The Dividing Line August 12, 2008

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us. Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602, or toll free across the

United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. Hey, good morning, afternoon, wherever you are. Welcome to the last

Dividing Line until, let's see, August 26th.

So that would be two weeks from today. Yes, indeed, I am headed to the not so sunny climes of Anchorage, Alaska.

I will be speaking at a conference with Tom Askell and Steve Lawson up there in Anchorage.

There are, I believe, two Calvinists in Anchorage, and so they've invited us up. As some of you may recall,

I was up there last year, had a wonderful time, and so we're going back and we're doing a conference, and then

I actually get about three or four days to do fun stuff. Haven't done,

I haven't had a formal vacation since 1989, so I guess it's a good time to start one. I have a feeling

I'm going to be really busy during those days, actually, but thankfully, hopefully not, except in the evening, maybe dragging out the computer, especially now that I have a true computer.

Yes, I have seen the light. The brainwashing that I experienced decades ago has finally broken way to the truth.

And sitting in the other room, even now, transferring files and doing all the things

I need to do is a 15 -inch MacBook Pro. Oh, it's good to be with a real computer.

I'm going to tell you, it's night and day. It is night and day. I shouldn't be saying that, though, because, you know, poor

Rich is in the other room, and I shouldn't be saying all these types of things.

Well, with our budget, I might be able to get one in five or ten days. Well, this one starts getting dilapidated, we'll pass it on down.

We're like a family around here. You unfortunately get the hand -me -downs. So anyway, no, it is, let me tell you, that is a machine.

That is, wow, wow. Look out now, folks. Here I come. So anyway, so no dividing line next week.

You know, I can, believe it or not, I already have Skype installed. And I have, you know, built -in sound

Hawaiian Yards. So we've talked about doing it many times.

So the possibility exists. We possibly could do it. It might behoove us to throw out a little reason why we had to go down.

Oh, you mean the fact that Vista is just unreliable?

We needed to do it.

And it was a budgetary decision that was a little bit tough, but we did it. And unfortunately, since that point in time, it has made your situation virtually non -functional.

You got it. We've had no choice on the market that's out there but to get you a machine that we know you can work with.

It's going to work. And every time, you know, the thing is, the thing that drove me nuts about it, and I know there are some

Vista defenders out there, about two of them in the world, but it would work fine in the office.

And then I'd get to church, and I'd set it up the exact same way, and I'd do the exact same thing, and it wouldn't work.

And it just drove me nuts. You know, at least with XP, you knew, you know, what you were getting.

And if it worked once, it was going to work the next time too. But not Vista. Mm -mm, no. It decides it's going to improve itself.

Computers should do what computers are supposed to do. Each time computers do it, that's how it works. So anyway, yeah, definitely when

I'm sitting in a debate or if I'm doing a presentation, I've got, you know, I'm doing some type of presentation with my projector or something,

I've got to have something I can trust. So just got to go that direction. So anyways,

I'm very excited about that. But it only arrived yesterday. I'm leaving tomorrow, so that's not a whole lot of time to get stuff moved over.

But it just works so well that it looks like it's going to be a possibility. A couple things on the program today.

I've already got a phone call. We might have some more coming in. I have some clips, a fascinating clip from Jimmy Akin I really want to get to that's just truly amazing.

But I see one of the two Vista defenders in the world defending Vista and Channel at the moment. But, you know, some folks just, you know,

Don Quixote, go defend, you know, go on a crusade or something. Anyway, no, we love even, we are equal opportunity people.

We love everybody even if you use Vista. But anyway, I wanted to start off, however, on a somewhat serious note.

We didn't, but now we'll have to shift over to that. I wanted to just briefly address basically the issue of the fact that over the years

I have been very, very privileged, and I do consider it a privilege, to have introduced a number of people to the doctrines of grace.

And that's a wonderful thing. And in that process,

I have a number of times been reminded of a little booklet that Al Martin wrote many years ago called the

Practical Implications of Calvinism. I almost feel like we should see if Brother Martin would let me insert that in the back of the

Potter's Freedom or something. The reason being, there is nothing more disturbing than graceless

Calvinism. In fact, I don't know if you can call it Calvinism if it's graceless. But what

I mean is there should be some kind of a connection between talking about the fact that God is holy and we are filthy in his sight and yet he has condescended to show to us mercy and grace and he's taken out a heart of stone and given a heart of flesh.

