April 21, 2005

The Dividing Line. 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.

Preparing for the Debate and the Problem of Limited Time

And good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line on a Thursday afternoon. Getting ready for a debate tomorrow after, well, tomorrow evening, I guess. Is it 7? I don't know when it is. I hope it's 7 because my flight gets in, well, I'm not checking bags and I'm not checking bags specifically so we can get over to the school where this is going to be held.

I'm hoping I have an idea of the kind of, it's in a business college kind of techie type room with the overhead projectors and stuff. I hope I have an idea what it's going to look like. At least I hope so anyways.

But we're going to get over there. We need to get set up. We're going to try to go ahead and videotape this thing. I don't know if it's going to work out. We're asking a friend of ours that's going to be driving a distance to get there to help out a little bit.

And I hope that that happens. But not knowing the location and stuff, who knows? We're going to be flying by the seat of our pants, in essence, as we have in so many of the times. Obviously, it will be recorded, you know, audio recorded.

But we want, it would be nice to be able to video record it as well. And that would then require the PowerPoints that I'm busily working on, even the last moment here, and this really is the last moment since the flight's at 9 .45 in the morning, working on at the last moment here.

And they're coming together. I'm starting to like what I'm seeing and starting to see the flow. And grand total, I've got 35 minutes for the PowerPoints. I mean, a 20 minute and a 15 minute. That's not a lot of time.

So I really need, the trick here, since I've not done this before, I've not used, well, I'll take that back. One time on Long Island at Ed Moore's church, North Shore Baptist Church, I did a debate with a Church of Christ minister on election predestination.

I just love when folks say, you're afraid to debate me on election predestination. If I'm not debating somebody, it's probably because they've already shot their credibility right out the window and there's no sense doing it.

But this fellow was a very good speaker, and he insisted on using multimedia. And we had just gotten our very first digital projector. So I said, okay, fine. If he insists on using some sort of multimedia, great, fine, wonderful, I'll put together, you know, thing.

So I put all this effort into this presentation, and that's now my notes. I mean, the printout from PowerPoint will be my notes for my presentation tomorrow evening as well. Anyway, we get there, and the guy goes, oh, I'm not going to do it.

I'm not going to, I'm just going to go ahead and speak. I'm not going to use an overhead or anything like that. So I'm left sort of looking like the geek. But I said, you know what? I've put so much effort into this.

This is what I've got. That's what I'm going to do. And so I did, and that, you know, he just went right down, right down the front row, and he's literally leaning over. The front row was empty, and he's literally leaning over that pew into the second row preaching, you know, a good Church Christ preacher, really, how would you put it, spitting on the next three rows, I would say.

He really went for it. Anyhow, I'm not sure how this is going to work, but what I need to do this evening while I'm getting all packed up and moving my email over to my laptop and all this stuff, what I really need to do is I need to time these things, because that's the trick.

It's one thing when you're just speaking. I've learned over the years how to fit into my time frame. I can watch that clock. I can see how much time I've got. I can speed up, slow down, cut out on the fly.

That's just something you learn to do. That's why a lot of folks don't do this kind of things, because they can't do that. That's just not something I think my days in radio helped me do that. But that's different when you have slides, you know, because it's a little bit difficult on the fly to, like, skip past slides or, you know, do that kind of thing or, you know, how long is it going to take to really cop, you know, handle this particular slide and how long does it take to read it and, you know, things like that.

So it's going to be challenging, but obviously if we do videotape it, then we're going to have to ask to get hold of the PowerPoint that Dr. Wilkins will be presenting and give my PowerPoints to him so that they can do what they want with it and we can do what we want with it and make it available and so on and so forth.

It'll be a very, very interesting debate. I probably, I think, depending on the phone calls today at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, depending on those, might get into some of these things. I was just, all I was going to do was to mention, just sort of in passing, something that I emphasized at the very beginning of the debate and that is I'm a little concerned, especially, did you see on the blog the little thing about Bob Ross?

Everybody, whenever I say anything about Bob Ross, they think we're talking about the painter with the fro who died a few years ago, you know, and you still see him on public broadcasting, you know, putting his little trees in.

