# MacArthur and the New Covenant?



## john_Mark (Jun 9, 2005)

This article  A Response to John MacArthur on
"œDispensationalism and God´s Plan for Israel" by Steve Lehrer. 

This part seems to say that MacArthur (dispensationalists?) believe the New Covenant is with Israel. If I understand this correctly it makes me question why MacArthur or one who holds this position would administer the Lord´s Supper to the church since that is for those in the New Covenant? Am I off base here?



> Jeremiah 31
> The prophecy concerning the new covenant that is first mentioned in Jeremiah 31 and then quoted in Hebrews 8 and 10 is one of the most striking evidences that the promises to national Israel are fulfilled in the church. In its old covenant context, Jeremiah 31:31-34 seems to be a prophecy about God´s future blessings for ethnic Israel and Judah sometime after Judah is defeated by the Babylonians:
> 
> "œThe time is coming," declares the Lord, "œWhen I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the Lord. "œThis is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the Lord. "œI will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, "˜Know the Lord,´ because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest," declares the Lord. "œFor I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
> ...


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## biblelighthouse (Jun 9, 2005)

> _Originally posted by john_Mark_
> This article  A Response to John MacArthur on
> "œDispensationalism and God´s Plan for Israel" by Steve Lehrer.
> 
> This part seems to say that MacArthur (dispensationalists?) believe the New Covenant is with Israel. If I understand this correctly it makes me question why MacArthur or one who holds this position would administer the Lord´s Supper to the church since that is for those in the New Covenant? Am I off base here?



Classic dispensationalists believe that there is more than one "New Covenant". They say there is a New Covenant for Israel, and a New Covenant for the Church, and that these two are not identical.

According to Dr. Charles Ryrie: 


> The reference to "new covenant" is without the definite article. The text does not say we are ministers of "the new covenant" but of "a new covenant." The definite article is also absent in Hebrews 9:15 and 12:24. This may not be significant at all, or it may indicate that Paul is focusing on a new covenant made with the church, which, of course, is based on the death of Christ as is also the future new covenant made with Israel. If so, there are two new covenants; perhaps even more if one understands a covenant related to each dispensational change in the outworking of God's plan and purpose. In this view the two new covenants are distinct and not merged into one, which has already been inaugurated (as progressives teach).



Source: http://www.duluthbible.org/g_f_j/Dispensationalism_3.htm


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## john_Mark (Jun 9, 2005)

Now that's a convenient answer. I think Hebrews 8 answers Ryrie's position on the NC when quoting Jeremiah 31.

Or we could quote Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. And say there are three convenants the two Ryrie mentioned and this one called a better covenant.


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## biblelighthouse (Jun 9, 2005)

Yup. In fact, Ryrie himself left the door open for that type of nonsense when he said, "If so, there are two new covenants; perhaps even more . . ."

It sounds like he wasn't even content settling on there being only two new covenants . . . maybe he wanted to leave the door open for numerous new covenants, as they became necessary to prop up dispensationalism.


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## govols (Jun 13, 2005)

BUT JMJ doesn't hold to what Ryrie believes about dispensationalism. JMJ only agrees with Ryrie in a few things.

JMJ never says that the church is not a participant in the New Covenant. Just take a few minutes to study one of JMJ's commentaries on the the Lord's Supper (Matthew) or his commentary on 2 Corinthians 3. It is clear that JMJ sees the church as participating in the New Covenant.

Traditional (Ryrie) dispensationalism is what you both are referring to.

JMJ is saying that the inclusion of the church never cancels out the former promises in the OT and so he asks, "Where does it say that <it cancels it out>."


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## Rich Barcellos (Jun 13, 2005)

When I was at TMS, MacArthur used to say that he was a leaky dispensationalist. We would all laugh. He never told us what that meant. As far as I know, he stills holds to pre-trib. premillism. He also holds to a future for national/ethnic Israel (whatever that means) in the millennium - land, temple, and maybe even the reinstitution of the sacrificial system, maybe not. Has anyone consulted the Mac Study Bible? The only problem there would be that he is only the General Editor. He did not write all the notes and some may well reflect the older dispensationalism of some of the contributors.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 13, 2005)

> _Originally posted by govols_
> BUT JMJ doesn't hold to what Ryrie believes about dispensationalism. JMJ only agrees with Ryrie in a few things.
> 
> JMJ never says that the church is not a participant in the New Covenant. Just take a few minutes to study one of JMJ's commentaries on the the Lord's Supper (Matthew) or his commentary on 2 Corinthians 3. It is clear that JMJ sees the church as participating in the New Covenant.
> ...



