Debate: Baptist vs Church of Christ!! Does Water Baptism Save?

I'm the founder of the Gospel Truth ministry. It is a non -profit organization designed to equip the

Christian for being able to articulate their belief in a more, I guess, intellectual manner.

I host debates, I do interviews, and I do Bible lessons on that, for this ministry, on the

YouTube channel called Gospel Truth. The Gospel Truth is not a very popular YouTube channel, so when you type it into the search bar, you probably won't get that channel right away, but if you put

Martin Wilson on the backside of that Gospel Truth, you'll see me pop up, and you will be able to view that channel.

The goal of the Gospel Truth is to engage the culture with Christian truth, and once again, we do that through debates, interviews, and Bible lessons.

So today, I am here to host an interview to find all the way from California to be the host and moderator of this debate.

And I just first wanna thank you for joining us tonight. I know that it's cold outside, and there's some of you who may have traveled a long distance to get here, and I'm glad you guys came out to support

Jeremiah and Brock in this endeavor. So that said, first,

I do wanna allow Nathan and Aaron to introduce the interlocutors tonight.

So first, we wanna start with Aaron, if you don't mind. Good evening, everybody. Thanks for being here. I haven't prepared a speech.

I am pleased to introduce to you a faithful brother in Christ, a great friend. Brock Kendall serves as an evangelist who heralds the sacred text in this area.

Brock loves Jesus Christ, the church that belongs to Christ, the inherent word of God, and the soul of men and women, including

Jeremiah. I hope you have come with a desire to examine with an open Bible if the proposition which we are affirming is the truth of God's word in its context.

Paul wrote, test all things, hold fast what is good. Please know and keep in mind that this event is a debate.

It's not a Bible study. Brock has a proposition that he will be responsible to affirm from God's word, and Jeremiah will be responsible to deny what

Brock argues. Also, pay close attention to how Brock defines the terms of our proposition.

We are not here to argue how salvation is by grace or how salvation is not merited.

We believe such truths. We are here to affirm our proposition from God's word.

With that in mind, Brock, come and deliver your first affirmative speech. My name is

Nathan Farber. I serve as the preaching pastor at 12 -5 Church here in Jonesboro. And tonight,

I get the honor and privilege of introducing and playing a part of a silent debate partner.

My friend and brother, Pastor Jeremiah Nortier. Jeremiah has grown up in this area, and I have known him for a few years and served with him and been able to see his passion for the truth of God's word.

He desires to be as true as anyone could possibly be to what

God has told us who he is and what he requires of us and from us in the word.

And so Pastor Jeremiah tonight is going to do just as he does every week when he fills in preaching for us, whenever he teaches our youth, whenever he is discipling our people through areas of apologetics, things like evangelism and just the

Christian life, living that Christian life. He is gonna bring that same hunger, desire, and knowledge of God's word to this debate tonight.

And I know one thing for certain is that everyone in here is going to hear the true gospel through Pastor Jeremiah.

And I hope and pray that you are ready to hear it because it's gonna take the Holy Spirit awakening and working in each and every heart to bring you to this knowledge of God's truth.

But Pastor Jeremiah is going to do the best he possibly can to make that as clear and as precise as possible.

And so we've been praying for each of you. We've been praying for you guys. We've been praying for this event now for months, and we are excited to be a part of it.

Thank you. I appreciate you all for being here tonight.

Of course, those in the physical audience, but unfortunately, not the live streaming.

Unfortunately, maybe this will be uploaded at a later time. Those that would like to watch it via internet can.

We certainly apologize for that inconvenience. Also appreciate

Jeremiah and his willingness to take the time to participate in this religious dialogue.

I am a firm believer that this is much needed. We need more religious dialogue between two opposing views.

I appreciate Nathan. I appreciate Marlon. I appreciate all of those represented here from various churches tonight.

So thank you for being here. I have nothing personal against Jeremiah.

Matter of fact, all of the previous discussions that we have had, he has been nothing but kind and cordial to me.

So I appreciate that. Matter of fact, I think he would agree that there are some things upon which we would agree.

I think he would agree to that. However, what we are discussing tonight, this evening is of salvation.

We are literally discussing something that is a matter of eternal life, eternal death.

Therefore, even though I will not attack Jeremiah's character that would be sinful and wrong on my behalf,

I will attack his doctrine vehemently. I want you all to understand that.

Now, what's your responsibility? Those that are here tonight, what's your responsibility? Your responsibility is to open your

Bibles. Do you have an open heart, an open mind and test or examine, prove everything that is said from both speakers.

If it's right in the context of the Bible, embrace it. If it's wrong, reject it.

1 Thessalonians 5 .21, of course. So why am I here tonight? What is the purpose of me standing before you?

I want you to know that we are not discussing something trivial. That is of little importance or of little value.

Matter of fact, our disagreement, our disagreement, as I have stated before, is literally a matter of spiritual life and spiritual death.

You will see that what we are discussing tonight is clear. It's straightforward and it's undeniable.