I love watching that, by the way. It's not like I have time to, but if it happens to be on and I'm doing something else like eating or something like that, I'll definitely watch it because I think it's great to watch.

I can't do that. I make a lousy stick figure, okay? There's just nothing there and so to watch this guy create this gorgeous landscape or whatever in 30 minutes is really, I enjoy it. But that's not the Bob Ross we're talking about here, okay?

He is not channeling in criticisms of me on the doctrine of regeneration from beyond. Bob Ross is the head of Pilgrim Publications. He's a Baptist. He has debated lots of Church of Christ people in those, you know how Church of Christ people like to debate.

They like to do it for like a week, you know, for like hours and hours on end every single night for a week, you know? I'm not into that kind of debating and he's done a lot of that stuff. He's the one that, what was it, about a year ago?

Is this an annual thing? It's just, well, it's April, time to attack white again. He comes after me. It was around this time because that's when Debating Calvinism came out. That's right. Anyway, he went after me a year ago and he's gone after me again over the subject of the debate and has made sure that Bob Wilkin, you know, knows that I'm out to lunch and I don't represent Calvinism or the rest of the stuff and neither does Burkoff or Sproul or people at Banner of Truth.

There's a hint there. There's still something there that might be communicated. Anyway, it was funny. He evidently doesn't have any idea what Bob Wilkin believes and that's what was really amazing to me is that he's talking to Bob Wilkin and evidently has never read his book and doesn't understand what Bob Wilkin is saying.

I put together just a couple quotes that I'm going to read just to make sure the people who are listening to this debate understand this is not a normal Calvinistic-Arminian discussion because Dr. Wilkin holds a position in the nature of faith that is very, very unusual and what I mean by that is, well, let me just read a couple of quotes here from his book Confident in Christ.

On page 19, this certainly does sound familiar. He says, none of us would ever seek God if left purely to our own initiative, Romans 3 .11, but since God is seeking each and every one of us, we are free to respond to the light God gives us.

Well, that's your standard Arminianism. That's the standard inconsistent Arminianism as far as trying to hold things together that can't be held together, but that's nothing overly unusual about that.

Page 21, Jesus paid the complete penalty for our sins by his death on the cross. It made us savable and Dr. Wilkin put savable in italics there and that should sound familiar too. Both of those could have been quoted directly out of Norman Geisler, but they weren't and that's because, of course, Geisler taught at Dallas and Dr. Wilkin is a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, but here's where the differences come in.

Here's where the differences come in. The gospel simply stated is this, by virtue of his death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus Christ gives eternal life to anyone who just believes in him for it. If you are convinced of this, you have believed the gospel.

Whether it seems too simple or not, that is the gospel. Though it doesn't, and listen to this, though it doesn't include turning from sins, commitment of life, and doing good works, that is the gospel.

And so what you need to understand is faith within this system, within Dr. Wilkin's system, is intellectual assent to a particular orthodox formulation of the ministry of Christ and what it means to receive eternal life.

That's it. It has nothing to do with turning from sin. There is no repentance. Repentance is not a part of salvation. You do not have to repent to go to heaven. You can remain in your sin. They don't say you should, but that's not the point.

You can remain in your sin. There is no such thing in Dr. Wilkin's viewpoint as false faith. Notice what he says on pages 25 and 29. None of us can be sure that our experience of faith will remain intact until we go to be with the Lord.

Not all believers successfully navigate their way through this life, yet God guarantees all believers eternal life, even those who suffer shipwreck concerning the faith, 1 Timothy 1 .19. There is no time requirement on saving faith.

At the moment of faith, the believer receives eternal life once and for all, whether he dies shortly thereafter or whether he lives for a hundred more years. Even if a person believes only for a while, he still has eternal life.

There's the key issue. As long as you believed in the truth, any belief in the truth is saving faith. Any belief in the truth is true faith. Now, a Mormon who believes in something false does not have eternal life by believing in something false.

But as long as you believed in the truth, even for a moment, you have eternal life. It's your present possession. What you do after that point cannot impact your possession of it. And that means you don't have to repent from your sins.