Mark Dever did an excellent interview with him at 9Marks and Mac said pretty much the same thing. I was thinking to myself, "That is a little harder to refute, but it proves/states a whole lot less." 

I like Johnny Mac, though. I have the Mac Study Bible, waht verses should I look up?


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## Scott (Jun 13, 2005)

John_Mark: This is a good observation. This whole area, like many, has been a problem for dispensationalists and there have been a variety of answers. I know some that have abandoned the Lord's Supper altogether. On a related point, some have rejected the applicability of certain scriptures to the church (eg. Matthew) as they were believed to be for the future kingdom of Israel.


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## Rich Barcellos (Jun 13, 2005)

Jacob,

Try Jeremiah 31; Ezekeil 40-48; Zech. 14; Romans 11.


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## biblelighthouse (Jun 13, 2005)

> John Macarthur challenged us: "œYou show me in that verse, in the Old Testament, which promises a kingdom to Israel, where it says that it really means the Church"”show me! Where does it say that?"



Just for the sake of discussion . . . 

Considering those of us with postmillenial beliefs, I'm not all that sure that a future kingdom for Israel is out of the question. 

Of course, I am speaking in a very non-dispensational sense. But if the entire earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, and the majority of people on earth become Christians because of the working of the Holy Spirit, then what's to keep Jewish Christians from inhabiting a nation in the area we call "Israel"?

Personally, I don't quite look at it like this. Rather, I look at Romans 4:13 as a "filling up" and "extending" of the original land promise, so that it not only includes the borders of Israel, but actually includes all the land on earth. God promised Abraham that he would inherit the entire world. And He promised the same thing to Christians in Matthew 5.

But regardless of my personal thoughts, isn't there room in postmillenial eschatology for a future nation of Israel? I personally don't have a problem with those who might suggest it, as long as they don't do it for dispensational reasons.

Your thoughts?


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## RamistThomist (Jun 13, 2005)

From the Mac Study Bible,

Ezekieal 40:38-47,
"They (millennial sacrifices will exist as vv.39-43 indicate, but they will no longer be efficacious...Israel rejected her Messiah but when they have received him and are in his kingdom, they will have memorial sacrifices for him."

However,
He contradicts himself (or his editors) in his notes on Hebrews 10.

More later.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 13, 2005)

> _Originally posted by biblelighthouse_
> 
> 
> > John Macarthur challenged us: "œYou show me in that verse, in the Old Testament, which promises a kingdom to Israel, where it says that it really means the Church"”show me! Where does it say that?"
> ...



Sure, at least as I see it. I follow Iaian Murray's exegesis in _The Puritan Hope_. I see Israel restored. However, they get something better than a puny strip of palestine--they join God's worldwide kingdom.

[Edited on 6--13-05 by Draught Horse]


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## Rich Barcellos (Jun 13, 2005)

Jacob,

Concerning the non-efficacious nature of millennial sacrifices, when were they ever "efficacious"? I'm throwing this question out not assuming you believe they were. It's aimed at what you quoted above. According the the Confession (WCF VIII.6), "efficacy" is due to the work of redemption wrought by Christ. There was a difference of opinion at TMS when I was there on this issue. One prof. claimed the OT sacrifices were efficacious in and of themselves. Another one held to the Confession's view.

Also, where does the Bible teach us that a sacrifical system which was typological and forward looking at some point in the future becomes retrospecitve? Again, not aimed at you but at the typical disp. position. When a type is fulfilled by its anti-type does it then take on another function at some point in the future? I think their args. are very weak and driven by a system of interpretation imposed on the text of Scripture. The author of Hebrews sure seems pretty bent against the need for reinstituting the OT sacrifical system.


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## RamistThomist (Jun 13, 2005)

> _Originally posted by Rich Barcellos_
> Jacob,
> 
> Concerning the non-efficacious nature of millennial sacrifices, when were they ever "efficacious"? I'm throwing this question out not assuming you believe they were. It's aimed at what you quoted above. According the the Confession (WCF VIII.6), "efficacy" is due to the work of redemption wrought by Christ. There was a difference of opinion at TMS when I was there on this issue. One prof. claimed the OT sacrifices were efficacious in and of themselves. Another one held to the Confession's view.
> ...



I think I see what you're getting at. I wasn't very clear at first. Thanks.


