Saving Faith and Two Islamic Videos on a Jumbo Edition of the DL

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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And greetings. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Well, it's not the last week of December, but we're working on it.

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We're coming up. If anyone's wondering, I will actually be preaching Sunday morning, this coming

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Sunday morning. Always enjoy when we get that opportunity to do that on Christmas Day and Lord's Day, coming together there.

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That's pretty cool. We've also had, I remember, a real neat Christmas Eve, when

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Christmas Eve was on Sunday. That was really cool. We had a baptism that night and Lord's Supper.

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It was really special. Great stuff. But anyway, it's that time of year and very, very busy.

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I just got this in the mail. The best of Church curmudgeon then tweets my soul.

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Just got this in the mail. And I noticed it's from Canon Press, which is probably by Doug Wilson.

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Wilson's on the back. I wondered why that would be. But anyway, yes.

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Well, you know, there's a lot of white space because these are tweets and tweets just by nature are not going to fill up a lot of a lot of space.

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But yes. The funny thing is the author is not that old, but obviously must know old people.

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But of course the author is old because he's the Church curmudgeon. So but there you go.

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I was thinking about making some of those Christmas presents, but I figured

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I'd offend whoever I'd give it to. And they're not available yet anyways, in that way. At least Amazon doesn't say it is.

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But keep an eye on it because I've always enjoyed the Church curmudgeon and bitter blue Betty.

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Whatever her name is. Bitter blue Betty or whoever the female counterpart is on Twitter.

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Yeah, whoever that is. Anyway, much to get to today on the program.

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Have a lot of video queued up and ready to go. Just a quick note.

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I didn't really turn the news on this morning, but the assassination of the

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Russian ambassador to Turkey. Really destabilizing news.

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Assassinations in Turkey like places like Sarajevo or things like that. Not good. For those of you who know history, that was how

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World War One started. I think a lot of us just sort of sit back and say, well, as long as it's over there someplace, it doesn't affect me.

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Well, the world's gotten too small for anything almost anywhere to not affect us.

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And there should be I think it is appropriate for Christians to regularly pray for peace on Earth.

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Not goodwill toward men. That's that's a different context. But that God would restrain the evil of men and use us to do so to make us instruments.

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Well, instruments of peace. Blessed are the peacemakers. And I see a lot of Christians that have sort of lost that aspect of things.

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Very warlike, very much into battle and things like that.

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And sure, there's there's Christian warfare, but it's it's all spiritual in nature. And we should definitely be praying for peace in the

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Middle East. What we've been seeing in the events in Aleppo and things like that, just horrible, horrible tragedies.

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And it's the result of the sinfulness of man. And we need to we need to pray for peace here on Earth.

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I want to start off with something a little unusual. I am going to be getting into some Roman Catholic material, some

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Islamic material. I had been having a conversation with a guy. This is really weird.

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I was having a conversation with a guy on Twitter. Well, he had actually come after me.

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Disciples underscore 777. And at first he posted some jack chick video from five years ago.

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Good luck refuting this as if I hadn't seen it before. And there was nothing new to it. And start having some back and forth.

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He wanted to show me an error in the King James. I've read your entire book and it stands refuted and you're wrong.

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And I just tried to point out to him. There are certain presuppositions, there are certain assumptions you're making.

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And until we address those assumptions, I can present you all the evidence in the world. And you're not going to accept it as evidence.

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Because your assumption is this is the standard. You've made in your mind the

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KJV equals Word of God alone connection. So since this can't be questioned, then there's no reason even talking to you.

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Because anything I present to you, you're just going to dismiss as being irrelevant, as not being something that really matters.

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So he didn't quite catch that.

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And so we were sort of going back and forth. And I mentioned a particular issue.

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The appearance of the term koinonia in Ephesians 3 .9

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in the Textus Receptus. And in fact, I'd ask, I'd point out, this is a text that I would like to ask my ecclesiastical text buddies about.

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Because I would think that given, if you're one of the

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Byzantine priority ecclesiastical text guys. And I don't know if that actually works, theoretically speaking.

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But anyway, your answer here should be pretty clear. But if you're a TR only guy, and if you look at the

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TR as this is the text of the Reformation. Then you're sort of stuck here between a rock and a hard place.

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But in Ephesians 3 .9, there is a textual variance.

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And the TR's reading is just simply not defensible. Well, again, not defensible.

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If you can defend Revelation 16 .5, you can defend anything. And so I'm sure there's probably some poor guy out there, somewhere, who lives alone.

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Because this is all he does. And he has just one room of his apartments dedicated to nothing but the evidence for the

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TR in Ephesians 3 .9. It's sad to meet these folks, to just make their life out of that one thing.

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But anyway, I was going to ask the guy about it. And I got here to the office.

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And I fired up TweetBot. And he's gone. All of his tweets.

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Tony Costa was talking with him, and I was talking with him. All ours is still there. But everything they referred to, it's gone.

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And you go to him, and tweets, zero. He just, poof. It's like he was raptured.

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It could be the Trilateral Commission. It could be the Illuminati. There are a lot of possibilities that we could go for here, and write books about, and the whole nine yards.

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But I don't know. I mean, there's all sorts of questions about King James, too.

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Oh, whether the King James was the real King James. Or whether he had died and was replaced by somebody else.

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Oh, there's lots of fun stuff that we could do with that. Anyway, he just went, poof. He's gone. So we can't continue that conversation.

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I'm not sure what happened there. But anyway, those issues aside. On Sunday mornings, as part of the opening before the

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Sunday school, adult Sunday school class, we have a tradition of reading through the poetic literature of the

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Old Testament. Proverbs, well, the wisdom literature. Proverbs, we just finished

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Ecclesiastes. Yes, we do read through Ecclesiastes. Song of Solomon.

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I'm not sure if we're doing Song of Solomon. I think we do. And then normally we actually go and do James, too.

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And then pop back and just read through those as part of the opening. But there's also normally something else that's read through.

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We've read through certain catechisms and stuff. Well, right now we're reading through the London Baptist Confession of Faith. Sort of predictable.

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And I was struck by Chapter 14, which is what was read

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Sunday morning. And so I wanted to bring your attention to it.

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Though there are many of you probably have this memorized, have spoken on it, things like that.

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How many times have I said that I really believe that the work of regeneration, a true work of regeneration, brings about a fundamental respect and obedience to Scripture and the

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Word of God? A Christian who has a problem with authority, being under authority, a

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Christian who is constantly emphasizing his or her own autonomy, is a person that's concerning to me.

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Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about being a doormat. I'm not talking about someone who doesn't have their own spine.

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But there's a vast difference between standing firm for the truth and being convinced of what you believe and not being used as a doormat, and the kind of autonomous self -reliance and just that attitude that so many people have where you can just tell that they sort of have the idea,

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God's lucky that He's lucky to have me and He's lucky that I'm willing to accept what

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His Word says. And a hypercritical spirit, not just hypercritical within the church, but a hypercritical spirit of the

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Scriptures, especially, really strikes me as very, very concerning in regards to a person's profession of faith.