I'm also here to show from the pages of the New Testament that Jeremiah's doctrine regarding one's salvation from past sins is unscriptural and therefore incorrect.

Matter of fact, Jeremiah's answer to the question, what must I do in order to receive remission of past sins is forward to the

New Testament. Jeremiah does not believe that one, not one, external, visible action is necessary in order for one to be forgiven of past sins.

And you will know that my proposition is actually taken from Romans 6, verses 17 and 18.

The careful wording of my proposition will prove these truths tonight. Now, what

I wanna do is I want to state my proposition and I want to define the terms within my proposition.

You may be asking, why? What's the point? Well, this is a debate and in a debate, it's very likely for one to be misrepresented.

I do not believe Jeremiah would do such a thing. I have no reason to believe that he would. But in order to prevent misrepresentation,

I want to define my terms. What do I, well, let's state the proposition. The New Testament teaches that liberty from the penalty of past sins is at the point of an external act of obedience.

What do I mean by New Testament? Well, of course, I'm referring to the new covenant as opposed to the old covenant.

The 27 canonical books of the New Testament, for example, Matthew through Revelation.

What do I mean by teaches? I'm talking about how the New Testament instructs us in two ways.

Explicitly, that is clearly and plainly and implicitly by implication or inference.

What do I mean by liberty? I'm referring to the state of being set free from the penalty of past sins.

What do I mean by past sins? I'm referring to sins committed prior to one's obedience from the heart to that form of doctrine to which we have been delivered by inspired men.

Romans chapter six, verses 17 and 18. What do I mean by the phrase at the point of?

What do I mean by that phrase? I mean at an exact moment in time, okay?

An exact moment in time, that's very important. Not before, not without. For example, according to Romans chapter six, verses 17 and 18, the immediate recipients of the

Roman letter were set free from sin at an exact moment in their past.

And I submit to you tonight that one can simply read those two verses and draw that conclusion for themselves.

They do not need human commentary. You can understand that, true. It doesn't take being a theologian to understand such simple language, but it does take an honest heart.

It does take an honest heart as described by Jesus in his parable of the sower or soils in Luke chapter eight in verse 15.

Now, what do I mean by an external act? I'm talking about a visible action by mankind, okay?

I'm talking about a visible action. That is that a visible action is required by man before God sets them free from their past sins.

Now, this is where Jeremiah and I disagree fully. He does not believe that a visible action is required, is essential in order to be forgiven of past sins.

And so my responsibility tonight is to definitively prove that it is a visible action that's required in order for one to be forgiven of past sins.

The last term that I think we need to define, I think it's obvious, you all understand it, but let's define it anyway, obedience.

It's there in my proposition, obedience. We're talking about submission or conformity.

Listen closely to God's commands, not human traditions.

Second Thessalonians two and verse 15. And inherent within the word obedience is a command to which one submits, okay?

Now, what I wanna do now is I want to briefly consider the overall points leading up to Romans chapter six, 17 and 18, just the overall points from chapters one through five of Romans.

Why am I going to do this? There's a twofold reason for me doing this. Number one, because of my personal responsibility to God to handle his writings correctly, 2

Timothy 2 .15. Number two, because I want you all to know and Jeremiah to know that I have no intention to isolate these two verses from the rest of the context of Romans or the scriptures as a whole, nor do

I have any intention to isogeet these two verses from the rest of Romans or the

Bible. What do I mean by isogeet? I'm talking about inserting preconceived ideas or biases into the text, okay?

Isogesis is simply inserting something into the text that is not there. So let's introduce

Romans chapters one through five very briefly. From chapters one through three,

Paul describes that prior to the cross of Christ and one's obedience to the form of doctrine that was delivered, all

Jew and Gentile were under sin and thus in need of justification. Paul emphasizes this vividly in chapter three of Romans verses nine through 20.

In chapter four, the apostle Paul uses the illustration or demonstration of Abraham from the

Old Testament, of course, and he shows how salvation was not and is not contrived or invented by man.

But as was the case with Abraham, salvation is gifted by God's grace through man's personal obedient faith.

Just like Abraham, listen closely. There has never been a time ever in human history where one's faith was separated from obedience to God's command, ever.

There's not one scripture in the Bible that makes that case. I find it interesting that Paul never divorces faith from obeying

God's command in the book of Romans. Moving on. Chapter five, Paul talks about the various blessings connected to being justified by faith.

And then we get to chapter six. In these 23 verses of chapter six, Paul argues that salvation by grace forbids a

Christian from living a life of sin. Thus, essentially what Paul is doing is he's contrasting lifestyles.

Their former lifestyle when they were slaves of sin and now their new lifestyle being slaves of righteousness.

And this change in lifestyle occurred at the point of sincere obedience to the form of doctrine that was delivered to them.

Now, let's go to verses 17 and 18 of Romans six. We will spend the rest of our time in these two verses.

Here's what we're gonna do. In order to prove my proposition that a visible action is necessary, in order for one to be forgiven of past sins, we're gonna break these two verses down phrase by phrase, word for word.

Let's see if you draw the same conclusions. Notice the first phrase. But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin.

