Leighton Flowers vs Sean Cole

Revealed Apologetics

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All right, welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. Today, we have a moderated discussion slash debate on a very interesting topic.

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Of course, a topic that has been covered a bajillion times, but it is a super important topic.

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And I highly encourage people to continue to have these conversations as we are challenged to go to the scriptures to see what the

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Bible says with respect to any topic that we're discussing. Today, we're discussing the topic of total depravity, total inability, what does the

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Bible teach? And I have two guests that will be hashing those issues out as I gently moderate in the background.

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So I hope that folks, I know that these debates can get very contentious, so I would appreciate that folks leave their contentious comments out of the comments.

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And if you're going to share your agreement or disagreement, try to do so in a way that's honoring to Christ.

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And none of that garbage of speaking ill of someone and claiming you're justified in doing.

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You can be respectful and gentle. So I really hope that that's what happens in the comments. But we also will be taking some time for some questions.

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You'll have an opportunity to ask my guests some questions with respect to some of the things they say in defending their position.

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And then we'll wrap things up. I just wanna give a preemptive warning before I introduce my guests. This was unforeseen as I was setting things up and connecting with Pastor Sean and Leighton, there's a storm outside.

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And so the internet was giving me some issues. So if for whatever reason things freeze up and we can't reconnect, we will reschedule.

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So I'm just giving folks a heads up. Hopefully I won't get struck by lightning in the midst. We don't wanna have a tragedy on our hands.

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So with that said, let me introduce the guests here. First, I'm gonna introduce

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Pastor Sean Cole, who folks may not be familiar with, but perhaps Pastor Sean, if you could just tell us who you are and what you do, and then we'll bring

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Dr. Flowers on. Yeah, thank you, Eli, for inviting me on this. I'm excited to interact with Leighton.

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I've interacted with him for the past probably six years. So I'm looking forward to that. I'm the pastor of Emanuel Baptist Church.

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We are in Sterling, Colorado. It's about an hour and a half Northeast of Denver. I'm also an adjunct instructor at Colorado Christian University.

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I'm a Southern seminary grad. Got my doctorate in expository preaching. And I have a podcast called

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Understanding Christianity that deals with issues of reformed theology as well as other issues as well.

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And my website, seancole .net. And I do have a book called Your Identity in the Trinity.

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It talks about how we find our gospel identity in each person of the Trinity, and that's available on Amazon.

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So that's a little bit about me. Mm, all right. And I highly recommend your podcast. Your podcast is awesome.

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You got a lot of great stuff. Not just stuff covering like Calvinism and kind of analyzing some of the things that Dr.

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Flowers has presented, but you got a whole bunch of stuff there. I highly recommend folks check that out. Understanding Christianity.

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Thank you so much for that, Pastor. Would you want me to call you Sean, Pastor Sean? Most people don't care. You can just call me

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Sean for this. Okay, all right, sounds good. All right, and of course, everyone will know the wonderful Dr.

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Flowers, right? We agree on everything, don't we, right? I know,

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Dr. Flowers, and we haven't had a lot of interaction, but we have had some interaction and it has always been respectful and congenial.

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And while we strongly disagree, we always have been able to interact in a respectful manner.

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So I appreciate that about you, Dr. Flowers. Well, likewise with you and Sean, as Sean already mentioned, he and I've had each other on each other's podcasts, talked back and forth, have been doing dueling podcasts back and forth.

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And he's always shown a level of respect for me. And as a brother in Christ, we have mutual friends.

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One of his former youth pastors is a good friend of mine in the Dallas area, I mean, in the

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Texas area. And so he has represented himself very well as a brother in Christ, as have you,

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Eli. And I appreciate that because sometimes it is rare in these kinds of discussions because oftentimes there's the tendency to resort to the heretic backing and just assuming nefarious intentions on somebody because they happen to come to a different conclusion than you do with regard to the scriptures.

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And I think that's unfortunate. I think it's a mark of Christian maturity for us to be able to disagree without being overly disagreeable.

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I see Chris Date in the side chat. He's another one of those brothers who I have a high amount of respect for, who disagrees with me vehemently on this topic, but does so with respect and love as a friend.

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And so I appreciate that very much. All right, well, thank you for that. Chris Date says hello to both of you guys.

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Hey Chris, how's it going? Okay, so let's jump right into the topic. Now here's my plan and Dr.

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Flowers, and I'm just gonna call you Leighton and Sean. I was gonna get complicated with titles,

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I know you don't mind, but they both expressed that they were down to do what I'm about to say. And of course, Leighton suggesting, let's see how a couple of these things go and we'll see.

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But the hopes is to kind of have these discussions walking through each of the five points of the

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TULIP acronym. So right now we're doing total depravity or total inability. And hopefully we can schedule one on unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace.

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And while I'm sure both of you guys hold to a sort of perseverance of the saints, am

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I correct? Do you guys hold to, right? Maybe we can have a discussion on whether one can hold to that consistently.

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There's the argument that each of the letters within the acronym are logically connected.

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So maybe that might be a little interesting to discuss. So we'll see what happens. If this is a complete dumpster fire, which

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I'm sure it won't be, maybe we'll have that whole series out where folks can kind of listen to both your perspectives.

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I'm just messing around. All right, well, the topic is total depravity slash total inability.

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And I'm a Calvinist, Pastor Sean is a Calvinist, right? We hold to total depravity and we believe that total inability is very much connected to that.

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And Dr. Flowers is a provisionist and he has a different perspective with respect to that particular area of reformed theology.

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So what I want to do is to have Sean lay out the reasons why he holds to total depravity and total inability.

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Perhaps he can kind of walk us through some of the key passages that he uses to support that. And then Dr. Flowers will share his perspective and then

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I'll step back a little bit and allow you guys to interact with each other. How's that sound? Sounds good. All right, you can go whenever you're ready,

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Sean. Okay, well, thanks again. I really appreciate it. And I think probably Leighton and I would both affirm total depravity to some extent, but where Calvinists usually diverge from non -Calvinists is taking it one step further to total inability.

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So I'm gonna deal with both of those together. And I want to start in the book of Romans. In Romans chapter one,

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Paul makes the case that Gentiles are under God's wrath because they suppress this truth and unrighteousness.

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And then in Romans chapter two, Paul turns his gun and points the barrel at the self -righteous Jews, charges they too are guilty before God.

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And then in Romans chapter three, Paul closes out his argument by showing the universal depravity of all people, both

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Jew and Gentile under God. And so one of the key passages is, I'm just gonna stick with Romans three, nine through 12, where Paul says, what then?

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Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we've already charged that all, both

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Jews and Greeks are under sin. As it is written, none is righteous.

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No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they become worthless.

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No one does good, not even one. Now, before we dive into what

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Paul is saying here, I wanna focus on his statement that all, both

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Jews and Greeks are under sin. What does it mean to be under sin?

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There's that Greek preposition, hupo, under, and some scholarly lexicons like the

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Lewin -Ida define it as under the control of, the BDAG says under the obligation or power or rule of.

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And so some translations even use the term we're under the power of sin. And so Paul often describes sin as an enslaving power.

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In Romans chapter six, verse six, we know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

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He uses that enslavement terminology. Romans 6, 14, sin will have no dominion over you since you're not under law but under grace.

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Dominion language, bondage language, Galatians 4, 8, formally when you did not know

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God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. And so when

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Paul says we're under sin, that preposition really carries the idea that we're enslaved to sin, we're in bondage to sin.

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And notice that he says that sin is singular, not individual sins, which is true, but he almost appears to like personify sin as a tyrant, as a power, as a slave master that exercises control and mastery, that we're under its power, we're under its guilt.

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So we're not only under sin as a power that renders us corrupt, but we're under sin as a power that renders us actually.

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Now, I know that the provisionist viewpoint differs from this because I've heard

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Leighton say on many occasions, being enslaved to sin doesn't necessarily mean that one cannot admit this slavery and ask

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God to free him or herself from the slavery. And what I would say is that Paul will not allow this view because he goes on to describe in graphic detail what being under sin actually looks like.

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So what does it look like, Paul? Well, he goes on and begins to string together a bunch of scriptures, especially from the

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Psalms to give this description of what it looks like to be under the bondage of sin. No one is righteous.

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This is from Psalm 14 and Psalm 53. We are not positionally righteous before God.

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It's not that we're neutral, but we're morally unrighteous before God. No one understands.

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Now, this does not mean that a sinner can't understand the bare facts of the gospel, that a sinner can't understand doctrinal truths.

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You can share the gospel with an unsaved person. They can track with what you're saying. They can understand the logic.

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They can understand the meaning. But fundamentally, because of the depth of sin that they're under, they don't understand the depth of their need and the truth of who

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Christ is unless God does a spiritual work in their hearts. And then

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Paul goes on to say, no one seeks God. Now, what does it mean to seek God? Does it mean that sometimes you hear people are seekers, that person's seeking

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God? And I would say that a lot of people may seek the benefits that God provides, but like the psalmist would say about the thirsting and hungering for God, can a truly unsaved person seek

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God in the sense that he desires God's glory as the greatest good? No one seeks

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God. All have turned aside, become worthless. Notice again, Paul keeps saying all.

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No one does good. Now, this doesn't mean that you can't do acts of charity or disaster relief or the proverbial helping an old lady across the street.

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We in the reform camp make a distinction between what we call a civic or societal good and a gospel good.

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In other words, unregenerate sinners can do good works, but they do those within pure motives and not for the glory of God.

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And so to do no good here means spiritual good that's pleasing to God.

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And Paul here charges that everyone without exception is born guilty, powerless, enslaved, and under sin as a condition.

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And so let me just give two analogies from nature. Sometimes the Bible uses nature to kind of help us understand a doctrinal truth in maybe a more metaphorical way.

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So Jeremiah 13, 23, can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots?

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Then also you, can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil? Now, obviously an

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Ethiopian during that time would have dark skin. Can an Ethiopian wake up one day and just change the color of his skin?

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And the answer is no, he can't because he's born that way. That's his fundamental immutable nature that he can't overcome.

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Can a leopard change his spots? Can a leopard wake up one day and say, hey, I wanna be a tiger.

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I wanna have stripes. No, a leopard can't do that because it's its fundamental nature immutable to be a leopard.

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And so Jeremiah takes it one step further and says, okay, if those are immutable characteristics that are by nature that we see in skin color and leopards, then he says, can you do good who are accustomed to evil?

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And that's a rhetorical question that's meant to be answered with no, you can't. And why can't you do good who are accustomed to doing evil?

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Well, it's in your nature. It's an immutable thing that can't change about you because you were born in that condition.

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You're born under sin. You're born depraved. Jesus also teaches this kind of with a metaphor in the

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Sermon on the Mount, talking about fruit and trees. Matthew 7, 17 through 18.