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Listen to what chapter 14 says. And by the way, I had some of my

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Presbyterian brethren, real quickly, just a few moments ago, throw the

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Westminster Confession into the chat channel, and they were identical, as far as I could tell. They're identical.

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So, chapter 14 of Saving Faith. The grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe.

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Now, let's just stop right there for a second. We are right now not talking to the traditionalist

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Southern Baptists. We're not talking to Synergists. We're not talking to Pelagians, Semi -Pelagians.

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This is a conversation amongst people who accept the biblical teaching and reality of the existence of the elect, that do not accept wild -eyed teachings that say, well, the elect only has to do with Israel, that there is no elect.

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You know, when Paul says, I endure all things for the sake of the elect, etc., he's not really talking about a specific people that God has chosen from time past, even though that's what he says in Ephesians 1 and Romans 8 and 9 and so on and so forth.

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This is sort of a consideration for those who have accepted enough biblical revelation to recognize there is an elect and therefore to understand what

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I've said so many times before regarding the difference between reading the Bible in a man -centered way or in a

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God -centered way. Either we're theocentric or we're anthropocentric. And when you look at the scriptures theocentrically, this is what

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God is accomplishing, this is what God is doing, then you understand he has his elect people, he has his decree, he's accomplishing these things.

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If you look at it anthropocentrically, if you look at it with man at the center, I'm just not going to be of much help to you.

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We're going to come at things very, very, very differently. We really, really are. And I just don't see how the scriptures are going to make sense to you.

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I really don't. So when we're talking here that the grace of faith whereby the elect are enabled to believe, see how much theology there is in that?

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The elect, they are specific, they're not known to God passively, but actively by his choice, are enabled to believe.

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How many people that you interact with regularly believe that everyone's enabled to believe just naturally?

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Because God says to believe, therefore everyone must have that capacity. That's the Pelagian speaking.

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And so we're already light years from that in these considerations. And it saddens me that my

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Arminian brethren and friends are sort of left out of the rest of this conversation.

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But my hope is you'll listen and go, oh, that's really encouraging and that's really God glorifying.

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And that really makes sense with so much of scripture. And maybe I've been wrong all this time. That would be nice.

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The grace of faith whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their soul.

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So there's a faith that the elect exercise. And that's what we're talking about here.

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And that's going to come up a little bit later on. I think it's really important. Is the work of the spirit of Christ in their hearts.

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So it's supernatural. It's not something I work up of my own. It's not something

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I work real hard and, you know, I prepare. And if I happen to be humble enough and good enough in my own heart, then

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I can work this up. No. It is the work of the spirit of Christ in our hearts and is ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word.

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Now, please note that phraseology. That's somewhat of a area of controversy.

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There has been controversy over that use that term ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word.

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So in other words, can there be extraordinary situations where the spirit of God utilizes other means?

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Well, there are some people say no. There are others who would say yes. Area of conflict.

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But putting that aside, ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word, the word and the spirit, the word and the spirit.

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You cannot read Reformed writing and understand the entire

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Reformed perspective on what the church is, what worship is, what evangelism is, what discipleship is, unless you understand the relationship of word and spirit.

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The great confidence that some of us have and that all of us need to have and the great encouragement to know that before I came along and long after I'm gone, the word and the spirit are still going to be in the possession of the church.

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Man, you want a way to keep people from thinking they're the most important thing on the planet. Just be focused upon truths like this.

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And just remember, it's the word and the spirit. It's not your programs. This is Andy Stanley's problem.

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Let's just be honest. This is Andy Stanley's problem. It's not word and spirit anymore. It's program and program.

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It's program and look and dress and background and music and context and all this stuff, instead of word and spirit, word and spirit.

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Look, when we're in a society that is experiencing God's judgment, you might look at that and go, well, it's not doing the job.

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Well, it depends what you think the job is. It depends on what you think the church is supposed to look like in a context like that.

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And if you think it's supposed to look like a megachurch, well, then you're probably going to be disappointed. Ordinarily wrought by the ministry of the word, by which also and by the administration of baptism and the

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Lord's supper, prayer and other means appointed of God, it is increased and strengthened.

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So in other words, the means of grace. Those are the ordinances, the administration of baptism and the

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Lord's supper. Man, if your faith is not increased and strengthened when you see the testimony of baptism.

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Now, sorry, my dear Reformed Presbyterian brothers, but in my experience, this is directly related to the testimony, because I believe baptism is absolutely eschatological.

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It points back to an accomplished reality. It's not looking forward to something that's hoped for in the future.

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Well, we hope this happens, but we recognize that in the case of this particular individual, this may just be an empty thing because they may not be part of the elect and so on and so forth.

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Okay, not getting into that right now, but for me, what's so incredibly encouraging in watching baptism is hearing these testimonies of the power of God in bringing people from every background and every, you know, people who have been in just horrible situations of slavery to sin and then others.

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God kept them out of all that, but you know what? They all need the same thing. They all need to bow the knee to Jesus Christ, and that's what they've done.

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And now they're giving public testimony of their faith in the waters of baptism. Man, that is encouraging. It reminds me of my clear recollection of that night when

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I was baptized. And I'm so glad. I mean, some people might call mine an infant baptism because I was short enough.

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They can only see the top of my head, but I remember it. I remember it. And it means so much to me.

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And the Lord's Supper. We had the Lord's Supper last night. And once again, what a gift that is.

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I normally do the closing prayer for that, and very often that prayer includes the statement, the emphasis of thanksgiving for the great wisdom of God and giving us this ordinance that we might once again truly consider the great price that was paid for our redemption.

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What an incredible reminder to each one of us of the great condescension of the

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Son of God who gave himself for me. Not for a nameless, faceless group, but for me.

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It was personal. The means of grace.

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Other means appointed of God. It is increased and strengthened. Section 2. By this faith a

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Christian believeth to be true, whatsoever is revealed in the word for the authority of God himself.

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That's what I've so often said. In my experience, when

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I look at someone and when I listen to them speak, when there is reverence for Scripture, when this is

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God speaking, that's very encouraging to me. When I hear a willingness to question that, it concerns me on a pastoral level, on a theological level.

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By this faith a Christian believeth to be true, whatsoever is revealed in the word for the authority of God himself, and also apprehendeth an excellency therein above all other writings and all things in the world.

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Wow. I'm afraid that, let's be honest, in a lot of our schools and seminaries, this would be looked at as historical piety.

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Historical piety. So many today have a view of Scripture that is just not big enough to inspire this kind of confession.

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An excellency therein above all other writings and all things in the world. How many of us can honestly say that we have such...

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Well, how many of us can even honestly say that we have a view of Scripture that would even come close to that which is expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 119?

