Analyzing Joel Webbon's Flawed Understanding of Dispensationalism

Joel Webbon has positioned himself as one of the leading voices of the neo-postmillennial movement. In addition to his own work at Right Response Ministries, he also has had the opportunities to speak at conferences and other well known Youtube channels. Recently he has an interview on the Auron MacIntyre show about the problems with dispensationalism. In this video, we review Webbon's understanding of dispensationalism.

00:00 Introduction
01:58 Review of Joel Webbon Interview
45:08 Where does Darby get his view on the Rapture?
51:12 Were Zionist Jews Behind the Scofield Bible?

[PastorJeffNoe]

Peter, thank you for this video—and for your channel ... I just discovered it! As a pastor who has taught biblical theology through a dispensational lens for almost 24 years now, I can’t tell you how encouraging it is to hear a like-minded brother lay out solid, reasoned biblical arguments as you do. (Side note: my church is very near your old stomping grounds at Masters University, so we probably have mutual friends).

There are so many “firebrand” teachers out there disparaging dispensationalism right now—it can be very discouraging. Of course, most of them mischaracterize our view, create strawmen, and then smugly mock what they don’t seem to understand.
And perhaps they’re more interested in building their brand and their following than they are in humbly working through our differences. Having watched a few of your videos now, that’s what I appreciate about your approach: humility. You seem genuine in your desire to correct where necessary, but without mocking other perspectives—so thank you for that. If more Christians watched content like yours, and less of the flamethrowers, the church would be better for it! Blessings, brother!

[changedman]

I'm so glad I found your channel, it is encouraging to see a thorough dispensational analysis of these false claims about what we believe. Thank you for your work in this area, it is very much needed for the church!

[Deb-xmjw]

Once again, you have helped me out immensely! I subscribed to Webbon’s channel for a brief time during c-19 and became so disappointed with his hermeneutics that I unsubscribed a few months later. I would love to see a part two! Thank you so much!

[theotherdisciplewhomJesusloved]

Irenic and precise, well done! If I may ask, would you consider yourself more of a Revised/Modified Dispy, Progressive Dispy, or other? Thanks for all that you do

[Woodsman]

I don’t think Pastor Webbon is gas lighting or intentionally misrepresenting dispensationalism, instead I think he is describing dispensationalism in a way that reveals the logical conclusions of the belief and how ridiculous it is. Yes, this does water down the accuracy of his description but not to the degree that he’s out to lunch.
I don’t mean any disrespect for dispensationalists but its time to call the eschatology for what it is.

[InformedTheology]

The first 6 minutes is the most polite but appropriate roast I've ever heard

[krisandnatpierce]

Hey Peter. Have you read Sam Renihan's "The Mystery of Christ"? If so, would you be willing to do an episode to talk about it? I am somewhat of a rare breed: I hold to 1689 Federalism(a Baptist Covenant Theology) AND I am premillennial AND I believe in a future restoration of Israel. I certainly don't know many that would share my views in the Reformed Baptist world, but I hold to these things because I believe that they are biblical. Anyways. It seems to me that Sam Renihan's understanding of Baptist Covenant Theology, and specifically the Abrahamic Covenant, is closer to Dispensationalism than to Covenant Theology.

Also: You have mentioned this before, but it is important that people know that guys like Spurgeon and Ryle, who were both covenantal, believed in a future for Israel in the plan of God.

[Sthousand]

Wow. First time here. Great channel. The analysis is just the way i see it.

[tjbodnar]

Thank you for this. I've seen Joel on socials for years and his influence seems ever growing. I have not seen sound biblical defense of the neo-postmill position he espouses. It seems very emotionally driven, hence why he uses low blow arguments and straw-man representations. This seems to almost always be the case with his camp, to hammer emotional straw man points without exegesis. It's flat out wrong, but it gets views. Your commentary and refutations are very needed.