And you know, there's everything right about defending what I just said.

God takes out a heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh. I mean, it's amazing how many people do not want the gospel to include that.

Don't touch my heart. I will slowly chip off parts of the stone. Or I will massage this rocky heart and make it a little less rocky.

You know, the humanism of all the religions of men should be repulsive to the biblically sound

Christian. There's no question about it. But you know, doesn't having a heart of flesh then also speak to what we are and how we behave and that means that we should have some graciousness to us possibly in that process somewhere.

And there's just nothing to me more disturbing than graceless

Calvinism. Than Calvinists who just don't get the balance between a zeal for the truth and the overwhelming desire to just run somebody through with your theological lance.

And I get it from both sides. I'm constantly being described as being far too mean and nasty and unloving and all the rest of this stuff.

And 98 % of the time when I get a chance to actually talk to those folks, they're going on second, third and fourth hand information.

Even some people who are good friends of mine today will admit that initially they weren't so sure they wanted to get to know me because they wouldn't believe what some

Roman Catholic told them about me. I mean, if all you knew about me was what you read on the Catholic Answers forums,

I mean, you'd figure most of the unsolved murders in the Southwest were due to me. I mean, that's all you could come up with.

If I believed a tenth of what is written about me on the internet, I would not want to be around me.

It's really that bad. So I get it from that side. But then, believe it or not,

I also get it from people who think I'm just too wimpy, that I'm compromising.

And I suppose as long as you get it from both sides, it's probably a good thing. It means you're somewhat balanced. But you know, balance is so important.

It's important in the Christian life. It's important in Reformed theology as well. And to be given a heart of flesh rather than a heart of stone means, yes, we're given a new nature.

Yes, that's true. That's the dogmatic, the doctrinal element of that. But isn't there an implication to that?

Isn't there something that we can see from that, that if we've had a heart of stone taken out, we've been given a heart of flesh, that maybe that means we should recognize our own fallen state and we should probably be a little bit slower to want to wish somebody into the fires of perdition than otherwise.

That just seems to be the case. And we need to have a balance.

And I don't claim to always keep the balance. But I know, it seems to me, you can agree or disagree with me if you want, but it seems to me that there is more danger.

Here are the two dangers. On the one side is compromise. On the one side is the easy road of just letting everybody, you know, let's just all get along.

You know, Rodney King theology, let's not worry about doctrinal distinctives. Okay, that's the one danger. That's the one side.

On the other side, and I think this is a bit more of a danger for the Reformed person. The Reformed person can't go that direction and still remain

Reformed. Look at anybody who was a Calvinist who went that direction. Are they really a Calvinist after a while?

I mean, do you even hear anything anymore in their preaching about it? No, you don't. The other direction, the other danger, is to become so hard and so judgmental that you lose the ability to keep your balance and to make proper distinctions.

Distinctions between theological viewpoints and those who hold variations thereon.

You can see this amongst those who simply cannot get the difference between saying, this teaching is wrong, this teaching is in error, and then the next part of the spectrum, this teaching is dangerous.

It can become a full -blown error. And there's a whole spectrum. And you have to be able to recognize those things.

And then you have to be able to recognize that there are people in this life that hold teachings that we recognize as being dangerous and could lead to full -blown error, but they don't go all that way.

They are inconsistent, as in fact all of us are in this life in one way or another, are we not?

And so when you lose the ability to make that distinction, then in essence what you end up doing is, well look, anybody who disagrees with my very, very narrow view is just on their way to hell.

And you can take a proper thing, there are times you have to say, this is the gospel and that's not the gospel, you do have to do that.

But then they take that, and they not only expand the appropriate borders of that to the nth degree, but then you have to start basically turning yourself in the

Holy Spirit and condemning people to hell. And saying, this person is going to hell, and that person is going to hell.

And you have to then, and almost always along with this comes a real hardness.

And this is what I've objected to with some of these folks in the past, is they may be theologically accurate in what they're saying.

I may agree with what they say on particular theological issues. And in a particular debate situation,

I might agree with the specific points they make. But I will never agree with someone who will accurately define the truth, and then as their parting shot, as their adornment of their argumentation, they go, and not only that, but your mother is ugly.

There's no reason to do that. Why in the world give absolutely, positively, completely unnecessary offense?

Now these folks seem to think that what is actually a necessary offense is just being strong, or the gospel, and this kind of thing.

