The last inducement has to do with the underhandedness that I have encountered while studying books by advocates of premillennialism, who are usually dispensationalists as well: those Bible teachers who are weak, to say the least, on the doctrines of grace, and who emphasize instead, a decision on the part of man to allow the grace of God to save. Exhibits of underhandedness do not prove that the parties guilty of shiftiness hold to a false view. But the exhibits are suggestive. The first man to be singled out is M. R. DeHaan again, who used to host the Radio Bible Class. In my report of his book, The Second Coming of Jesus, I had more to say about his handling of Scripture than I have already shown. What will be shown from my report of his book cannot be attributed to incompetence merely; the man is guilty of an underhanded handling of the Bible. From my report: During his dilation on the second coming of Jesus being, as he supposes, an event divided into two appearings, DeHaan tries to prove that there will be a secret appearing seven years before the great and last one. “Thus it will be at the coming of the Lord. Only those who are tuned to Station ‘Blood’ will hear that shout” (p. 30.) There is no secret ‘shout’ spoken of in Scripture concerning the second coming, though. This is why DeHaan resorts to saying that those who will hear it must be ‘tuned in’ or be on the ‘right wave length.’ Here is the second coming as predicted by the apostle John: “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen” (Revelation 1.7.) This verse is like 1 Thessalonians 4.16: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” Mr. DeHaan seems too embarrassed to mention the whole of 1 Thessalonians 4.16 on page 30 of his book. He stops at the word ‘shout.’ The verse continues with: ‘the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.’ With more of the verse before us, it cannot be missed how the apostles Paul and John and their verses on the same subject are in perfect harmony. According to the apostle Paul, every ear will hear, for who could be deaf to an archangel’s voice and God’s own trumpet? According to the apostle John, every eye will see, for who can remain blind to the Light of Christ descending from heaven? Even when DeHaan comes to his heading called ‘The Archangel’ on the next page, he avoids the verse that he alluded to and halfway paraphrased: 1 Thessalonians 4.16. The voice of the archangel is something for DeHaan to leave out in order to convince the unwary that the shout is only for Christians to hear. His exegesis is shifty because he is feverishly committed to a faulty eschatological system. Authors from this school of thought are often sinfully sectarian, and misleading because of it.
Nowhere in the Bible do we find the general resurrection of the dead described as more than one act. Acts 24.15: “And have hope toward God, which they themselves also allow, that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.” It says ‘a’ resurrection there. The last resurrection is one, not two, not several, not many; it is not divided into parts.
The second exhibit of underhandedness comes from Renald Showers in his book, There Really is a Difference. I did not review this book, but compared parts of it to Louis Berkhof’s History of Christian Doctrines and my book report of that. From that report: Note, first, what Renald Showers asserts under the head, A Description and Early History of Millennial Views in his book, There Really is a Difference: “This examination of early Church leaders indicates that they were, indeed, Premillennial by conviction” (p. 126.) Can this be the case if, as Berkhof alleges, early Church Fathers of note, like Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Ignatius, Polycarp, Tatian, Theophilus, Origen, Dionysius, and Athenagoras left no trace of pre-millennialism in their writings? (Louis Berkhof, The History of Christian Doctrines, p. 262.) Berkhof must be speaking truly here because these early Church Fathers are the very ones who are not highlighted in Showers’ discussion of ‘early history of millennial views.’ Renald Showers names the early Church leaders who advocate his pet dogma, makes no mention of early Church leaders who do not advocate it, and thus leads us to believe that all early Church leaders do. In spite of his carefulness to avoid being caught in a lie by a comprehensive statement, as in ‘the early Church leaders’ or ‘all early Church leaders,’ it can be detected by his presentation that he counts on what he says being taken that way. Why only highlight early Church leaders who were pre-millennial? Why be exclusive in a chapter called A Description and Early History of Millennial Views? It is easy to be deceived because of what an author leaves unsaid. Early Church Fathers did not universally hold to a pre-millennial position. Implying that they did is a lie. Unlike what Renald Showers does, Louis Berkhof does not hide the fact that some early Church leaders took a millennial position that he himself does not subscribe to. Mr. Showers does mention, in his next chapter, a couple of the early Church leaders who held no pre-millennial view; these he styles as Church leaders who rejected the pre-millennial position or ‘prejudiced’ the Greek Church. This is a devious way of doing business after setting the reader up in the previous chapter to believe that early Church leaders, without qualification, were pre-millennial in belief. Renald Showers’ layout inculcates prejudice against any view that is not pre-millennial, and by implication, any author who declines from endorsing that view. I have had to digress like this in order to show how an author obsesses over a peripheral doctrine like the millennium, even to the point of being underhanded in order to gain subscribers to his view of it. Louis Berkhof is better than that. Mr. Showers’ book is a comparison of covenant theology with dispensational. His book is 225 pages long. His pages on the millennium amount to 54 of these. Berkhof’s book on the history of Christian doctrines is 285 pages long. His pages on the millennium amount to 3 of these. Why the disparity of attention on the millennium between these two books? It is because almost every doctrine is more important than the millennial doctrine. The Covenant theologian knows this; the Dispensational writer does not.
When an author treats a subject deceitfully, as Misters DeHaan and Showers do in their books, it is not proof that his position is wrong; but deceptive treatment should impress us with a strong suspicion. After two of us read Showers’ convincing but misleading book back in the year 2000, we had a casual discussion about it. Referring to the Covenant Theology that Showers skillfully attacks in his book, my friend remarked, “It’s poison.” I remember wondering about whether or not that was a perceptive remark. Now I know who the dispenser of poison is. Showers is not only deceptive, he is a divider among brethren.
Dispensationalists are fond of asserting, as Showers does in his book, that they use the ‘historical-grammatical method’ of interpretation while Covenant theologians allegorize or at least do so too often. The truth is, if the historical-grammatical method is employed properly, it will be clear that some passages call for allegorical interpretations. When Showers cites the Bible thirty-eight times on page 48 of his book but quotes nothing and exposits nothing, what kind of interpretive method is that? It is not grammatical; it is not historical; it is not allegorical; it is nothing but the method of opining. It is an incompetent method of treating the Holy Scriptures; and it is an underhanded method of convincing readers of a teaching that needs biblical and exegetical support.
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