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And we have so much more than that psalmist had. All other writings and all things in the world, as it bears forth the glory of God in his attributes, the first thing we should think about in Scripture is not what it tells me about me.

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It's not, take the Bible. By the way, I've told you,

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I've told folks a number of times about this Bible. I forgot that I had it in here.

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This is the first Bible that I read through, I think my junior year in high school.

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It is the New Schofield Reference Edition. Notice it has the thumb indexing and a cover that after all these years, and I haven't really been taking care of it.

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I should have been treating it. In fact, I may take it home and get out some... I think I have some somewhere in my office.

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I have some of that stuff that, you know, because Arizona is not good for leather in the long run.

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You know, the thumb indexes are usually the first to go. Oh, those things are in great shape.

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They're all there in great shape. Look at that. Oh, yeah, yeah. See, this is, can't see it, but this is the

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Oxford Edition. And this is the one I've told people, if you listen really quietly at night, you can still hear it mooing.

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This is, see how it hangs when a

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Bible hangs like that. That's awesome. I'm looking at it now realizing

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I read this without glasses. Not anymore.

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There's a request for you to describe the smell. Yeah, right.

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Okay. Anyway, I want you to see what

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I had put. Because see, I started working early. I realized this is making me seem very old.

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And my birthday was the day before yesterday. So I am very old. I started my, I'm 54.

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So I started year 55. But I was like 16. I was already working.

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I got a job because I was raised to think that's a good thing to do. It's a good thing to earn money.

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It's a good thing to be responsible. Because I figured when I was 18, I'm responsible for myself.

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So I had a job. And that's how I could afford stuff like this. And so here's what

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I put. This is probably not going to focus for a while. But see, it says

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God's Word. God's Word. I didn't put my name on it.

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God's Word. And as I read it, here's

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Psalm 121. It's almost all completely marked. One of my favorite Psalms. And as I read this, there's no notes on it, thankfully.

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Absolutely convinced. Preserved for me by God. Not for me as just one person.

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Yeah, preserved for me in that sense. But preserved for God's people.

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It's God's Word. It's God's Word. And I can trust the

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Spirit of God can place into the heart of any individual that kind of trust and love for His Word.

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And He's going to continue to do so. He's going to continue to do so. And that's why you can have hope for the future of the church.

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And so, when it says, above all of the writings and all things in the world,

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I hope that my brothers and sisters in the audience understand what that means.

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When it speaks of the excellency that Scripture should possess in our...

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As we think of everything we possess and anything we ever could possess, there's a lot of thinking about that this time of year.

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Where's Scripture in that? Not just a super nice Bible.

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Obviously, now I have the beautiful Allen Rebind.

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New American Standard. With that copper type page and stuff. And it just hangs.

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And by the way, I keep forgetting to bring it with me. And this just struck me. I'm sorry to look distracted, but I'm not.

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Remember about a month and a half ago, two months ago, I showed you an ESV Bible. A hand -bound

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ESV Bible had been sent to me. It had a Cairo on the front in sheepskin. I could never find the envelope and the note that came with it.

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So I was never able to send a thank you note. And I don't even know who to look for.

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Because there's nothing in the... I don't think there's anything in the Bible itself. And I felt horrible about that because it means a lot to me.

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I really like it. If anybody knows, if anybody was talking with somebody, or if you are the one that hand -bound an

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ESV, please get in touch with us. Because I would really like to thank you appropriately. I want to make sure you know you didn't just send that in and you never heard anything back.

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I've mentioned it in the program. It means a lot to me. I really, really appreciate it. So if you happen to know who did that, or if you are that person, please contact us.

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Because I would really like to send you a note of thanks or something. Because I felt really bad about that.

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Yes. So you know the Allen ESV that you had before you got that one?

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Yes. And you gave that to me. Yes. Did I tell you what happened to that the moment I got home? John Sampson drooled on it?

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It now belongs to the wife. Oh! We're talking five -finger discount, man, right now.

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Oh, look, you've got me a brand -new Bible, honey. Thank you so much. Yes, dear.

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Oh, that's good. Well, I could make a comment about who wears pants in that family, but I won't mention anything about that at all.

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That would be totally inappropriate. Okay. There was a slight diversion there.

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And, man, I'm half an hour in. I haven't even started the videos yet. This isn't good. Okay. As it bears forth the glory of God in His attributes.

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First thing. By the way, if you're still looking for a book to give to somebody,

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I didn't bring it in here. The Existence Attributes of God by Sharnach. Tough reading, but great stuff.

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But what was that Arthur W. Pink book that Moody put out? No, it's not

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The Sovereignty of God. Arthur W. Pink.

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It's not The Sovereignty of God. The Attributes of God. The Attributes of God by Arthur W.

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Pink. Wow. I'd have to put that right up there, along with The Holiness of God and Chosen by God by Sproul, as having had such a really great impact upon me.

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It would be great if you get a gift certificate or something to Amazon or something.

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I would highly recommend getting that or getting it for others or whatever else it might be. Really, really, really good.

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The Excellency of Christ in his nature and offices, and the power and fullness of the Holy Spirit in his workings and operations.

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What's that? That's Trinitarian theology right there. That's the whole gospel. But instead of focusing upon the gospel from the man's side and what

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I experience as if it's focused upon me, what I love about this is this is a

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Trinitarian explanation of the gospel, seen from the biblical perspective that this is what

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God does to glorify himself. Man, that makes all the difference in the world.

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And so is enabled to cast his soul upon the truth thus believed. So the truth, it exists objectively.

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It is something that God has done in time and space and history is revealed in Scripture. But this saving faith enables the elect individual to cast his soul upon the truth thus believed.

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And also act differently upon that which each particular passage thereof containeth, yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come.

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But the principal acts of saving faith have immediate relation to Christ, accepting, receiving, and resting upon him alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life by virtue of the covenant of grace.

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There's so much there that I could keep unpacking and talking about, and we're just not going to get very far in this program. But all of that, okay.

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But now the one thing I sort of wanted to make application to, and then we'll move on. Section 3.

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This faith, although it be different in degrees and may be weak or strong, yet it is in the least degree of it different in the kind or nature of it, as with all other saving grace, from the faith and common grace of temporary believers.

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Now, that's sort of what struck me, was, hmm.

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Again, a lot of theology laying behind, a lot of theology. This faith, although it be different in degrees and may be weak or small, yet it is in the least degree of it different in the kind or nature of it, as is all other saving grace, from the faith and common grace of temporary believers.

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So, in other words, you can have saving faith that is strong, weak, grows during life, but because it's saving faith, it will endure to the end.

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That's why we can hear those words, He who endures to the end shall be saved, and not fall into the,

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Ah, it is my enduring to the end that saves me. No, the faith that I have, which is a gift from God, because of the kind or nature of it, will endure.

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Because it's the work of the Spirit of God. And it's God's intention to utilize that faith to bring me to glory, to His glory.

