May 4, 2006

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From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is
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James White. Good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line on a
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Thursday afternoon, the last Dividing Line before the debate, the big debate at Biola University this coming
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Sunday evening. I have been informed that they are expecting quite a group there, should be larger than the
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Fullerton debates. I don't know that we're going to have anyone all of a sudden in the middle of the debate yelling out, the
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Eucharist! And then everybody, you know, I actually got a call today from a reporter over in Pennsylvania who had just attended and watched a
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Tim Staples presentation for Catholic Answers and called us for our viewpoint on Tim Staples, which
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I found quite interesting. But it was interesting because the reporter is
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UCOC, same denomination as Barry Lynn. And so, yeah, he definitely hadn't run into too many folks from a former
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AG youth minister doing his best AG Catholic impersonation.
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It was pretty interesting. But anyhow, we will be over there this weekend.
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And of course, I would covet your prayers for the debate, for the recording of the debate as well, because we want everyone to get a chance to listen in.
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And later on, I'm going to be playing some sections from Ishabir Ali presentation and going over some of the things that I honestly expect will probably show up on Sunday evening as well.
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So, we have over the course of the past six months or so, maybe the longer than that, listened to a tremendous amount of Ishabir Ali's presentations.
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Evidently, there are some folks who aren't aware of how much work we've done on Ishabir Ali and in responding to him.
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And so, there for a number of folks, I am going into this as the underdog.
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And that's okay with me. I remember when we first announced
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I was going to be debating John Dominic Crossan and we got all these, oh, he's a world -class scholar and why he's going to get himself killed and he's just going to make a fool of himself and blah, blah, blah.
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And you know, I heard, I get that every once in a while and then you just keep on doing what you need to do and leave the results to the
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Lord and he takes care of things. So, anyway, I know one thing, I'm going to go into the debate quite well -prepared.
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If anything, the only thing I'm concerned about is I've got too much information and I may, the thing
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I'm going to have to resist is getting too fancy. I've got all these things running through my mind, all these little factoids, all these little references to the
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Hadith, to the Qur 'an, I've got to be careful not to try to throw something in there that's going to take too much time to explain in a short debate.
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Just got to be careful about things like that. So looking forward to it, it'll be a very enjoyable time getting to meet some of the folks over there who have never been to Biola, that may be one of the problems, no one, almost anyone over there has any idea who in the world
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I am and so it'll be an enjoyable time. It's going to be difficult to really think about anything else during the course of this hour than the upcoming debate because that's what my mind is on.
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I will frequently stop, I'll be stopping and scribbling a note to myself or I know when was it,
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Sunday, was it Sunday night, I think, yeah, Sunday night, I grabbed one of the offering envelopes out of the pew and grabbed a little pencil and I'm scribbling away at something because I had thought of something earlier in the day and then forgot to write it down and now
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I remembered half of it so I need to write that down and something else I just thought of and so I'm scribbling all this stuff and then you take the offering envelope to the office and then you type it all up and it's just part of the process of being in debate mode the week before the debate.
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So it's going to be difficult to think about anything else but I was informed a couple of days ago that on Monday of this week a phone call took place on a well -known national radio program and it was the first phone call out of the chute and it was on a passage, a text of scripture that we have discussed many, many, many times and since of course it presents a different perspective than that which we have presented, it would be well to consider what it has to say and respond to it exegetically, of course
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I'm referring to John chapter 6 and the Jesus' presentation of the gospel in the synagogue in Capernaum.
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Some of you know that we have over the years responded to all sorts of different takes.
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I mean there are so many of them out there and all of them which pretty much contradict the others which
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I find always interesting but anyway and recently had been responding to some emails that were sent to the ministry saying well you're ignoring
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John 645 and our response by saying no we're not responding to, we're not ignoring any of the text that is not our desire to do so, it's just you don't start at 645 and go backwards, you know, you start at the beginning and move forwards and you follow the train of thought and you don't jump down some place, pick a verse, say
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I'm going to say it means this and then read that and everything else, that's called eisegesis.
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So anyway, there is a phone call that takes place and goodness,
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I guess people already know that there is a phone number that you can call here as well and that's 877 -753 -3341 but we'll be getting to those, let's listen to the phone call first.
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First caller up today, Mark, listening on WMCA in Linden, New Jersey. Hi, Mark.
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Yes, how are you, Hank? I'm well, good talking to you. Yes, I wanted to ask you a question with two verses.
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The first is that the Bible in John 64, it says no one can come to me unless the
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Father draws them and then the Bible says all the Father has given me will come to me.
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Does that mean that unless the Father draws them for you, you cannot come to God? Let me stop for a moment.
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Good question. I think I've talked to this fellow. Remember, I've been on Long Island a lot and I used to be on WMCA fairly regularly.
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I was on with Andy Anderson before his passing and I even took over his spot once or twice and filled in for him.
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I remember doing that once, the last times I was out there and I have a recollection.
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I don't have all those programs, so I can't go back and check them even if I had time to, but I have a feeling that I've talked to this caller.
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So that's another good reason to review it is favorite text, John 6, different viewpoint of John 6, and I think
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I might have spoken with this fellow either on the air or maybe even some other context.
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Let's keep listening. This is John, everybody. I wanted to ask you a question. Well, you've got to remember the context of John 6.
