keeping the commandments and obtaining eternal life were actually an attempt to show the young man his sin and need of a Savior.

On the other hand, gospel does not make demands but rather refers to what God has done by sending His Son to die for our sins and to be raised from the dead (1 Cor. 15:1-4). The law says “do” while the gospel says “done.” Trusting in Christ is not a demand but a response to the gospel.

What is beauty?

The beginning of the Rock Music culture in the US is a little difficult to pinpoint, but by the time of Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock,” its presence was evident to almost everyone. With the advent of Rock the youth of America possessed their own music. Their parents dismissed it as dissonant, gyrating wildness and told their children: “That isn’t music!” But the youth—particularly the Baby Boomer Generation—held on to it tenaciously. Rock/Pop has now become the world’s music to the extent that it is heard everywhere and all the time. Now teenagers listening to 100-year old hymns think, “That isn’t music!”

Many post-modern thinkers will probably tell you that the quality of music is a matter of taste, determined by culture and experience. This is a break with how people have thought, literally for millennia. It uses an argument that can easily be turned against itself (you can also say that the proposition “quality of music is merely taste, determined by culture and experience,” is simply a product of culture and experience, and perhaps not valid at all). When we talk about music or art, we also talk about the concept of beauty. I am not telling you a fairy tale when I say that there was a time when people agreed on what is good music, even if they disagreed on style preference. When and how did the change to today’s view of beauty come about? I think the change began slowly with the ideas of Immanuel Kant (and you thought it all started with Elvis, right?).

Roger Olson and I disagree about plenty of issues, but according to a recent blog post, we apparently find concord in one important topic. We are both convinced that Christians should not sing hymns that express significant error.

To be sure, Roger and I dispute both what constitutes error and how significant the error is. He is Arminian while I am Calvinistic. He is very broadly evangelical while I am pretty narrowly fundamentalistic. He believes that the gospel does not have to include hell (though he does not deny its existence), while I believe that the good news (gospel) is only as good as the bad news (laðra spella) is bad, and that the gospel is hardly news at all without a doctrine of eternal perdition behind it. These differences are more than negligible, and they definitely mean that Roger will sing some songs that I cannot, and vice versa.

Where we agree is in taking hymnody seriously. What we sing is a confession of what we believe. For us to sing what we do not believe would be to bear false witness.

Roger says that he cannot sing “Be Still My Soul” because it expresses God’s sovereignty, even over evil. On the other hand, one of my former colleagues could not sing the last stanza of “Jesus, Thy Blood and Righteousness” because he is convinced of limited atonement. Personally, I relish both of these hymns, but Christian charity forbids me from pressuring a brother to affirm what he does not believe. For him to do so would be a sin, and for me to coerce him would also be a sin. I take no offense with what he cannot sing, though I may well disagree with his choice.

Thus far, I believe that Roger and I are committed to the same general practice. In my own conscience, however, I go one step further. We have not discussed this matter, but I would be surprised to discover that Roger would take this step with me.