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So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

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So we understand this. Fundamentally, a diseased tree cannot produce anything positive or rise above its essential nature of corruption.

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In the same way, Jesus is saying those who are spiritually diseased through the corruption of sin cannot produce anything positive that would result in the good fruit of repentance and faith or anything that would please

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God. So what has to happen to the tree? Well, the fundamental nature of the tree has to change.

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The tree has to change from being a diseased tree to a healthy tree. Now, how does it do that?

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Can the tree do that itself? And again, a provisionist or a non -reformed person would say, well, just because the tree's diseased doesn't mean it can't admit that it's infected and then cry out to be changed, cry out for salvation.

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Yet what the diseased tree is doing by acknowledging that it's diseased is that it can't change its fundamental nature.

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So admitting you can't change is not the same thing as actually undergoing a radical inward change.

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Merely admitting you're a sinner doesn't change your nature so that you can produce good fruit.

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Something from outside of you needs to come in and overcome that disease and transform you from the inside out.

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And we can get to this later. We call this regeneration. And so I think probably both the reformed and non -reformed to some extent would agree with total depravity, that we're corrupt, we're born with a corrupt nature, we're born polluted by sin, we have a proclivity towards sin.

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But where the reformed view takes it one step further is that we also believe the Bible teaches total inability in that sinners lack the moral and spiritual ability to repent and believe, to do anything pleasing towards God because we're spiritually dead, we're enslaved, and there needs to be a work of sovereign grace.

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And so we could spend more time in John six, but I mean, obviously Jesus feeds the 5 ,000.

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He identifies himself as the bread of life. And then he basically makes kind of some paradoxical statements in John chapter six.

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He basically says, all that the Father gives me will come to me. Those who come to me, I'll never cast out.

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And so that's a great verse about God's electing love and those that will come to him.

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But then in John 6, 44, it almost sounds like Jesus contradicts what he said earlier, but he doesn't.

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But if we understand his flow of thought, Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the

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Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day. No one can come.

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That's an emphatic statement where Jesus uses the Greek word dunamis. It's the word power.

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In other words, no one has the inherent ability to come and come basically in the gospel of John means to believe or to receive

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Christ. There's a qualifier there, unless something has to happen. Well, what's that thing that has to happen in order to overcome that inability?

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The Father has to draw the sinner and all that the

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Father draws will be raised up on the last day. So the Father must do a work to overcome that inability of a person who cannot come to Jesus in faith.

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Jesus even reiterates it down in John 6, 65. He says, this is why I told you that no one can come to me.

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Almost the same Greek instruction there. Unless, there's the unless again, but he phrases it a little bit differently.

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This time, instead of saying, unless the Father who sent me draws him, this time in verse 65, he says, unless it's granted him by the

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Father or enabled. I've often heard some provisionists say, God grants the opportunity or God grants the ability or God grants the possibility of the person being able to come and all that God's granting is just more the choice.

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God grants the opportunity for the person to come. In the reform view would say, no, God actually grants everything.

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Because the person is spiritually dead, God has to grant even the faith to come to the son in that drawing, in that enabling.

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And then one last scripture, just for the sake of time, I don't wanna dominate the time, but in Romans chapter eight, verses five through eight,

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Paul makes a pretty strong statement about inability. He writes, for those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, set their minds on the things of the spirit.

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For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

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For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot.

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Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Now here's a question about this passage of scripture.

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Because Paul's contrasting a person who's in the flesh and a person who's in the spirit. And I take that to mean the person who's in the flesh is unregenerate, they're unsaved.

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The person who's in the spirit is saved. Question is, how does a sinner go from being in the flesh to the spirit?

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Well, Paul answers that back up in chapter eight, verse two, where he says, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

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This is basically Paul's way of saying, you can't liberate yourself from sin and death, the spirit has to do that.

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And so the spirit is the one who sets you free from being an Adam, he sets you free from the law, he sets you free from your depravity.

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And then in chapter eight, verses five through eight, Paul gives four descriptions of an unregenerate person, which

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I think clearly illustrates or teaches the doctrine of total inability.

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First thing he says is the depraved mind is set on death, set on death. Now, Paul uses a present tense verb here to show that an unregenerate person is spiritually dead right now.

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Without the spirit, they are dead. Their lostness not only results in future death and hell, but being in the flesh renders a person spiritually dead in the present.

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Second, Paul says those in the flesh are hostile to God. Because of original sin, because of spiritual deadness, the unregenerate sinner hates

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God. He stands condemned. That's a strong word, hostile, we're estranged.

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Paul reiterates this in Colossians 1, 21 and 22. He says, and you who were once alienated and hostile in mind doing evil deeds, he's now reconciled in his body and flesh by his death to present you holy and blameless and abrupt reproach before him.

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So Paul says you're spiritually dead, your mind's set on death, your mind is hostile to God, you're alienated from God, but then he goes on to speak about inability.

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Third, he says those in the flesh to God's law, cannot. Now, interestingly, that's the same exact Greek word that Jesus uses in John chapter six.

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644. One second, Pastor Sean, if I could just give you like a one minute warning so that we can hand it over to Leighton, but keep going and then we'll pass it over.

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Yep, I'm almost done, actually. Yeah, it's the same Greek verb there, dunamis, cannot.

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Means sinners don't have the ability to submit to God's law. Now, we could say that God's law is the 10 commandments, but is that merely what it means?

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I would say that the Reformed view says any type of command in the Bible, which I would include to repent and believe or commands, are

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God's law, which I would believe a sinner cannot repent and believe as those are commands.

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And then fourth, an unregenerate sinner cannot please God. Why does Paul repeat the inability?

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Again, is pleasing God just a generic thing or is repenting, believing, coming to Christ, does that please

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God? And so I think this passage and others clearly teach moral and spiritual inability as well as total depravity.

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Thank you so much for that. Just to let folks know, there wasn't a set time, so it's not as though he was going over time.

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I just wanted to make sure that we would make a reasonable transition over to Dr. Flowers. Also, I see folks interacting in the comments there.

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If you have a question for the latter part of this episode here, please preface your question with question so I could differentiate it from all the other interesting conversations that happen in the comment section.

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All right, so let's pass it over to Dr. Flowers for his presentation.

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All right, yeah, if you'll share that screen for me there, Eli. Many who've watched my debates before have seen this, but it's just to show,

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I think, the categories, four categories of scripture passages that are often used when talking about anthropology or the nature of man with regard to man's sinfulness.

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We all agree, as Sean rightly said, we agree with depravity. Men are depraved, all sin.

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All have sinned and fall short of God's glory. Now, you may have debates about when a person's accountable for sin, the age of accountability, all those kinds of things, but putting that aside, we all agree, everybody's a sinner and they all need a savior.

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So that's the all sin category. And a lot of times, Calvinists will spend a lot of time reading over scriptures that don't really hit our point of contention because they're in one of these white cups here.

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They're in the all sin cup. Everybody sins, everybody's a sinner. And if they say it, they seem to, they want to say it louder and more dogmatic as if we disagree with that.

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And we're just going, no, we agree. We're in bondage to sin. We're hostile towards God. All of those things you heard

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Sean say in his opener are true. But when in any other category of life does being hostile towards somebody equal an inability to confess your hostility and come into reconciliation?

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I know hundreds of people who are pagans who have no relationship with the father who are hostile towards their spouse or towards their child or towards their neighbor or somebody who comes to a place of reconciliation and they humble themselves and they reconcile.

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Hostility does not equal inability. So every passage you heard him talk about men's hostility towards God or their fallenness or their depravity, just put them into the all sin category and just say, we agree with that.

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But that's not the point of contention. The second set of verses that you'll hear is everybody needs help. And you heard him, you refer to John six.

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We can't believe unless God does something first. Well, amen. We're not

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Pelagian. We believe God takes the initiative. God hasn't left us on our own. Many people make the argument.

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We can't do it on our own. We can't do it on our own. Amen. That's one of the reasons we don't believe God's left us on our own. He sent

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Jesus. He sent the Holy Spirit to bring conviction to the world. He sent the scriptures inspired by holy apostles.

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What more does he need to do to show the world who he is? He has made himself abundantly known to us.

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And so, yes, we all need help. We cannot be saved without his intervention. And we believe that he has intervened in a sufficient way through the gospel.

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The gospel is the power of God into salvation. And therefore we agree, all need help. And he has sent the necessary help we all need.

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That's what provision is all about. Provision is, yes, we're in bondage. Yes, we're sinners. But God provides for those who are his enemies in sin.

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He provides for those who are in bondage. He provides for those who are dead in their sins and trespasses. So what does a dead man need to do?

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A dead man needs to be given new life. Well, how does a dead man get new life? According to the scripture, John 20, 31, these things have been written so that you may believe and that by believing you may have life.

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So how do we get new life? By believing. Jesus said, you refuse to come to me so that you may have life. He didn't say,

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I refuse to give you life so that you'll certainly come to me. He says, you have refused to come to me so that you may have life.

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What's the order of salutis? The order of salvation according to Jesus. You come to me in order to get new life, not the other way around.

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And so, yes, dead men need new life. So how do dead men get new life? By listening to the life -giving truth of the gospel and believing so as to get new life.

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So all need help. And so you'll hear a lot of passages that Calvinists will bring up and they'll say them dogmatically and they'll say them with passion and they'll preach them.

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And I'm just going, amen, brother, that's great. But that's not our point of contention. We all agree we need help. We all believe he takes the initiative.

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He does the drawing. He does the calling. He sends the gospel. He sends the Holy Spirit down like fire to bring conviction to the world.

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He does all of those things, all of which are sufficient to enable us to respond to his call for reconciliation.

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So yes, we all need help. Now here's the category of talk that often gets very confusing and many people don't understand this category of talk.

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And this is the hardened category because in the scriptures, it does talk about in Romans 1, as he referenced, men becoming cut off to the truth.

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They had the truth. That means they knew it, but they rejected it. They suppressed it, okay?

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That's their fault. That's not God's fault. It's not something God decreed for them to be from birth. They chose to do that willingly.

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They didn't have to do that. They suppress the truth and unrighteousness and they can become cut off.

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God can, they can reach a point of no return, so to speak, where God says, okay, you've rejected my revelation again, again, again.

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You've ignored the warning in Hebrews 3 and 4, which says, when you hear my voice, do not harden your heart against me. You've ignored it and you've become hardened.

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You've become callous and now you're cut off from me. That is a category of people that largely represents the nation of Israel in the first century.