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You have the Jewish leaders who are grumbling about Jesus Christ when
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Jesus Christ says, I'm the bread that came down from heaven. And they said in response to the words of Jesus, well, isn't this
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Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say
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I came down from heaven? And Jesus responds, stop grumbling among yourselves.
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No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day.
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Now let me just mention just one thing. You actually, I think, need to go a little bit farther back than this because remember, and this has been an issue that I have found with a large portion of interpreters at this point, and that is they miss the fact that Sivan, these aren't actually
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Jewish leaders, they're just the Jewish individuals who had come across the lake and they had seen the miracles the day before.
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These are the primary people that Jesus is addressing. And he says something to them that's rather important.
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He says, you have seen me, yet you are unbelieving. You are not believing.
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You are not exercising faith in me. He's explaining their unbelief.
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Verse 36 says, you're unbelievers. Verse 37, all the father gives me will come to me. He knows that by the end of John chapter 6, these men are going to walk away.
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He knows they're going to stop following him. He knows that right now this excitement they have is because they saw the miracles.
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This guy would make a great king, etc., etc. And so he's explaining their unbelief.
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That really is a vitally important context because most of the time people want to try to sort of universalize this, take it out of the context is, here are people who have seen
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Christ, they've heard his teaching, they've seen him perform miracles, they have sought him, they have come across a lake, they have looked for him, they are seeking him.
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And Jesus looks at them and says, you're unbelievers. You are unbelieving. And why are you unbelieving?
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And why is it that at the end of this, he's going to go from 5 ,000 really excited people the day before to 12 confused disciples, one of whom is a devil, on the following day?
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How does that happen? What's the process that brings that about? What is the teaching that brings that about?
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That's the question. It is written in the prophets, they will all be taught by God. And then these words, everyone who listens to the father and learns from him comes to me.
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So we're all in the same situation. Every single person on planet earth, we're all dead in trespasses and sin.
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Now you notice, so far, nothing that I can object to. We're tracking perfectly up to this point.
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Now we just emphasize what was just read, all the ones listening and learning from the father come to me.
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Notice that phrase, all the ones. This is a divine action that's going on here.
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All the ones listening and hearing come to me. Not some. This ability to hear, this ability to learn, remember it says they shall all be taught by God, is a redefinition, a restatement of the previous phrase, the previous discussion of being drawn by the father to the son.
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Who is it that is taught by God? Those who are drawn by the father to the son. Who is it that is coming to Christ?
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Those who are given by the father to the son. You follow these phrases through and if you'll just be consistent in defying them accurately each time, you'll have no problems with John 6.
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But no one can do that unless they're willing to accept the sovereignty of God and salvation. In other words, we're all of our father the devil until God comes to us and God comes to us in various ways.
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He comes to us through the light of creation. Now we'll back up the truck. We just missed each other.
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There's nothing in John 6 about the light of creation. There's nothing about the father coming in the light of creation. John 6 is about the father doing specific things.
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The father gives to the son. The result is all those given come, John 6.
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The father expresses his will for the son, John 6, 38 and 39, which the son does perfectly.
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That is all that are given to him. He lose none but raise it up on the last day. The father draws to the son.
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The son raises up all those that are drawn to him, John 6, 44. The father teaches. They all be taught by God, John 6, 45.
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Those learning and hearing, all of them are coming to Christ. So these are all divine actions that all have the exact same result.
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There's nothing about the light of creation in John 6. There's nothing about the father coming in the light of creation in John 6.
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And given that in each one of these preceding segments, right, it's the very same context, very same argument, very same flow of text.
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It is divine action that results in everyone who is the recipient of that action coming to Christ.
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So if that's the consistent paradigm all the way through, we come to this, the light of creation comes to everybody.
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What does that have to do with a statement that says all who hear and learn are coming to me?
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It has nothing to do with it at all. He comes to us through the light of conscience, and if we respond to that, then
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God will give us the light of Christ. But if we do not listen and learn from him, if we don't respond to the light he has given to us, then we will not come to Jesus Christ.
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Now, I'm sorry, but that's not what John 6 .45 says. John 6 .45
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nowhere says if we will respond to certain light, then we will come to Christ and he'll give us more light.
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Nowhere does John 6 .45 even present to us this idea of someone who is learning and listening, learning and hearing from Christ who doesn't.
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Why? Because the learning and the listening are the result of being taught by God, and God is teaching those that he draws to the
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Son whom he's given to the Son. It is the desire to avoid in toto the specific electing action of God that forces people to miss this rather clear statement.
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So, if you've been following along in your text, and you've been going, okay, okay, okay, and then all of a sudden you come to this point, no one can come to me unless the
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Father has sent me to draw to him, and I will raise him up on the last day, and then it is written in the prophets, they shall all be taught of God.
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Everyone who has learned, heard, and learned from the Father comes to me, and now all of a sudden all of that just sort of disappears, and it's like, well, all the way up to the middle of verse 45, yes, maybe
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God is sovereign and all that, but once you get to verse 45, it just means everybody has the ability in and of themselves through the light of conscience and creation to hear and learn from the
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Father because he just makes this generally available. Where does that come from? Talk about completely destroying the context.
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Where does that come from? It comes from tradition. It comes from holding a position that is not consistent with the text at this point.
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I don't know how else to explain it. We've heard this many, many, many times before, and so there we go with that.