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Jesus says, I will lose none of those that are given to me by the Father. There it is. So, but no matter what, it is different in kind and nature, not in degree.

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It's not that all faith is just, all faith is on the same spectrum, and saving faith is just this upper third.

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No. What this is saying is, there is a kind or nature difference between saving faith and anything else.

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Anything else. Now, this, of course, 100 % contradiction to what you have in the anti -lordship, cheap grace movement, which basically says, as long as you've tipped your hat once, you've got your ticket punched, you're on your way to heaven.

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That's it. No recognition there of the difference between saving faith, which is the work of the

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Spirit of God in the heart, and this faith and common grace of temporary believers.

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Now, who are temporary believers? Well, parable of the soils. Parable of the soils.

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Jesus prepared the disciples to understand and to recognize that what you will experience when the gospel is preached, is you will encounter temporary believers.

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That doesn't make them regenerate. It does not make them united with Christ.

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It does not make them, and this is going to come up, I guarantee you, it's less than, you know, yesterday was one month until the debate with Trent Horne in Atlanta, and I guarantee you, because it came up in 1991.

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90 or 91? It was 90. It was December of 90. So it was December of 1990, Northwest Community Church came up in the debate with Jerry Matitox, because Jerry Matitox pointed out, well,

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Augustine believed that you could be a Christian, but not of the elect.

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Well, these would be these temporary believers. Now, he believed that, you know, see, again,

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Augustine, because of the Donatist controversy, and this is why I spend so much time talking about these controversies and things like that in the church history things, because of the

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Donatist controversy, ends up messed up in his understanding of sacramentology and all the rest of the stuff.

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But this idea of temporary believers, Jesus told us, when you preach the gospel, you can get temporary believers.

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You can get people who just, oh, that sounds great. I'm in. And especially in situations like we're in in the world today in secular societies where you want to believe the best.

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You want to, you know, the ground is so hard that any type of growth, like, yes, but there's a warning.

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And if the root's not there, if there's no fruit, and, you know, it takes time. It takes time for fruit.

39:09

And there's no fruit. There's no discipleship. It's not real growth. And it will die, and it will go away.

39:17

And that was Jesus' warning in the parable of the soils. And so the point of the

39:25

Section 3 is the difference between saving faith and non -saving faith is one of kind and nature.

39:38

And it says, Though it may be many times assailed and weakened, yet it gets the victory, growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ, who is both the author and finisher of our faith.

39:49

So Christ is the author and finisher of saving faith. He's not the author and finisher of temporary faith.

40:00

And so when you see people, and what's one of the things that is so discouraging to many people is they're living the

40:11

Christian life, and then all of a sudden they encounter people who go back to the world. And that's discouraging.

40:18

Well, okay, it should be discouraging in the sense that we should never rejoice at something like that.

40:24

But it shouldn't be discouraging in the sense that, well, it doesn't look like Christ can actually save. Or Christ does his best, but, you know, he wasn't able to keep that person in the faith.

40:34

Is that what you really believe? I mean, synergistic evangelism cannot give you any other foundation than to believe, yeah,

40:48

Christ will do his best to keep you, but, I mean, any of you who are synergists, who believe in, quote -unquote, eternal security or perseverance of the saints, whatever you want to call it, those are not the same thing, but people confuse things.

40:59

Any of you who believe that, you are not consistent. If it was your free will that got you into this, then your free will can get you back out of it.

41:09

And so you have to have a meaningful foundation to believe this.

41:17

And that goes to the sovereignty of God, the nature of man, the nature of faith, atonement, the provision that's made.

41:25

There has to be a consistent, meaningful foundation there. And if you're a synergist,

41:31

I don't know that you have it. I just don't know that you have it. I'm just glad Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith.

41:38

That is such a tremendous text in Hebrews 12. Spent a bit of time on it.

41:43

We preached on that not too long ago. Just going to show you one little thing before we go to some

41:51

Muslim stuff. I should be sending you... Oops, no, I'm not. I don't know what has happened with the desktop presenter, but desktop presenter is now putting up pretty much every program running, including system programs.

42:17

So I get this window, this big, with all sorts of stuff that's completely irrelevant. That's all brand new.

42:23

I've never seen that until the last couple of weeks. It only did stuff that was running on the desktop before.

42:28

Now it's system UIs and... I don't know.

42:35

I'm not going to play this. I just need a screen cap of it. You got a screen cap of it?

42:44

I think it was last week at some point. Remember, we were having... I think

42:50

I mentioned a brief Twitter exchange that I was having before the program started with this

42:57

Roman Catholic guy who was asking me if I believed 2 Peter or something. I'm like, ask me serious questions.

43:05

I'm a Reformed Baptist minister. You're asking me if I believe in 2 Peter or Hebrews or whatever it was? It's not even a serious question.

43:12

Well, it is a serious question. No, it's not a serious question. You know I believe it. Get to your point.

43:19

Don't be silly. Whenever something like that happens, and I had asked him about who the blessed man of Romans 4, 7 through 8 was, and didn't get an answer.

43:35

So I explained on the air what that was all about and so on and so forth. Well, I'm pretty sure it's the same people here.

43:44

Probably the same guy. Some young millennial dude, looks like he's like 21, puts out a video.

43:57

Yeah, there we go. James White is a false teacher of Christianity. Important, James White is still a

44:03

Christian. I started listing this video. It's like 19 minutes long.

44:08

And if you all think that I take too long to get to things, it's only because I'm talking about so many other things in the process.

44:18

This guy just takes forever to get to saying anything. I mean, it just, it's like, get to your point.

44:25

Wow. Hello. You'd never make it on radio. Never make it on radio.

44:33

But I'm not gonna play any of it because it was just sort of like, here you've got some guy who, as far as I can tell, has no standing in the church at all.

44:42

And instead of going to published works, things like that, he takes a video where I'm responding to an email and decides to interpret it in his own way and say

44:53

I'm lying about what other churches believe and spends just this incredible amount of time on just these really ridiculous examples as to what makes me a false teacher of Christianity.

45:05

And it's like, dude, you gotta step up your game. This is bad. He says he's gonna do more, but if you even want to get a meaning, even a slight possibility of meaningful response, you gotta step up your game because that is just, this was bad.

45:21

It's not even worth going there. Basically, it was, very quickly, it was, well, the

45:26

Pope isn't the ultimate authority. Well, you know, it's funny. Who am I supposed to believe? I've been interacting with Roman Catholics longer than you've been alive.

45:37

I've been debating them longer than you've been alive. And you seem to disagree with their understandings of the ultimate authority of the

45:46

Bishop of Rome. So who gets to represent Rome? Why should I take your view? Who do you think you are?

45:52

And who do you think you are to say I'm lying when I respond to what somebody else says who has 10 times the experience you do?

45:59

Get a clue. Get a clue. All right. Let me bring this one up and get it sent to you properly here.

46:12

Man, something has really changed with this. And now you gotta go click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. There we go.