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And it is talked about in scripture over and over and over and over again. And oftentimes, in my experience,

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Calvinists take texts that are talking about hardened Israelites who have grown calloused and self -righteous in their rebellion, who are now being cut off for the engrafting of the

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Gentiles. And they use those as proof texts for the natural condition of all people from birth. And they're pulling these passages out of context, talking about people who are hardened, not from birth, that in a condition they were just born into, like their skin color, like the

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Ethiopian, just born like that, he can't help it. Which, by the way, that passage is talking about people who are grown and accustomed to doing sin.

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What is that talking about? People who are habitually sinful and have therefore been hardened in their sin.

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That's a different category of people than the natural condition of all people from birth. And so that's the four different categories here.

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Yes, we agree all are sinned, all need a savior, all need help, God's initiative. People can become hardened, calloused, and cut off from the revelation of God, and therefore become in an incapacitated state.

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Because if the revelation is taken away from you, you can't believe it because it's not there anymore.

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So if the revelation is taken away from you because you have grown hardened and callous to it, because he's taken the revelation from the

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Jews and he's taken it to the Gentiles, whose fault is that? It's certainly not

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God's, it's the Israelites' fault for rejecting him over and over and over again. But if total inability is true, then they have no more control of their ability to believe the gospel than they do of their skin color.

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And one of the reasons intuitively we find bigotry and judging people for things they have no control over, they're intuitively, we judge that as wrong and as unjust.

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Why? Because we know intuitively it is wrong to judge and punish somebody for something they have no control over.

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And yet that's exactly what the doctrine of total inability suggests, that you have no control or ability to believe the

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Bible. And yet God is going to hold you accountable for what you do with his words. Hear me when

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I say this, the Bible says you will be judged on the final day, not by Adam's sin, not by your morality, the good and the bad you end up doing.

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What will you be judged by? The very words of Christ, John chapter 12, Jesus says. The way that Paul put it is they perish because they refuse to love the truth so as to be saved.

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They don't perish because of Adam's sin. They don't perish because they themselves sin. They're sinners in heaven and hell.

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What's the difference between those in heaven and hell? Whether they accept the truth or reject the truth. And you're responsible for what you do with the truth of God.

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And if you believe that you can't accept truth because of a condition you were born in, that you have no more control over than you do the color of your skin, then intuitively all of us know that this is not just, it is not right, it is not fair, it is not biblical in my estimation.

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Of course, that's the argument for today. And the verses you've just heard Sean lay out all fit within those white categories of cups that we just laid out.

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All sin, all need God's help, and people can become hardened and cut off in their rebellion.

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Not one of them, in my estimation, even comes close to suggesting that people are born by nature and divine decree, mind you, in a condition that they can't control where they cannot respond positively to God's own appeals to be reconciled from their fallen condition.

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The Bible doesn't even come close to suggesting this. One of the scriptures I want to pull into this, and since the screen's up,

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I can just leave it up there, is Acts chapter 28, beginning in verse 23. It says, they arranged to meet Paul on a certain day and came in even larger numbers to the place where he was staying.

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He witnessed to them from morning until evening, explaining about the kingdom of God and from the law of Moses and from the prophets. He tried to persuade them about Jesus.

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Some were convinced by what he said, but others would not believe. There's an act of the will right there. Now, why would they not believe?

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According to Calvinists, they would not believe because they weren't unconditionally chosen before they were born and irresistibly regenerated or effectually caused to believe.

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The Bible never says this anywhere in this text or any other. It seems to suggest this is their will.

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They chose not to believe. And they disagreed among themselves and began to leave, but Paul made this final statement.

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The Holy Spirit spoke truth to your ancestors. He's speaking, obviously, to Israelites here. Go to this people. Who's this people?

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Israel, and say, you will be ever hearing but never understanding. You will be ever seeing but never perceiving.

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Now, I want you to make note of this statement right here because you see it throughout the scriptures quite regularly. Is this a condition from birth by divine decree because of the fall of Adam?

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Or is this a condition of hardened people? Just answer that question because that is this debate.

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Total inability teaches that they are ever hearing and never understanding, ever seeing and ever perceiving from birth due to a condition they have no control over by the sovereign divine decree.

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That is nowhere established in the Bible. Why does Paul say they're in this condition? For this people's heart has what?

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Become calloused. Notice it didn't say they were born by nature calloused. It says they have become calloused. They hardly hear with their ears and they have closed their eyes.

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So who closed their eyes? The Bible blames that on them. Not a divine decree, not total moral inability, not

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Adam. He blames it on them. They have closed their eyes. They have suppressed the truth.

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They did that by choice, not by necessity. Meaning they could have done otherwise.

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How do I know that? It even says, otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, that's repentance, and I would heal them.

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That expresses his desire to heal them. So this is their fault for being in this condition. It's not a condition from birth that's beyond their control.

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It is their fault for being in this condition. It sums it up in verse 28. Therefore, I want you to know that God's salvation has been sent to the

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Gentiles and they will listen. If this is a natural condition from birth, ever seeing, never perceiving, ever hearing, never understanding, then why would he contrast the

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Jews with the Gentiles here? They're both in the same exact condition. If Calvinism is true, a condition from birth.

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He's contrasting the hardened, self -righteous Jews with the barbarian, still sinful, still need of a savior, still corrupt

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Gentiles. What's the difference between the two? One has grown hardened and callous because they have closed their eyes to the truth of God.

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The others, though sinful, are still able to listen. They're still able to be molded.

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They're still able to hear and respond. Now, the same thing could happen to them if they suppress the truth and unrighteousness, but you can't assume they're already in that condition from birth, which is exactly what the doctrine of total inability suggests.

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Now, you can go ahead and take that screen down there. And let me just cover a few of the passages that Sean brought up in his opening.

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If I can just really quick, if you can, when your time is done, if you can keep those images in the catch here, so just in case questions come up and the cops will become helpful again.

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So I thought that, okay. Yeah, they're still here. Okay, so for example,

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Romans chapter three, that we're enslaved under sin's power.

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Again, we don't have a problem with this, but being enslaved doesn't mean that you can't confess that you're enslaved. Just like being addicted to alcohol or being addicted to drugs doesn't mean that when your family confronts you, you can't say, yeah, you're right, guys.

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I can't stop drinking. I can't stop doing drugs. On my own power, I'm absolutely stained with my addiction.

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I can't stop. What Calvinists seem to be saying is that because you're addicted to the drug, because you're addicted to sin, which you are from birth, therefore you can't even confess that fact and be reconciled when people confront you with it.

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And this is not established in the Bible. Again, this is the burden of proof that the Calvinist has to establish.

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They have to establish, not just that we're sinful and addicted to sin, they have to establish that addicted to sin people can't confess that fact and receive the help that's being offered.

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Now, Sean mentioned this with regard to the trees, good tree, bad tree, those kinds of things.

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And his assumption is that the tree has to be made into a good tree before it can even confess that it's a bad tree.

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So the tree has to be changed into a good tree and then it can confess it was a bad tree.

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It's like the heart. The heart has to be given, you have to give them a new heart before they can even confess that they have a bad heart.

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Now, he then went on to say, no, we need regeneration. Again, we agree we need regeneration and change, but regeneration comes to those who humble themselves and confess their corruption of heart.

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So one, the heart surgeon comes to somebody and says, your heart is corrupt. Absolutely, you're gonna die.

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You must have a new heart. The patient can hear that and say, no, I'm strong enough, my heart can make it.

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I don't need you. And he walks away, whose fault's that? It's the patient's fault. He rejected the diagnosis of the doctor.

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Or if the patient says, doctor, I trust you, give me a new heart. It doesn't mean he's giving himself a new heart.

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It doesn't mean he's regenerating himself. It doesn't mean give himself new life. He's submitting to the will of the surgeon saying, okay,

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I put myself, I trust myself to you. My life is entrusted to you. You have to do the surgery. I can't do it for myself.

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And then regeneration happens on our view. So we still agreed regeneration needs to happen. Change needs to happen.

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But the order of the change is you confess so as to be healed, not you're healed so as to confess you need healing.

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Again, just one after another, the Calvinist just reverses the order that I think the scripture clearly lays out for us.

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No one is righteous. Again, we agree. No one is righteous in accordance with the law. Doesn't mean that you can't confess that fact and trust in the righteousness of another.

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And that's exactly what he just seemed to assume there. That because no one's righteous, therefore you can't trust in the righteousness of Christ.

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The Bible never makes that leap. Sean did. No one understands, he even admits. That doesn't talk about mental ascent.

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You can understand stuff. But just like we read from Acts 28, they're ever seeing and never perceiving.

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They're ever hearing, but never understanding. That's a spiritual condition. Is that a spiritual condition from birth, a natural condition of every lost sinner or those who have closed their eyes and have grown calloused and hardened?

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You've got to ask yourself the question, who is the Bible talking about when he's describing people in a hardened callous condition?

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You've got to look at the context of those passages. No one seeks God, okay? So that means that we can't therefore respond to a

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God who seeks us and comes to us with the gospel. Of course, no one seeks God on their own, but that means we can't confess our lostness when he comes and seeks after the lost.

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No one does good. Again, we agree. No one does good in accordance with the law of God. It's just like Romans 9, verses 30 and following says, that the

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Jews pursued righteousness through the law and they did not attain it. The Gentiles pursued righteousness by faith and they have attained it.

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Both of them pursued. One of them is pursuing by their own righteousness, their own works of the law, which is impossible to attain righteousness through those means.

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The other is pursuing by doing what? Not by laws, many of them didn't keep any of the laws of the old covenant.

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What are they pursuing through then? They're pursuing through the righteousness of Christ and they have attained it. Now what Calvinists are doing is saying, in the same way you can't attain righteousness through the law so too you can't attain righteousness through faith either.

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It's just as impossible. It's as impossible to attain righteousness by works of the law as it is to attain righteousness by faith in Jesus.

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Both of them are completely unattainable to you. Paul never makes this link. This is the dichotomy

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Paul always holds up is because you can't attain righteousness through works, therefore you must trust in the righteousness of the one who did the work for you, the righteousness of Christ.

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You must give up trying and trust in his righteousness. And what Calvinists are coming along saying is, nope, you can't do that.

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Because you can't do the laws, therefore you can't trust in the one who fulfilled the law for you.

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And therefore I think Calvinism falls short on that front. I'll stop there. All right, thank you so much for that.

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You guys did an excellent job laying down kind of the groundwork. So let's move into the open discussion here.

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So if you don't mind, I'm gonna put the cups back up on the screen. So perhaps that will inspire my first question that you guys can kind of interact with.

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By the way, coming from a teacher's perspective, the visuals are very helpful, okay? So I do appreciate it.

40:37

But Dr. Flowers said something to the effect that Sean, he thinks that when you use certain scriptures to support total depravity and total inability, what you're basically saying is things that you both agree on, but that you're making a leap when you imply that the verses you use also are teaching or suggesting a total inability.