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So we will continue with the phone call here. And again, this is not a matter of whether or not we can respond.
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It's a matter then of whether we will respond. No, I'm sorry, but that is not what the text said in any way, shape, or form.
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The text says, everyone who has heard and learned, those are heiress, they go back to the drawn of verse 44, everyone hearing from the
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Father, that para tu patras, takes us again back to being drawn by the
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Father, given by the Father, all of these are divine actions, everyone who hears and learns is coming to me.
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Who is coming to me? John 6 -7. All the Father gives me will come to me. Who is coming to me? John 6 -44, all who are drawn.
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It's perfect consistency, no question about it, but here we have a classic example of how tradition will override exegesis and result in eisegesis, reading into the text something that is not there, and in fact the text is rather clear in denying is an element of its own teaching.
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So, in other words, Jesus draws everybody, right? Every single person has the light of creation, and every single person has the light of conscience, and if we respond to that, then we will also be given the light of Christ.
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In other words, the entirety of Scripture teaches us that God is not capricious, that he is not hiding from us.
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Now, I stop and I go, we've lost all contact with John 6 now. There's nothing here about John 6.
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Everything that John 6 teaches has just flown out the window, and we have this universal ability, and if everyone will just respond to this.
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Well, we know man does respond to all these things, but the Bible is very plain in how he responds, universally negatively.
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There is none righteous, know that one. There is none who seeks after God. There is none who understands. So, the response is a universal negative.
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So, if we're going to go with this, we're in big trouble because there's going to be no one who is saved. I mean, again, this desire to defend libertarian free will, it doesn't fly, and it has nothing to do with John 6.
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So, the caller says, so God draws everyone? Well, everyone has the light of creation.
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Well, wait a minute. The draw was John 6, 44. All who are drawn are raised up.
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This is restated John 6, 45. They're taught by God, they learn, they hear, they come. What's difficult about this?
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The only thing that's difficult about this is if a person doesn't want to believe this, because you already believe something that contradicts this, and that's what's going on.
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None of this has anything to do with John 6, 44. It's just a complete disconnect.
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That God is available to those who call on him. The problem is there are people who do not seek after God, as Romans chapter 3 makes clear.
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Now, there are people who do not seek after God. Yes, they're called the entire human race, without exception.
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Romans 3, there is no God seeker.
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It's not that there are just some, it's everybody. That's where, again, the disconnection takes place, and I think the caller gets completely lost at this point.
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He hasn't understood the previous response, because it really wasn't an exactly sound response, and now he's asked a question based on John 6, 44, got no response to that either, and so I think then he gets a true statement from Romans 3 thrown at him, but only a partially true statement, because there are some who do not seek.
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No, everybody. There is no God seeker, and I think he gets completely lost at that point. Or, you can find the same thing communicated in Ephesians chapter 2.
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Indeed. He says nobody seeks after God, no, not one. Yes, exactly.
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Okay, at that point, I'm just sitting here, I'm in my mind,
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I'm visualizing this poor caller who is sort of looking at his phone going, do I have a bad connection here?
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I do not understand. That's why I think I've talked to this fellow. Yeah, he's just banging on the phone there going,
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I'm confused here, so he's just going to move on. Okay, one last question, Rick. Hello?
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Yes. Yeah, one last question. The Bible says, in Proverbs 16, verse 1, it says, the heart of men has many projects, but the response comes from God.
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God is directing our steps. Everything we do is directed by God. Yes. So everything we do is directed by God.
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Yes, and you have both sides of the coin given in the book of Proverbs. We choose our path, but God directs our steps.
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In other words, we have enough light to step into more light.
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So we are like an Old Testament person walking down a dark and narrow pathway with a lantern in our hand, and every time we step into some more light, we have some more light.
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In other words, we're stepping into light as we move down the path. God is directing our steps, but we are also involved in the process.
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God knows what we are going to do, but our direction is not fatalistically determined by God.
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And it also says, Rick, the response, the heart of men has a lot of projects, but it is what
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God wants that is accomplished. In other words, the response is from God. How do you reconcile that?
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Well, yes. I mean, there are two things that are going on. It is true that what we do counts.
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So we are involved in washing our hands in order to get our hands clean.
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We can't simply say, if God wants our hands to be clean, he'll make them clean in and of himself with no action on our part.
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So our actions do matter, and God has designed the world in such a way that our prayers make a difference.
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Okay. Thank you, Rick. I don't get it either, to be honest with you.
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I didn't follow the last part. It sounded like somewhat of an explanation of something like what
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I would say, almost. I mean, obviously, we make decisions, but the caller was trying to say, is there not an eternal decree that determines what happens in time?
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And obviously, once you start defending libertarian free will, you have a hard time confessing that.
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And there are a number of passages that say exactly what Proverbs 16 says in regards to many of the plans of man's heart, but it's the
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Lord who determines the words on his tongue. And there's other passages in Proverbs 16 that say similar things in regards to, well,
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Psalm 33 especially is a text that makes that very type of emphasis.
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So I didn't follow the response. At least in the John 6 thing, we could follow it and go, no, everything was just fine until right here, and the next step would have been this, but that would require a belief in the sovereignty of God in the sense of an eternal decree and divine election, things like that.
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And all of a sudden, we had lights of conscience coming on and things like that.
