I woke up on Monday to see a note from LRFotS JohnC911 on the Didactic Mind Telegram channel, informing me that famed Protestant pastor John Macarthur had passed away that day, at the ripe old age of 86. I must admit, I was a little shocked to see the news. Mr. Macarthur was one of those figures that you sort of expected to go on living to the same age as Methuselah.

This one does not hit quite as hard as the death of Dr. Michael Heiser did, because Pastor Macarthur was much more of a preacher than an academic, and did not have anything like the same charming, folksy, down-to-earth style that Mike Heiser did. But there is no question that he possessed a rare and powerful ability to articulate the power of Scripture – and he did it largely (not entirely) by letting Scripture stand on its own merits.

Unlike so many Evangelical and Protestant pastors, who try to inject their own views into Scripture – and VERY much unlike the liberal “pastors” who try to twist Scripture to fit the fleeting modalities and capricious fashions of the Modren World – Macarthur simply read out what Scripture said, and then dug into it by looking at the original Hebrew and Greek.

Here is a particularly good recent example:

He did not always get it right. His expositions on Genesis 6:1-4, for instance, focused around his view (which I suspect changed over time) that the Sons of God are outright daemons:

He went on to say that the Nephilim were spiritual beings, not men:

But this is simply not true or correct, based on what Scripture says in Numbers 13, and what the Epistle of Jude says. Nor is it consistent with the letters of Peter. It is also inconsistent with the deuterocanonical Book of Enoch, which Jude regarded that book as critical to understanding the context and background of events that heralded the coming of the Kingdom of God.

The most consistent view that I can find, which accords with the text, and with what Second Temple-era Jews (i.e. the followers of His Hugeness) would have believed, was instead that of Dr. Heiser. That view said the sons of God were, indeed, very powerful and high-ranking angels, let by Semjaza, who rebelled against God, and bound themselves to each other with a dreadful oath, sealed upon Mount Hermon. The text of 1 Enoch says nothing whatsoever about these angels possessing actual male human beings and THEN impregnating women. Nor does it indicate the Nephilim were spirits – rather, it says very clearly that they were truly horrific giants, with a ravenous appetite for human flesh.

Now, the details of 1 Enoch are a bit… wacky, to say the least. It talks about giants that were 400 feet tall, for instance, which is, shall we say, a bit much. There is a REASON why the book is deuterocanonical, after all.

But it provides a secondary view into Scripture, that I am not sure Pastor Macarthur truly appreciated – and which Dr. Heiser definitely did.

This speaks to a major flaw of Pastor Macarthur’s, which was off-putting, to say the least:

He could be a seriously arrogant git.

Those who disagreed with him, often felt the sharp edge of his tongue during his sermons every Sunday. He showed little, if any, ability to suffer fools. (I can hardly criticise him for this, as it is a character trait that I, and most of my closest friends, thoroughly share.) And he had no interest in dialling back his views simply because he might offend someone.

This, however, was also one of his greatest strengths.

Pastor Macarthur resolutely refused to bend to the whims of the world. He preached the Word of Scripture as it is – unadulterated, unfiltered, unblemished. In an age of charlatans and Prosperity Gospel deceivers, he was one of those rare voices of decency and reason, demanding the Church return to its roots and foundations in Scripture.

He opposed having women preach in church, because that is what the book says:

He required women to be silent in church and submissive to their husbands, because that is what the Book says:

He condemned homosexuality as an abomination and an extreme sexual sin, because that is what the Book says:

And he stood absolutely against the weird Catholic insistence that everyone can be saved eventually, by working off their sins through Purgatory, because THAT IS WHAT THE BOOK SAYS:

Back when I bent the knee and declared Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, in February, my good friend, who actively participates on my Telegram channel, and goes by the handle @Skylinered – with a picture of Darth Vader lighting a cigarette using his lightsaber, which gives you some idea of his geek creds – sent me toward Pastor Macarthur as a place for sound Biblical exegesis. I got a lot out of Pastor Macarthur’s words, at a time of great turmoil and change in my life. Though I cannot claim to have listened to him regularly for some years now, I always found his clear exposition of Scripture, and his absolute unwillingness to bend to the whims of the world, deeply refreshing.

This is a man who stood unbowed before the weight of the entire Clownipornia goobermint during the Scamdemic, and refused to shut the doors of Grace Church. He continued to preach to packed crowds, who were clearly starving for the good news, in a time of rampant government lies and deception. He provided clear-eyed explanations of what the Bible had to say about times like those.

In so doing, he gave his flock hope – that the madness would pass, and those who stood opposed to the world, with its mandates around masks and social distancing and ESPECIALLY the poison death shots, would be proven right in the end.

He was. We were.

Pastor Macarthur’s legacy is, in my view, one of letting the Bible speak for itself, without fear of what the world thinks. In this, he was a good and faithful servant of the Lord – and there can be no higher praise than this.

Of course, Pastor Macarthur leaves behind another legacy:

MacArthur is survived by his wife, Patricia Smith MacArthur; their children Matt, Mark, Marcy, and Melinda; 15 grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

Forget the mega-church pastors who get filthy rich by preaching an easy-to-digest fake gospel that tells people what they want to hear. Pastor Macarthur had a big family of his own – and a huge family of thousands, and tens of thousands, that benefitted from his tireless work to spread the Gospel of the Lord.

He was a wealthy man indeed.