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Why, I know you don't think you're doing that. Why aren't you doing that from your perspective? And it may be late and you can just feel free to jump in and interject and you guys can interact with each other.

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So this question to me? Yes. Can you please ask that again? I'm trying to think through this.

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Are you playing Candy Crush while I was trying to talk to you? Come on, man. No worries, no worries.

41:23

Okay, so Dr. Flowers suggested that the verses you used to support total depravity and hence also total inability, basically what you were doing is you were quoting passages that both of you already agree on.

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So namely, you've used verses that suggest all sin. You've used verses that suggest that all need help.

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You used verses talking about people becoming hardened. And he says, okay, well,

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I agree with that, but I don't see how those verses support total inability. So Calvinists argue passionately.

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They quote these passages and Dr. Flowers is saying, well, we agree with that. Why aren't you, here's the question now.

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Why aren't you simply just quoting passages that both of you agree on? Why is it the case that you also think the passages you're using speak of total inability?

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Okay, so I wanna deal with texts because I think sometimes, and I listened to Leighton a lot, he gives a lot of analogies from like the addict asking to be helped and this or that.

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I want us to walk through a text and just exegete it and look at it and say what's there because I think the fundamental difference between me and Leighton is,

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I believe that the Bible teaches spiritual moral inability and I understand conversion to be a deep inward work that the

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Holy Spirit rots in a sinner to bring them all the way to salvation. I hear

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Leighton say things like just merely confessing that you need help. I think it's more of a truncated view of conversion.

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And so what I'd like to do is just, I wanna ask him a few questions about Romans chapter eight because I don't wanna deal with the passage that has judicial hardening in it because I think sometimes

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Leighton imports that into a lot of scriptures that aren't there. And so I guess

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I would like to ask in that passage in Romans chapter eight, do you think that a person in the flesh who's unregenerate, how do you view that person fundamentally in their nature?

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Now you say the Bible doesn't say they're like that from birth, but I can go back to Romans five and show because of Adam's sin that we're born corrupt, we're born guilty for Adam's sin.

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I mean, I think you made a statement earlier but I guess I would like to get more clarification on it. You said that we're not judged for our sin, we're judged for rejecting

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Christ which brings up a huge problem because what about the person who's never heard? Well, can I make a clarification?

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I think you said, I think Leighton said and I think the question that Sean is asking was a question that popped in my head.

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You said, Dr. Flowers, you will not be judged by Adam's sin. Right.

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And then you made emphasis that we'd be judged for our own sin. So I guess my question, yeah, that's what

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I'm saying. Do you hold to like a view of like federal headship? Like, do you understand us being in Adam so that Adam represented us?

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So I didn't understand that statement. Maybe that's where you're coming from Pastor Sean. I don't know. I don't wanna - Yeah, I mean,

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I think it's both. I think we're held accountable for Adam's sin and we're held accountable for our own personal sins.

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And if you're not held accountable for, if you're only judged for rejecting Christ, what about the person that's never heard and had the opportunity to reject

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Christ? Is there a different method of salvation or damnation for that person? That passage in John 10 is addressed to the

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Pharisees who saw Jesus in the flesh and heard him. But the Bible is very clear that we're condemned because of Adam's sin and our own sin.

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And it's a both, both and. So, Layton, why don't you interact with that and maybe clarify your position there?

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Well, like John 3, 16, we all know that, but John 3, 17 goes on to say, for God did not send the son into the world to judge the world.

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So God's not interested in judging the world for their sin, but so that the world might be saved through him.

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The one who believes in him is not judged. The one who does not believe has been judged already because he has not believed in the name of the only son.

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So the reason you're judged is because you refuse to believe in the son, which is a reflection also of John chapter 12, verses 48,

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I'm going off the top of my mind here. I don't remember exactly, I think it's verse 48. It says, the very words that I've spoken to you will be your judge in the final day.

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So it doesn't say, I'm gonna hold up some measuring stick, which I'm not accusing you of believing that, but he's not saying, okay, you're better than David was because at least she didn't kill somebody and have sex with his wife.

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Okay, so I'm gonna let you in. We all know that's not the way in which someone's led into heaven. They're saved by grace through faith.

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In other words, through what they do with the words of Christ. You perish because you refuse to love the truth so as to be saved, as Paul says.

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So you don't perish because you have sinned or because Adam has sinned. Ultimately, you perish because you refuse to believe in the one he sent.

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So ultimately we're all judged for what we do with the gospel. And what Calvinism is saying is you can't believe the gospel yet you're gonna be judged for what you do with it.

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And that is intuitively, in my opinion, unjust. It's just as bad as judging somebody for the color of their skin.

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I would just say this. In John 12, contextually, Jesus is talking to the Pharisees in that context who heard him teach.

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They heard him, they saw him in the flesh. They had become hardened and calloused because of their exposure.

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When he pronounces those woes on those Galilean cities of Capernaum because they saw the works of Christ is gonna be greater on the day of judgment than for Sodom and Gomorrah and Tyre and Sidon.

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So John 12 is one context, but Paul in Romans chapter five, which is a didactic passage, teaches that we are held accountable and guilty for Adam's sin.

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And so I guess I'd like to know, Leighton, since we're here, what's your view of original sin or original guilt from Romans chapter five?

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Does any type of Adam's fall affect a person and their eternal salvation?

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Or are we only merely saved by our own rejection of Christ? Well, there is a curse of sin in the fall.

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Obviously, when you're born in a fallen world under sin, then you need a savior.

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But the fact is that God didn't come to judge the world. He came to save the world. He passes by sins previously committed, it says in several passages.

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In other words, he's a God of mercy. He prefers to show mercy even to his enemies.

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And he has provided a way in which he can justly provide that mercy for even his enemies, and that is through the cross of Calvary.

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And so it looks like we just lost Eli. Hopefully he'll come back on. Well, he told us to keep going there, so we will.

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Maybe the storm struck him, but hopefully not too bad. So I agree with some aspects of what you believe with regard to original sin,

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Sean, and the concept and idea that we're born under the effects of the curse of the fall, the labor pains the

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Bible mentions, the toiling of the soil. In all the curses mentioned in Genesis, however, it doesn't say you're gonna be born

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God -haters and can't even respond positively to me when I come to you. Even when I send my son for you, even when

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I send the Holy Spirit, even when I send the gospel proclaimed through messengers that I've inspired, you're not gonna be able to respond positively unless I unconditionally picked you before you were ever born and make you.

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It seems like that would be a curse that he would have mentioned came because of the fall. And it's just not, again, that's just a systematic,

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I think, that's been read into the text. Yeah, but I mean, in the unfolding of revelation, biblical revelation in Genesis three,

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God doesn't have to reveal every aspect of the noetic effects of the fall, but you have

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Paul, an inspired apostle in Romans five, that takes us all the way back to the garden. And he clearly teaches in Romans chapter five, especially

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I think it's verse 18, that we are under condemnation because of what Adam did.

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And so not merely did Adam sin affect us by bringing in spiritual death, but we're born under his condemnation for what he did.

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And we may say, well, that's not fair because I wasn't there in the garden. Why am I being held responsible for something I didn't do?

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But Paul basically says that, and Adam all sinned. And now there's different ways we can look at that throughout historical understanding.

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But how do you understand Romans five, 12, it says in Adam, all sinned.

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Therefore, just as though one man's sin injured into the world and death through sin, so death spread to all mankind because all sinned.

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And so in the same way that life spreads through faith, death spreads through sin, and death spreads through our choice to sin and reject the things of God.

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They're condemned because of their unbelief, as I read from Romans chapter three, verse 17 and 18.

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And so they're not condemned just because of their sin, they're condemned because of their lack of faith.

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This again goes back to what we really believe Romans one is about, because many times we pick up at verse 18, and we don't look at the contrast in verse 17, the righteous live by faith.

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And then he goes on to contrast that with those who suppress the truth and unrighteousness in the very next verse. And what

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Calvinists do is they just start with verse 18 and think that's describing every single person as if we have no capacity to live by faith.

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And I don't think that's ever established. So you don't think Romans 5 .18 is a universal statement of all people that every single person suppresses the truth and unrighteousness.

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I mean, where's the qualifier in that text to say that it's limited to only a few people? I mean,

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Paul's whole argument there is - Sean, if I'm not mistaken, you became a Christian at a young age like I did, right?

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Yeah, eight years old. When did you suppress the truth and unrighteousness? Probably the moment

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I was born. The moment you were born? As an infant without cognitive abilities?

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Well, at the age where I could understand truth, I guess. My point is, obviously, is there's a difference between the child who is raised in the way that he should go and a person who is a pagan hardened callous sinner.

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And this really comes down to the major point of contention. The major point of contention is what is the difference between the fallen son and daughter of Adam, the natural condition of man from earth, and the hardened calloused person who has rejected the things of God for so long that now they're being cut off and hardened in their rebellion?

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What is the difference with a distinction between those two people? Right, but I'm gonna go back to Romans 5 .18

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because nowhere in that passage of scripture does it ever mention anybody being hardened or anybody growing hardened.

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I think sometimes, Leighton, I'm trying to be as kind as I can, but I think sometimes you import judicial hardening almost into every passage and assume that every passage is talking about a person that grows hardened over time.

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Now, I can see there's some passages that teach somebody growing hardened over time, but - And what's the difference between somebody growing hardened over time and the natural born condition?

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Can either of them respond to the gospel positively? No. Okay, think about it. Can any of them see and perceive spiritually?

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No. Can either of them turn so as to be healed? No. So what is the difference between the hardened sinner and the natural condition?

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A lot of it depends, he's back. Okay, let me give you an analogy, okay? So I'm gonna jump in and give an analogy.

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I don't normally do this, but think about the property of clay because Paul uses clay as in, say, what's the fundamental natural quality or property of clay?

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Clay can get hard over time if it's left out in the sun because that's its natural property to do so.

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Clay can also be softened and molded if something comes from the outside and does that because it's its property.

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In the same way, a person who is a lump of clay can grow hardened over time because its fundamental nature will do that.

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Either God allows it or God actively does it like in Pharaoh. And so I just think we need to be careful to not import judicial hardening into every single passage.

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Yes, there are passages in Acts that talk about that. And I guess the question is -

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It just needs to be one passage. If there's a hardened person, then you have to be able to distinguish between that hardened person and the natural person.

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You at the age of eight, for example. Right. Why does he pull up a child and say, you must become like this child, humble yourself like this child to enter the kingdom of heaven?

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The child is in the same exact condition as the 80 -year -old on your position. He's either elect or not.