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So we got lost. 877 -753 -3341. I love that text.
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It is just so wonderfully consistent. Let's pick up with our phone callers here and talk with Mark.
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Hi, Mark. Hello. Hi, Mark. Hello. Yes, sir. I just want to first thank you that God has used your teaching and radio shows and debates and books and everything to transform my whole
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Christian walk, and I'm very – thank you. Well, that's wonderful. And I understand you're up in Canada. Have you met the other ten
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Canadian Christians? We're keeping track. We're implanting satellite tracking devices in each one because they're almost as rare as certain species of animals, and so we're sort of keeping track about where all of you are.
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Yes, I hear you. It's tough up here. Yes, well,
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I had a question. I just finished reading Bruce Metzger's book on the canon of the
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New Testament. Yes. And he says in chapter 11 concerning the canon, section 2, pages 254 to 257 on inspiration in canon, that the early
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Church writers described the term thanonistos to writings other than Scripture.
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And now I know that you have said in your debates that Scriptures are only infallible rule of faith and practice because we only see
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Scripture and Scriptures being called thanonistos. So I was wondering if a Roman Catholic or somebody of the
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Eastern Orthodox persuasion could use this sort of – this text, this argument from Bruce Metzger in defense of their arguments for tradition being on par with Scripture.
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No, not consistently, because if they were to do so, they would have to do so in a fair manner, and that is,
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I would assume, and it's odd. I was ransacking my office today looking for a
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Metzger book, and I eventually found it in my old office. I thought I'd moved it, but I hadn't. One I did find was
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Metzger's book on the canon. I know exactly which box on the floor it's in right now, but what he's referring to is the fact that there was not a unanimity of opinion by every single person who ever picked up a pen and wrote after the time of Christ as to what the canon of Scripture was.
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So that would mean, for example, that Clement of Alexandria had some odd views, and there were some people around Rome, for example, who thought maybe
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Clement of Rome was an inspired book, and some other people like the Shepherd of Hermas or something like that.
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And so since you had very small numbers of people like this, they would refer to those books as inspired.
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I've not actually done a search on Theanostas, but the Catholic would have to agree that they were wrong.
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In other words, if you ever heard some of my debates where I, for example, point out that Augustine held a different view than has been dogmatically defined by the
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Roman Catholic Church, you'll hear my Roman Catholic opponents saying, well, but he was just a single individual writer at that point.
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He was just a private theologian at that point, and dismiss it. Well, if they're going to be consistent, they would have to do the same thing at this point, because as far as the canon of the
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New Testament is concerned, we don't have any disagreements over that. We don't have any disagreements that no matter how you determine that that took place, whether you take the
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Roman Catholic perspective that there's some canonical authority within the church itself, or you take my perspective that it is
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God fulfilling his purpose in giving Scripture that leads the church passively to a recognition of Scripture, whichever direction you go there, both sides would have to agree that those individuals who looked at the
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Shepherd of Hermas or Clement or Barnabas or whatever else it might be were in error in what they said.
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And so, the only thing that would prove is that, yeah, when you look at the early church fathers, some of them said some pretty silly things.
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And it is that very fact that, ironically, we're the ones that have to keep bringing it up, because we will see patristic sources cited as if they are almost infallible sources of authority, and then you turn around and say, well, that same author also said this.
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Why do you pick and choose? If you're going to make him authoritative over here, why not make him authoritative over there?
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And that becomes quite an interesting match of ping -pong, in essence, if people want to try to start building a foundation for their positions outside of the canon of Scripture itself.
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So, I don't think Metzger was saying that these individuals were saying that they had some sort of inspired tradition.
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They were referring to writings that everybody would know what they were, and there were canonical disagreements.
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Now, they were always localized. It wasn't like there was, I mean, and I'm glad that there were, because, for example, the
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Book of Revelation didn't just sail into the canon. There was a lot of discussion, not so much sitting around voting about things, but there was a lot of care taken on the part of the church in regards to such works.
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And when you look at the Book of Revelation and you see seven -headed beasts and things like that, I'm glad there was a fair amount of concern taken to examine those types of things.
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So, that's what Metzger's referring to, and they would have a hard time. They'd really have to rip it out of context and apply it to something that Metzger was never intending it to do, which
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I suppose I could see a couple Roman Catholic apologists doing that. I can certainly see some cultic apologists doing that, but the ones that are, you would never find a
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Mitch Packwood doing that. You would not find a Jimmy Akin doing that, because these folks know that you're going to check out their sources and you're going to hold them to some level of concern at that point.
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Now, like, for example, maybe I'm looking more at the definition of Phenonistos, but, like, on page 256, he states that Gregory of Nyssa considered his brother
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Basil's commentary on the first six days of creation as an exposition given by inspiration of God, and no less than the words composed by Moses himself.
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And I'm just, like, what would he be meaning by that statement, and how do we know that it's different than what
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Paul meant by his statement in 2 Timothy? Well, again, Gregory is writing many hundreds of years after the time of Christ, and so while you'll have many people who will claim visions, and will claim, well, many things.
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I mean, if you look at the desert fathers starting as early as the late 2nd century into the beginning of the 3rd century in Alexandria, folks who live in a cave in the desert tend to have visions, and you can find all sorts of claims on their part in regards to how wonderful one thing is, and especially if they're in conflict.