You see that? Three observations, very quickly. It's clear that Paul is thanking

God for a change that occurred at a specific time in their past.

Okay, this is proven by the past tense words such as were, obeyed, delivered.

And the first few words of verse 18, and having been. Paul also thanks

God for them being no longer in bondage to sin. And Paul also thanks

God that through their individual obedience they became slaves of righteousness. Notice again, this new condition did not occur until their obedience from the heart to that form of doctrine.

Moving on. Notice the phrase, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.

Paul shows here how they were set free from their past sins and how they became slaves of righteousness.

Well, the question is, how did these things occur? It's clear in the passage. It was by their obedience from their hearts to a form of doctrine that was delivered to them in the past.

And disobedience, this submission, this conformity was done from the heart, not in the heart, but from the heart.

Meaning with the right knowledge, the right understanding of that knowledge and with the right attitude, which is of course another reason

Paul was thankful to God for them. Notice, Paul also reflects, this is very important in proving my proposition.

Paul reflects on something specific that they obeyed from the heart.

You see that? He describes something specific. It's that form.

The pronoun that, it proves that something specific is under consideration.

He says it's a form. This word form, it can be translated as standard, as example, as print, as pattern, and it often is in most of the translations that perhaps you have tonight.

The word translated as form, it comes from a word from where we get our

English word, type, type, okay? Now here's the important point.

This word is used in the New Testament 16 times. We don't have time to go to each occasion, but this word is used in the

New Testament 16 times, and here it is. It always refers to something that is visible.

Every time. Every single time it's used, it refers to something visible.

For example, in John chapter 20, verse 25, one of the apostles, disciples,

Thomas, he wanted to see the prints on Jesus' hands. Were those visible or invisible? Well, it's visible, right?

Now, it's translated as example. In 1 Timothy 4 .12,

the young evangelist Timothy was told to be an example to the believers.

Is that visible or invisible? Well, I don't know of any invisible example, so of course he's talking about something visible.

Thus, please listen to this, the inescapable conclusion based on Paul's usage of this word is their obedience in the past to the form being visible to others proves explicitly it was an external act.

It was a visible action. It proves explicitly, and notice,

I do not need to prove what this external act is. All I have to prove tonight from the pages of the

New Testament in their context is the fact that it was an external act. It was a visible action.

Jeremiah does not believe that an external act is necessary, so he's gonna have to argue with the

Holy Spirit here. He's gonna have to find a way to say that this does not mean what it says, but we have noticed that it's a visible action.

Notice also in verse 18, in having been set free from sin, watch this, you became slaves of righteousness.

The phrase having been set free means that at a specific point in time of them obeying from the heart, the form, this external act, they were set free, not set free until the obedience occurred.

Matter of fact, the word became, as all of you know, is a past tense verb, and it shows they transitioned from being a slave of sin to slave of righteousness.

If I were to ask you, when did this transition occur from being a slave of sin to a slave of righteousness, if you were just reading that text, you would say, upon their obedience to that form of doctrine that was delivered to them.

You know why you would draw that conclusion? That's what it says. That's what it says, and that's why you would draw that conclusion.

Now, these individuals had actively obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine, and it was at that point when they were set free from the penalty of past sins, and they were passively made servants of righteousness.

That is, God made them servants of righteousness. No one can argue with that.

God made them servants of righteousness. God delivered them from their past sins, but they obeyed, and it wasn't until their obedience.

However, that is how anyone wants to argue that. It's there in the text.

It's right there. I encourage you to read it over and over again and see if you don't draw the same conclusion.

Now, when it comes to being forgiven of past sins, it's pretty clear just from this verse and others, but we're staying here tonight.

It's clear that there's a divine side, there's a human side, and by humans, listen now, by humans obeying

God's laws or standards to be forgiven doesn't negate

God's sovereignty ever. If someone came along and made that argument, they would have to find it in the scriptures.

It's not there. You see, please understand that, and it doesn't mean man has earned his salvation because God did the delivery upon the obedience.

God did it, you see, but it was upon their obedience. So does it mean they have earned their salvation?

Does it mean they have merited their salvation? Does it mean they have earned or merited their forgiveness of past sins?

Listen, as much as I personally respect Jeremiah, it doesn't matter what Jeremiah said.

The text is explicit. Everything else is make -believe. So the challenge of Jeremiah is to prove, starting with this text, that what

I have said is completely false. If he can't do that, then therefore he's conceded my proposition.

Thank you. All right, thank you for that opening statement. Before we move on, we do have to read the premise of the debate.

We did not read the premise of the debate, so I do wanna make sure we read that. The premise of the debate is the

New Testament teaches the liberty from the penalty of past sins is at the point of an external act of obedience, all right?

So we just heard the 20 -minute opening statement from Rob Kendall. Now we're gonna transition to the 20 -minute opening statement from Robert Taylor.

Well, I just wanna thank you all for being here, and I'm really excited. I actually have a ton of respect for Brock.

He's been so cordial with me and us going back and forth and coming to this proposition. And I thought it was interesting, because he said there's an external act of obedience.