You can become an atheist. You can become a Buddhist. You can curse Christ. But as long as you believed the right thing about Christ once, you've got your ticket punched, you're going to heaven. Now you can see why the debate's important because we're addressing this from really the only foundation that it can be addressed from.

And that is, why does God save? What is the purpose of God's salvation? What's he doing? Now, the debate is going to be broken into two parts. And as you can tell, I'm reaching over here for my stack of the stack-o-stuff, as they say.

The first half, resolve that regeneration precedes faith. That's what I'm defending. And the second, resolve that works are an indispensable element of true faith. And he's going to be denying that, going first in denying that.

And so we're really getting to the issue. And that is, what is the nature of saving faith? What is it that people believe? What is being said about that particular issue? And I'll be providing some quotations that indicate, that demonstrate, that certainly, and this is one of the major errors of Dr. Wilkin and Zane Hodges and others, they think they are promoting sola fide.

They are not promoting sola fide. That is not what sola fide has ever been. That's not what the Reformers believed it was. And for example, in the formula of Concord, the questions, the negative section 5 of section 3, says, we repudiate that faith is such a confidence in the obedience of Christ as can abide and even have a being in that man who is void of true repentance but contrary to conscience perseveres in sins.

That's exactly right there, what we're talking about. Someone who is void of true repentance and perseveres in his sins is saved according to this perspective. And that's the formula of Concord says no.

Heidelberg Catechism, question 87. Can they then not be saved who do not turn to God from their unthankful, impenitent life? Answer, by no means. By no means. Can't be done. Can't be done. Calvin and the Institutes said, for since pardon and forgiveness are offered by the preaching of the gospel, in order that the sinner delivered from the tyranny of Satan, the yoke of sin, and the miserable bondage of iniquity, may pass into the kingdom of God, it is certain that no man can embrace the grace of the gospel without retaking himself from the errors of his former life into the right path and making it his whole study to practice repentance.

I think Calvin's views might be something relevant to what sola fide actually means. And in fact I also, since this debate is a part of the B .B. Warfield lecture series, I quoted him as well. He wrote in reference to James chapter 2, obviously a passage that is central in this discussion.

It will be part of the second part of the debate. And the attempts on the part of non-lordship writers to deal with James chapter 2 have been absolutely incredible. Their interpretation is unknown in the history of the church.

Nobody has ever come up with this way of understanding the thing. And there's a reason for that. Obviously it's directly contradictory to their thesis and so they have to do something very odd with it.

But Warfield said in regards to James 2, It was to James that it fell to rebuke the Jewish tendency to conceive of the faith which was pleasing to Jehovah as a mere intellectual acquiescence in his being and claims, when imported into the church and made to do duty as the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the In short, James is not depreciating faith.

With him, too, it is faith that is reckoned under righteousness, though only such a faith as shows itself in works can be so reckoned because a faith which does not come to fruitage in works is dead, non-existent.

He is rather deepening the idea of faith and insisting that it includes in its very conception something more than an odious intellectual assent.". Now, I don't know if there was anybody running around back in Warfield's day saying anything similar to this.

I don't think that there was. But one thing is for certain, that would be directly relevant to exactly what we're going to be debating. So those are some of the issues that we're going to be talking about.

And you've now heard some of the presentations that are going to be made. We have one caller right now waiting for some more at 877 -753 -3341. I did want to play one brief thing here, then we'll start taking some of our calls.

I started listening to a tape. I've had the tape for ages. I got it, well, when did I debate Peter Stravinskas? That was, what, 2001, something like that? So I've had it for a while. And I started listening to it while I was lifting recently, and I caught this beginning part.

And I said, man, if you want a wonderful example of what happens when exegesis is completely thrown out in favor of tradition, if you want to hear what happens in Roman Catholic theology, here's a man with a licentiate in systematic theology, the equivalent of a PhD in systematic theology, two master's degrees, two doctorates, lecturing, Roman Catholic apologist.

You've heard us discuss various passages on this program before, unless you're new to the program today. If you are, welcome. But anyway, no, it's not a CD. This is called a tape. T-A-P-E. This was from a number of years ago.

T-A-P-E. Tape. Anyway, here is a fellow talking about really, no, no, I wasn't listening to the debate, folks. I was listening to a lecture by Peter Stravinskas. I am about to, quote, I'm watching all these confused people going, oh, what are you talking about?