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If they're defending, for example, in that situation, defending a relative against someone who's attacking them as a heretic or something like that, they make some pretty extreme statements.
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I mean, Cyprian makes some very extreme statements about Stephen the Bishop of Rome, and some of his correspondents likewise made some very strong statements about Stephen as the
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Bishop of Rome, and Stephen as the Bishop of Rome made very strong statements in the middle of the 3rd century. What do you do with those things?
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Well, you realize that just as you will have very strong statements made by people today in various forms of conflict, sometimes people will overstate their case, and that happens today.
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It happened back then as well. It is odd, obviously, for anyone to make that kind of claim, and were they seriously attempting to argue that this needs to be added to the canon of Scripture?
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Well, if they never went so far as to do that, then this is probably rhetorical, and it's sort of like Luther saying that James is an epistle of straw.
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He never tried to rip it out of the canon. He quotes from it numerous times in the years after that, but what he was doing is he's in a particular apologetic situation.
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He's in a particular situation of conflict. It's constantly being cited at him, and he gets frustrated, and he says something, he puts something in print that 10 years later, would he have wished that he hadn't done that?
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Well, probably, but Luther was Luther, and so was Gregory for that matter. So I think that's probably, if there's no evidence, to my knowledge anyways, maybe someone can show me where I'm wrong, where Gregory tried to do that, but I know he also is the same one who made the statement that we make the
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Scriptures the canon rule of every dogma, and we accept only that which can be made conformable to those writings.
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Now, which one actually represents the real Gregory? It sounds like the one is much more in line with what you'd read from Augustine and other people like that in the same period of time than any elevation of his brother's writings to some higher level.
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No, I just graduated with my BA in religion and theology, but I have a class that's sort of still going until it finishes in a few weeks, and it's on the canon, and I'm reading several books.
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One of them was Bruce Metzger's, which I just finished. What were the other ones, if I could ask? Yeah, the other ones
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I'm reading are Lee MacDonald, his introduction on canon, and then his bigger work,
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The Canon Debate, and then I'm also reading Martin Hengel's The Septuagint as Christian Scripture.
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Not a whole lot from an overly historically conservative perspective. No, F .F. Bruce was—actually,
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I started reading that, and the prof said, no, stay away from that one, but I was curious that— Well, you are in Canada.
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What do you expect? Yeah, well, it's quite a liberal institution, a university that I got the degree at, but I was curious of what your opinion of was, especially of The Canon Debate book by Lee MacDonald.
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I really was disappointed with it. You know, there's much to be said about the subject.
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Unfortunately, given the very nature of the word canon, almost any source has to state its bias and its presupposition right from the start, and very rarely will they.
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In other words, what I mean by that is, if you view the canon as a human creation, an evolutionary process, if you view it like Bart Ehrman views it, in essence, as one side having just managed to beat the other one up long enough to win out over time, even though it looked like at other times they were going to lose, they pulled like the
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Kobe Bryant shot there out a couple days ago where the Suns beat—the Lakers beat the Suns. You know, just a last -minute thing.
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I was watching the Edmonton beat Detroit game in hockey, which was the biggest thing in the universe here.
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Well, I fully understand that. When I was over in the UK, England had just beaten
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Australia in the cup and had gotten the ashes back, and everybody was just floating on air.
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The British were much nicer for about five days there. Anyway, I fully understand that. But the point being, their perspective basically is that the canon is not to be first defined as a theological necessity if God has spoken.
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If God has spoken, then there has to be a canon. In other words, if he has said one word, that one word creates a canon by nature.
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And since he clearly has not said everything that has ever been said in his name, then there has to be a canon.
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There has to be a limitation, a delimiting list of what is and what is not a revelation from God.
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And if you don't start there, if you start with the human factor, if you start with, well, let's look back through history and see what we can see and determine, well, all of that's fine and wonderful and necessary, and we can look at Muratorian fragments and we can have fun trying to piece together what was referred to by this father or that father.
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And origin, of course, is always fun if they ever finish translating everything he did. And all those things are fine and wonderful, and they let you get a degree in various sundry subjects.
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But that's not actually going to get you where you need to go. I sort of argue along the same lines here that I would with the nature of God.
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You can do theistic proofs until the cows come home, but the God of the
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Bible is not proven in that way. He says in his word that it is by his will that he has chosen not to be discovered by man's wisdom.
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It is in the foolishness of preaching that he makes himself known, not through man by his wisdom discovering him.
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And so I view the same thing here. You can have all those canned discussions you want, but until you recognize that Jesus and the apostles felt that God had a purpose in speaking and a purpose in defining what his word was for us,
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I don't think you're ever going to come to any type of solid conclusions. The only conclusions you can be able to come to are that, well, a lot of people back then had a lot of different viewpoints, and we don't really have a clue which one was right.
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That is about the only conclusion you can come to unless you look at it in the proper light, and that's why
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I tried to argue for that in my book, Scripture Alone, and just try to... Good book. I bet you it wasn't being used at your school either.
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No, no. No, of course not. But try to lay those things out, and to do so in such a way as to somewhat demystify this subject, because let's face it.