But if you have to take people's names and turn them into isms all the time, there are times that's appropriate.

I mean, Ruckmanism is a meaningful phrase, because Ruckman is really unique in his whole stuff.

Ruckmanism, yeah, that's pretty good. But you don't have to deal with everybody's name, and you don't have to necessarily drag in the most, you know, we know there are certain words that are just verbal landmines, they're verbal hand grenades.

And there are just some people, they can't get through a paragraph without throwing one. They can't write something that's peaceful.

And so often what ends up happening is the truths that they present end up being completely lost in all the sounds of the explosions.

And that then gives people a reason to ignore what they're saying, because, well, who cares what you're saying?

Look what you said here, look what you said there, look how you acted here. I don't want to have anything to do with it, you know, so on and so forth.

I know there's a balance here, because you've got the postmodernists, and you say anything about truth to them, and they're offended.

But then you've got people who swing over to the other side, and it's like, let's just offend everybody for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I think that's why we have things like speak the truth in love, and giving a reason with the hopes that are within you, yet with gentleness and reverence, you know, there's this path we have to go down.

And we are given examples of how to do it in Scripture, but it still is up to us to really learn how to follow that path.

And so, when I fail on that, I apologize, and I ask you to pray for me.

And I would never want anybody that I have had the opportunity of introducing to the doctrines of grace slipping into that mindset, and thinking that this somehow is a justification for behaving in a way that just simply isn't appropriate for the

Christian faith. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

And I see here we have a call all the way from where I'm headed in November, Lord willing.

And that's Jack in London. Hi, Jack. Sure, that's fine.

We share the same name, except in a different language. Yes, I understand. Good evening to you.

It's 7 o 'clock over here. Yes, indeed. I'm glad you're here.

It's for that very reason that I wrote a comment on a video he put on YouTube, to which he then challenged me.

Was that the Kanner stuff? Yes, it was. Such as what?

Well, the

Kanner was very clear that, you know, you cannot say there's absolutely only two positions.

He clearly said, you know, that there is another option. Well, Jack, let me ask you something.

Have you read the about 95 to 100 pages of correspondence between myself and Eric and Kanner that preceded that program?

No. Oh, okay. So you have the context where I have actually addressed all these things with Dr.

Kanner in the months preceding that. No, I don't think any... So, wait a minute,

I'm confused. Are you aware or not aware of the fact that there had been extensive correspondence between Eric and Kanner and myself in the months prior to this that addressed all these issues, including category errors, redefining historical terminology, redefining theological terminology that's been in use for hundreds of years?

You're not aware of any of that? Right. What I'm referring is complete in itself.

No, it has a context. Nothing is complete in itself. Okay. I mean, it was... You can't argue that. No, no, we can't.

No, no, Jack, we can't argue that because, if you're familiar with what the video was, Lane took this program, the dividing line, which takes place in space and time, and that was one program of many programs that addressed this issue.

It wasn't the first program. It wasn't the last program. And all that documentation had been posted on the

Internet beforehand. And so to pretend that that dividing line existed in a vacuum is not rational.

It existed in a very clear historical context, and the people listening to that were aware of that.

And I would argue that to say that I'm a Baptist and that that somehow isn't relevant to the issue is a category error because there have always been general

Baptists, and there have been particular Baptists, and that's a split that's existed for a long time.

And so simply ignoring the use of historical terminology brings confusion.

It doesn't actually answer anything, and it does introduce what's called a category error, unless we're just going to ignore all the history of theology and think we can sort of do better than everyone before us has ever done.

Right? So you would suggest then... Since he had already been faced with the problem of his terminology and he refuses to deal with that, yes, since he won't acknowledge the very categories of what a

Baptist is, and since he was frequently redefining the very terms of the discussion, ripping it out of its historical context, that results in great confusion on the part of anyone who maybe is just now coming to discussion and is looking to him for guidance.

I think when you are in his position, that you are under some obligation to be accurate in your utilization of language.

I think it's amazing when people decide that the conventional terminology that has been used for a long period of time, they can just throw it out on their own authority as if no one else has had a clue but them, and as a result start redefining terms right and left, resulting in tremendous confusion.

I've seen the result of that confusion, and it takes quite some time to try to get over it. I don't think I have the right to do that.

Do you think we have the right to just simply, you know, redefine everything? Well, in a sense, you're redefining the one and a half, bringing you up.

