Understanding Hebrews -2

[DaveW]

1Pe 4:7 But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sOBer, and watch unto prayer.

2000 years later and the end of all things which was then at hand has not happened yet - all things have not ended yet......

Why is this guy allowed to promote and teach his rubbish on an IFB site?

[Alimantado]

GP, while some folk on here believe that a range of eschatological views reside within the IFB 'camp', others on here--and Steve and Dave would be two--believe that only one eschatological view resides within the IFB camp and that anyone who doesn't hold to that view is therefore not IFB by definition.

Simple as that. And you've been here at least the last two times those views have been made plain.

[DaveW]

His eschatology is not biblical.
This has been displayed various times through discussions of Daniel, Revelation, and even "these last times", and his ridiculous ad70 arguments.
He has been shown to have an indefensible position on several occasions but refuses to see it.

He is not IFB by his own admission, so that is a ridiculous argument.

There is no point constantly restating the arguments against his position because he ignores it.

I still don't understand why he is allowed to run a teaching thread on a site where he disagrees with so much of the stated position of the site.

[John81]

OBviously no one has proven their eschatological views beyond a shadow of a doubt since there has been, continues to be and always will be much debate and difference of view on this matter. Men used greatly of God many centuries ago, a century or two ago, these past several decades and now today have held to differing eschatological views. Each of these men were convinced through the study of Scripture that the view they came to hold was biblical and true. The various debates over different eschatological views has long carried on and has hashed and rehashed the same material over and over and yet not one particular view has been able to present a 100% airtight case that makes every point of that view clearly accurate and true.

 

This isn't just a matter "other" Christians contend with, there is a wide variety of eschatological views within IFB; which the "I" (Independent), leaves room for.

 

If a matter is important enough to give serious, Christlike, biblical time to in civil discussion, then it's worthy of attention and study. If the matter is not so important as to give such then it's certainly not worthy of separation, unkindness, attack or personal jabs.

 

This is one of the reasons Fundamental Baptists chose to be independent; so each local church could build upon the fundamentals of the faith as they believed they were led of the Lord. This is why IFB churches differ in areas, whether a little or a lot, on matters of eschatology, dress, music, church membership, preaching style, OBservance of the Lord's Supper, etc.

 

While I may not overly participate in the various eschatology threads, I do read them and consider the points put forth (pro or con) whether it be this thread, a pre-trib, mid-trib, post-trib or other thread on the subject. When the discussions are carried forth with much Scripture and in a biblically civil manner they prompt study, thought and prayer.

[wretched]

Good points all - well not really

 

Take it with a grain of salt and learn to laugh at yourselves because after all, everyone else is laughing at you  

 

Seriously though, I disagree with this statement John:  The various debates over different eschatological views has long carried on and has hashed and rehashed the same material over and over and yet not one particular view has been able to present a 100% airtight case that makes every point of that view clearly accurate and true.

 

There is no logic in that statement simply because noone has an airtight case over any Scripture, we believe it by faith and faith only. Get in the Book and stop "considering" what any muttenhead is teaching. Noone in this thread is a babe, why are you still considering what men say. Your local pastors/elders are the only men authorized by God to give you lessons. And even those require searching for yourself in the Word to make sure they are right.

 

Bible study is not 5 minutes of forced reading of the Word to get through it and then you read some dude's interpretation of it for an hour. That is the kind of Bible study that has kept ignorance alive in IFB circles for generations now. Not to mention isolated pockets of whacky ideas like preterism. Not to mention men worship, as had developed in some of the biggest IFB churches in the world back in the 80s and 90s and is reemerging today in some areas (we meatsacks have very short memories).

 

I will tell you how those things happened, when you started buying some dude's books and put his muttenhead ideas beside God's Word to help you learn. It went to his head and the rest is history.

 

Get alone with God and stop searching men's ideas.

[Covenanter]

Sorry - I thought this was a Bible study on Hebrews, not eschatology. I felt such a study would correct wacky ideas like Hebrews being written for a future dispensation of Jews, rather than the real, living people he was addressing; people who were halting between Moses & Christ, between the old covenant & the new, & enable us to come to better understanding of covenants.