Guess what? I'm gonna shoot you straight. That is water baptism. The other side, in order to be true with what they actually hold, is to show you that water baptism is what saves.

And friend, I'm here to tell you that it is Jesus Christ, and Him alone, He is the one that's truly saved.

So guess what? I actually believe that we have to be obedient, obedient from the heart.

Guess what? That is faith. We're gonna get more into what faith actually means. We're really gonna define terms.

I wish Brock would have defined justification. We're gonna do that. And so I do agree a lot with what

Brock said about what obedience means. It means to be in agreement with. It means to submit.

And guess what? I'm going to argue, yes, you must obey from the heart. That is of faith in Jesus Christ, and He alone saves.

And so tonight, I'm going to be pressing the point that it is not water baptism saves. I want you all to think about this.

This is really what the debate is all about. No matter what someone else says, that that's not really what the debate is.

It is, and everybody knows it. And guess what? Water baptism is so wonderful.

Jesus commanded it, right? Absolutely. But after one has already been justified by faith, then we definitely do works of obedience to glorify

God, and we demonstrate this to the world. Something else that's very important for tonight is that I want everybody to be aware that the

New Testament was written in Koine Greek. The New Testament, and the proposition that's been stated earlier, it does not say that the

New Testament teaches as only is translated into English. Something we must understand, 2

Peter 1 .21 says, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. The men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. The apostles, Jesus, they did not write the New Testament in English.

We must understand that it was written in Koine Greek, and Jesus didn't even write it. His apostles did. And so it's important as we're reading our

English text, when we look at a word like justification, we should say, what does that mean? And so we go to the

Greek definitions to arbitrate, to figure out what he's actually talking about, the Apostle Paul and the

Book of Romans. And so I love the English language, but we must have in our heart with the question, what did the original authors mean when they said what they said, and how would the original audience understand?

And so this is where it's so important for pastors, preachers, and teachers to handle the word of God with care.

Definitions are important, and context is king. And so I love what

Brock said that we must look at context. So that's what this debate's gonna be about from beginning to end, was what is the context, and what is the true definitions of words?

So my number one main point for the entire rest of the evening, I believe the proposition is false because it is conflating and mixing two important categories.

I believe the proposition that you heard is mixing justification and sanctification.

Now, what do I mean? Well, justification is the legal declaration of God. When somebody looks to Jesus Christ alone in faith, then

God, the righteous judge, declares us innocent and no longer guilty of all of our sin, not just our past sin.

And so we're gonna talk more about this, but justification is by faith apart from works.

So if you can think in your mind, justification and faith belong right here. Now, sanctification is being set apart for special use.

It is to grow in holiness. But understand this, sanctification flows out of a believer's justification.

And this is where all of the works used to glorify God in doing obedient works, it's over here in sanctification.

That's where baptism belongs. We don't become baptized in order to receive the forgiveness of past sins.

That's the external act that the opposing side is talking about. So I want us to be very clear that we must understand the difference between justification and sanctification.

Works and faith, and we're going to define what baptism is. It does not always mean a wet immersion.

Now, the actual Greek word bears this out, but there's a lot of places where you can see the context lets us know that immersion can be into a context of suffering or into one's authority, where it can be a full immersion into water.

So all of these terms are very important to talk about. So I hope you've wondered, many of you, why does the proposition say an external act of obedience?

Well, I'm here to tell you that that is works and what he believes is water baptism. I want us to be very, very clear about this.

And so a while back, we actually had a different proposition that I was all for debating. And that proposition was the scriptures teach that water baptism is for, in order to obtain the remission of sins.

I said, I would gladly negate that because you've made the means of salvation resting upon one obedience to water baptism.

And I said, look, that is literally the definition of works. So please write this down.

And I really wanna hear in the rebuttal time how the opposing side defines the word works.

So like I said, we had to define this term and it comes from the Greek word ergon. Ergon literally means to perform a task, anything accomplished by human effort and action performed by human intention.

Therefore getting up and walking down into a baptistry is without question a ceremonial action accomplished by human effort and energy.

That is works. The apostle Paul could not be more clear in Ephesians chapter two, that nothing we say or anything that we do must be the grounds of our salvation.

He says, for by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, ergon, so no one may boast.

But please listen to me. Works, works of obedience are so important for the believers life, but that belongs to our sanctification, not our justification.

Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 2 .10, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which

God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Understand me friend that obedient works, we must do this to glorify

God, but we are demonstrating to the world that justified faith that we have before God and we show the rest of the world our changed life.

That is the point. We can never mix the categories of justification and sanctification.

Remember baptism is a work of God working in his people. So yes,

God is at work, but so is man. And this belongs in our sanctification. And so when

I read the proposition, I thought it was unfortunate because of how the word penalty is being used.

Penalty is actually defined by the apostle Paul and it's a courtroom term, it is judicial.

And this is so important to understanding Paul's case as he's building the book of Romans. He uses other courtroom language like judge, condemnation, law, charge, wage and imputation.