If I may, bring another topic. Here's another video which

I have to Ephesians 1,

Romans 8 and 9. In the debate with George Bryson, yes.

Yes, indeed. Well, I've heard all sorts of interpretations.

In fact, I've spent quite some time over the past number of years collecting interpretations, especially of John 6, because it is amazing to me the facility of man's mind in attempting to get around the plain meaning of words.

And the same thing is true of any text of Scripture. You can find interpretations of any text of Scripture, whether they pass muster, whether they have anything to do with the original language, original context, and things like that.

It's a completely different issue. I have to agree with you on a number of points. The John 6 issue,

I mean, I'm... And how do you derive a non -reformed interpretation of Jesus' text?

Well, when Jesus expands on what he says in verse 45 of John 6, he says, it's written in the prophets, and they shall all be taught by God.

Therefore, everyone who has heard and learned from the prophets, to me. Now, that tells me, everybody...

Well, let me... That would be my interpretation. So you go to the end of the text and read that one verse, and then that changes what came before, where Jesus says that the

Father gives to the Son a specific people, and that that specific people all come to Christ in faith, that he raises them all up to eternal life, that no man has the ability to come to Christ apart from this drawing.

And see, I start at the beginning of John 6 and go through the entire discourse and define terms as they are presented by the

Lord in his own teaching. And so, after he has just made the statement in verse 44, no one is able to come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

That's then... That drawing is then defined for us in verse 45 when it says, it is written, the prophets, they shall all be taught by God.

It's God who's doing the teaching. The active agent in Pontus to Doctoi Theou is

God. God is the one who's doing the teaching. Therefore, when it says, everyone hearing from the

Father, and again, hearing is passive. It is taking in something from outside.

And learning, that's passive as well. Teaching is being done by someone else, is coming to me. So, who's coming to Jesus?

That term, erketai, is used throughout this text. And it is those that are given by the

Father, the Son, those who are drawn by the Father, the Son. And here is the definition of that drawing, that it involves hearing from the

Father and learning from Him. And they come to Christ. All of them come to Christ.

Not just some, but all who hear and learn. Because that hearing and learning is supernatural.

It is a further definition of what it means to be drawn. And all who are drawn by the Father and the

Son are raised up on the last day. So, I don't see where man's free will enters into this particular, if we define that as an autonomous will outside of God's sovereignty.

Where does that come in here? That's your, so we watched before with John 1, 12, you know.

I disagree with that. But why did we jump out of John 6 to get to John 1?

Are you arguing? Because of your usage. You said to me just now that, you know, you read to us beforehand.

Yeah, in this sermon. That's what I meant was in this sermon. I don't start at John 6, 45 and then read 45 back into 37.

37 comes first, obviously. And so, Jesus defines who it is that's coming to Him.

Who comes to Him? Those who are given to Him by the Father. Who are these? These are the ones who don't have that capacity unto themselves, but the

Father draws them. And then you just said. You just added to the text there. Where? John 6?

Yeah, John 6, 44. What does udais dunatai mean? No one comes, well. No, no one is able.

Udais dunatai means no one is able. Elfine prasme is able to come to me, eon me, unless there is a fulfillment of a condition.

And that is the Father, the one who sent me, draws Altan. Then, kago anastaso altan,

I will raise him in the last day. You cannot introduce a distinction in the altans here.

So, would you agree that all who are drawn by the

Father to the Son are those that are raised up in the last day? Would I agree that all who are drawn to the

Father? Yes. Sorry. Okay. No one is able to come to me unless the

Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Yeah. Jesus and come to him.

Who does the Father draw? Well, the Father draws everyone. So, all people will be raised up on the last day?

Those who have responded have explained. Okay. So, you introduce a distinction.

Now, hang on. When you say, I introduce, this is part of the text. You're reading it out of context by cutting out 44 from 45.

I'm doing nothing of the kind. The term altan, in verse 44,

I will draw him, altan. That's different than the altan only two words later, according to your interpretation.

Because you're telling me everyone is drawn, but only those who do something are the ones raised up on the last day.

And I'm saying to you, there is no reason in the text whatsoever, this is where human tradition comes in, where you come up with a distinction between he who is drawn by the

Father and he who is raised up by the Son. In one sentence, in only a total span of four words, you have the same word, altan.

And I say to you, they are identical. Which part of verse 44 are you reading here? And I will, ha -pempsasme el -kuse altan,

I will raise the Father, him. Okay, sorry, you're pronouncing it,

I wasn't understanding, I apologize. And then I will raise altan, him, on the last day.