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When was the last time you heard a sermon on this subject? You don't. For the vast majority of Christians, you open up your
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Bible, and it has that index in the front, and it's always been that way. And so I've said many times, especially when responding to Bart Ehrman and to Islamic apologists, this is an area we really need to do work in amongst the regular
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Christians who are faithful believers, and they're the ones that are out there doing the work of evangelism, and they're doing it the way it should be done in the everyday walk of life, and they're the ones who are getting hit by this stuff from the
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Internet and everything else, and so that's why I tried to explain it in such a way that... Let's face it.
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After about the third page of Origin, you've pretty much lost almost anybody. I mean,
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I think Origin was lost after the third page of Origin, if you want my personal opinion about that, but there has to be some way, though, to explain it, and that's what
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I've tried to do in talking about God's purposes and things like that. So it really is an issue of how you approach that very word canon itself, and is this something that God does?
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Is this something that God has a stake in, or did God just sort of throw it all out there and then run off and see if we could figure out...
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Sort of like throwing a big puzzle box out there and come back later to see if we managed to put it all together. I don't think that's what he did.
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Well, I'll just close with, out of my graduating class, I was the lone, pretty much conservative, and you were a big part in keeping me from...
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About a year and a half ago, I started just losing it all in random encounter with your site.
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Really? Yeah. And I'd come across it a long time earlier when
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I was big in Mormon ministry, and then I left it because I wasn't big on the Reform stuff, but then
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I got drawn back to it, and then I started eating up all your debates and all that sort of stuff, and it got me thinking, and I read other stuff, and basically it was pinnacle in basically keeping me from going the way of all my other friends.
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One friend who was a hardcore Reform Presbyterian guy, he now doesn't believe in the Trinity or the
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Bible or really any... Like, my whole class all pretty much falling apart, and I've been saved by the grace from that, and you were a big tool in that.
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Well, Mark, I... Thank you very much for that. Well, Mark, I can't tell you how much that really does mean to myself and to the man sitting through the window over there, who is the other person in the ministry here.
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We work very, very hard, but I'm very thankful the Lord used our ministry, but of course it's the grace of God that kept you, and I would just say,
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Mark, now that you've been through that, it's been my experience that God brings people through those things so that they can learn lessons to communicate with others, and you're going to be able to understand the struggles that other people are having.
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I went to Fuller Seminary, so I know exactly what you're talking about, but people who haven't been there just don't know.
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They just don't know what the struggles are, and so maybe the Lord's going to give you the opportunity of being that very same kind of encouragement to others, too.
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So press on, and God bless you and your ministry. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks, Mark. All right, God bless.
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Bye -bye. Wow, that's cool. That's really cool.
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I came in here with my left wrist killing me, and I don't care about my left wrist anymore. That was cool.
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What is this, Canada Day? Did all the USA lines collapse or something because we have another
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Canadian on the phone line? Let's go up to Joel. Hi, Joel. How are you doing,
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Dr. White? It's the Canadian call hour. It is. Thanks for breaking protocol. Normally you save the best for last, but I see you've got the better quality callers near the beginning of the program.
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Well, we're getting toward the end. We're two -thirds of the way through the program, so I'm not sure what that means. No, thanks for taking my call, and I just echo the last caller's comment that I'm really thankful for your ministry.
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It's had a positive impact on my life, and I've also had an opportunity to pass along a lot of the content that I've written your books to others, so thanks for that.
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Well, thank you. The question that I have, Dr. White, for you, just with respect to your blog entry on April 29th to do with John 645, and I'm a
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Calvinist, so I certainly don't have any qualms with your exegesis of John 6, but just something that might be a little bit more incidental.
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Is it all right if I just read a little part of that blog entry? Yeah, I'm scrolling down to it myself right now so that we can follow along with it.
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The 29th, John 645 and free will, yes. Yes, and the question really has to do with the nature of saving faith.
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Your first point, you say first there's no question that an unregenerate man can read the words of the Bible and even come to a correct understanding of its contextual reading, but there is an 18 -inch separation between the heart and the head, and mere knowledge has never saved anyone.
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And I was just wondering if you could sort of flesh out what you mean there, and I guess the reason why is the last couple of months
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I've read a book by Gordon Clark. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. I am. Okay, I've read a book of his.
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It's actually a combination of two books. It's called What is Saving Faith? And he takes what
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I would consider to be sort of a bit of a departure from most reformed people when it comes to how he understands saving faith.
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Very much so. He defines saving faith as intellectual assent to propositions.
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And so basically the question is, with what you said in your blog entry, how do you reconcile that with, for example, with 1
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Corinthians 2 .14 where it says the natural man cannot understand the things that come from the spirit of God and also 2
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Corinthians 4 .4, and I guess verse 3 as well, where it says that the gospel is veiled from the perishing and that the
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God of the world has blinded their minds. Gordon Clark is just completely out of the mainstream of anything, to be perfectly honest with you, on the nature of saving faith.
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He's as far off there as Robert Wilkin and the anti -lordship people are on that very same issue.
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They actually take pretty much the same viewpoint with obvious differences because of certain peculiarities within the non -lordship camp.
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But yeah, the idea of simply defining faith as a certain kind of proper intellectual knowledge, you can always find any text that is going to talk about the doctrinal content of saving faith because faith always has an object and it has to have the right object.
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And the only way for it to have the right object is for there to be truth involved.
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That's why, despite what certain rather odd people say about me, the normative means by which
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God draws his people into himself is through the spirit and the word. That is the proclamation of the gospel.