You may say Jeremiah, why are you telling me all these fancy terms? Because the first five chapters of Romans are judicial language.

When we talk about justification, just think about a judge with that gavel. He's either gonna declare a person innocent and righteous and just, or he's gonna bang the gavel and say condemned and guilty.

And if you've been declared just, it's though you have never sinned. And it's because you have the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed and credited to your account.

Why? By faith. By faith, you put all of your trust in the only savior

Jesus and all of your sin, not just the past sin, God sees the entirety of your life and all of your sin gets put on the cross of Calvary.

A beautiful exchange happens in return. You get the perfect righteousness of God, the perfect obedience of Jesus covering your account.

That is the gospel of grace. Unfortunately, I believe the proposition is offering what's called works righteousness.

You cannot look to yourself in any way and think, this is gonna earn me favor with God. No, you can't do anything.

The scriptures say, God be merciful to me, a sinner, not trusting to yourself, not looking to yourself, but looking to the only one who did it all perfectly.

That is Jesus Christ. Hear me, baptism, so important, but that cannot in any way, shape or form be a part of the means of how we are made right with God.

That doesn't forgive sin. That demonstrates a picture of what God has already done in your heart and in your life.

I am saying you must obey the gospel, how? Obey from the heart, obey in faith.

And when you're justified, just as if you never sinned, then we live the rest of our lives doing works to give

God glory. The Bible teaches the just shall live by faith. What that means is the justified by faith now live to demonstrate that faith to the world and understand works are so important, right?

In our sanctification, but we do this James chapter two. I hope we talk about this, but this is a justification before man.

We show others that what is true on the inside, what we say actually matches up to have a said faith.

And we don't do anything in light of that. That is a dead faith. We must do good works in order to demonstrate to man, to justify us before man, what

God, what I'm saying, what happens in my heart is actually true. And so I'm not sure how much remaining time

I have, but if you have your Bibles, please turn with me in your copy of God's word to Romans chapter four.

So here we see the beautiful doctrine of justification by faith apart from works.

What we're not gonna see is justification by baptism. So I just wanna read the opening verses of Romans four that say, what then shall we say was gained by Abraham?

Our forefather, according to the flesh, for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Now I can say so much here, but back in verse two, we kind of see that first word justified. In the book of Romans, we see this in all of its many different forms, just, justify and justification.

Please make note of this. Justification, dekiosis in the Greek literally means, please look this up on your phone.

I want you to get the proper definition. The act of God declaring men free from the guilt of the penalty of your sin.

The proposition is wrong. It's saying that your penalty of past sins is contingent on some external act of obedience.

That is worse. What Paul is saying is it's my faith. So what you have to understand is justification is a legal courtroom term in relation to crime.

And so the judge will either condemn you or say you are guilty of your sin and you're condemned, or he will bang the gavel and say, justify just as if I never sinned.

So it's so important that Paul talked about Abraham here, because one thing he's saying is no way, shape or form was

Abraham justified by works before God. Something else to make note of is that Abraham came before the

Mosaic law. This is so important. Abraham did not do works of Mosaic law.

He performed works of obedience. He did things like leave the land of the earth,

Chaldeans. He did things like, he was obedient in his works to be circumcised. He was even willing to be obedient to the point of sacrificing his son

Isaac. Now friend, please hear me. These obedient works and works of righteousness in no way, shape or form justified

Abraham before God. Because he could have posted in what he had accomplished.

That's why he goes on to say in verse three of the Apostle Paul, for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed

God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now this verse is so wonderful because the

Apostle Paul is divinely interpreting Genesis 15 verse six. And that word counted in the

Greek is legazami. This is a legal transaction. The beautiful transaction that takes place for all saints of all time, even with Abraham before the law is that when he put his faith in God and his promises, all of his sin was put on the cross still yet to come.

He was justified by faith apart from any works that he could possibly do. Now in Romans four, verse six, we see that Paul quotes

King David. King David lived under the mosaic law. And guess what? He was justified by faith apart from works of the law.

And at the end of Romans four, Paul identifies his justification with Christians.

Christians, we are justified by faith apart from works of the law and any human performance that we could possibly conjure up.

Should we obey? Yes, from the heart, that is faith. And then we demonstrate, we continue to do good works to give

God glory in light of our justification. So verses four and five, Paul really makes this argument here.

Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

So I wanted to find a couple more words. We've been talking about works earlier in verse two, right, which was ergod.

Here, Paul uses a stronger word for works. It's different. The English translates it the same word, but it's actually stronger.

It's ergods of mine. This word means to earn by commitment of exercise, performance, trade, or labor.

It's as though the apostle Paul is anticipating an objection. Someone could say, well, yeah, my general works have no aim, so they can't be the grounds of my justification.

And so here they're saying, well, maybe it's with a particular goal and view. That is what the thing is that will justify me before God.

And Paul is saying that's impossible. Even with a goal and view, if you try to get up and do something in order to receive something in return, it is no longer of grace.

You have to understand, grace is unmerited favor. If you get up and do something, you are doing works by definition.

And another very, very important term that we need to define is the word faith. Faith is pistis.