46:20

And good. All right. Should have it now. We will, because we'll be playing a little bit more of this.

46:33

I'm not really following, sorry, Twitter today. There's a bunch of stuff there and I can't really follow all of it right now.

46:41

I apologize for that. Looked at some interesting video.

46:52

One was sent to me by someone on Twitter. And I was going to go back and let them know.

46:58

I didn't get around to it, but I was going to go back. I have to scroll through a lot of stuff to find folks from just a few days ago.

47:05

But on... Which day was it? On Friday. Friday morning,

47:12

I believe. Someone sent me a link to...

47:19

Well, as a Muslim, they were saying to me that I need to rebuke David Wood for lying.

47:27

And at the beginning of this video, there's all sorts of stuff.

47:34

Sadly, this particular Muslim, who I'd like to interact with, but this particular

47:40

Muslim who's doing this video, I've rebuked people on both sides for doing this.

47:51

So I need to be consistent. Why start your video with your conclusions?

48:00

In other words, obviously, what this individual says is that David Wood is lying and he's deceiving and he's misrepresenting, and etc.,

48:15

etc., etc. Here's my suggestion to both Christians and Muslims.

48:22

How about letting the audience come to that conclusion? How about just presenting the information?

48:30

Present it with as much fairness and accuracy as possible. And of course, in speaking to Christians, I think, again, this is just what you have to do.

48:40

This is the nature of things. Even those of you who say that I'm inconsistent because I attack

48:46

Christians. Who normally lets them speak for themselves?

48:55

Who spends so much time in the program allowing them to establish their own context and to speak their mind and then responds to it?

49:08

The important thing is to be accurate in the criticism. And then if you are, leave it to the audience.

49:16

Well, there's the problem. Because in our day, that's not how especially young people have been taught to think.

49:25

You have to tell the audience what to think and then give them reason to do so rather than presenting the truth and trusting that they will do the work necessary to come to those conclusions on their own.

49:39

I get it. I get it. I understand. But this video starts off with just a bunch of...

49:48

It's ad hominem. It is against the man. Statements and arguments against David Wood before anything's even presented.

49:57

Why not say, we're going to listen to what David Wood has to say and we're going to disagree. But we're just going to let you judge as to the accuracy of our argumentation and his argumentation.

50:12

Yeah, I know. I know. Pipe dream. But that would be the way to do it if that's out.

50:21

Anyway, I forgot to get my audio listening device. It's difficult to hear these things.

50:28

I'm just going to play a portion of this being illustrative of...

50:36

I want to bring some correction to what's said here because at least the attempted interaction is on what

50:47

I would perceive to be a higher level than most of what we see in the internet.

50:54

Maybe I'm just easily encouraged when I encounter anybody that I could go, hey, they're trying to listen.

51:02

They're way off, but let's try anyway. And so something was said here that just struck me and I'm like...

51:15

And basically what's happening here is what David's arguing is...

51:21

And if you listen to the whole thing, it really is a good illustration of the presuppositional nature of the rejection of the incarnation in Muslim thinking.

51:35

And to every one of you, to every Christian, not just to elders, not just to deacons, not just to Sunday school teachers, not just to theological nerds, but to every one of you who wants to be prepared to reach the

51:52

Muslim people, you must be able to detect the assumption of Unitarianism on their part and challenge it in such a way that to get them thinking, to get them to understand what the issues are.

52:08

I've said this over and over again. And some people say, you're just blowing hot air because no one could ever do that.

52:16

I don't believe that. I believe that God's people can reach out to every group, including the

52:22

Muslims, even if it's challenging for us to do so. And yes,

52:28

I believe that you can. I believe that the housewife with the children is fully capable of learning to go, oh, listen to that.

52:37

That person is assuming not only ontological Unitarianism, that there's one being of God, but they are assuming personal

52:48

Unitarianism, that the being of God can only be shared by one person. Those are not the same things.

52:54

Those are two different claims. And yet they conflate them and use it as an argument all the time.

53:01

And it's not an argument. It's the conclusion of the argument. Christianity says there is one being of God shared by three persons.

53:08

If you assume that the one being of God can only be shared by one person, then you're assuming the end of the argument.

53:14

And if you can't see how the person's assuming the end of the argument, you're never gonna be able to challenge them to think about what your presentation actually is.

53:22

So few, so few. I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of Muslims I've ever encountered who truly understand.

53:31

They can say the words, but then when you hear the arguments, you realize they do not understand what we believe. And part of it is because some of them don't have ears to hear.

53:41

Part of it is because some of them just refused to hear. But part of it is because they've never had anybody who would explain it to them with enough clarity to get over the confusions that are theirs.

53:52

Okay? So, with that in mind, what David is doing here is he is explaining that Jesus makes claims for himself that are only made for God.

54:07

Now, for David, and for me, that is Jesus speaking as the

54:13

God -man. And so we're not denying his human nature. What we're saying is he's not just a prophet.

54:21

He is not just a man. There are things attributed to Jesus that can only be attributed to God.

54:29

And both of us would say, and there are things attributed to Jesus that can only be attributed to man because he is the

54:35

God -man. But the Muslim says, if I can find anything that is attributed to Jesus that can only be attributed to man, then therefore he can't be

54:45

God. Because why? Of the assumption of there can be no incarnation. God cannot enter into his own creation.

54:53

And that's pretty much explicitly stated by this fellow later on in his talk.

55:00

But I want to just focus on one portion of it. And we will take a look at it right now.

55:07

Can man only truly be made by God? Let's look at a few. Surah 57, verse 3 of the

55:19

Quran, refers to Allah as the first and the last. The first and the last are two of Allah's 99 names.

55:26

The Old Testament agrees that God is the first and the last, as we read in the book of the prophet

55:32

Isaiah, chapter 44, verse 6, Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel, and his

55:38

Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first and I am the last, and there is no

55:43

God besides me. Even before the Muslim stops,

55:48

David, and points something out about this text, it's vitally important to recognize that if we're in Isaiah 44, we're smack dab in the middle of the trial of the false gods,

56:01

Isaiah 40 -48. And this is, without a doubt, one of the richest theological portions of the

56:11

Tanakh, of the Old Testament. Because when God challenges the false gods, in the process of challenging them, he brings out those aspects of his nature and his being that are absolutely non -replicatable within creation itself.

56:32

So the unique aspects that identify him as God are the things that he says, you want to call these gods?

56:39

Okay, how come they can't do this and this? It's in that context. He says, tell us the future and tell us the past and why these things took place.

56:56

The false gods can't do that. The true God can. Wow, that becomes extremely important.

57:02

If God can tell you those things, there has to be a decree. This cannot be passive knowledge. This can't be, well,

57:08

I found out about this because I was observing what happens in time. No. The why things happen requires a decree of God.

57:18

There's a purpose in it, and that purpose comes from the sovereign God. So the point is, when it says,

57:25

I am the first and I am the last, and there is no

57:30

God besides me, you cannot limit this firstness and lastness to prophethood or anything else like that.