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He's just as depraved, just as unable to respond to the gospel as he is at 80, even after suppressing the truth all of those years.

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And that's what I don't think you're allowing for is the distinction between what the Bible seems to say in the warning of do not allow your heart to grow calloused.

54:15

You're saying it's already in essence calloused. I'm not saying it's calloused. I'm not saying it's calloused.

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I said you're spiritually dead, but you can grow more calloused over time because it's your natural body.

54:26

You become more unable to see than you were from birth? Yeah, I think you become more, I think you become more, it's a come.

54:34

So it's totally blind becomes blind to see. If I could interject real quick, Sean, perhaps you could explain for us the difference between total depravity and being judicially hardened.

54:46

Yeah. Because I think, and I'm sorry, I kind of dipped out because of the internet, but I'm glad you guys were able to continue.

54:53

I think this is an important issue to address to distinguish between total depravity and judicial hardening, because I think

55:00

Dr. Flowers seems to think that that's kind of a redundancy on our position. Right. So perhaps you could explain that in a way that perhaps

55:09

Dr. Flowers could interact with. Yeah. I can try to explain it the best I can at least from my understanding.

55:16

So I believe that we are born spiritually and morally dead, unable to respond positively to God's gospel appeal without sovereign grace.

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That's the condition everybody's born in because we're born in Adam. You're either in Adam or you're in Christ.

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But I do believe that at times, God can compound or ordain or allow a person because of their continual refusal of the truth to grow even more hardened in a point where God says, okay, if that's the way you wanna go,

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I'm hands off and I'm gonna let you even get more hardened to the truth than you already were. And so there could be an active hardening like you did with Pharaoh, which is a kind of a touchy situation because I don't know if we see any like active hardening or it could be a passive type of judicial hardening where God allows it to happen over time through a person who's already spiritually dead, but it's more of a judgment upon that person because I mean, think about it this way.

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I just preached on Luke chapter nine where Jesus is going to these cities.

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He's sending the disciples out two by two into the Galilean cities, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Chorazin, and he sells his disciples, say to the towns, peace be to this house, the kingdom of heaven is near you.

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And he says, if you reject that message, woe to you because you saw me in the flesh and yet you rejected me, it'll be greater judgment on the day of judgment for you than for Sodom and Tyre and Sidon.

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His point is there's a greater judgment for rejecting Christ when you had greater exposure to Christ.

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I think it's the same concept. You're spiritually dead, but if you continue to reject, God can bring greater judgment through a hardening and it's his sovereign right to do so.

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So I don't think people are born judicially hardened. I think they're born spiritually dead, but I think they can become judicially hardened by God's sovereign decree over time.

57:29

How all that works internally, I don't know, but that's kind of my best way to explain that. What would you say, and maybe this is from my own understanding, so perhaps someone's listening and saying,

57:40

I still kind of don't know what that means. Would you say that we're all totally depraved,

57:46

Pastor Sean, but judicial hardening is in a sense because of the specific expressions of our depravity, which is natural to us,

57:56

God will bring certain judgments upon that person so that the person kind of is led into further depravity than he would have otherwise not been.

58:07

So, you know, I think Dr. Flowers has said in the past and Calvin has say, we're not as bad as we could be, but one of the ways that God judicially hardens us for the badness that we do express is to allow us to kind of remove the restraints, so to speak, to allow us to fall into deeper depravity.

58:25

Does that make sense? Am I making sense there? Yeah, I would agree. I'm a loud, laden speaker. I feel like I've kind of been a little bit...

58:32

Sure, go for it. Why don't you interact with that, Dr. Flowers? Well, I think

58:37

Calvinists have a good anthropology with regard to men not being as bad as they could be, morally speaking.

58:43

Not everyone's a Hitler. Not everyone's strangling everybody with their hands all the time. It's a difference between the hands and the eyes, so to speak.

58:51

These are both physical things, but they're representing something deeper, okay?

58:56

So the physical hands represents that I'm not always doing things as bad as I could be doing things.

59:02

Calvinists agree with that. I think they should apply that to the spiritual eyes. Same concept. People aren't as blind as they could be from birth.

59:09

Now, they can grow blind. They can grow hardened, just like you can grow more and more evil with your hands. You can grow more and more blind with your eyes, but the

59:17

Calvinist already has them totally blind, and then he seems to be suggesting that the condemnation is that somehow this totally blind person, spiritually speaking from birth, if a candle is held before him, has a small amount of judgment, but if a airport light is shined right on his face, then he has a greater amount of judgment, yet he's totally blind and doesn't see either one of them.

59:39

What's the point? The whole point of even talking about that is that the small candle is easier to miss than the bright airport light, and that only makes sense if the person actually has the ability, the capacity to see the light and to respond to it by either suppressing it in unrighteousness and growing hardened and callous to it to where eventually it dies out and they can't see it anymore, or it's cut off, taken away from them because they've rejected it, as Acts 28 says, but when you're born that way, there's nothing to take away.

01:00:10

There's nothing to blind. There's no reason to use parabolic languages, as the scripture talks about in Mark chapter four, where he says to the

01:00:17

Israelites, and Sean mentioned this, you keep imposing this judicial hardening into the

01:00:22

New Testament. What's happening in the New Testament, except that Jesus, according to Mark chapter four, only speaks to them in parables, it says,

01:00:32

I'm quoting it, verse 34 and 35, and then he pulls away and tells his disciples what he means, and he does this less they see, less they hear, less they understand, in turn, so that I would heal them.

01:00:43

He doesn't want that to happen while he's down from heaven, while he's here on earth, why? Because it's through their hardened rebellion that they're going to say, crucify him.

01:00:52

He's accomplishing a purpose through their rebellion. That is an act of judicial hardening.

01:00:57

That is the context, the historical context of the New Testament. You can't ignore the historical context of what's happening to the

01:01:02

Israelites, who are pursuing him through the law and are attaining righteousness through the law, and the

01:01:08

Gentiles, by large numbers, are coming in through faith. That is the historical context of what's happening.

01:01:14

So you can't ignore the fact that God is cutting off the Jews so as to engraft the Gentiles as a part of the narrative of the whole of the

01:01:21

New Testament. So that's why I'm not trying to impose that into the text. I'm trying to say, that is the historical context over all of the

01:01:27

New Testament, because that's what's happening right now in the New Testament. All right, Sean, why don't you interact with that? And I apologize, when I was out,

01:01:32

I don't know who was talking more, so I don't mean to cut anyone short, but I'm just kind of, you're making your points there, and I think you're making them clear.

01:01:40

Sean, why don't you respond from your perspective? I don't know if you're on.

01:01:48

I think you're muted there. Yeah, I think you're muted. No, you're muted, yeah. Oh, there we go. Yeah, I appreciate what you said, Leighton, and I'm not saying that you do it in every text, and I understand that the

01:01:56

New Testament gospel, judicial hardening of the Jews to bring about the crucifixion of Christ, the messianic secret,

01:02:03

I understand that, but I'm talking about the fullness of, especially like the Pauline epistles, where he teaches things related to Adam's sin.

01:02:10

I guess I'd like to ask a question, and that is, fundamentally, in your view,

01:02:15

Leighton, what is the condition of a sinner, their heart, mind, will, and emotions?

01:02:26

And I hear you say often that just the mere gospel appeal is sufficient to enable a response, and so could you please explain to me why you use the word enable, because enable sounds like there's something there that's not able, there's an inability, if something has to be enabled.

01:02:43

So, in your view, what's the inability, what's the fundamental nature of a fallen person, and why is the gospel appeal sufficient?

01:02:51

I know that's kind of like a three -fold question, but the reason I'm asking that is because I think this, I've tried really hard to understand you,

01:02:57

Leighton. It's a good question, and I understand where you're coming from, because we've gone back and forth on this point on dueling podcasts over the years, so I know exactly what you're asking.

01:03:05

But I think it's the issue that a lot of Calvinists don't understand your view, and since I'm representing the Calvinistic point, and I know you have a lot of your followers,

01:03:12

I think that I want my Calvinist listeners to hear your view so they can understand where you're coming from.

01:03:20

Sure. How will they believe in one whom they've not heard? That's a rhetorical question by Paul, which implies the answer is they cannot.

01:03:30

That is the cannot of the scripture. In other words, if you wanna say that total inability, I'll agree with you.

01:03:36

They cannot believe in one whom they've not heard, okay? They must hear about him in order to believe in him, okay?

01:03:45

They cannot hear about him if they are cut off from him. If they have been blinded to the light of the gospel because of their self -righteousness rebellion, and it's being cut off from them and taken to the

01:03:57

Gentiles because of their calloused hearts and being spoken to them in parables, they cannot believe in him because they cannot hear him.

01:04:03

That's not a condition for birth. That's a condition they're in as an act of judgment against them. Paul still holds out hope that they will be provoked to envy and grafted back in according to Romans 11, verse 14.

01:04:14

So the hardening is not to unto certain damnation, but it is unto for a purpose, a redemptive good.

01:04:21

And so that's the point we're trying to say is that those who listened and learned from the father would be given to the son.

01:04:27

They would believe in the son. They would be entrusted to the son. Can I ask a question, Dr. Flowers?

01:04:34

Can I interrupt you for two seconds just for a clarification? So I hear what you're saying, but I don't know if Sean is following in the same way, like following the same line of reason, but I still didn't hear an explanation as to what you think the nature of the man.

01:04:49

So you're saying, okay, these things, like he has to respond, but what is the actual anthropology of man?

01:04:55

I'm trying to follow. I'm really trying to understand. If the Bible says by nature, we are children of wrath, what does that mean for you?

01:05:02

What is the nature of that being by nature wrath? I want to know what your view of like man is, if that makes sense.

01:05:10

Well, I would agree with everything that we talked about before with regard to all sin, selfish motivations, all sinners are addicted to sin and bondage to sin.

01:05:22

I mean, all of us, if we were open and honest with each other, we would even confess even as believers, we still struggle daily with sin and temptations and selfishness because we're in a fallen world.

01:05:32

We can't wait to this body of flesh is taken from us because it is corrupt. And so even as a spiritual man, a man who has been regenerated,

01:05:42

I can still set my mind on the things of the flesh and therefore not please God. Just like an unbeliever can continue to set his mind on the flesh and reject the things of the spirit and continue never to please

01:05:53

God because he refuses to listen to the spirit, calling him to reconciliation through the gospel. But that's his fault.

01:05:59

It's not a decree of God from birth that he has no control over, which is what the doctrine of total inability entails. All right,

01:06:04

Sean, why don't you respond to that? Well, I'll come out real quick because when you said as a spiritual man, you can set your mind on the flesh and not please

01:06:10

God. How do you reconcile that with Romans chapter eight? I mean, I guess

01:06:15

I understand what you're saying that we sin as a regenerate person, but do you think to be set your,

01:06:21

I mean, how do you understand that Romans eight passage, which is kind of what I want to get back to? What is a person that's in the flesh that sets their mind on the things of the flesh?