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That's what provides that revelation, that instilling of the truth of who
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Jesus Christ is so that you have the proper object of your faith, who he is, what he did, so on and so forth.
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All that is part of the proclamation of the gospel. The spirit making that to come alive in the heart, the spirit and the word together.
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It's not just the one. It's not just the other. And that's where Gordon Clark fell off the boat, basically, is that classical reform theology from the beginning, everyone that I can think of, has recognized that there is two elements to, well, actually, if you want to get into the whole issue of saving faith, three classically, but that there is more than just simply one, let's put it this way, there's more than simply one element to saving faith.
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And that because of the fact that a natural man can. I remember years and years ago,
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I'm sure you've been protected from this fellow up in Canada, but I was a fairly regular guest on a radio program here in Phoenix with a host who is now a nationally known shock jock by the name of Tom Likas.
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And Tom has made his name by being just gross on the air.
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But back in these days, he wasn't quite that bad. He was moving that direction.
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He wasn't quite that bad. But he called himself an atheist. And I was on his program, if I recall correctly, 16 times and sometimes just alone with him.
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And we'd just be sort of arguing atheism. But sometimes he had American atheists on. And he had one time he had this guy who had written a book.
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And I have this book. It's just back at my old office right now or in a box someplace. But he had written a book as an atheist for Prometheus Press.
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If you see it from Prometheus Press, you know where it's coming from. He had written a book. And it was amazing to me how accurately he understood the message of the
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New Testament. I mean, he said clearly the New Testament teaches that God is in charge. He has a sovereign decree.
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He's working all things to his own honor and glory. And he has elected a certain people into salvation. And the rest he justly damns because of their sins.
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And Christ dies to – I mean, he's just going down the whole thing. He gave a clearer distillation.
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He's not a former Christian either. He's not an apostate. He wasn't a former minister or something. This guy is just an atheist. And he says,
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I read the New Testament. And if you take it at face value, this is what it says. And that's what happens when you don't have a bunch of traditions in the way to smack you around a good bit.
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And he could enunciate with clarity the necessary knowledge and truth, in fact, more than the necessary knowledge,
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I would say, that a person would have to have to embrace the gospel. But though he knew all those things, he had the knowledge of all those things, he completely rejected them.
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He did not believe in any of them. And that was the function of our conversation. And so all
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I'm saying in the text, aside from, yes, I would definitely disagree with Gordon Clark, is that, yes, there is a core to the knowledge that is necessary, that the
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Spirit of God brings to the elect's hearts so that we can become God -lovers. So that, well, as John 6 .45
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says, there's something that God does. He is, this teaching, they shall all be taught by God, is a restatement of what verse 44 says, drawn.
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Drawn by the Father to the Son, raised up by the Son. We are coming to Christ. That's not a, that term coming is paralleled with believing, and they're both made present tense.
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And I'm sorry, those aren't just simply taking in facts, but they don't exist without the taking in of facts.
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And so we have the true knowledge of who Christ is. We are coming to him, not to a fake. That's why, you know, we've had a
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Mormon fellow coming in the channel the past, what did he start, yesterday morning? I think he started coming in yesterday morning from Germany.
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And we've been, we've really been sharing with him. And you can just tell he's getting, he's quite simply scared by the things that I've been sharing with him and things like that.
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But in fact, you all pray for him. All we know him by is LDS and he's in Germany. So we pray for him. But here's someone that we are, we are proclaiming the gospel to them.
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And one of the problems with them is, with this fellow, is there is a roadblock to the true knowledge of who
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Christ is. He's been given a false Christ. And so we're not saying, oh, well, any Christ will do. We're saying, no, you've been given not only a false
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God, but a false Christ. And so that element of the necessity of orthodox truth about Christ, completely affirm it.
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But the problem is, that's part of it. And that ignores, at least as Gordon Clark is redefining as merely intellectual belief, that then ignores the fact that we have to be raised to spiritual life, that it's an ongoing thing.
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That even Jesus in John 6, what is he going to, what's the next section after the one we're talking about?
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He continues the theme of what? Drinking his flesh, eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
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Now that's intimate. That is coming to him and that is having an intimate relationship with him.
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That's not just simply going, oh, I accept certain facts about Christ. You can know certain facts about Christ.
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As Jesus said to the Jews in John 8, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.
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Okay, you have to have that knowledge. You have to accept the fact that he is who he claims to be.
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But the spirit brings us into union with Christ. The spirit changes our hearts and our minds and makes us to love
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Christ. We love him because he first loved us. There's so much more to it than just that.
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I think Gordon Clark was simply reacting in an imbalanced way to the fact that generally in evangelicalism it goes the other way.
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If I may interrupt, if you look at the three levels of faith, would you say that that third level, the fiducia, has to do with the spirit and with the spirit enabling us?
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Yes, definitely. I think we're really shortchanging the work of the spirit in regeneration if we don't recognize that the reason that saving faith endures is not because it just got the facts right once.
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There's something more to endurance than just getting the facts right once. There is growth there.
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There is intimate communion there. I think we need to be really careful. Church history should tell us something.
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We can look around and we can find places that were once very quote -unquote reformed that are dead as a doornail today.
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And why is that? Well, the Christian faith is not something that is passed down genetically.
