See our playlist "End Times, Supernatural Prophecies, Tough Bible Questions" with 44 videos at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL141F261EEFCFD536. Larry Wessels, director of Christian Answers of Austin, Texas/ Christian Debater (YouTube channel CANSWERSTV with 19 playlists on numerous subjects at http://www.youtube.com/user/CAnswersTV?feature=mhee; websites: http://www.BIBLEQUERY.ORG, http://www.HISTORYCART.COM & http://www.MUSLIMHOPE.COM) presents a Bible conference lecture by John G. Reisinger. Mr. Reisinger is an evangelist & Bible conference speaker. He has pastored churches in Canada & in the U.S.A. He spent 10 years in church planting & established four sovereign grace churches. Mr Reisinger has written many books including "The Sovereignty of God in Providence," "John Bunyan on the Sabbath," "What is the Christian Faith?", "Tablets of Stone & the History of Redemption, " "Abraham’s Four Seeds: A Biblical Examination of the Presuppositions of Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism” & others. Mr Reisinger has also hosted a Christian radio program called "The Sound of Grace" since 1982. John Reisinger states, "“It is my goal to clearly demonstrate that the starting points of both Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism, considered as ‘Systems of Theology,’ are not established with the Word of God but with logic applied to previously accepted theological concepts that may or may not be true.” "Both the Dispensationalists and the Covenant Theologian want to bring the promise of Abraham and his seed into the present age in a physical sense via the lineage of their physical children. They both insist that the promise made to Abraham and his seed is an unconditional covenant and is therefore still in effect for physical seeds." "The Dispensationalist naturalizes the seed to mean physical Israel, and the Paedobaptist naturalizes the seed to mean the physical children of believers. The Paedobaptist wants to make the Abrahamic covenant to be a special covenant with believers concerning the salvation of their physical children that is still in effect today. The Dispensationalist wants the same covenant to be a specific covenant still in force with Jews concerning the land of Palestine. In the end, the Paedobaptist does exactly the same thing with Abraham’s seed as the Dispensationalist! He merely does it for a different purpose." "“I personally believe that Israel, as a people, is still a unique people in God’s purposes. However, as a nation, they do not have any spiritual or eternal purposes independent of the church. God does not have two peoples, two programs, two eternal purposes, two gospels, and he most certainly does not have two separate brides for his Son (Eph. 2:11-22).” "The preaching of the Gospel is nothing less than telling the story that (1) the promised seed of Abraham has finally come; (2) God has fulfilled, in Christ, all of the promises made to Abraham and his Seed; and (3) now those same promises are being fulfilled in all those that are united to that true Seed, Christ, by a living faith." "Dispensationalism cannot get Israel and the church together in any sense whatever, and Covenant Theology cannot get them apart. Dispensationalism cannot see that the church is the true Israel of God and the fulfillment of the promises that God made to Abraham and the fathers, and Covenant Theology cannot see that the church, as the body of Christ, did not, and simply could not, exist in reality and experience until the personal advent of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. Dispensationalism insists that Israel and the church have totally different promises and destinies (one earthly and the other heavenly), and Covenant Theology insists that Israel and the body of Christ are equally the same ‘redeemed church under the same ‘covenant of grace’ and governed by the same identical ‘canon of conduct." So what is at stake? He continues; “We will never understand either the biblical history of redemption or the relationship between the two major covenants of Scripture” until we accurately understand the nature of the promises God made to Abraham and their fulfillment. (pg. 20) There is definitely more at stake than just a simple lack of intellectual understanding. Thus, it would be foolish (at the very least) to consider the debate waged by Reisinger to be a battle for speculative theology! A failure to understand the relationship between the covenants can result in a works-based, law-oriented pursuit of holiness (see pgs. 72-73), a false assurance of salvation (see pgs. 77-81); a blurring of the lines regarding which promises God has made that we can claim for ourselves (see pgs. 83-95), and a tearing apart of the “new humanity” created by God through the redeeming work of Jesus Christ (see Ephesians 2:11-22 and Colossians 3:9-11), a “new humanity” consisting of both Jews and Gentiles (see pgs. 104-105).

• published: 23 Jan 2015
• views: 24