Pistis means conviction of the truth. It means you have firm trust. Faith is immaterial to the human eye.

You can't put faith in a jar and weigh it and see what color it is. Faith is internal. That's why you see all over Scripture that God is the one that sees the heart of man.

It is God that tests the heart. So the apostle Paul is comparing and contrasting faith and works.

Works are outward. Everything that we do is we perform tasks and do things, right? Faith is internal.

It is of the heart. That's why you heard the composition quote in Romans chapter six that says, obedient from the heart.

As we're gonna see and develop that context, that obedient heart of faith leads to our sanctification.

I'm so glad the apostle Paul a few times mentioned the sanctification of Romans chapter six because what he's saying is the first five chapters we had been declaring right to be at peace with God.

And that obedient heart now leads to our sanctification. So I'm not quite sure how much time I have left, but three minutes left, okay awesome.

So I want us to keep that contrast in mind. Works and faith are related, but they are distinct from one another.

Now these categories are not different from the apostle Paul. Earlier in Romans chapter two he says, for no one is a

Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical, but a

Jew is one inwardly. And circumcision is a matter of the heart by the spirit and not by the letter.

Now listen, Paul is not just talking about Jews under the Mosaic law, but he's explaining to Christians at Rome, you are the true spiritual offspring of Abraham.

You are true Jews inwardly of the heart. And so Paul talks about this fantastic legal transaction that takes place for a believer, right?

This is that word counted again. I want you to really understand this, that the one that says

God, I have no accomplishments of my own to offer you, but I look to you and you alone.

God be merciful to me a sinner. It's so important that if you're trusting and believing in a message that says

I have to get up and do X, Y, and Z, that's not a gospel of grace. That is what's called works righteousness.

And I agree that this is why we are here today talking about this, because you have a gospel of grace over here that says, no, my son,

I have done all this for you. I want you to look to Jesus and him alone and that's what will save you.

And then you have this other system that says, well, yeah, he did a lot over here and he said to tell us that it is finished, but I feel like it's necessary to perform this external act of obedience.

I know that that's my works, but I can't just sit over here and do nothing. God wants your heart. He wants your trust in the

Savior, because when you do this, why it's so important that all of your sins is forgiven, because Jesus is a perfect Savior.

When that perfect righteousness is imputed to your account, that covers everything. Now you might say, well,

I guess you can just go live however you want. If you have tasted the grace of God, then you don't wanna go back to the old way of life.

That's the whole argument of Romans chapter six. How can us who have died to sin go back and live in it any longer?

That obedient part of faith then leads to our sanctification. That's so important.

That's why the apostle Paul said, I did not come to baptize. I came to preach the gospel.

People say, oh, he's just avoiding sectarianism. Of course he was. He don't want people to gravitate to Peter and to Paul and say

I'm of them. He is saying, we don't want that. We're all in Christ. And think about it. If baptism was so imperative for salvation, then there's no way under the sun that the apostle

Paul can say those words. We have to understand what faith is. Hebrews 11 one says, and this is faith, assurance from the heart, right?

Of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. One minute.

So I think all I can do at this point is just encourage you to test the scriptures.

I absolutely want you to test both sides and see what the other one is saying. One side is saying the gospel of grace, that you can't do anything.

If you do, it totally destroys the foundation of grace because you are earning it.

It's no longer unmerited favor, but is merited favor. And so the scriptures teach, the scriptures emphatically teach that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone and Jesus Christ alone, all to the glory of God alone.

All right, thank you so much for those open statements. At this time, we'll be entering into our rebuttal round, which will also be 10 minute rebuttals.

We'll start with the affirmative. You got 10 minutes for your affirmative rebuttal. So first of all, go ahead and state,

I might not even use my 10 minutes, all of my 10 minutes. He immediately delved into the topic of baptism.

Do we all agree? Yes. You went straight, you don't have to answer out loud. Sorry, I should have asked that question.

He delved immediately into baptism. I understand this is how they advertised the debate.

I'm fine with that. I told them they could, I told Jeremiah he could introduce whatever he wanted to introduce, but my proposition and my proposition does not necessitate me defining what the external visible act is.

Do we understand that? It does not necessitate me defining what the external act is.

By him being so concerned about what the external act is, is implying that it's an external act.

Maybe I'm mistaken. Did you acknowledge that it was an external act? Maybe I'm wrong, correct me if I'm wrong.

That's a sincere question. But if he acknowledged that it was an external act, the debate is over.

He acknowledged my proposition. We can talk about water baptism at another time.

But again, Paul said it was a visible act. They did it.

They were not delivered from their past sins until they did it. They did not become servants of righteousness until they did it.

And it was a visible action. Every time the word is used, it's something visible, period, blank.

That's the text of Romans 6, 17, 18. Why did he not deal with that?

Listen, the way I worded my proposition dismantles his doctrine at its core.

He doesn't believe that any visible action is required of man in order to be delivered from past sins.

I need you to hear me out. Paul said they did it, and it wasn't until then until they delivered.