57:41

This type of language is being used in a particular context. And so that's what's going on there in Isaiah 44.

57:50

When LORD is written in all caps in the Old Testament, the term refers to Yahweh, the creator of the universe.

57:58

So what he's now going to suppose... Now listen to the

58:04

Muslim understanding of where we're coming from. And listen to what he says. He's going to equate

58:09

Jesus with Yahweh. This is his premise. So please pay close attention.

58:16

He's trying to equate and say that Jesus is Yahweh. Now, understand why our

58:27

Muslim friend here is about to faceplant theologically.

58:34

When you assume both ontological and personal

58:39

Unitarianism, just one, what is the Muslim hearing

58:45

David saying? He's hearing him saying, if Jesus is identified with Yahweh and now bring in your presupposition that's not biblical and is not part of Christian theology, and Yahweh is what?

59:06

Unipersonal. Unitarian. Then what he's hearing David doing is identifying

59:12

Jesus as the Father. And he knows enough about Christian theology to know that's a heresy.

59:24

That's Sabellianism. That's modalism. That's not what David's doing. But see what happens when the

59:31

Muslim, in reading even what Christian theology is stating, brings those false assumptions in.

59:40

It's going to affect what they hear. You have

59:45

Christians arguing... Justin Martyr, in his dialogue with Trifo, is the first that I know of who uses those

59:56

Old Testament texts, such as ones that I've explained many, many times before.

01:00:02

Psalm 102, 25 -27, Hebrews 1, 10 -12, Isaiah 6, 1 -1011, utilization in John 12, 39 -41.

01:00:19

As clear evidence, compelling evidence, that Jesus is identified as Yahweh.

01:00:27

But since we're not Unitarians, that doesn't make Jesus the Father. Yahweh referring to the being of God shared by three co -equal and co -eternal persons,

01:00:36

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So in the New Testament, the Father is identified as Yahweh, because Yahweh is the one who lays the sins of his people upon the

01:00:43

Messiah. The Son is identified as Yahweh. The Spirit is the Spirit of Yahweh. So obviously, since the

01:00:50

Father, Son, and Spirit are differentiated from one another constantly in the text of Scripture, and yet each is identified with that one name, that one name, therefore, is in reference to the being of God, and therefore the whole concept of personal

01:01:07

Unitarianism is refuted. If what your goal is, is to understand what the

01:01:14

Bible as a whole is presenting. And only people with the highest view of Scripture actually even still speak as if you can understand, as if you can know, or if God intended us to even know what the

01:01:29

Bible as a whole is saying. Now, the Muslim has no grounds to say, well,

01:01:35

I'm not going to follow you with this Bible as a whole thing, because you believe that the Quran speaks as a unified whole.

01:01:42

So you cannot, by some kind of presuppositional argument, say that God cannot speak scripturally in such a way that writings collected together cannot be preserved for a certain people as their covenant documents and as the way that God has provided them with clear, as you would say, light and guidance.

01:02:05

So, can't go there. So, listen to how this works in the mind of this particular

01:02:11

Muslim. It's blasphemy. This is absolute blasphemy. According to the early

01:02:17

Christian church that Jesus is, in fact, Yahweh. The Christians believe in the Trinity, the

01:02:23

Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. They believe that there's three persons that equals one being.

01:02:31

Now, he's right. We need to applaud when we hear someone who actually recognizes three persons, one being.

01:02:40

Does he understand there's between being and person? I don't know. But when you assume that Yahweh is

01:02:48

Unitarian, as he's assuming, then he's hearing David saying modalism.

01:02:55

He's hearing David saying that makes the Son the Father. That's not what David's saying. But he's going to hear it that way.

01:03:03

And what... I can't force anyone in this audience to have this desire.

01:03:18

But if the Spirit of God places within your heart a desire to be a sharp, well -formed instrument in his hand to bring his truth to the

01:03:32

Muslim people, not a bloody weapon to cut them to pieces, but an instrument formed out of grace, love, dedication to truth, if that's what you want to be, then you need to be able to hear someone speaking like this and recognize why they are coming to the conclusions they're coming to, why they are thinking, this is blasphemy.

01:04:03

This is blasphemy. This is heresy. No, it's not. So why do you think it is?

01:04:09

It could just be they've been mistaught or it could be that there is a presupposition operating in their mind that is causing them to hear a

01:04:22

Christian say something that the Christian isn't saying. And of course, when you're on the street, if you're in the bus, talking over the back fence, wherever it might be, and talking with someone like this, this could be happening to you.

01:04:37

And you may go, how did this person come? How did they hear me say that?

01:04:44

And I've had this experience over and over again. I will hear a

01:04:51

Muslim speaking after I have spoken. And as I listen to them reiterating what they think

01:04:58

I said, sometimes I'm just amazed. And I wonder, man, am

01:05:05

I that bad a speaker? And it could be. But very often, it's because of the fact that they have these false ideas which causes a redefinition of the terms and hence miscommunication.

01:05:17

And I'm the one that has to... You can't put it on them. If we're the ones that want to be used as the instruments, then we've got to hear these things and go, huh, there's where the problem lies.

01:05:30

There's where the problem lies. Three gods. But the father is not the son, and his son is not the father, neither is the son or the father of the

01:05:38

Holy Spirit, and like that. So when you now equate Jesus as being

01:05:44

Yahweh, as he stated, then you have committed a blasphemy and a heresy according to Christian doctrine.

01:05:50

Let us continue. So both the Bible and the Koran refer to God as the first and the last.

01:05:57

Since the first and the last is one of God's titles, should a mere prophet be calling himself the first and the last?

01:06:03

That's exactly what Jesus does in Revelation 1, verses 17 -18, where he's...

01:06:09

Now, notice something. And by the way, now I understand why you're confused. The video is of YouTube, so it includes all of it.

01:06:17

I can't make it any bigger because the whole thing, that's all the video is. So it's his desktop or something.

01:06:24

So I couldn't go full screen. I can click that all I want. It's just video. Now, listen to what was just said there.

01:06:35

David, again, very accurately states, Jesus cannot be what?

01:06:43

What did you hear him say? A mere prophet. David believes Jesus is a prophet just as much as I do.

01:06:52

But a mere prophet. See, for he and I, if you show David, Wood, and I places where Jesus identifies as a prophet, we can go, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, mm -hmm.

01:07:03

Where he identifies as a man, mm -hmm, mm -hmm, mm -hmm. But when you show the Muslim where he identifies as God, mm -mm, mm -mm, mm -mm.

01:07:11

See, it's an issue of accepting part of Scripture or all of the testimony of Scripture.

01:07:18

And the Muslim cannot accept all of it because of a source that comes 600 years afterwards that did not understand and had no direct exposure to the very essence of what came before it.

01:07:36

That's why I keep emphasizing that it's very important to realize the author of the Quran did not understand.