[Steve Schwenke]

John, certainly there is room for Scriptural debate and discussion on end times interpretation of Scripture, however, there must be ground rules involved.  For instance, the preterist view is OBVIOUSLY unscriptural, and not worthy of our consideration. 

NOBody has every single point nailed down, but we CAN eliminate certain propositions from the start - and that is the point that DaveW and I are attempting to make.  Covenanter's entire approach to the interpretation of Scripture is wrong - we have demonstrated this countless times.  Certainly he has truth in his doctrine, but it is leavened with corruption.  If there were absolutely no truth, it would not be palpable to anyone - it is that element of truth that draws others in.  There is just enough truth for a young or unsettled Christian to say, "Well, he is right on Point A and B, so his Points C, D, and E must be correct also."  That is what makes his false doctrine so dangerous. 

If you recall, the woman in Matthew 13 mixed leaven in with the meal.  She had the truth, but introduced leaven (i.e. false doctrine - Matt. 16:11-12; Gal. 5:9) into that meal, and the leaven ruined the entire loaf.  

The seeds of leaven that Covenanter is sowing do nothing but create confusion and doubt in the young or unsettled believer's mind.  It has no place on this forum, in my opinion. 

We have addressed this issue before, and all that happened was that he piped down for awhile, but there was no permanent action taken against him.  So a few months have gone by, and here he is again, pushing his own agenda.  Now he can try to use Hebrews as a platform to put his hooks into the unsuspecting (Matt. 13 all over again!!!), but I for one know what he is up to, so I am not buying into it. 

[Steve Schwenke]

Regarding the dispensational aspect of Hebrews:

 

The Hyper-dispensationalists get fixated on chopping up the Bible into "sections."  The prOBlem with this approach is that no matter how they go "slicing and dicing," there is no perfect mould to fit their scheme.

 

Certainly, from a dispensational point of view, the Book of Hebrews is what we would call a "transitional book."  There are some small portions of Hebrews that simply do not fit the rest of Pauline theology, no matter how much twisting and dodging folks do to get around the fact.  However, the vast majority of Hebrews is a tremendous book detailing the superiority of Christ over the Old Testament scheme, and MOST of it fits very nicely into Church Age Theology.  "Rightly Dividing" goes much deeper that sectioning off books of the Bible, it has to do with Books, chapters, passages, and even at times, VERSES.  I know of places where the proper division is in the middle of a VERSE, or a chapter, or a passage.   

Thus, the hyper-d's overlook and dismiss some tremendous material in Hebrews because they think that "rightly dividing" means allocating certain books to certain time periods.  As a GENERAL RULE we can use this scheme, but it will not fit precisely all the time.  The only group of books that deals exclusively with one time period is the Pauline Epistles from Romans to Philemon.  All of the rest of the Bible can fit MANY time periods.

 

ON the other hand, the position Covenanter is espousing is over-simplified on the opposite extreme.  In his zeal to destroy dispensational teaching, he is attempting to destroy ALL differences between the Church Age and the coming Kingdom of Christ. 

The passages in Hebrews 8 deal specifically with a New Covenant that is EXCLUSIVELY Jewish in nature.  It has NOTHING to do with the Church, and EVERYTHING to do with Israel.  By removing the distinction between Israel and the Church in the New Testament, Covenanter is now forced to do the same thing in the Old Testament.  By doing this, he blithely dismisses 75% of the prophetic passages dealing with a literal return of Christ to this Earth, at which point Jesus Christ will establish a new Kingdom under a New Covenant with Israel ON THIS PLANET (Rev. 20).  The bottom line to all of this is that Covenanter and his like simply cannot handle a LITERAL rendering of these passages.  They privately interpret those passages to erase the distinction between Israel and the Church so that those passages will fit into their mould of (false) Bible teaching. 

 

The Dispensational model is not without its prOBlems, and there is certainly room for discussion on those difficulties.  However, I have never met or discussed these issues with a dispensationalist who was not willing to accept a LITERAL interpretation of Scripture as FINAL.  Covenanter CLAIMS he believes and interprets the Bible literally, but the fact is he does NOT - some of his interpretation is pulled out of thin air, or from an appeal to an extra-canonical source.  When confronted with this truth, he pulls another "smoke and mirrors" act to cover his tracts.  I have personally confronted him on these issues in the past - and he was not willing to admit his error, even when it was OBvious to everyone else on this forum.