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It's not passed down through mere emotion and experience. Look at all the places like upstate New York that had all the great revivals.
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What's the place like now? Those things don't last. But in the same way, it's not passed down through mere intellectualism.
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It is a balance. The older I get, the more I see that the fundamental element of the
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Christian faith in maturity is balance, balance, balance. When I made that comment,
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I'll give you some background here as to what I was talking about. When I made that comment, there was an experience in my life that I was specifically thinking of.
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And I was thinking of a guy that I knew back many, many moons ago who did better in Greek at my school than I did.
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And I had set all the records up to that point. He didn't go as far as I did, so I can say he never quite eclipsed me. But he never missed – and I don't know if you – have you studied
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Greek? I've taken a year. Okay, then you will understand this. He never missed an accent on a quiz.
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Okay, that's good. Got an idea now what we're talking about? All right, okay. This is someone who would sit around and read
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Lad just for the fun of it. He'd read Burkoff just for the fun of it, okay? So you just sort of go, whoa, you know.
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And I will never, ever forget the Easter at a certain church that will remain unnamed.
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Was it Easter or was it Christmas? Do you remember? I'm looking. It was Easter, yeah. The Easter at a certain church that will remain unnamed when
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I had to sit there recognizing that that fellow was in the choir. And he had just left his wife with three kids and was getting ready to run away with a single lady in the choir.
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It sort of ruined my Easter. And it ruined the presentation of the
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Messiah I think they were seeing at that particular point in time. But the point is, here's someone with all the knowledge in the world.
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But there's an 18 -inch distance between that and the heart.
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And so that's what I was thinking of when I made that statement. No, I appreciate that. I have to admit that I am actually leaning in Clark's direction a bit.
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And it's for exegetical reasons. For example, the dichotomy that I see in the
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Bible is not between the heart and the head. It's between the tongue and the heart. It's between what you say and what you actually believe.
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And even with the example of the shock jock, he may have articulated what we understand to be the gospel, but the question is, was what he said, did it correlate one -to -one with what he actually understands and with what he actually receives in his heart or in his mind, whichever you want to call it?
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You know what I mean? Like with the shock jock, how would you reconcile his understanding of the gospel with 1
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Corinthians 2 .14? And if he said of him that he does not understand the things of the Spirit of God, even though he articulated the gospel?
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Exactly. And the point is, though, that when you look at 1 Corinthians 2 .14,
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what does it mean to decate, to receive the things of the
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Spirit of God? Is that just to have an understanding? Is Gnosko only the taking in of certain facts?
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I think that when Paul prays for the Colossians, I believe, that they would have a true knowledge, is that just simply that they would be completely orthodox?
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Or is there more? Is there this being filled with the fullness of God? Do we limit that just to certain doctrinal precepts?
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I say no. I don't see that. I know where you're going, Dr. White, but again, there's some exegetical concerns
55:59
I have. I'm not challenging you, but for example, I'm not sure if this is a good purchase or not, but I bought the
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Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, and they make mention of the fact that in the
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Greek, which I'm a little bit familiar with, that there is no difference between believing
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Jesus and believing in Jesus. You know how sometimes the third level of saving faith, seducia, like Wayne Gruden, for example, in systematic theology, he says that when you have that phrase in the
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New Testament to believe or to trust in Jesus, that it's referring to that third level, that it's sort of something that's extra, that's beyond mere intellectual content.
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But when I look at the Greek grammars, they're saying there isn't really a difference between those two Greek instructions, believing and believing in or into.
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Well, let me suggest something to you at that point. I think that two things.
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First of all, if you're talking about Kittles, you need to differentiate between whatever Kittles says concerning historical sources, syntactical issues, grammar and things like that, and the conclusions drawn therefrom.
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That's the first thing to remember about Kittles. You can get a lot of really good information out of them. You can just recognize you're dealing with way, way, way left
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German liberals from the 1930s, and you'll have an idea. But beyond that, I see a completely different context between what someone like Wayne Gruden would be talking about in systematic theology and the full -blown revelation of Scripture, and just simply, well, syntactically or grammatically, can you say that ongoing faith in Christ or believing
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Christ are two separate things? What I'm sure Gruden is attempting to communicate is the fact that there is a complex of images and words that are used in the
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New Testament to describe our relationship with Christ. And believing in Christ, for example, the difference between the aorist and the present in John, I think is extremely important, and I think it actually bears upon this, because the present tense belief in Christ is what is saving faith in John.
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The aorist is what, for example, the men have in John chapter 8, who at the end of the chapter are picking up stones to stone him.
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Now, how does that relate to that particular issue?
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That's something we could continue this discussion about, but we are unfortunately completely out of time, and I didn't realize that we've been talking the whole time, but I'd be glad to continue the conversation, because I think it's an important one.
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Thanks for your phone call today. Okay, thanks so much. Thank you. God bless. Bye -bye. All righty. Wow, that was a fast one.
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Well, some of you are probably sitting there going, No, not really. It lasted forever. Last one before the
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Shabir Ali debate. Obviously, next Tuesday, my desire will be to share with you a report from what took place, and I would, of course, ask for your prayers for that.
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The Lord be glorified, and His truth be proclaimed with clarity. We will see you next Tuesday, Lord willing. God bless.
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Brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.
59:58
Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the
01:00:04
World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.