01:07:44

Did not understand the content of the New Testament. And hence, cannot provide you with a meaningful refutation or response thereto.

01:07:55

It's just not possible. It can't be done. It can't be done. Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last and the living one.

01:08:02

And I was dead. And behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and of Hades.

01:08:09

Now, let us go back quickly. Because what happens here is David Wood, he reads his verses. And I have to believe that he's reading them with the understanding of what he's reading.

01:08:19

He's quoting them. He's citing them. So he would have to have some kind of understanding of what he's reading. But to overlook some very salient aspects of these verses is quite frightening.

01:08:30

And maybe this is a setup. Maybe David Wood is making this video using these verses, knowing that if you just examine the verses or examine the verse before or verse after, that it would undermine, if not completely destroy, his argument.

01:08:44

Or the reality in this case is our Muslim interrogator here refuses to deal with the

01:08:54

Christian doctrine of incarnation, which is fundamental to what

01:08:59

David is saying. And that is what he's going to emphasize here. And I want to get to one other video before we wrap up.

01:09:08

And I want to wrap up by 2 .30 our time. So in about 20 minutes. Here's going to be the argument.

01:09:17

The argument is going to be, and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.

01:09:24

And his argument is going to be, you cannot attribute death to God.

01:09:32

Therefore, David must be trying to trick us here or something. David's not trying to trick anybody.

01:09:43

You see now why I have said so often that the debate with the

01:09:48

Bill of Kunda on the incarnation is really foundational to everything else. And that is the assumption on the

01:09:57

Muslim part and the explicit assertion on the Christian part that just, this is where the difference is.

01:10:07

And that is that the Jesus that we are presenting, the Jesus that the New Testament presents, goes so far beyond anything that the

01:10:17

Quran will allow for Jesus to be. Because there can be no incarnation.

01:10:24

There can be no God -man. There can be no second person, the Trinity, who out of the compassion and love that is

01:10:33

His and the Father's and the Spirit's, they take different roles, but it's one divine love, that out of that compassion and love that is theirs, that one divine person would humble himself, show such tapayna safrunay, humility of mind, as to lay aside his divine prerogatives, not cease to be

01:11:04

God, but to stop exercising them and take on a perfect human nature and become the

01:11:14

God -man. The Muslim says, can't do it. He may have been able to create the human nature without becoming evil in the process, but he cannot take one on.

01:11:26

Can't do it. That's the assertion. And so, that assumption then leads him to look at Revelation 1, in Jesus' words,

01:11:43

I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore. Well, God can't die. So, the

01:11:49

God -man cannot voluntarily give his life. And then that becomes the argument.

01:11:55

It's not actually really an argument against the fact that Jesus is using, very plainly, purposefully, drawing from Isaiah and making application to himself.

01:12:08

Just as Jesus did in John 13, 19, he quotes from Isaiah 43, 10, applies it to himself. He sort of skips over that part, because what will be, in his mind, effective for his audience?

01:12:23

And it's interesting, he's not trying to convince David of his error. He'll talk about, well, he's just trying to trick us, or whatever.

01:12:30

No, no. Why assume the worst like that? Well, anyway, it seems people on both sides do that all the time.

01:12:38

But this kind of assumption in his mind causes him to sort of skip over the strength of Jesus' identification, the purposefulness of the identification of Jesus as Yahweh here.

01:12:58

And hence, miss the real power of this text, because what this text gives us is

01:13:05

Yahweh speaking as the Incarnate One who has now been resurrected and is now ruling with a rod of iron.

01:13:17

Rules over the nations. To my Muslim friends, if you think, look,

01:13:23

I realize there's a lot, you need to, look, there's all sorts of surface -level dead

01:13:31

Islam in the world. Right? You agree? Lots of people who call themselves

01:13:37

Muslims never impacts the way that they behave, right? Well, you know what?

01:13:43

There's a lot of people who call themselves Christians. Same thing. Cultural Christianity, nothing in the

01:13:50

Bible about cultural Christianity. Not in that sense. Not just being born into it. There needs to be repentance and faith for anyone to be a

01:13:58

Christian. But you may see a lot of Jesuses in mangers at this time of year.

01:14:06

Well, that's an important thing. Incarnation, vitally important. But if you don't see the whole story about Jesus, the resurrected

01:14:21

Jesus, the exalted Jesus, the one who rules and reigns with the rod of iron, then you're not seeing the whole story.

01:14:30

And you can blame us for not giving the whole story accurately at times.

01:14:37

But you can't blame the Bible for that. Because the Bible does present it very, very clearly.

01:14:42

And David Wood was presenting it very, very clearly. He wasn't lying to you. Stop assuming the worst.

01:14:50

And try just, you know, it'd be so easy for me. I don't know this Muslim gentleman.

01:14:57

It'd be so easy for me to assume the worst of him. Ah, he's just engaging in taqiyah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:15:05

And they're people, that's just where they start. That's just the first assumption is I'm going to call this guy a liar and go from there.

01:15:15

That's probably why no meaningful conversations take place. I'm not going to make those assumptions. My assumption is there's a misunderstanding here.

01:15:22

I think I've accurately identified the source of that misunderstanding. It is the presupposition of a personal unitarianism and the reading of a modern definition of shirk backwards into a context that cannot substantiate it.

01:15:42

But I hope that should that individual, and I hope the individual will listen to these comments, you'll at least go, all right, my criticism was improper.

01:15:53

David Wood was not engaging in heresy. And he wasn't. He wasn't.

01:16:00

And my question would be, would you be willing to modify the video?

01:16:07

Maybe put up a video saying, while I think the rest of my arguments were still valid, this argument was not, and I apologize to David Wood for accusing him of heresy.

01:16:22

Blasphemy. I'm sorry. It was blasphemy. I think it was blasphemy. Anyway. Would you do that?

01:16:29

That'd be great. I mean, that'd be a small step toward maybe raising the level of conversation out there.

01:16:39

Now I'm going to go to one last one here. This isn't very long and hence should work out all right.

01:16:50

But I have to go through all this changing of things over here to get it to work right again.

01:16:57

And boom, there you go. Should have it now. Now it's interesting.

01:17:07

I haven't had any communication with David Wood in a long time, but I'm fairly certain.

01:17:15

I could be wrong about this, but I'm fairly certain that the first time

01:17:21

I ever saw one of David's debates was with Ali Atai right before he was going to leave and go do his doctorate.

01:17:30

And now here is Ali Atai. Now I think it's the same guy. Maybe I'm wrong. I could be wrong because this guy's got a lot of gray in his beard.

01:17:40

That kind of study will do that to you. Maybe it's different Ali Atai.

01:17:45

I sort of assumed. I think it's the same guy though. I really do.

01:17:51

And maybe it was that long ago. Yeah, but this doesn't seem like it was all that long ago.

01:17:58

This would have been pretty quick for this to happen. So I don't know. Anyway, I was listening to a lecture being given at Zaytuna College by Dr.