 

And yet....he is allowed to continue posting to this day!

[Genevanpreacher]

John, certainly there is room for Scriptural debate and discussion on end times interpretation of Scripture, however, there must be ground rules involved.  For instance, the preterist view is OBVIOUSLY unscriptural, and not worthy of our consideration. 

NOBody has every single point nailed down, but we CAN eliminate certain propositions from the start - and that is the point that DaveW and I are attempting to make.  Covenanter's entire approach to the interpretation of Scripture is wrong - we have demonstrated this countless times.  Certainly he has truth in his doctrine, but it is leavened with corruption.  If there were absolutely no truth, it would not be palpable to anyone - it is that element of truth that draws others in.  There is just enough truth for a young or unsettled Christian to say, "Well, he is right on Point A and B, so his Points C, D, and E must be correct also."  That is what makes his false doctrine so dangerous. 

If you recall, the woman in Matthew 13 mixed leaven in with the meal.  She had the truth, but introduced leaven (i.e. false doctrine - Matt. 16:11-12; Gal. 5:9) into that meal, and the leaven ruined the entire loaf. *** [WHAT?]****

The seeds of leaven that Covenanter is sowing do nothing but create confusion and doubt in the young or unsettled believer's mind.  It has no place on this forum, in my opinion. 

We have addressed this issue before, and all that happened was that he piped down for awhile, but there was no permanent action taken against him.  So a few months have gone by, and here he is again, pushing his own agenda.  Now he can try to use Hebrews as a platform to put his hooks into the unsuspecting (Matt. 13 all over again!!!), but I for one know what he is up to, so I am not buying into it. 

 

Matthew 13? Are you kidding? Where is Matthew 13 teaching that the Kingdom of Heaven is corrupt?

 

Matthew 13:33 - " Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened"

 

Is this some dispensational teaching? That the Kingdom of heaven in this one verse is your support for corruption in your above comment?

Talk about 'OBVIOUSLY unscriptural'. How can you use this verse that way? Since when can you 'add' to the word of God on this forum?

 

Seriously now Steve, you really can't take this verse that way, can you?

Look at the preceding verses:

 

13:24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field:

13:31 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:

 

How come in these above verses the teaching is something 'good', yet you have changed one into something 'evil', but they all refer to the same Kingdom of heaven being each thing - a man, a grain of mustard seed and leaven?

[Covenanter]

Have any of you tried baking a loaf of bread without leaven?

 

Surely Jesus means that when a person receives with meekness the engrafted Word, it works within him, as leaven works within the dough, transforming him in every part.

[Covenanter]

Regarding the dispensational aspect of Hebrews:

 

The Hyper-dispensationalists get fixated on chopping up the Bible into "sections."  The prOBlem with this approach is that no matter how they go "slicing and dicing," there is no perfect mould to fit their scheme. Agreed

 

Certainly, from a dispensational point of view, the Book of Hebrews is what we would call a "transitional book."  The whole NT is transitional, in that the Apostles are dealing with the transition from OC to NC, from the Jerusalem/temple centred worship to Christ/spiritual centred worship wherever believers meet.

 

There are some small portions of Hebrews that simply do not fit the rest of Pauline theology, no matter how much twisting and dodging folks do to get around the fact. That is a very serious point. Can you list them?    However, the vast majority of Hebrews is a tremendous book detailing the superiority of Christ over the Old Testament scheme, Agreed and MOST of it fits very nicely into Church Age Theology.  "Rightly Dividing" goes much deeper that sectioning off books of the Bible, it has to do with Books, chapters, passages, and even at times, VERSES.  I know of places where the proper division is in the middle of a VERSE, or a chapter, or a passage. That is a very serious point. Can you list them?

 

Thus, the hyper-d's overlook and dismiss some tremendous material in Hebrews because they think that "rightly dividing" means allocating certain books to certain time periods.  As a GENERAL RULE we can use this scheme, but it will not fit precisely all the time.  The only group of books that deals exclusively with one time period is the Pauline Epistles from Romans to Philemon.  All of the rest of the Bible can fit MANY time periods. That needs more detailed argument.