So, you say those are different altans. I say to you, why? Because you say that the one, the first one, is everybody.

The second one is only those who believe. You make a distinction. There is no distinction whatsoever in the language.

It makes no sense to insert the distinction. And to go to verse 45, where the nature of the drawing, and in each one of those words that we looked at, it is...

You're making the assumption there, for example. Well, that came from verse 39, where it's the

Father's will of the Son that He lose none of those that have been given to Him, but He raise them up on the last day. So, yes,

I do believe Jesus is the perfect Savior. He will not fail to save any of those that are given to Him by the Father. There's no question about that.

And that's why the passage is so consistent, because Jesus is explaining the unbelief of the

Jews. He says, you're unbelievers. Why are you unbelievers? Because the Father gives me a certain people. They're the ones that come to me.

I save them perfectly, and I raise them up on the last day. But then again, you see, you've added to that.

Yeah, yeah. That's Psalm 135 .6. God does what pleases Him in the heavens and the earth.

We're not doing the Father's will, are we? I'm sorry? When you sin and when I sin, you know, when you...

That depends on how you're using the term. In God's eternal decree, yes. Were Joseph's brothers doing what

God decreed to take place when they threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery in Egypt? Yeah, he made use of that.

Ah, it doesn't say he made use of that. It says in Joseph's own words, you intended this for evil,

God intended this for good. It didn't say made use of it. God intended it. Can't get away with that one.

That's not the thing. I can take that. I mean, we're going on to the issue now of... Well, actually, just the sovereignty of God, whether there's a sovereign decree, whether we can really say that God is the one who determines all things, whether all things happen according to his will or not,

Ephesians 1 .11, so that's, you know... I'm sorry? It said he's not in God's will.

Well, it's sort of hard to understand. Are you an open theist, by the way? Well, you'd have to define the term.

Do you believe when God created the heavens and the earth, did he know in his creative act that evil would exist and what each and every act of evil would entail and would be?

No, I would not. Okay, then we're coming from completely different places.

I appreciate that. That's very, very plain scripture. Well... And so when

God in Isaiah specifically defines himself as the one who not only can tell you what's going to happen in the future, but he can tell you what happened in the past and why it happened, that clear, plain statement that is supposed to be used by the people of God as the means of recognizing the true

God from the false gods is to be subsumed to a hypothetical case in a historical situation in the historical books.

Is that how we understand that? No, I don't think you're... You know, he knows the end from the beginning.

And yes, he predetermines why Jesus said what end he was given.

But that's only for special things. That's not for all things. So when

God created the heavens and the earth, he did not have any way of knowing you would exist? Well, I...

Again, I would direct folks to the debate that I did with John Sanders on this very issue at Reformed Theological Seminary in 2001 for a full discussion of this.

But I at least... And I would just suggest that the differences that we had in going right into the text itself,

I think the reasons for those differences have now been explained because we're coming at the text from a very different perspective.

And I don't think that that necessarily changed the fact that I'm being consistent in saying that in John 6, 44, the one who is raised is the one who's raised...

is then raised up by... I'm sorry, the one who's drawn is the one who's raised up by Jesus. But fundamentally,

I think there is a overarching theological paradigm that is in play here, which would also explain why you go to 6, 45 and then read the text, in essence, backwards rather than starting at the beginning and moving to the end.

So... But, again, if you don't believe God knows the future exhaustively, there are things that he doesn't know and that the free will actions of men...

Because you said God knows what's knowable, so I'm assuming you're using that in the same context as Obentheists who say that the free will actions of men are not knowable, right?

Within the range of things that God gives freedom, yes. Okay, yeah. So if that's the case, then there's certainly no reason whatsoever to believe in anything like predestination, election, the idea of...

The conditional kind. If I had the conditional kind, I would, but not the unconditional kind. The kind that...

Well, except for the epistle of Dionysius. So the idea, then, is that you have...

So when God created, those same people that you're following said that God did not know that any one of us would exist.

So something tells me your view of the atonement, then, would not be substitutionary, right? No, I disagree.

Oh, you believe in a substitutionary atonement? Absolutely. How? Why not?

Jesus... Okay, how could it be substitutionary if God doesn't know that we're going to exist?

How could we have been united with Christ? Or do we just unite ourselves to Christ? Well, there's substitution.