It's your debate with Stravinskas. It's not a CD, man. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a tape that he put out that has a lecture that you'll hear here in a moment. So, here's what happens when tradition becomes central, even to someone who, well, here, just listen.

You may recall that Julius Caesar told us that all Gaul is divided into three parts, and that's the case with our topic today as well. I've been asked to help you consider three matters, Mary, the Holy Spirit, and the Church.

Three aspects, really, of unity, though. And perhaps the best way to go about the process would be to consider the three principal Marian dogmas. That is, Mary's Immaculate Conception, her virginal conception of Jesus, and her Assumption into Heaven, all the while attempting to see how these teachings have applications and implications for our understanding of both the Church and the Holy Spirit.

In essence, we'll be examining a multifaceted diamond in the hopes of obtaining a deeper appreciation of Our Lady, who provides us with connections to the third person of the Blessed Trinity, and then the Spirit's particular work on behalf of the Church.

Indeed, we find this pattern set right at the foot of the cross. The fourth evangelist tells us that Jesus gave up his spirit, which can be interpreted as poetic language for simply he died. However, it can also be a word play, which includes not only the Lord's death, but his communication of his spirit, his Holy Spirit.

And to whom was that communicated? To the two individuals at the foot of the cross, Mary, Mother of the Church, and the Beloved Disciple, representing the faithful of every time and place. Not surprisingly, the Fathers of the Church saw in the Virgin Mother and the Virginal Disciple the birth of the Virginal Church.

Okay, there you go. Just two minutes, just a little, you know, how it all starts. And I'm sitting here listening to this, and I'm going, what? You know, what do you say to something like this? You have the situation, John chapter 19, alright?

Jesus has been crucified. When Jesus then saw his mother and disciple whom he loved staying nearby, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother. From that hour, the disciple took her into his own household.

Now, that two-verse segment, which has a fully understandable meaning in the context the original readers would have understood. Here Jesus is taking care of his mother. He is entrusting her to one of his disciples.

His brothers, remember, were not believers at this time. They did not believe in Christ until after the resurrection. And so he entrusts his mother to John. But many, many, many generations, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, not during the early patristic period at all, but down the road as Marian doctrine begins to develop, then this is seen as Jesus, Woman, behold your son.

John becomes the church. And so Mary is being put in the position of being the mother of the church. And when Jesus says to the disciple, Behold your mother, this is the command to the church, to see Mary as our mother and so on and so forth.

That's certainly not the meaning of the text as it was written or understood by the original authors. There's no evidence for hundreds of years at this particular point in time that that's how it was understood.

But anyway, where does it say that they believed after the resurrection? You're not familiar with this, like James. Anyway, after this, verse 28, knowing that all things had already been accomplished to fulfill the scripture said, I am thirsty.

And then in verse 30, therefore, when Jesus received the sour wine, he said, It is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Now, to give up the spirit is clearly a phrase that has a meaning in the original language.

And when you look at John in parallel with the other Gospels, what does this mean? It means he died. He gave up his spirit voluntarily. No one takes it from him. He does it himself. Remember Pilate's amazed that he was already dead and so on and so forth.

But did you hear what Stravinsky said? Now, it could mean this, but it could also mean that he gave up his spirit as in communicating the Holy Spirit to Mary and John at the foot of the cross. And since his topic is Mary, the Holy Spirit and the church, John represents church.

There's Mary. His spirit is the Holy Spirit. And you're just sitting here going, wow. You know, this could be really appreciated by one other person that I know of on radio and his name's Harold Camping.

You know what I mean? Like, let's just stick stuff together here. And that's not exegesis. That's not honoring the text. Wow. And sadly, people sit there and they go, well, you know, the Father said it.

And if the Father says it. In fact, remember what happened after Stravinsky's debate. Michael Fallon was standing back next to our table and there were like these three young Roman Catholic guys. And he's not sure whether they were doing this just so that he would engage them, which he ended up doing.

But they were saying this fairly loudly and one of them was going, and I'm doing this just the way that Mike communicated it to me. He says, oh, this is a Roman Catholic young fellow saying, oh, when Father Stravinsky spoke, you could just feel the truth coming forth from him.