 

ON the other hand, the position Covenanter is espousing is over-simplified on the opposite extreme.  In his zeal to destroy dispensational teaching, he is attempting to destroy ALL differences between the Church Age and the coming Kingdom of Christ. Am I on a campaign to destroy anything, other than error? And I do believe in the present church age & the coming glorious & eternal kingdom, when Jesus returns for resurrection & judgement. As Jesus explains in his Kingdom parables, in the present Gospel kingdom, wheat & tares grow together, until the harvest. Then there is total separation. 

 

The passages in Hebrews 8 deal specifically with a New Covenant that is EXCLUSIVELY Jewish in nature.  It has NOTHING to do with the Church, and EVERYTHING to do with Israel. The NC in Jesus' blood was inaugurated at the last supper & is the basis for the salvation of all, regardless of ethnicity.    By removing the distinction between Israel and the Church in the New Testament, There are no "testaments" in the OT, only covenants, & quotations in the NT show that "testament" is generally synonymous with "covenant" and of course, at first the church comprised only Jews. The NC with Israel was effected at Calvary, & included Gentiles as explained in Acts.  Covenanter is now forced to do the same thing in the Old Testament. Sorry but I'm guided by Paul in Gal. 3, where he makes it clear that the original covenant with Abraham counted in the Gentiles. ( Gen. 12:1-3 ) By doing this, he blithely dismisses 75% of the prophetic passages dealing with a literal return of Christ to this Earth, at which point Jesus Christ will establish a new Kingdom under a New Covenant with Israel ON THIS PLANET (Rev. 20). Israel has 3 mentions in Revelation, not in Rev. 20. In those cases, Israel is understood literally.    The bottom line to all of this is that Covenanter and his like simply cannot handle a LITERAL rendering of these passages.  They privately interpret those passages to erase the distinction between Israel and the Church so that those passages will fit into their mould of (false) Bible teaching. 

 

The Dispensational model is not without its prOBlems, and there is certainly room for discussion on those difficulties.  However, I have never met or discussed these issues with a dispensationalist who was not willing to accept a LITERAL interpretation of Scripture as FINAL. Literal INTERPRETATION is an oxymoron. If Scripture needs interpretation, it means it is not being read literally.  Covenanter CLAIMS he believes and interprets the Bible literally, but the fact is he does NOT - some of his interpretation is pulled out of thin air, or from an appeal to an extra-canonical source. Tell me where & what? I rely on Scripture to seek to explain Scripture. When confronted with this truth, he pulls another "smoke and mirrors" act to cover his tracts.  I have personally confronted him on these issues in the past - and he was not willing to admit his error, even when it was OBvious to everyone else on this forum. I am always prepared to admit errors, but our disagreements tend to be interpretational, not clearly established

 

And yet....he is allowed to continue posting to this day!

[John81]

John, certainly there is room for Scriptural debate and discussion on end times interpretation of Scripture, however, there must be ground rules involved.  For instance, the preterist view is OBVIOUSLY unscriptural, and not worthy of our consideration. 

NOBody has every single point nailed down, but we CAN eliminate certain propositions from the start - and that is the point that DaveW and I are attempting to make.  Covenanter's entire approach to the interpretation of Scripture is wrong - we have demonstrated this countless times.  Certainly he has truth in his doctrine, but it is leavened with corruption.  If there were absolutely no truth, it would not be palpable to anyone - it is that element of truth that draws others in.  There is just enough truth for a young or unsettled Christian to say, "Well, he is right on Point A and B, so his Points C, D, and E must be correct also."  That is what makes his false doctrine so dangerous. 

If you recall, the woman in Matthew 13 mixed leaven in with the meal.  She had the truth, but introduced leaven (i.e. false doctrine - Matt. 16:11-12; Gal. 5:9) into that meal, and the leaven ruined the entire loaf.  

The seeds of leaven that Covenanter is sowing do nothing but create confusion and doubt in the young or unsettled believer's mind.  It has no place on this forum, in my opinion. 