[micahmartin]

Hey, Peter, so glad to see your viewership increasing. You're an important voice for clarification on these issues. Well done in your response to Joel here. Very balanced and fair, and kind. Please keep up the good work.

I want to comment on two things:

1) Joel Webbon is loquacious, and in my opinion, very difficult to listen to. He seems pretentious in the way he verbosely addresses every topic. He loves to define everything and everyone by strict "isms."

2) I don't consider the early church fathers a trustworthy source of authority regarding matters of eschatology or the covenants, etc. Their understanding of the Old Testament seems woefully inept and skewed from a Gentile perspective. Their work on more fundamental matters (i.e. deity of Christ, the Trinity, etc), is more helpful because those were the issues they had to refine as they fought heresy in the Church.

My two cents.

[torcoffee]

Thanks brother Pete, this video needed to be done. I would say I line up more with progressive dispensationalism, and I do think in general there are problems within dispensationalism. But it needs to be addressed fairly. The oversimplification and the questionable facts of history in brother Webbons critique are incredibly concerning. Covenant theology was around for 1800 years? What? Isn't that like Roman Catholics saying it was Roman Catholicism for 1500 years and then boom the reformation?! Those of us who know a little about church history understand the error of such statements! Thanks brother, I hope this gets lots of views.

[dbeebee]

Appreciate this video and I say that as a rabid postmillennial. You have an irenic tone which is rare these days, and it’s a credit to you (thank God for his works in your life).

I wanted to comment on your discussion of Paul saying the covenants don’t belong to the Church, but belong to Israel.

Paul isn’t making a distinction between Israel and the Church in these passages, but is distinguishing the difference between Jews and gentiles under the old covenant — Israel was given the covenants, promises, they have the patriarchs, and all the rest (whereas gentiles, Paul says in Ephesians 2, they were once alienated from the covenants, without God, and had no hope).

But what I think dispensationalism misses is that Paul is also quite clear that all those covenant promises which were once foreign to gentiles now belong to gentiles, in an equivalent manner to how those promises belong to David or Abraham or Moses, because of what Jesus accomplished.

“remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, ”
‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭12‬-‭16‬, ‭18‬-‭19‬ ‭ESV‬

As Paul goes on to say as he explains the apostasy of the unbelieving Jews in Romans 9-11, those Jews that didn’t believe were cut off from Israel, whereas the gentiles who did believe were grafted on to Israel. That is, there’s only one tree. There’s only one people. “Israel” = those who have faith like Abraham, regardless of race. That’s the whole point of the gospel — the dividing wall is abolished because the old covenant has closed and been fulfilled in full in Christ.

Or even more evocatively in Galatians 3 and 4:

“Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his [seed]. It does not say, “And to [seeds], ” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your [seed], ” who is Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭3‬:‭5‬-‭11‬, ‭13‬-‭14‬, 16, ‭28‬-‭29‬ ‭ESV‬‬

* note * I’ve replaced “offspring” with “seed” for clarity. ESV translates seed as offspring, leading to “offsprings” in the next line, which is a terrifically awkward phrasing. Better to just use the straightforward word.

“Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.”“So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.”
‭‭Galatians‬ ‭4‬:‭28‬-‭31 ESV‬‬