But when White spoke, you could see the demon circling his head. Mike's like, excuse me, but what debate did you go to? And of course, that started the whole thing and they began talking. But, you know, people listen to that stuff and they go, well, that's priest, that's father.

And I've mentioned that you watch that video and I've always recommended to people, you watch the Stravinsky debate, not simply listen to it. Because there is a look in my opponent's eye that it's like, how dare you challenge me like that?

At one point, he misquoted. He took about two or three different portions from different people and crammed them all together and said Peter said it. And never said anything, even nowhere in scripture was that citation found.

All right. Wrong attribution is to the person. It was even that a compilation of statements. And so I stopped him and I said, you know, he's asking me a question, but I'm like, and where's that? I mean, I'd like to look at the biblical passage.

You know, that's sort of important for me. He was so visibly angry. You're playing a game. I'm not playing the game. You're asking me a question based upon an alleged scriptural citation that doesn't exist.

How can I play a game? And he you could just tell no one ever, ever says, excuse me, but where'd you get that? Same thing happened when he misquoted Augustine. You know, I'm sure that in his long correspondence with with Jimmy Swaggart, Jimmy, cause he brought him up.

Jimmy Swaggart had never pointed out to him that that Sermon 131 does not say what many Roman Catholic apologists seem to think it says. And so I'm sure that was the first time that he had ever run into that.

But the fact of the matter is, if you're going to say it in a debate, then expect to have to back it up. You know, I mean, what else can I say? That's just that's just sort of how it works. It's that's how that's where you got to go.

So it was fascinating to listen to this. Most of people just sit in the crowd and they listen. And because he's a priest and because he's a scholar, he doesn't get challenged. And I I don't know that he would ever do a debate again.

I actually at one point and I would hope that he would say this actually at one point after the debate was over, even after his purgatory response, pay me now, pay me later. I saw some guy and I'm I'm not sure who it was.

If it was the one guy that I I'm always, you know, going after him, but. Somebody was going after him, they were they were getting loud. I walked across the dais, the platform you're on, and I step between I step over and I I basically told the guy, shut up.

I said, knock it off, calm down. We're not going to put up with this. There's no reason to do that. And so I would at least think that I would at least hope that that he would he would mention that. Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one.

We've got two callers online. We'll be going to Steve as soon as we get back from our break. Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three,.

Three, four, one. We'll be right back. Today, many stop strong and true and quickly fall away. Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality. Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

In their book, The Same Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including Genesis, Leviticus and Romans.

Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law. In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.

The Same Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at AOMN .org. Alaska, the unspoiled land of nature and immensity, both in its realities and its possibilities.

Alaska can stir our hearts and minds like no other place on earth. Join us this summer for the 2005 Alfred Omega Ministries Alaskan Cruise, as we cruise the inside passage to the great land of Alaska with Dr. James White and Christian recording artist Steve Camp, as they explore the great doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

For our guests, the journey north is an odyssey of glorious landscapes and majestic wildlife, as we sail on the luxury five-star sun princess by towering glaciers into some of the most remarkable points on earth.

All this, and at prices beginning at $624 per person, plus port taxes and fees, half the price of other offerings to Alaska with other groups. Contact us today at AOMN .org or at 877-SOV-CRUISE.

Millions of petitioners from around the world are employing Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co-redeemer with Christ, elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.

In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic. He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant, and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived, bodily assumed Queen of Heaven, viewed as co-mediator with Christ, and now recognized as co-redeemer by many in the Roman Catholic Church.

Mary, Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the Bible calls blessed among women, and an invitation to single-minded devotion to God's truth. You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at AOMN .org.

This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.

The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m., and the worship service is at 10 .45.

Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday, and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26-GRACE.

If you are unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org, where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

Ephesians 2, Colossians 2, and Romans 6 on Spiritual Death

And welcome back to the dividing line. It is a Thursday afternoon, 435 out here in the Mountain West, but that's also Pacific, and I just wish that wouldn't happen. Anyways, let's get to our callers and talk with Steve in New York.

Hi, Steve. Hi, Dr. White. How are you?