01:06:30

How do you view that unregenerate person? Or do you see that as an unregenerate person?

01:06:37

Right, I think a person has control over whether they set their mind on the flesh or the spirit. In other words,

01:06:42

I don't think that that's determined by God. You do, obviously, Calvinism believes that either you're determined by God from birth to be one who only sets his mind on the things of the flesh and less regenerated and therefore caused to set his mind on the things of the spirit.

01:06:54

I believe that's actually a responsibility of the person. And so even as a Christian, so even as a believer,

01:07:01

I have the ability to set my mind on the things of the flesh and the spirit. Now, I would assume you agree with that, that as a

01:07:06

Christian, we have the ability to go one way or the other, right? No, I don't, I don't. I guess

01:07:12

I want to go back because that passage - You've superseded my abilities. Okay, but that passage of scripture in Romans, I want to get back to Romans.

01:07:19

That passage in scripture is not giving us a command to say you can do this or you can do that or your command. Those are all in the indicative.

01:07:27

It's describing the condition of a person that's in the flesh versus a person that's in the spirit.

01:07:33

Not, I mean, I would even say there's no commands there to say, set your mind on the flesh or set your mind on the spirit.

01:07:40

It's describing a condition. And I don't think that you can just kind of float in and out of whether you're going to be in the spirit or in the flesh.

01:07:47

It sounds like you're almost saying that an unregenerate person can just one day say, I'm going to set my mind on the flesh. I can do that.

01:07:53

Let's clarify something. Let's clarify something. Can you set your mind on the things of the flesh at all today, right now?

01:07:58

Can you do that? Can I set my mind on the things of the flesh? Not in the Romans 8 sense of doing that because only an unregenerate person does that.

01:08:05

I can send. In 1 Corinthians chapter three, when he calls them brothers, who are natural men, who are acting carnally, who can't receive the meat of the word.

01:08:14

Right. Those aren't really believers or those aren't really Christians? I want us to focus on the actual language in Romans chapter eight to set your mind on the flesh.

01:08:23

I'm trying to get there but what I'm trying to get you to see is that that verse doesn't say enough to support what Calvinists say it says because even a

01:08:30

Christian can either choose to set his mind on the things of the flesh or the things of the spirit. And when he chooses to set his mind on the things of the flesh, he cannot please

01:08:38

God. So if that's true, then Romans 8 cannot be taken dogmatically to ensure this concept of idea that you have no ability to change where you're setting your mind when you're confronted with the

01:08:49

Holy Spirit, right truth of God's word. But I understand. And that's what you're assuming about that text. But Philippians 2, 12 through 13 says, it is

01:08:57

God who works in me to will and to act according to his good pleasure. So if I do set my mind on the things of the spirit, it's because God worked in me to do that.

01:09:05

It wasn't even something that I did. It was something that God did. Well, we all agree with that. We just don't believe that that work is effectual any more so than his work in me is effectual whenever I sin as a

01:09:13

Christian. So we all agree that God works in us to do what's right because he's aiding and helping us.

01:09:18

He's not causing us to do something. So all the verses that you're reading about God working within us or helping us or enabling us, we all agree with that.

01:09:26

We just don't believe it's an effectual work given to some people and withheld from all others who are born hopeless without any ability to hear and respond to the word of God.

01:09:35

So, I mean, those passages just don't go near far enough to teach what Calvinist claiming it teaches.

01:09:41

And that's why we're pushing back on it with respect. Can I just ask a question that could be answered at a yes or a no to Dr.

01:09:47

Flowers and then you can continue, Sean. I was just making sure I'm following, okay. So did

01:09:53

I hear you say, Dr. Flowers, that an unregenerate man can make the choice to set his mind on either the flesh or the spirit.

01:10:04

In his unregenerate state, he has the freedom to set his mind on the flesh and the spirit.

01:10:11

Because I'm thinking in terms of, if that's what you're saying, then I don't see the difference between the regenerate man and the unregenerate.

01:10:16

It looks like they both can do the same things. That's why I'm confused. The lost man would be confronted by the spirit through the gospel.

01:10:24

And he has a choice to either suppress the truth and unrighteousness or to receive the truth, set his mind on the truth of the spirit being revealed to him, which according to Romans chapter one, everyone understands and is clearly made known to everyone so that they're without excuse.

01:10:39

And so if they can clearly know and understand the truth that God has revealed, then they are responsible to it.

01:10:45

Which means to me, they're able to respond to it either by suppressing it or accepting it. And they're accountable for that.

01:10:52

In other words, they're the ones who chose to do it freely. God didn't necessitate their condition to be where they could only reject it from birth for reasons beyond their control.

01:11:01

And you could jump in because I kind of interjected in my question. In Romans one, I'm interested to know what's the truth that men know?

01:11:11

I think the attributes of God, the eternal attributes and his divine nature are clearly made known.

01:11:16

Okay, do they know the gospel? Do they know redemption? Do they know Jesus and their need for a savior?

01:11:23

Do they know their sin nature? Is that something that's revealed to them in Romans chapter one? Well, they have a conscience that knows the difference between right and wrong.

01:11:31

And therefore they have the ability to discern right from wrong when it's revealed to them. What we believe is that God is faithful to make his revelation known.

01:11:42

And those who respond positively to the amount of light and revelation they've been given, God is faithful and gracious to bring more revelation, more light.

01:11:52

If you're faithful with a little, he'll entrust you with more. If you're unfaithful with a little that he's been given, it can be taken away from you, as the scripture says.

01:12:00

We go through this in several podcasts and on several articles where - Right, and I understand you'll use

01:12:06

Cornelius as an example there, but I guess my question is that that almost sounds like works based, like God rewards you for how well you do with something he's given you.

01:12:16

It almost sounds like a merit -based, if you're faithful with a little bit of light, God's gonna give you more.

01:12:21

How can you get the heaven and the earth? God shows favor to the humble. He saves those who humble themselves and fall at his feet and say,

01:12:31

I can't save myself, the tax collector's prayer. Woe is me, I'm an unclean man. I can't, that's the sinner's prayer.

01:12:38

I can't do this on my own. He walked home justified, so it is a sociological text. So that throwing himself at the feet of Jesus wasn't causally determined by some divine act of God, according to the text, that's something that he did.

01:12:53

And the other God that it's being compared to is acting self -righteously. Thank you, God, that you didn't make me a woman.

01:12:58

Thank you, God, you didn't make me like one of these barbarians. He's acting as if he's righteous by his own righteousness, his own works, whereas the other is depending upon the mercies of God.

01:13:10

And so the one who went home justified is the one who not trusted in his own righteousness, pursued righteousness through the law, but the one who threw himself at the mercy of the righteousness of Christ.

01:13:20

Now, if he merited his salvation by doing that, in other words, if his humility merited his salvation, like you could say, oh, well, on Leighton's view, this tax collector earned his salvation.

01:13:32

If that's the case, then why did Jesus need to die? He wouldn't need it to die, he merited his salvation.

01:13:39

Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness. Why sin Jesus? Because after all, Abraham merited his salvation.

01:13:46

He merited his great, he paid his own debt through faith. No, faith is as worthless as a filthy rag apart from the atoning work of Christ.

01:13:56

God chooses to show grace to those who humble themselves. He doesn't have to, he's not obligated to do that.

01:14:03

He chooses graciously to bestow the righteousness of Christ onto the account of those who confess they don't have righteousness of their own.

01:14:12

So let me ask you a question about grace, because I think this is a big difference between our views.

01:14:18

How would you define grace? Because I hear you say grace being an offer in the gospel, whereas I would define grace as something

01:14:26

God sovereignly actually bestows upon his elect that takes them all the way to salvation.

01:14:32

I guess I wanna hear you say, how do you define grace? How do you define conversion? Because I think we both agree a person has to believe, a person has to humble themselves.

01:14:41

My question is, why do they do that? And the question is, what does it look like fundamentally in the nature of a person that prevents them from doing that?

01:14:50

Or what's the fundamental nature of man? What's the fundamental nature of grace? What's the fundamental nature of conversion?

01:14:55

If you could just answer those, I would really appreciate it. And I hate to keep interrupting you, but I'm sorry.

01:15:01

Can I just interject real quick? We're gonna go to 620 and then take some questions the last 10 minutes.

01:15:09

And then we'll wrap things up. You guys have given a lot of food for thought here and I'm really enjoying this conversation.

01:15:16

I wish it can go longer, but I know we're on a schedule here. So why don't you address what Sean asked there and then we will move to the questions in just a few minutes.

01:15:27

Well, I believe we're image bearers of God. We're different from the animals because we're not just instinctive beings acting upon instinctive impulses that God just created us with having that we just have to act in accordance with this impulse that he made us have from birth.

01:15:42

I believe we are decision makers. We are able to make decisions, free decisions. I think he's given us a conscience.

01:15:49

We're able to know the difference between right and wrong. I think intuitively we have the knowledge that killing somebody is wrong.

01:15:55

Stealing something that doesn't belong to us is wrong. I think that's written on our hearts as Romans chapters one and two state.

01:16:01

And therefore when we transgress the law which is revealed or the law written on our hearts, we are doing so willingly by choice.

01:16:11

In other words, we're not doing so because God has decreed for us to do so sovereignly and unchangeably before we were ever born where we have no control over those choices.

01:16:19

I believe that is completely ours. Just like Adam and Eve's choice to sin in the first place was completely his.

01:16:25

It wasn't decreed by God for him to eat the forbidden fruit. He chose to do that freely.

01:16:30

He could have not chosen to eat in the same way. The last time I lied, I could have chosen not to lie. The last time

01:16:36

I sinned or you sinned, supposedly as Christians, hopefully you would agree. You could have resisted that temptation.

01:16:42

The fact that you didn't doesn't countervail the sovereign will of God because in his will, he doesn't will which choice you'll make but that you'll be free to make a choice.

01:16:50

And therefore he's made us as accountable free agents. Yes, that are in a fallen corrupt world.

01:16:56

We are inclined towards selfishness. We are inclined towards sin. We're in bondage to sin. But that can be revealed to us.

01:17:04

The law reveals the fact that we need a savior. We need intervention. We need someone to bring us through a rehab facility if you will, to go with the same analogy of addiction.

01:17:15

We need that. We can't do it on our own. We need his help. But that does not entail in any way, shape or form that because of what

01:17:24

Adam and Eve did in the garden, therefore God decreed for everyone to be born in a fallen condition by which they can't respond positively to his own appeals to be reconciled from that fallen condition.