We have addressed this issue before, and all that happened was that he piped down for awhile, but there was no permanent action taken against him.  So a few months have gone by, and here he is again, pushing his own agenda.  Now he can try to use Hebrews as a platform to put his hooks into the unsuspecting (Matt. 13 all over again!!!), but I for one know what he is up to, so I am not buying into it. 

By your own statement Covenanter's "entire approach to interpretation of Scripture" can't be wrong if he does indeed get some points right.

 

That said, if you are correct that some points are right, and others are wrong, then that affords the perfect opportunity to do just as Paul did and clearly lay out the truth; which he did with much patience, often doing this very thing for great extended periods of time.

 

As you say, no one has every point nailed down, which leaves room for potentially good and profitable discussion upon these and other matters. The best course to approach these things, especially if one is concerned what others might think of what has been posted, is to engage the topic in a proper, biblical manner. In so doing, one could point out agreement with certain points while saying they disagree with other points and then laying out the biblical reason. This provides young and old Christians alike the opportunity to ponder the points presented, take them before the Lord in prayer, consult Scripture, and perhaps even engage in the discussion with important questions.

 

Interpretation is an area that needs patient and biblical attention as well. A dozen men of relative same maturity in Christ can read a passage and each come away with anything from slight to great differences of understanding as to what they mean or how they apply. This isn't something new. Over the centuries various men of God who have been greatly used of God have held to differing views regarding interpretation, eschatology and a host of other matters. That didn't mean they were unsaved, unfit to be heard, unable to be used of God. Consider Wesley and Whitefield, both men used of God in great ways yet both holding to very different views of interpretation and other matters; and yet somehow God used these men in tandem to bring many to Christ.

 

Not all of us are called to engage in every battle. If you (Steve and all the rest of us) are not called to engage in particular discussions then I'm certainly not going to think less of you or your stated positions.

 

Recently there have been a few men here who have discussed some points they disagree upon to a wide degree and yet they posted respectfully, in civil manners, presented their points, understood where one another was coming from, realized neither was going to be swayed by what was put forth, and then respectfully ended that discussion and moved on to other threads and topics. Such is edifying.

 

There are plenty of threads I don't dive into, even those I read every post in and even those I make a few postings in, because I don't feel led to engage. However, it seems I always find something worthwhile to take away from the discussions, if they are actual discussions and not boxing matches.

 

We must also remember that IFBs, and those they associate with, are an eclectic lot. They have as their foundation a few fundamentals but from there the independent aspect kicks in giving us a wide variety among IFBs. As far as I can recall, Covenanter and most all active members here hold to the traditional five fundamentals which IFBs originally formed over.

[DaveW]

Self confessed non-IFB leading a study on an IFB site???????
And promoting a plainly false doctrine and one which is traditionally rejected by IFB.

Not right.

[Covenanter]

 

SS

For instance, the preterist view is OBVIOUSLY unscriptural, and not worthy of our consideration.

Labels are handy, but generally mean what the labeller intends them to mean, NOT what the one labelled actually believes & teaches.

 

I believe that when Jesus prophesied the destruction of Jerusalem & the temple, & the judgment on "this generation" that he was referring to AD 70, & that the warning signs were intended to be taken literally - as they were. That when he said "Heaven and earth shall pass away" he was referring to his final coming for resurrection & judgement - a yet future coming that behoves US to watch & pray. It is yet future - we don't know when. And that when Hebrews begins 1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, 2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, he is referring to God's last words to rebellious Israel, & also to the whole new covenant, Gospel age we are living in.

 

We should not look for a future inspired word from God.   

[John81]

Self confessed non-IFB leading a study on an IFB site???????
And promoting a plainly false doctrine and one which is traditionally rejected by IFB.

Not right.

Bro Matt has welcomed Covenanter to this site and has made it clear one doesn't have to be IFB to be a member or to post here.

 

Leading a study? He seems to be doing the same thing the rest of us do, making posts  and discussing posts.

 

If his eschatological views are "plainly false doctrine" why do some IFBs yet hold to such; as well as a variety of other views? Traditionally, eschatological views were not considered to be a point within the fundamentals nor a point of separation.

 

If any teaching is "plainly false" then some should relish the opportunity to put forth clear biblical refutations for the edification of the readers.