Doing good. Great talking to you. I've been reading your stuff for a long time. Great. I wanted to, first of all, invite you to upstate New York, go out and do some target shooting, shoot some skeet, and visit the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is right up the road from me.

I didn't know they allowed that in New York anymore. I mean, down there in Manhattan, you know, you've got all those liberals.

Right. Well, it's kind of separate from us. You know, we keep them to the south, and they leave us alone up in the north.

Could you sort of cut them out? You know, because I think if you cut them out, New York would actually be a pretty cool state, don't you think?

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We're definitely a little more conservative up here. Yeah. We're not real proud of our senators up here, but, you know, what can you do? Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Anyway, my question's kind of in two parts.

I don't know if you've ever heard of Steve Craig. He hosts a radio program called The Narrow Path. Yes, yes, I have. Uh-huh. And he also did a commentary on the Four Views of Revelation, which I thought was pretty good.

But anyway, I was on his website, and I was listening to a couple of his tapes or MP3s, whatever they are, Calvinist Challenges Answered. And he didn't really answer them as far as I was concerned, but he made a couple of points that I wanted to just get your view on concerning Ephesians chapter 2, verse 1, where it says,.

And you he made alive who were dead in trespass and sin, and also in Colossians 2 .13. He stated the term dead there could refer to the fact that we are under a death sentence when we are in our trespasses and in our sin, and it doesn't mean that we're dead now.

And I guess the second part of the question would be how he referenced that to Romans 6 .2, where it says,. How shall we who die to sin live any longer in it? So how are we able to sin if we are dead to sin?

Yet how can we not choose Christ if we're dead in our trespass and sin?

Did I make that clear? Yeah, I think, you know, as clear as you can make desperate attempts to get around the obvious teaching of Scripture, anyways, the answer to the first one is rather simple. The opposite of being dead in sin is being made alive with Christ, and that's not being put under a life sentence.

The analogies used are resurrection, being born again, being given life. All those things are the opposite of death. And when you're simply put under a sentence, a condemnation, that does not result in the inabilities that are predicated of the natural man.

And that's what they're really trying to get around is the fact that the Scriptures teach these inabilities, the inability of man to believe outside of God's grace, the inability to do anything that is pleasing before God, so on and so forth.

To establish a libertarian position, to establish the center of their religion, they have to get rid of these inabilities. And so they have to get rid of the idea that we're actually dead in our trespasses and sins, that that is a state of corruption and separation from the life of God.

But the opposite of it, even there in Ephesians 2, you were this, but God made you alive with Christ. Well, you can't fit the idea of, well, no, you weren't really dead. You were just under a death sentence.

Someday you would die. No, in the day that you eat of it, you shall die. That was a spiritual death. That was what results in the rebellious nature of man, so on and so forth. That's a completely different discussion in Romans 6, where he's talking about sin no longer having dominion over us.

Our death to sin is in our union with Christ in his death upon the cross. And so the power of sin, the dominion of sin over the believer has been broken. But as long as we live in this fallen body until the redemption is finished and completed, then there is that presence of sin.

There is the downward drag of the decaying body and the world in which we live that results in the battle that is described throughout Scripture and that is a part of the Christian life. And so one is describing our state, which is what requires the necessity of spiritual resurrection.

The other is discussing the fact that the power of sin has been broken through our union with Christ in his death. Two completely different areas of discussion. That's why Paul does not confuse them. And the only way that someone can confuse them, as this gentleman has, is by assuming that words that are used in Ephesians 2 are going to be used the same way in Romans 6.

And that's a common exegetical error. I've noted that and I was talking about the debate coming up. I was noting that Dr. Wilkin makes that kind of mistake in regards to defining faith, especially in regards to defining repentance.

And at one point was talking about the parable of the soils, for example, and was saying, well, here in this writer it says that the seeds sprang up and another writer uses that over here to mean this and therefore.

Well, it's one thing to go to another writer and say this is how this other writer used this particular term. It's another thing to just automatically assume that every writer is going to use every term the same way.

I don't know how many people, you know, I was sort of taught as a young person somewhat of a bad way to do Bible studies. And that is, you know, get out Strong's Concordance and just follow a term through Scripture.