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## Rich Barcellos (Jun 13, 2005)

Jacob,

You were very clear! I was picking on the quotes, which were as clear as mud.


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## turmeric (Jun 13, 2005)

Okay, then what are the sin-offerings in the last part of Ezekiel about, and who is the prince who offers but cannot enter or exit the eastern gate because that's the way God came back into the temple? I have yet to hear of a good explanation for that and those are the Scriptures Dispensationalists use to make this outrageous claim about re-instituted sacrifices.


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## john_Mark (Jun 13, 2005)

> _Originally posted by govols_
> BUT JMJ doesn't hold to what Ryrie believes about dispensationalism. JMJ only agrees with Ryrie in a few things.
> 
> JMJ never says that the church is not a participant in the New Covenant. Just take a few minutes to study one of JMJ's commentaries on the the Lord's Supper (Matthew) or his commentary on 2 Corinthians 3. It is clear that JMJ sees the church as participating in the New Covenant.
> ...



First, I know you are referencing John MacArthur with "JMJ", but what does "JMJ" stand for? 

Second, I didn't mean to equate JM with Ryrie, I was merely answering the brothers post.

Third, I am trying to understand who JM beleives the NC is made with either Israel (I agree w/Rich) or those in Christ or both at the same time? What does it mean that the church "participates" in the NC? I guess using the word "participates" is a way to allow the church to partake of the Lord's Supper even though the NC wouldn't be made with the church? I am trying to grasp this as it seems that those partaking of the Lord's Supper were actually those *in* the NC and not mere benefactors. 

Also, even before Israel can have a restored earthly Kingdom they must turn to Christ which brings us back to believers and the NC. Who defines, in this scenario, who the Israel who will believe is contrasted with the church? Doesn't being a believer make one part of the church anyways?


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## Joseph Ringling (Jun 13, 2005)

> _Originally posted by john_Mark_
> 
> 
> > _Originally posted by govols_
> ...



John Macarthur Jr.


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## john_Mark (Jun 13, 2005)

Oh yeah, I forgot about the Jr. lol


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## Scott (Jun 13, 2005)

"Concerning the non-efficacious nature of millennial sacrifices, when were they ever "efficacious"?"

They were sacramentally efficacious in that they supernaturall conveyed Christ to people. This was a point of contention between Reformers and Catholics. Catholics argued that they were not efficacious in any sense, just typological of New Covenant sacraments. Reformed argued that they were sacramentally efficacious to the Old Testament believers in a way similar to the way New Covenant sacraments are efficacious to the New Covenant believer. Francis Turretin's Institutes of Elenctic Theology discuss this point well. As I recall, the main text Turretin used was 1 Cor. 10:1-4: 



> 1For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. 2They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. 3They all ate the same spiritual food 4and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.



Note that they ate and drank Christ as do we.

Of course, to make clear, "efficacious" does not mean that the sacraments were "instruments" of justification. The only instrument of justification is faith. Also, all the benefits communicated by the sacraments are properly attributed to the Holy Spirit. Still, as the Westminster standards say, the sacraments are "effectual to salvation."


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## Scott (Jun 13, 2005)

[1] on the reinstitution of the temple system (and all that entails), Jeremiah 3:16 is useful:



> In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land," declares the LORD, "men will no longer say, 'The ark of the covenant of the LORD.' It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made.



If you look in the context it is the middle of the new Jerusalem etc.

[2] MacArthur's broader challenge is a product of literalistic hermeneutics. I don't think his principles of hermeneutics are accurate. Here is an excerpt from Augustine's City of God that I think it relevant.