I encourage everyone to read all of Galatians to get his full argument rather than this small sampling. But, as it regards who is in covenant with God and what those covenants were about, Paul’s argument is rather clear — the promises God made to Abraham “and his seed” was a promise about one individual—Christ himself. He is the sole inheritor of the abrahamic covenant. And the fulfillment of the abrahamic covenant is the joining of gentiles into Israel, the covenant people of God and the sons of Abraham. The only way one can *be* a son of Abraham is by believing in Jesus. All those who don’t believe in Jesus aren’t Abraham’s children and have no share in his promise. But to *gentiles* Paul says they are like Isaac, the rightful born heir, whereas “those born of the flesh” (that is, all Jews who rejected Jesus) are like Ishmael and Hagar, being cast out. I mean, it’s hard to overstate how horrific this concept would be to a first century Pharisee — “I’m a son of Hagar, to be cast out like Ishmael?” But yes, that’s precisely it — bear fruit in keeping repentance, don’t say you have Abraham as your father, don’t know you know God make this rocks into Abraham’s sons? The coming of Christ was the coming of God to his holy temple, and as Malachi 4 prophesied, the wicked would be consumed in a blaze of fire, but to the righteous he would arise with healing in his wings. This is what played out in the first century — the Pharisees and priests executed the son of David, manipulating the Roman governor to get it done, and then proclaimed, “we have no king but Caesar” as they cried out “crucify him, ” —the man who was in fact the Holy One of Israel himself, walking in their midst. This is the pruning judgment that Jesus predicted and Paul in 1 Thes 2 specifically praises God for pouring out his wrath in fulfillment of Jesus’ judgments against them for murdering the prophets, killing Christ, and opposing the gospel:

“For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!”
‭‭1 Thessalonians‬ ‭2‬:‭14‬-‭16‬ ‭ESV‬‬

(Read Matt. 23 if you’d like a refresher of when Jesus condemned his generation to death for murdering the prophets).

There was no replacement of anyone. Rather, exactly as John the Baptist and Jesus constantly warned them, God pruned the dead branches off the tree and burned them (along with the temple and the whole city of Jerusalem), and grafted fruitful vines in their place. But that one tree is Israel.

Or as Jesus told the Pharisees and priests:

“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country. When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.’ And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.” When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.”
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭21‬:‭33‬-‭45‬ ‭ESV‬‬

So the covenants do belong to the church because those covenants are all about Christ alone, which is fulfilled in the total elimination of “Jew” or “gentile” as a category altogether, now redeeming all people by faith alone in him, regardless of your parentage.

This is why dispensationalism is a problem. The good news is “there is therefore now no jew or Greek.” The myster of the gospel Paul says is that, in fact, gentiles are coheirs with the Jews, united by faith in Christ. It’s just always only ever been about faith. Those who don’t have faith in Christ don’t have anything at all.

[grace.ty]

Brother Peter, let me just say this. You are a very classy and loving brother man. I love how you handle your disagreements with CTs and others who make ridiculous, angry straw man arguments (because most of them refuse to engage) with gentleness, love, and mercy. I wish that mercy would extend the other way. I share your frustrations. I don’t say that to swell you with pride or stroke your ego, but you’re a blessing my friend. Never stop taking the high road. I love you my brother

[CrusNB]

Thank you, Mr. Goeman. Love your teachings and discussions!

[francesmunro]

Thank you Dr G for this thoughtful and fact checking analysis of some of the many straw man arguments against dispensationalism we hear from the Reformed camp, and which I don’t have the resources to counter but know they are untrue. You have been SO helpful doing this for us laymen in such a plain speaking way. Love listening to your channel even though I’ve never been to bible college. Be blessed.

[fj]

Recommendations for books that explain dispensationalism properly and fairly?

[jameskime]

Very kind of you to deal with Joel honestly. He embarrasses himself when he talks.

[barelyprotestant]

I believe Dispensationalism as presented by Webbon (and I'm no Webbon fan, myself) is more popular than you think. The form of Dispensationalism he speaks of was taught in my fundamentalist upbringing. Given that Dispensationalism has no confessional standard, I don't think it's wrong to point to these forms as representative at all.

[RevReads]

I like the comparing Zwingli to Darby, totally agree.

[bromineandtungsten]

These are the types of videos that dispensationalists need to be making. It is so common for people to dismiss dispensationalism out of hand without knowing much at all about it. People like Auron Macintyre, Steve Deace, and Joel Webbon routinely criticize it as if it were responsible for every political, social, and spiritual ill today. As dispensationalism approaches the Bible with hermeneutical consistency and produces a careful theology, it is too important to let this generstion miss out on Scripture because of silly caracatures of dispensationalism. I'm glad you're addressing this!