That's what the Bible says. I'm not concerned about anything else. Any theologian, any reformer, it's what the

Bible says. I'm here to talk about what the New Testament teaches. It was a visible action, okay?

If we can agree to that, we can stop the debate now even and discuss baptism at a later time.

Matter of fact, cross -examination is coming up. Feel free to introduce baptism. I have no problem discussing baptism.

The Bible is clear. One of the clearest teachings in the Bible. However, my proposition does not necessitate me discussing baptism.

It seems to me, again, this is not an attack on your character,

Jeremiah, by no means. Please understand that. Seems like he's trying to control the narrative.

He came here tonight to negate my proposition. In that 20 -minute speech, he didn't. He didn't negate it, okay?

What he needs to do is he needs to go to Romans 6, verse 17 and 18, and show from the usage of Paul's word form that it was not external.

If he can do that, then we're getting somewhere. I proved it was an external act.

I proved with the Scripture. One, two verses, I showed it. There it was, undeniable, period.

Now, it's his responsibility to negate that from at least beginning with that Scripture.

He talked about justification and sanctification. I believe in both concepts. You know why I believe in both concepts?

Because they're in the Bible. But that, my proposition does not necessitate me talking about justification or sanctification.

We can talk about that another time. I'll be glad for him to even write an affirmative, and then

I negate it, and it'll be my responsibility to deal with what he attempted to prove.

So, just keep these things in mind. Listen, it doesn't matter what the external act is in Romans 6, 17, and 18.

You understand that? Paul said it was an external act. On my proposition tonight, my responsibility was to prove it was an external act.

I did that. If he can't negate it, then should we not just accept what the

Bible says? Listen, I want you to read your Bibles. You don't need me to understand verses 17 and 18.

You don't need Jeremiah. I think if you could eliminate all the preconceived ideas and biases from your mind, you could read those two verses and say, there it is, that's what you do.

It's simple, okay? So, hopefully, he'll deal with Romans 6, 17, and 18.

Again, I proved my proposition from one text. What I would like to see him do, since he's in the negation, is him to get up, go to Romans 6, 17, and 18, and prove it was an external act.

It wasn't an external act. If he can do that, then we're staying with the proposition.

If he can't, all I'm asking you is to reject what he's saying, because it's not from God. It's make -believe. It's not there.

Again, I'm not attacking his character. I want you to understand I'm being as kind as possible, but unless he can show from that passage that it was not an external act, then he can't negate my proposition.

How much time do I have? Four minutes. I'm just gonna go ahead and stop.

I'll actually give you extra time if you would like that time, and listen, let's see if he deals with Romans 6, 17, and 18, and let's see if he deals with that word form, and let's see if he elaborates on it as Paul did.

Thank you so much. We have the rebuttal from the negative. Thank you,

Brock, and something I was wanting to accomplish in the opening statement is to lay a foundation and to give you a few key terms that are very, very important, like justification and sanctification.

So again, let's read verses 17 and 18 of Romans chapter 6 together. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

How about we keep reading to verse 19? Maybe this will help us with that whole context thing. I'm not speaking in human terms, but of your natural limitations.

For just as you once presented your members of slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading, what's that word?

Sanctification. So what you are seeing displayed before your eyes is a conflation of sanctification and justification.

Understand, Paul already dealt with the issue of justification back in Romans chapter 4.

That is the legal act in which God declares your sin, the penalty of sin, past sin, sure.

Trust me, it's all of your sin because Jesus is a perfect savior. So to Brock's probably delight,

I think this is talking about an outward form, but it's dealing with sanctification. That obedient heart of faith that justifies us before God that Paul already talked about now moves to outward actions, absolutely baptism.

This is the first time I've talked with a church of Christ that doesn't really wanna talk just solely about baptism.

In some ways, I'm all for them because I understand and want you to understand the actual definition of works.

Are works important? Yes, we've been called to glorify God in all of our good works and demonstrate this to the world.

But what I am admitting to you here is this is talking about sanctification. And so when we heard that proposition earlier, it's saying that the penalty of your past sins is resting on your works.

That's not true. The penalty of past sins rests on faith. That's what happens at justification.

And so that leads somewhere. That's why Paul actually does begin Romans chapter six.

He says, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? No way, no way.

We've been changed from the heart and that heart leads somewhere in the line of justification. It leads to sanctification.

It leads to works of obedience like baptism. The whole book of Acts. I wanna talk about the verses on baptism.

I'm glad he said that it's okay that we talk about baptism. I hope we do. This is a church of Christ and Baptist.

This is the fundamental thing that divides us. And it's actually a gospel issue. Is baptism work?

Absolutely. As we look at Philippians chapter two, verses 12 and 13, we see that we are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

But what does verse 13 say? That it is God who is a work both to will and to work in you. Now he is talking to believers, right?

He's talking to the believers at Philippi. And in verse six, he says that he who began that good work in you, he sees it to completion.

So I want you to understand something like baptism. I hope we, I want you to know. When he says the proposition, the external act of obedience, he is talking about baptism.