> "Wherefore just as that divine oracle to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the other prophetic signs or sayings which are given in the earlier sacred writings, so also the other prophecies from this time of the kings pertain partly to the nation of Abraham's flesh, and partly to that seed of his in which all nations are blessed as fellow-heirs of Christ by the New Testament, to the possessing of eternal life and the kingdom of the heavens. Therefore they pertain partly to the bond maid who gendereth to bondage, that is, the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with her children; but partly to the free city of God, that is, the true Jerusalem eternal in the heavens, whose children are all those that live according to God in the earth: but there are some things among them which are understood to pertain to both,-to the bond maid properly, to the free woman figuratively.
> *Therefore prophetic utterances of three kinds are to be found; forasmuch as there are some relating to the earthly Jerusalem, some to the heavenly, and some to both.* I think it proper to prove what I say by examples. The prophet Nathan was sent to convict king David of heinous sin, and predict to him what future evils should be consequent on it. Who can question that this and the like pertain to the terrestrial city, whether publicly, that is, for the safety or help of the people, or privately, when there are given forth for each one's private good divine utterances whereby something of the future may be known for the use of temporal life? But where we read, "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make for the house of Israel, and for the house of Judah, a new testament: not according to the testament that I settled for their fathers in the day when I laid hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my testament, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the testament that I will make for the house of Israel: after those days, saith the Lord, I will give my laws in their mind, and will write them upon their hearts, and I will see to them; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people;"5 -without doubt this is prophesied to the Jerusalem above, whose reward is God Himself, and whose chief and entire good it is to have Him, and to be His. But this pertains to both, that the city of God is called Jerusalem, and that it is prophesied the house of God shall be in it; and this prophecy seems to be fulfilled when king Solomon builds that most noble temple. For these things both happened in the earthly Jerusalem, as history shows, and were types of the heavenly Jerusalem. And this kind of prophecy, as it were compacted and commingled of both the others in the ancient canonical books, containing historical narratives, is of very great significance, and has exercised and exercises greatly the wits of those who search holy writ. For example, what we read of historically as predicted and fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to, the flesh, we must also inquire the allegorical meaning of, as it is to be fulfilled in the seed of Abraham according to faith. And so much is this the case, that some have thought there is nothing in these books either foretold and effected, or effected although not foretold, that does not insinuate something else which is to be referred by figurative signification to the city of God on high, and to her children who are pilgrims in this life. But if this be so, then the utterances of the prophets, or rather the whole of those Scriptures that are reckoned under the title of the Old Testament, will be not of three, but of two different kinds. For there will be nothing there which pertains to the terrestrial Jerusalem only, if whatever is there said and fulfilled of or concerning her signifies something which also refers by allegorical prefiguration to the celestial Jerusalem; but there will be only two kinds one that pertains to the free Jerusalem, the other to both. But just as, I think, they err greatly who are of opinion that none of the records of affairs in that kind of writings mean anything more than that they so happened, so I think those very daring who contend that the whole gist of their contents lies in allegorical significations. Therefore I have said they are threefold, not two-fold. Yet, in holding this opinion, I do not blame those who may be able to draw out of everything there a spiritual meaning, only saving, first of all, the historical truth. For the rest, what believer can doubt that those things are spoken vainly which are such that, whether said to have been done or to be yet to come, they do not beseem either human or divine affairs? Who would not recall these to spiritual understanding if he could, or confess that they should be recalled by him who is able?


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## Rich Barcellos (Jun 13, 2005)

Scott,

What was being advocated, if my memory serves me correctly, is that the OT sacrifices, of themselves, expiated sin - kind of like ex opera operato - without any view toward Christ. The one prof. who argued this did not believe that the object of faith before the coming of Christ was Christ. He would say it was something like God's Word. In other words, he denied WCF VII.5, which says, "This covenant [of grace]...all foresignifying Christ to come, which were for that time sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation..." He also denied WCF VIII.6. The virtue, efficacy, and benefits of the redemption wrought by Christ "were communicated unto the elect in all ages successively from the beginning of the world, in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices, wherein he was revealed and signified to be the Seed of the woman..."


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## Scott (Jun 14, 2005)

Rich, I see. I too have heard dispensationalists with that kind of take on the sacrifices. I more commonly hear that they were mere symbols with no power whatsoever. The portion of WCF VIII.6 you cited I think summarizes the biblical position best.

Scott


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## govols (Jun 17, 2005)

Rich,

Are you the author of a book on the Decalogue?


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## Rich Barcellos (Jun 17, 2005)

Yes. I must confess that is me.


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## govols (Jun 17, 2005)

I must admit that I read it and thought you were totally off base.


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## govols (Jun 17, 2005)

TOTALLY kidding.   



I haven't read it yet. 



I have always wanted to say that to an author but hadn't had the time or chance !!!!

I plan to read it though. My pastor has a copy in his office.

[Edited on 6-17-2005 by govols]


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## ReformedWretch (Jun 17, 2005)




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## Rich Barcellos (Jun 17, 2005)

:bigsmile:


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## Rich Barcellos (Jun 17, 2005)

BTW, if I you had read it and thought I was totally off base you would be booted off this list.


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## govols (Jun 22, 2005)

In that case, I will keep my mouth and opinions shut.


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