I recognize that in a lot of evangelicalism there's a really shallow understanding of what substitution is, that we basically...

It's not truly substitutionary atonement. It's if you choose to take... to get a benefit from what

Jesus did, that's cool. The idea of substitution, however, is much deeper than that.

And that is that Paul says that he was crucified with Christ.

Now, the only way for that to make any sense is that God not only knows

I'm going to exist, but that just as I'm already seated in a heavenly place, as Ephesians 2, that I was united with Christ in His death, that the elect of God were united with Christ in His death, so that His death becomes their death,

His resurrection becomes their resurrection. This being in Christ is a vitally important element.

But if God doesn't know the free will choices of men, He doesn't know I'm going to exist, so there is no substitution of specific individuals unioning with them with Christ.

It's more of an amorphous mass of if you choose to be in it, great, if you don't, that means everybody in hell can also say what

Paul said, and that is, I was crucified with Christ. Yes, but I want none of it. Yeah, so...

That's what they would say. Well, there's no question they want none of it. I just say that they will also never be able to say it.

The idea that... The self -control of God versus God's sovereignty.

Yeah. I see. So, self -limitation is what you're talking about. Oh, you know,

He does not... Yeah, tell that to Paul on the road to Damascus, but...

Anyway... All right, well,

I think we've certainly gotten to the grounds of what the difference between us is. It is a fundamental difference in regards to the nature of God and how

He's active in this world, and I think that has definitely illustrated the propriety of a number of debates we've done in the past, because we've touched on a number of these issues, including dealing with open theism.

By the way, I would say, I've said many times, I think the only consistent Arminian is an open theist. You're probably right.

Not that the Arminian theology so -called would agree with that, because it's all knowledge of God, you know.

Well, that's what I mean. I think there's a consistency in open theism that the historical Arminian...

You know, I mean, obviously, at the time of the beginning of this terminology, after the Reformation, someone would be considered a rank heretic for being an open theist,

Sassinians and things like that. But, so, the Arminians continued to hold to orthodox theology of God, but their view of God's relationship to mankind at the time really isn't consistent with that.

So... Yeah, I would tend to agree with that. Yeah, I can tell. So, well... I mean, unconditional predestination.

Well, the early Church Fathers taught almost everything. In fact, the only thing I can think of that the early Church Fathers were even semi -consistent on was monotheism.

So, I look at that and I go, well, you know, I can find references to the elect and so on and so forth, and Clement, and the

Epistle to Agnetius, and so on and so forth, but I don't find them to be religious authorities that can overthrow the plain meaning of the text of Scripture.

The interpretation as given by Augustine... Augustine wasn't sitting next to me here when

I demonstrated to you that Alton is Alton. No, but you... I wasn't talking about the pronunciation issue.

The fact remains, anyone looking at the Greek text, your understanding, and I submit to you, it is an understanding that comes from outside the text, not inside the text.

Your understanding is that the he who is drawn is a different individual than the he who is raised up.

And I say to you, it doesn't work that way. There's absolutely no reason in that text... I think you're misunderstanding me.

You know, you cannot draw... I know that. Is every person drawn by the

Father raised up to eternal life by Jesus Christ? But you see, you're accusing me of...

Well, I'm sorry, but there is this group that Jesus has been talking about. Those that are given by the

Father to the Son. He loses none of it. You neuter a pronoun there to refer to an entire group.

It's right there in the context. But I'm not... But I don't use any of it.

But, sir, I'm not inserting that word in verse 44. You're telling me that unless the

Father who sent me draws him, and some of those hims

I will raise up on the last day, and some of them will end up in the pit of hell.

So what you're telling me is that the two Autons have different audiences.

And I say to you, that is your human tradition being read in. Show me where that's in verse 44.

No, no, no. It's not my human tradition. The very next verse qualifies it. The very next verse explains the nature of the drawing by using terms that, as I said immediately, all refer to the action of God.

You have read into those terms the idea that I choose to hear, or I choose to learn.

That's not what the prophetic text is talking about, and that's not the application Jesus makes in verse 45.

Verse 45 is an expansion and clarification of verse 44. One of us is reading linearly.

One of us is reading backwards. Well, yeah, I would agree with that.

Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for your phone call today, sir. I hope it didn't cost you too much.

If we get you out here in the next few seconds, it'll be less than half an hour. So maybe that'll cost you just a little bit less for your phone call today.

