Jeff Durbin’s went viral over the weekend for a livestream he did last month calling into question John MacArthur’s teachings on eschatology. Now, much of the stream is standard eschatology debate fare; however, Durbin’s careless words attack MacArthur on the basis of the Great Commission which has garnered much of the heightened criticism. However, the question must be asked: why is Jeff Durbin interested in dredging up a John MacArthur clip he commented on before? And it is part of the puzzle that many on social media are missing.
The key quote for Jeff Durbin comes after the famous, “We lose down here” clip. Durbin states:
That’s really all over his writings and his teaching about the future. “We lose down here.” That’s MacArthur’s position. He has a pessimistic eschatology—or had a pessimistic one. Well, he has a very optimistic eschatology now. He’s a postmillennialist in heaven, so he’s very optimistic now, for sure, without question. But while he was here in his teaching ministry, he was very pessimistic about the future, obviously.
I mean, “We lose down here. Get it?” I love the clarity on this. “We lose down here.” That’s what he’s sharing with the church and with Christians. And so, you know, your efforts of evangelism and missions and everything else are ultimately doomed to failure. Ultimately, that’s what he’s saying. If we lose down here, then all of your efforts in evangelism and outreach and all the rest are ultimately doomed, because we lose down here.
The Great Commission for Dr. MacArthur was a pipe dream. The Great Commission was just simply wishful thinking. It wasn’t the Great Commission that God was ordaining and commanding—and that we’re going to see fulfilled, and that Jesus is going to ultimately fulfill all the prophecies, the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, about the knowledge of God covering the earth like the waters cover the sea… “He shall have dominion from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth”… Genesis 49:10 says that to him shall be the obedience of the nations… Abraham’s descendants will be as numerous as the stars and like the sand on the seashore. All of those…
No, no—we lose down here.
Jeff Durbin takes a disagreement on eschatology and makes it an indictment on MacArthur’s missiology. As both Durbin and MacArthur would agree on soteriology, this disagreement comes down to the fact that Jeff Durbin believes that the number of saved is higher than MacArthur. Both believe all who God chooses will be saved, but how many in the sand or the stars?
Thus, this is an unfair criticism of John MacArthur that makes eschatology a greater focus than it deserves. John MacArthur, in spite of being a dispensationalist, was a moderating force for this newer theology, even coining the dubious phrase “leaky dispensationalism.” What makes it leaky? I’m still not entirely sure after all these years. Nevertheless, he never let his eschatology deter him from evangelizing certain ethnicities, as is the custom of the more representative figures who hold the same view.
During the reaction, Jeff Durbin renewed his attention to Protestia, whom he’s long feuded with. Protestia then highlighted Jeff Durbin’s history of hard-shepherding, even recording penitent phone calls for blackmail purposes. The Protestia crew is most aligned with MacArthur, theologically, and it would not be unfair to label them MacArthur Bros, even if they are far more willing to be critical of MacArthur when necessary.
Days after the John MacArthur episode, Jeff Durbin would attack Protestia for reporting on Steve Lawson. Durbin would lie about Protestia being first to report the event. That was Justin Peters, whom Durbin says sourced the scoop from Protestia, even though we all had the same tip.
It’s Not About The Clout
Durbin’s Apologia has 595K subs. And their view counts aren’t that bad for an old channel. The MacArthur stream amassed over 21k views, still failing to exceed a difficult 10% subscriber-views benchmark. But his channel actually does better when leaning into niche apologetic content: mainly anti-Mormon and Jehovah’s Witness apologetics.
Simply put, Durbin isn’t dredging up the corpse of John MacArthur for clout but rather a certain bone to pick.
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2 Responses
“Nevertheless, he never let his eschatology deter him from evangelizing certain ethnicities, as is the custom of the more representative figures who hold the same view.”
List the “more representative figures who hold the same view.” The truth: virtually none do and certainly no one major. Even Mike Huckabee has decried Israel’s treatment of Christian Jews, and indeed the messianic Jewish movement was practically started by Huckabee’s dispensationalism-dominated Southern Baptist Convention. People who believe in covenant theology love to slander dispensationalists by associating all modern ones with the views that were held by a few, most of whom back when the system was new and hadn’t formed a consensus, and certainly before dispensationalists started producing their own systematic theologies.
John Hagee is more representative of dispensationalism than John MacArthur.