01:17:35

That intuitively just flies in the face of what we read over and over and over again about God holding out his hands and weeping over Israel and longing to gather them like a mother hand gathers her chicks under her wings but they aren't willing and so many other passages that talk about God's desire for this but their unwillingness and their rebellion.

01:17:54

Calvinism steps in and goes, well, the reason they're really rebelling was because God sovereignly and unchangeably decreed for them to rebel and they couldn't have done otherwise.

01:18:01

I think that removes their blameworthiness. I think - All right, I'm gonna stop you right there. I do apologize.

01:18:07

It is 619 and I know once you go on a roll and that's complete, I'm a teacher. It happens to me all the time when we get on a roll.

01:18:16

All right, thank you so much gentlemen for that interaction. And we're gonna go to some questions and see if we can go up until 630.

01:18:24

And I think that, I believe that's when we need to end things because there are some other things you guys need to do.

01:18:30

So, or Sean. By the way, can I just say one quick thing? Just something to start yet.

01:18:36

Many people said, you're not answering the question or you're not getting to this, you're not answering this. Listen, these questions take time to go through each point.

01:18:44

Sean knows this as well as anybody does. And you have a plethora of information out there, books, articles, broadcasts that go through the details of the exegesis of any text, any passage.

01:18:55

You give that kind of grace to Calvinist. So Calvinist, I would just say, give that kind of grace to those who disagree with you and go read the materials, give them,

01:19:02

I mean, you're arguing about stop talking. You're talking too long. And then you get mad at me for not answering the questions. Right, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

01:19:10

I'm just saying, guys, be gracious with each other. I welcome Sean to come on my program.

01:19:15

It takes as much time as he needs to do these things. Eli and Sean are being very gracious. But when all the side chat is just, oh, he's not answering the question.

01:19:23

He's avoiding the question. I would be glad to sit down with almost any Calvinist friend of mine and go through these things in more detail, but we're limited in the time and the scope of our discussions.

01:19:32

So be gracious. Yeah, just to give people a heads up, we have till 6 .30

01:19:38

because, I mean, they have lives. They have things to do. So we do this.

01:19:43

And hopefully this isn't the only time we'll discuss this. I mean, if this works out, I'd like to continue, so. Yep, that's the plan, hopefully.

01:19:51

All right, so let's move into the questions real quick. I'm just gonna go through a bunch of them. Question for Dr. Flowers.

01:19:57

Do you disagree with Calvin or all of the reformers? I guess, you know, do you agree with any of the reformers on anything?

01:20:03

What's up with that? And if you can keep your answers very sustained. I agree with John Calvin on probably 95 % of everything he wrote and taught.

01:20:10

So I agree with a lot of John Calvin. I agree with a lot of Luther. I agree with a lot of what the reformers taught about a lot of things.

01:20:16

I just disagree with the five points of Calvinism, basically in the way that they're described at least and defined within the confessions.

01:20:24

Okay, I'm gonna apologize beforehand. Sean, there are a lot of questions for Dr. Flowers. So you may want to sit back and get a cup of coffee or something.

01:20:31

You want to give him equal time, you're welcome to let him comment on those things too if you'd like to. All right, here's a question,

01:20:37

Marlon Wilson. What is your position on Romans 5? So maybe if you know what

01:20:43

Romans 5 is about, you can kind of just touch very briefly where you're coming from with respect to that passage. For time's sake,

01:20:49

I'll refer you to Adam Harwood's book on the spiritual condition of infants. He does a very good exegesis through Romans 5 and the misuse of Augustine's translation with regard to verse 12.

01:21:00

And so would you leave it at that because of your time's sake go read the resources for yourself. All right, here's another one for Flowers.

01:21:06

I'm just going down because I can't be skipping through all of them and searching here. Is trusting in Christ a good or righteous thing to do?

01:21:13

I imagine you would say, yes. How do you square that with 1 Corinthians 2, 14 and Romans 3, 11?

01:21:19

I was wondering that too. So maybe you can unpack that real quick. Well, good in accordance with the law is different from trusting in the righteousness of Christ.

01:21:26

And so I think that's the conflation the Calvinist has made. No one can do anything good with regard to the righteousness of earning their own righteousness to the law.

01:21:33

It does not equal, therefore you can't trust in the righteous one. That's the difference between good. I mean, even a pagan can throw himself on a gredade and sacrifice his life for the sake of his platoon.

01:21:44

And he can have good motives for doing it. It's not enough to earn his salvation, is it? Does he merit salvation by self -sacrificially giving his life for his platoon?

01:21:51

No, no amount of good deeds you do can merit your salvation. That's Paul's point.

01:21:57

He's not saying you can't ever respond to the gospel because that's a good thing. He's saying the only hope that you have because you have a debt that you cannot pay, because you're not good enough through the merits of the law, your only hope is to trust in the goodness of Christ.

01:22:12

What Calvinists are saying is because you can't do anything good according to the law, you can't even trust in Christ who did the good for you.

01:22:19

Okay, thank you for that. This is a question for Sean. What is the condemnation, mortality or eternal wrath?

01:22:27

I don't know if you understand the question. I'm assuming he's talking about from Romans chapter five. I assume so as well.

01:22:34

I would say the condemnation, the word used there would be eternal wrath.

01:22:40

I mean, obviously there's, actually there's physical death, which is a result of Adam's sin in the garden, brings about physical death.

01:22:47

But I also believe that his condemnation in the garden is our condemnation. So you're either in Adam or you're in Christ.

01:22:56

And so if you die in Adam, you will experience the eternal conscious wrath of God in hell, as well as just spiritual,

01:23:06

I mean, as well as physical death also. Okay, thank you for that. There's another question for Dr.

01:23:11

Flowers. Can you explain what it means that fallen man is in bondage to sin? What effects does that play on the individual?

01:23:19

So that's another question regarding to what your thoughts are on the anthropology question. Yeah, somebody can be in bondage to something, but still recognize they're in bondage.

01:23:29

You can be enslaved to something, but recognize you're enslaved to it. And confess that fact, especially when the law as a tutor, a schoolmaster is pointing that out to you.

01:23:37

That's what the law is purpose. Its purpose is to point out, you are enslaved, you are a sinner, you've fallen short.

01:23:44

All of those vocabulary words or those adjectives describing people's bondage and deadness and all those kinds of things are all true on both of our perspectives.

01:23:52

The Calvinist is imposing upon those things inability. And I don't think the Bible ever infers that or teaches that in any way.

01:23:59

Okay, thank you for that. Just trying to skip down to see if I can get some other questions here.

01:24:06

Another question for Sean by the. He asks in the gospels, hardening is so they don't belief.

01:24:16

But Calvinist argue, it isn't hardening preventing people from believing, but man's natural state.

01:24:23

How do you explain this? Okay, in the gospels, hardening is so that they don't believe, but Calvinists argue it isn't hardening preventing people from believing, but man's natural state.

01:24:32

How do you explain this? I would say it's both. I think that man's natural state he cannot believe unless God draws, unless God works, unless God regenerates.

01:24:43

I also believe that if you've been judicially hardened or you grow calloused over time, you still can't believe unless God does a work to overcome that.

01:24:52

So regardless of whether it's a natural state or a hardening, there has to be a sovereign work of God to overcome both of those to enable a person to believe.

01:25:01

Okay, thank you for that. Here's another question for you, Sean. Is the plain reading of Scripture sufficient to arrive at Calvinism, or is it a concept that must be arrived at philosophically?

01:25:12

I became, I hate to use the word Calvin, so I became Reformed in my theology by reading John chapter 6, Romans, and Ephesians before I ever read

01:25:20

John Calvin, and so I came to it exegetically through the text where I, before I was a probably a

01:25:25

Southern Baptist provisionist back in the late 90s, early 2000s, and I remember throwing my

01:25:31

Bible across the room when I understood these truths and said I'd become, my worst fear, I'd become a

01:25:36

Calvinist, not because I read John Calvin, but because the Scriptures, I understood the

01:25:41

Scriptures to teach that. So I believe the Scriptures are sufficient. All right, the

01:25:47

Caged Stage Calvinist asks, Leighton, did God effectually create, thus determine, man's nature, and if so does man's nature, who man is, always determine what he does?

01:26:03

Well again, I do believe God obviously created man's nature, his capacities, and so Adam and Eve's capacity to obey or disobey was in accordance with the way

01:26:15

God created it, those people, so I'm not sure what the question is getting at. I believe that he created us as responsible, free creatures that are able to make this free choices, not ones who are necessitated by decree, overarching divine decree that maps out or somehow scripts or determines every desire, action, and choice we end up making.

01:26:35

Mm -hmm, thank you for that. The Big Yehuda says, Sean, can you please,

01:26:41

I love these names, can you please provide a defense, a moral and philosophical defense of Calvinism, not using, we're gonna qualify this by the way, not using syllogistic interpretations of Scripture, basically this person is saying

01:26:54

Calvinism makes God seem unjust, I want a solution, so without going into like syllogisms and things like that, why don't you give a 30 seconds, and if you don't do it,

01:27:04

I'm gonna ring on your player. That's right, he's dodging the question. Why don't you give a kind of a brief kind of explanation as to why you think, while it might be true that Calvinism might seem to make

01:27:16

God unjust, that's not actually a case, given your perspective. Let me think, let me go to Job.

01:27:23

Okay, Job chapter 1, God ordains or brings about the fact that Satan is going to tempt or affect

01:27:33

Job. God's the one that points Job out to Satan. So while God does not directly do any evil to Job, it's done through the secondary causation of Satan, and actually a third causation of the

01:27:48

Sabaeans and the wind that destroy everything, and so while God can ordain

01:27:53

Satan and the Sabaeans to bring harm to Job, God does not directly sin or do the sin, but he can ordain it, and then at the end of Job, when everything comes back, the author of Job says,

01:28:06

Job praised God for all or something about all the evil that God brought upon Job.

01:28:13

So even in the book of Job, you have God ordaining the evil while not directly doing the evil, using secondary causation through Satan to bring about the evil, where you see that tension of God ordaining something to happen that he's not directly causing, and I think you can see that in Genesis 50 20 with Joseph and his brothers.

01:28:32

I think you can see that in Isaiah 10 with the Assyrians. I think you can see that in the crucifixion with Christ.

01:28:38

That's a deep, deep question that requires a long answer, and that's probably not very sufficient what I just gave.

01:28:44

So all right, well thank you for trying this. The last question, maybe both of you guys could address this question and keep it brief.

01:28:49

I think you'll be able to do it. This is from Pine Creek. He asked, could it be that both

01:28:54

Calvinist and non -Calvinist are correct scripturally? Maybe just embrace the paradox. Do you think that maybe the

01:29:02

Calvinist and the non -Calvinist position is in some way mysteriously consistent with one another? Anyone can take a stab at that first.

