PT-4 “Excursus: Why Every Self-respecting Calvinist Must Be a Premillennialist.”

 

EVENING SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/27/2026 05:30 PM

            I continue this evening to quote from John MacArthur’s commentary intitled “Excursus: Why Every Self-respecting Calvinist Must Be a Premillennialist.”

            “Let’s dig a little into the text of verse 7:”which the Father has fixed [tithemi, ‘set, appointed’],” “Fixed” is in the aorist middle’’—“fixed for Himself.”  It’s about His glory.  It’s about His exaltation.  It’s about the whole world finally seeing paradise regained.  It’s about God finally being glorified—who is so dishonored through human history.  It’s about the glory of God and the honor of Jesus Christ.  And God the Father has fixed for Himself that time by His own authority—it is singular, unilateral.  There is no other way to understand it.

            “There’s no replacement theology in the theology of Jesus.  There’s no supersessionism, which is a movement to establish that there is no earthly kingdom for Israel.  That is absolutely foreign to the Old Testament and completely foreign to the New Testament.  Jesus didn’t say, “Where did you get that crazy idea?  Haven’t you been listening?”

            “They just couldn’t know the seasons, the time.  The cross was always the plan.  He said, you remember in the eighteenth chapter of Luke, also recorded in Matthew and Mark, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem” (v. 31).  And what’s going to happen, if we put those three accounts together? “I [Jesus] am going to be betrayed.  I’m going to be handed over to the chief priests and the scribes.  They’re going to condemn Me.  They’re going to hand Me over to the Gentiles because the can execute Me.  All this is in exact order.  Then when I’m handed over to the Gentiles, I’m going to be mocked, mistreated, spit on, scourged, crucified, and I’m rising again” (see vv. 32-33).  “32  For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. 33  And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.’” (Luke 18:32-33) ESV)

            “That’s not plan B.  In fact, If we think that’s plan B, we’re fools.  And Jesus used that terminology: “O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25).  So, wherever this amillennial thing came from, it didn’t come from the Old Testament, it didn’t come from the New Testament Jews, and it didn’t come from Jesus.

            “We might say, “Well, were the apostles amillennialists?”  How about Peter; was Peter an amillennialist?  In Acts 3, Peter is preaching away: “Men of Israel,” and so forth.  Verse 13: “The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the One whom you delivered [there’s that primary and secondary element] and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him.  But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murder to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life” (vv. 13-15).” “13  The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him. 14  But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15  and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.”  “What an indictment!  They [the Jews] couldn’t be any worse, and more horrific.

            “Verse 18:  “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He has thus fulfilled.”  That’s literal isn’t it? “Therefore repent and return, so that you sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord [‘the times of refreshing’ is a kingdom phrase] and that He may send Jesus, The Christ appointed for you [set for you, fixed for you], whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration[another kingdom term] of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time” (vv. 19-21).

            “And then I specially love verses 25-27, “It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers.”  Does Peter cancel the covenant?  What does he say?  “You…are the sons of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’  For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning everyone of you from your wicked ways [and He will do that; you’re still the sons of the covenant].” That was a perfect opportunity to cancel those promises.”

            It looks like I will be able to finish this sermon in my “Morning SD for tomorrow.

3/27/2026 6:02 PM