But thanks for calling, Jack. You take care, Jack. All right. Maybe we'll see you in London in November. Bye -bye.

Bye -bye. All righty. Well, that was quite interesting. Very interesting indeed.

I think that was really helpful. And I really hope that people will open the text and look at it and say, hey, there it is.

Let's get our other caller in real quick, and then we'll see if we can start looking at this Jamaican call here. Let's talk with John. John, sorry that your

New Jersey call didn't quite trump out the London call, but that's okay. That's all right. What's up?

Okay. Let me back you up here a second, John. Why don't you, you're using some pretty strong terms, false prophecies and things like that.

So were these things you went looking for or what? So you're just reading through the

Bible, and you're reading through the Old Testament, and your knowledge of the history of the

Old Testament is so extensive that you recognized false prophecies. You didn't run into lists of these things on the

Internet or anything like that, right? No. I mean... Well, John, my point is this, and that is the person who's looking for answers says,

I have found texts, and I don't know what the answers to these are. The person who says this is a false prophecy has come to his conclusion and now wants to argue about it.

That's the difference as I see it. All right. So, you know, there are entire websites, like biblicalerrency and things like that, dedicated to trying to collect every kind of possible argument that can be put together against the text of Scripture.

And I would assume, if these are troubling to you, that you have already taken the time to obtain resources like Gleason Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, right?

No, I have not. Oh, that would be something you'd want to do then, right? Yes, that's something

I want to do, but I understand you're just... No, I'm just putting it in its proper context, that's all.

I understand perfectly, and I will make a reference to that and look into the false prophecy.

So, you know everything, that time period, extensive documentation about everything that took place, right?

I guess you could say that.

Okay, my point is this, John. When you are talking about a judgment oracle in reference to, say, a particular city or a particular ruler or things like that, you do realize that in many situations the amount of information that is actually available about everything that took place in that period is quite simply non -existent.

And that while we may have a vague reference here or a vague reference there to an event here or an event there, that in reality, especially during those periods of times where you have tremendous warfare between major empires,

Assyria, Babylonia, that whole very transitional period, the

Greeks come in and the Romans come in and so on and so forth in the intertestamental period, that the idea of having the kind of documentable evidence that we would require to come to the very firm conclusions you've already come to, is next to impossible to obtain.

You do realize that. I mean, you're... Really? And you know beyond any shadow of a doubt exactly what part of the city of Tyre is being referred to.

Right? Because you do know there is more than one part. Right? Okay, so we can't allow that there's distinctions in where the city is, right?

We just have to forget that part? Oh, like I said, it doesn't... Oh, the whole city in itself,

I see. Okay, so even if people in that day could have understood it being said, since we live thousands of years later and don't even know anything about that area really that much, then we can accuse the people in the past of having made errors because we're far enough away from them, but they couldn't have been that specific in their day?

I mean... No, no, no, sir, that's a problem. It isn't very simple.

You've made it very simple to make your case, but that's the problem. It isn't very simple because the fact of the matter is, sir, that as we have learned more and more about history, it was very common for people like yourself 150 years ago to laugh at the

Old Testament because it talked about the Hittites and they said there's no evidence they ever existed. It's clearly a false prophecy.

Now we know about the Hittites. Now we've discovered where they live. Now we know something about their language and their culture.

And the people who were very confident, saying it's very simple, very easy, are no longer around to be corrected in their statements.

And I'm simply saying to you that most of the time when you make this kind of argumentation, you're arguing from silence rather than from documentable fact.

And you need to recognize that. I mean, maybe, sir, no.

There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. So we have all these references to cities who were destroyed.

Jericho. Jericho was completely destroyed by the Israelites. And yet Jesus visited

Jericho. Therefore, it must be a problem, right? No way you recognize that, for example, ancient cities frequently were destroyed and a new city would be built next to it or across a river from it or all sorts of things like that.

And since Tyre itself is a port city, and in fact there was an island portion of it, then it grows over time and it is rebuilt over time.

And it's not the same thing in the days of Jesus that it was in the days of Ezekiel. And we know there was a siege portion of it.

The outer portions of that were destroyed during the siege, but they did not actually get into the city.

It was sieged, I don't know how many times over through history. I mean, its history is very long and rich. But the point is that you want to force a modernistic concept of a nuclear bomb being dropped on some place and refuse to acknowledge that a city's destruction at one point in time can be a fulfillment of a prophecy if there is rebuilding there at any time in the future, which would mean the whole thing about Jericho was wrong too, right?