01:18:14

Ali Atai. And I appreciated... Here's someone who's... If it is the same

01:18:19

Ali Atai, let's just operate on that assumption for a moment. The debate that I had seen between David and this fellow at a university back in about...

01:18:32

It was about 2000... It was mid -2000s. It was a decade ago.

01:18:39

That Ali Atai had a very strong anti -Paul prejudice.

01:18:50

I mean, not just strong, overwhelmingly so. And in this lecture, there are obviously things to disagree with, but I was rather encouraged in some ways by at least the higher level of factuality in the things that Ali Atai said.

01:19:18

But there was one thing that caught my attention and I wanted to mention it.

01:19:24

And it's in this section of the lecture. This is about an hour in. So let's just go ahead and listen and watch.

01:19:35

Now for John, the Gospel of John, my contention is, my dissertation work was on the Gospel of John. Philo's contemporary.

01:19:43

The father is Ha -Theos. The father is Ha -Theos with a definite article.

01:19:50

And Jesus is called Theos. But I would also contend that the way that John is using...

01:19:56

I'm doing a lot of pirouettes here. The way that John is using Theos is not so dissimilar as to how

01:20:02

Philo is calling Moses. Theos. That Jesus, that Christ, is a sanctified divine agent of God, in mystical union with God.

01:20:11

Now if you look at... And Jesus in the Son, or Jesus, or Christ, is never called Ha -Theos anywhere in the four

01:20:17

Gospels. Now did you catch that? Did you catch that? You may have gotten lost a little bit with all the

01:20:23

Philo stuff and things like that. And by the way, look. When you can rock a vest and a bow tie, you've got my respect, okay?

01:20:38

When you can rock the vest and the bow tie, that's pretty good. That's...

01:20:43

You can't get too angry with somebody who's got both a vest and a bow tie on.

01:20:48

I almost never do the vest thing myself, so that's... I might be definitely outclassed there.

01:20:55

And it looks... I'm not sure if that's real bow tie or not. It sort of looks like it's facing down a little bit, and that could happen with the bow tie.

01:21:02

It's not just a strap thing. But sometimes that has to happen. Anyway, there you have...

01:21:08

Let me see if I can just back it up just a tad. Oh. Okay, messed that up.

01:21:17

That Jesus, that Christ, is a sanctified divine agent of God, in mystical union with God.

01:21:24

Now, if you look at... And Jesus in the Son, or Jesus, or Christ, is never called Hothaios anywhere in the four

01:21:30

Gospels. So Jesus the Son is never called Hothaios anywhere in the four

01:21:38

Gospels. Now, I'm going to bring up something else here, and I'll see if I can send it over to you, depending on when it pops up here.

01:21:50

Yeah, good. It's still doing its search, so give it a second. When you read church history, you will encounter a discussion in patristic sources, especially in Origen, concerning the difference between Thaos and Hothaios, between God and the

01:22:15

God. And so there is, in later theology, a discussion of this very issue.

01:22:29

However, I just simply have to point out that there was a... that Dr.

01:22:35

Atai, if his dissertation work was on Johannine literature,

01:22:45

I'm a little surprised that he let that statement out with cameras rolling.

01:22:57

Because if you look at what I'm... Oh, should be sending here.

01:23:03

You got it? Oh, I don't know why that is.

01:23:13

Let me try again. That should work. Okay.

01:23:19

Okay. John 20, 28. Apokrythe tomas kai aipen alto.

01:23:28

So, Thomas answered and said to him, singular. Hakureasmu kai hatheasmu.

01:23:37

Now, remember a few weeks ago, we had an interaction with our friend

01:23:46

Ijaz on this subject. And we pointed out that this particular text, you know, he pointed out that in one of the earlier...

01:24:03

in the papyri, in p66, that there was a lacuna, that the papyri has been damaged there.

01:24:10

And we went through that, then we looked at Beze Canterbrigensis and so on and so forth. But Dr.

01:24:19

Atai, I think earlier in this lecture, had specifically made reference to the

01:24:28

Nestle Island 27th edition, UBS 4th, which is one edition behind on both.

01:24:34

I'm not sure how old this video is. But in other words, he's utilizing modern critical texts.

01:24:46

And in all of them, you have what we have on the screen. Hakureasmu kai hatheasmu.

01:24:53

So, it's right here. If I can find my cursor, there it is. So, there's the phrase, hatheasmu.

01:25:03

My God. And there's the article, hatheasmu. Now, even in the prologue at John 1 -1,

01:25:15

I would be somewhat disappointed if what the argument was, was, well, you know, that third phrase of John 1 -1, kai theas ein hat logos.

01:25:28

There's no theas there. He's not hatheas. Well, it does seem to me that Dr.

01:25:35

Atai can read Greek and hence he would have to know what the meaning of kai hatheas ein hat logos would be.

01:25:46

It would make logos and theas interchangeable because of the use of the verb there.

01:25:54

And hence would make the argument that the first Muslim guy was assuming that David Wood was making.

01:26:03

And that is that the father, because the theos that is mentioned in John 1 -18, that somehow there is a correspondence.

01:26:16

So, all of God is logos and all logos is God. Now, this is identifying which is the predicate nominative, and it's theos.

01:26:24

And because it's before the verb, then most people believe it's descriptive. So, the word is as to his nature, deity. And that's what's going to be brought out in John 1 -18 as well.

01:26:33

Neither of these things can Muslims believe, but the reason for the lack of the article is there in the context.

01:26:43

So, we need to be careful not to read the arguments of the third century back into John.

01:26:57

And maybe that's what he's doing and assuming that there are people who assume that Philo is behind much of John's writings rather than Jewish, well,

01:27:09

Palestinian Jewish sources. And hence trying to understand logos in that context rather than finding it in Memra and Devar and things like that, in Old Testament Hebrew or in the

01:27:19

Greek Septuagint and things like that. Maybe that's where it's coming from, I don't know. But the reality is theos is used with the article.

01:27:29

Hotheos is used of Jesus in the New Testament, John 20 -28. And you could argue the

01:27:36

Granville Sharp Constructions, but that's outside the Gospels. He said the four Gospels, so he was making a distinction there.

01:27:42

But I wanted to address that and bring that up and offer a little word of correction there, though I did appreciate much of what was said there.

01:27:51

So, there you go. We've covered a wide variety of topics on the program today.

01:27:58

Got through a jumbo edition. I think we're still planning on Thursday.

01:28:07

I was thinking Thursday. Looks like we may have some storm moving in.

01:28:15

That'd be nice. That'd be cool. We could use it. Full solid stream at 1080p today.

01:28:26

Good, good. I don't know why anybody needs to look at me in 1080p, but it might make

01:28:33

Accordance look prettier. That's great. So, glad it worked.

01:28:38

You got the codec that you wanted to use. That's good. Excellent. Well, thanks for listening to the program today.