01:29:12

I agree. I agree with John Piper when he takes J .I. Packer to task because he calls it a paradox and antinomy that just can't be reconciled, that it's true.

01:29:22

God controls everything, but yet men are free and responsible for their choices, and it's just a paradox.

01:29:28

We've got to just accept it, and I'm paraphrasing obviously, but John Piper has an article back in the 70s that he wrote kind of calling it a task, and he defends compatibilism, the concept and idea that you guys would be well aware of, those that know this debate, and he interjects there's not an antinomy or an apparent contradiction here.

01:29:47

It's actually Jonathan Edwards who defends theistic determinism. There is a clear and unequivocal reason as to why men make their choices.

01:29:56

It's a sovereign divine decree, and so some Calvinists are more modified or moderate in their

01:30:02

Calvinism and don't affirm the determinism of a sovereign divine decree. Others, like you two, are both much more consistent philosophically in affirming theistic determinism as Jonathan Edwards did, and so it just depends on how much you know about the subject to be able to discuss it.

01:30:18

Sean, you're on mute again. Sorry.

01:30:24

That's okay. If I believe in the inerrancy of Scripture strongly, which means that I believe there's a fixed meaning and authorial intent that the

01:30:32

Holy Spirit wanted for every jot and tittle of the Scriptures, and so if that's true, then there has to be one definitive meaning of the text.

01:30:41

Now, with our limited ability to understand that because of our sin, we may come to different conclusions, but if we believe in inerrancy, there's got to be one meaning, and that may sound a little crass or dogmatic, but I just believe that the text teaches the doctrines of grace as opposed to the other view.

01:31:02

Yep. If I can give my two cents, if anybody cares, I don't think that you can say both of them are correct because,

01:31:08

Sean, Dr. Flowers, we're making mutually exclusive claims with respect to certain doctrines, so I don't think that they would be paradoxical in the same sense of, say, you know, if someone says,

01:31:20

I believe that God is meticulously in control, yet man is sufficiently free, some people say that's paradoxical, but when we start adding the details of our view there, then you start getting into these exclusive claims where you kind of branch off into the

01:31:32

Calvinist position, the provisionist position, and all the other varieties, so that's my, yeah. I think it's a lazy, it's a lazy man's approach to just say everyone's right, and it's ultimately saying

01:31:43

I don't want to have to think. That's right. That sounds mean, but that's basically what it, I don't have to think about this very deeply, so I'll just say everybody's right.

01:31:51

Let me just say this, one thing I do appreciate about Leighton, I mean, one thing I appreciate about you, Leighton, is you don't hide what you believe, and you're out there beating the drum for what you do believe, and we have strong disagreements, but I do appreciate your,

01:32:05

I call you the prolific, the prolific podcaster, because you have like three or four podcasts a day sometimes that come out, but I do appreciate it.

01:32:14

This is the first time I've recorded anything in two weeks. If I could interject, I would say that Leighton is, and I'm gonna qualify this,

01:32:20

Leighton is the man that Calvinists fear the most, because when a Calvinist says something about Leighton, you know there's gonna be a three -hour video coming out.

01:32:30

I'm sorry, go ahead, I didn't mean to add that in there. No, I appreciate it, and Leighton, I love you, and I guess

01:32:36

I would say we have stark differences, but I hope that we can disagree in a way that's

01:32:42

Christ -like, and I never want to come across as being smug or dismissive of your view, because I really,

01:32:48

I think I've tried really hard over the past six years to understand provisionism and accurately represent what you guys believe.

01:32:54

Okay, well I'd like to thank both of you guys for an excellent discussion. I hope that you guys enjoyed this discussion enough to come on for another one on unconditional election, and maybe we'll test the waters.

01:33:06

If the next discussion goes really well, we'll kind of keep moving until we can get the whole thing in there.

01:33:11

That'd be great. I really want to answer the freed thinkers comment on the side chat. It's just, it's itching.

01:33:17

That's why I do three hour broadcasts. I can't, I can't not answer the question. I want to answer it so badly.

01:33:23

Sean has to get going, and I plan to... I can stay, I can stay maybe like just a little bit longer. No, I'm just,

01:33:30

I was making a joke about my longevity. Well, why don't you, I can't find the question. We can bring it to a close.

01:33:36

Why don't you read, why don't you read his question, if you could see it, and then just address it. I'll give you the final word, and while you're looking for it,

01:33:42

I'll just make a quick announcement for my listeners. If you guys are enjoying this discussion, or you enjoy interviews and things like that, if you're new to this channel,

01:33:50

I have some excellent interviews with various scholars and apologists. I've had

01:33:56

Dr. Gary Habermas on, Scott Oliphant, James Anderson, a lot of presuppositional apologetic stuff on here.

01:34:03

So if you're new to the channel, be sure to subscribe, and I have some interesting upcoming interviews as well.

01:34:08

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01:34:21

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01:34:28

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01:34:40

Okay, Dr. Flowers, why don't you address Tyler Vela, right? That's the free thinker guy.

01:34:47

He's a really good friend of yours, I'm sure. I do count him as a friend.

01:34:53

We've had our disagreements. He's a good man. Why don't you, you know, take a stab at his question there?

01:35:01

Well, I put it in the private chat. I don't know if you're able to pull it in or not from the private chat, but he says this. He just says, wait, did

01:35:08

Flowers just say that he thinks Jesus spoke in parables so that they wouldn't believe because he doesn't want them to, he doesn't want them to not believe, or he doesn't want them to believe,

01:35:18

I assume is what he's meaning by that. Yep, total friends. We do have pretty stark disagreements with each other.

01:35:25

We've had, but I think Tyler means well, even though we disagree.

01:35:33

So this is, this is the major point of our contention. I'm really surprised that Tyler asked that because he has engaged with me enough that I think he would have known this is one of my major points with regard to the use of parabolic language.

01:35:46

It doesn't make much sense to me for God to put a blindfold on a corpse, to blind somebody born blinded, and the use of parabolic language is, according to Mark 4,

01:35:55

Matthew 13, and other passages, is so that the hardened Israelites, what he says, lest they see, hear, understand, and believe, in turn, and I would heal them.

01:36:02

He does not want that to happen. He's obviously got a good reason for saying eat my flesh and drink my blood, causing everybody to walk away, sip, for his twelfth.

01:36:10

I mean, he's not trying to be real reconciliatory there. He's not, he's saying very provocative and provoking comments towards his crowd.

01:36:19

I think we would all agree with that, and it even says he's hidden it from their eyes, over, he's weeping over them, and it says it's hidden from their eyes.

01:36:27

In 1st Corinthians, I think it's 2, 8 and 9, where he talks about if these things had been revealed, they would have never crucified the

01:36:33

Lord of Glory, so he has a good reason for keeping his identity veiled from them, and so this whole concept or idea really centers my entire theological perspective, and so the fact that Tyler's just grasping this demonstrates to me that even somebody at his level of thinking, and he's one of the greatest thinkers

01:36:51

I know in this debate, he's very, very intelligent. As you guys know, Tyler is very smart in this. The fact that he's not following that about provisionism proves that there's just a ship sailing past each other here.

01:37:02

He's not engaging with my perspective very well if he hasn't even caught that yet, and I'm not, that's not a slide on his intelligence whatsoever.

01:37:09

I think it's a, it's a, our natural, our natural tendency is to not really understand someone's perspective before we come after it.

01:37:18

I do it all the time. I admit that. I will listen back to this program. I promise you, I'll listen back to this program, and I'll hear something

01:37:24

Sean said, and I'll go, oh, I see where he was going with that. I went a different direction with it, and I thought he was asking this, and he was asking that.

01:37:31

I know that will happen because that's, we're humans. We're failed. We're flawed. We do that sometimes, but recognizing that about yourself, recognizing

01:37:39

I might misinterpret what somebody's meaning by something and try to understand them better before I put on, pull out the sword and start attacking it is so essential to a mature conversation.

01:37:51

One thing I appreciate, Sean was complimentary of me, and we'll close, close with this if you want to, or Sean say some more if you'd like to on this point.

01:37:57

Sean is one of the few, if only, podcasters I know out there who has taken the time to understand and play provisionist for themselves, read from sources.

01:38:08

He doesn't always get it right. He knows that. I've called him on some things where I thought he's gotten it wrong, but he has done so much more work to diligently represent us rightly than anyone else

01:38:20

I've ever seen, most certainly any more than any notable Calvinist out there I've ever seen. The Pipers, the

01:38:25

MacArthur's, Chandler, any of those guys, they don't even, they don't even get past basic surface level foresight, faith,

01:38:31

Arminianism. Sean, God bless him, is one of the few that will actually take the time to sit down with the provisionist perspective with our friends there, to sit down with me, to get on his podcast, to play me for my own, my own words, to deal with my articles.

01:38:47

God bless you, Sean. You're setting an example for other Calvinists to actually deal with what we say, and so I just,

01:38:53

I pray that more Calvinists will take that example of Sean and do the same thing.

01:38:59

Well, Chris, Chris Date, he's like, please ask Leighton if he thinks I try to understand. Chris is one of the other other ones that does do that.

01:39:08

I should have qualified that. I'm sorry, Chris. You are one that typically does that as well. So is

01:39:13

Sean, myself, and Chris Date the holy trinity of nice Calvinists? Probably.

01:39:22

Y 'all stand out. Y 'all are the pearls among. Be careful, there are a lot of Calvinists watching.

01:39:32

Alright, well. There are a lot of nice, there are a lot of very kind, very, very gracious Calvinists in our world.

01:39:39

Some of which are my family, even, so. Okay, very good. Well, guys,

01:39:45

I hope to continue this discussion on the topic of unconditional election. I will let folks know if it gets to that point, maybe we can schedule something soon.

01:39:53

If not, no worries, we'll start trying to get all sorts of people to discuss these issues, like Leighton and Sean.

01:40:01

I like this topic. I know some people think that this debate is kind of overdone. I think it's important to keep having these sorts of discussions, so I welcome these.

01:40:08

Maybe, who knows, maybe by God's divine determinism, I can moderate a rematch, a

01:40:15

Romans 9 rematch between Dr. Flowers and Dr. White. That'd be fun. So we'll see.

01:40:21

Who knows? Maybe God decreed it. We'll see. But thank you, gentlemen, so much for coming on and giving me your time.

01:40:28

And I'm looking forward to hopefully doing this again in the future. Amen. Thank you, Eli. All right.

01:40:33

Thank you so much, everyone, for listening in. That's all for this episode. Take care. God bless. Bye bye. Bye bye.