And you're going to allow the text to have its own context, right? So since this is very plain and clear to you, then how do you respond to Dr.

Ercher's explanation of this? No, my point is, sir, you haven't even taken the time to find out what

Christian scholars say in response. No, you have not. I'm talking to you, you're a

Christian scholar. So this is the first time? No. Oh, I didn't think it was.

Let's be straight up, John. Let's not hide behind anything here.

You're making an argument, but you haven't done your homework. So what I'm going to do is, I hope you can listen. In fact,

I'll just go ahead and put you on hold. We'll go a little bit long, and for those who do not have the resource, let me just read.

This is not the first time I've heard this one. I know the irony here is that one of the first times

I looked into this was when an open theist used the same text as argument against God, having exhausted knowledge of the future, that there was false prophecy in the

Bible. Real quickly, because people are going to want to know, let me read here.

I don't know how long this is going to take me, but we'll go just a few minutes longer. This is from Gleason Ercher. Ezekiel 26, 3 -14 contains a striking series of prophecies that foretell the complete downfall of the proud merchant city of Tyre to be brought about by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.

Yet from 2918, it is clear that Nebuchadnezzar had not succeeded in capturing the island city offshore from the mainland port of Tyre.

Undoubtedly, inhabitants had removed their most valuable possessions from the old city when they saw that its defenses could not hold out against the

Chaldean siege engines. They had conveyed these possessions by ship to their island fortress, which was securely protected by Tyre's formidable navy, against the landings attempted by Nebuchadnezzar's sea forces.

Thus, he had experienced years of frustration in the vain attempt to capture that prize. By way of compensation, the Lord promised the king a successful venture against Egypt.

A careful examination of 26, 3 -14 indicates a two -stage level of punishment for Tyre. Verses 3 -4 predict that many nations would come up against it and would break down its towers and walls.

This fits in well with the Chaldean campaign and its thorough destruction of the mainland city. Verses 5 -6 go on to speak of the removal of all the bricks and rocks and everything movable from the site of that ruined city, a most unusual procedure in dealing with a city taken by storm.

Generally, such locations would be left a chaos of rubble rather than swept clean. Verses 7 -11 specify that Nebuchadnezzar will capture, plunder, and thoroughly destroy the parent city on the shore.

But verse 12 seems to usher in the later phase, using an unspecific they as the subject of shall make a spoil of thy riches.

Continuing through verses 13 -14, the specifics point very strikingly toward the later attack on the island city of Tyre that was successfully carried through by Alexander the

Great circa 332 B .C. History tells us that after Alexander's naval forces proved incapable of storming the island due to the determined resistance of the superior

Tyrian fleet, he resorted to an ambitious engineering effort consisting of a mile -long mole built from the shore to the east wall of the island.

In order to get material for this causeway, the Greek invaders used every movable piece of rock or stone to cast into the sea, until after several months of strenuous endeavor the wall was reached, broken through, and the city sacked.

Exasperated by the long delay in his invasion schedule, Alexander resolved to make a fearsome example of Tyre, so he had the island city totally destroyed so that it should never be rebuilt.

In point of fact, the mainland city of Tyre later was rebuilt and assumed some of its former importance during the

Hellenistic period, but as for the island city, it apparently sank below the surface of the Mediterranean in the same subsidence that submerged the port of Caesarea that Herod had built up with such expense and care.

All that remains of it is a series of black reefs offshore from Tyre, which surely could not have been there in the first and second millennia

B .C. since they posed such a threat to navigation. The promontory that now juts out from the coastline probably was washed up along the barrier of Alexander's causeway, but the island itself broke off and sank away when the subsidence took place, and we have no evidence at all that it ever was built up again after Alexander's terrible act of vengeance.

In the light of these data, then the predictions of chapter 26, improbable though they must have seemed in Ezekiel's time, were duly fulfilled to the letter, first by Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century, and then by Alexander in the 4th.

And you can read more on that in Gleason Archer's book, Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties.

Interesting phone calls today, indeed, here on The Dividing Line, but that's what we do here.

I don't know if we'll do something Thursday. If I've got good internet and I've got the time, it might be worth trying it out.

We've got Skype installed. It's about time to try. So, we'll see. I'll let you know on the blog one way or another,

Lord willing, but definitely not the week after that. And so, we'll be coming back in on the 26th.