That's related to the topic. And yes, I believe in this, these two verses 17 and 18 of Romans chapter six.

But baptism is a work of God and it's a work of man. It's a work of man who's already been justified by faith alone in the

Savior. So I do want to go back to Romans chapter six here. So I'm agreeing that this is talking about work in the context of sanctification, not justification, which is by faith alone.

But this context is not talking about the penalty of sin either. Let's actually go back up in the context.

Let's go all the way back up to verse 14. For sin will have no dominion over you.

Now what does that word dominion mean? It means to exercise authority. It means to have power over you.

I think the proposition would have been closer to making more sense if it says, our works release us from the power of sin.

That's only true if we have been released from the penalty of sin by faith alone and have been justified in light of that.

Chapter six is in the context of sanctification and being released from the power of sin.

Verse two, or verse 12 in chapter six really emphasizes this point too. Let not sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey its passions.

What does reign mean? It means to exercise power over you. And so what the opposition is failing to understand in context, this is talking about sanctification.

Sanctification flows out of justification. And I really hope the opposition does not mind me talking about baptism because many of you showed up here wondering what in the world is that external act of obedience?

It's pretty obvious. And I want to show you that I think a lot of people do have trouble explaining a lot of important verses in the

New Testament. So I wanna begin to show you since the external act of obedience that he believes is baptism,

I wanna begin to further lay this context of explaining some of the verses that do bring up this external act of obedience.

Many of us are familiar with Acts 2 .38 where Peter just got done preaching a wonderful gospel -centered message.

And he said, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

I love this because the Jews, that is the context. This is a Jewish context that heard this gospel preached.

And they were saying, what must we do? They were just cut to the heart by the gospel. And you know what Peter said?

He said, repent and demonstrate that faith by being baptized in the authority of Jesus Christ.

What you see there is a call to justification and a call to sanctification to demonstrate that else.

And then you may say, but Jeremiah, what about the part that says for the forgiveness of your sins? I love how the

English actually translates this for the forgiveness of your sins.

Because what we understand is the word be in Greek is called the definite article. This is referring to a unique point in time.

John the Baptist talked about the forgiveness of sins that was to come that he was paving the way for.

This was in preparation to what Jesus was going to accomplish at Calvary. He was pointing to the future.

The night before Jesus's crucifixion, he was breaking bread and giving wine.

And he said, for the forgiveness of sin. Guess what? It hadn't taken place yet. That was going to happen the next day on Calvary.

Here, Peter is pointing back to that. And he says that you can have that forgiveness of sins credited to your account, applied to you.

Now, how would that happen? That would happen by repentance. That wouldn't be by doing external acts of obedience in order to receive that.

No, that'd be works righteousness. But he's calling it to demonstrate that heart obedience, that faith up to the world, right?

So the Jews would have absolutely understood that baptism, baptizo, would be ceremonial washings.

If he's curious, I can show many Old Testament passages that show purification rites to Levitical priests in days like Yom Kippur, where you would do outward signs of washings to show an inward heart cleansing.

They would understand when you put your faith, when you repent in Jesus Christ, this was to illustrate what is true spiritually and of the heart.

So Acts chapter two, you have to understand the context. And so another important passage that I think is very important for everyone to understand is

Mark 16, 16. I think we get here, Jesus is saying the same thing that Peter said.

Rather, Peter said the same thing that Jesus said. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, amen.

And whoever does not believe will be condemned, aha. Jesus, once again, is calling all of his hearers to believe in him and to demonstrate that faith.

Ah, but Jeremiah used the coordinating conjunction and absolutely, justification and sanctification.

But continue to look at the second clause. But whoever does not believe will be condemned.

It's the believing and the not believing that saves and doesn't save. The flip side of faith is repentance.

Metanoia means to change your mind. And it doesn't just stay here, but it's the faith that changes in the heart.

And once we put our faith alone in the Savior's finished work on Calvary, then we now walk with him in saving relationship.

That's what Romans chapter six is about. And so I have so many things that I wanna continue to inform you on.

So I'm excited about this. And I love how this can be done in a charitable way. But notice that I say your faith must be demonstrated.

God knows the heart. So who in the world are we demonstrating our faith to? To other men. We're demonstrating this to the world.

And keep in mind, sanctification means to be set apart for special use, okay?

We are to be set apart from the world and to be conformed more and more into the image of Christ.

What's unfortunate is we didn't hear many really good definitions. I did agree with obedience means to submit or to be in agreement with.

But I didn't hear a definition for justification because that is by faith alone.

Apart from any works of law or any works that you can do, that's how Abraham was justified. That's how

David and all the Jews under law were justified by faith. And all Christians after the law's fulfillment, thank you.

All right, thank you both for those opening statements and rebuttals. At this time, we're gonna be taking a 10 -minute intermission to allow the guys to breathe and stretch their legs.

And so as for you as well, to be able to breathe, stretch your legs, get some refreshments and some water, because we definitely are coming back with a cross -examination that is the best and most favorable part of everything.

So also, as you are interacting with the cross -examination, any closing remarks, make sure you're taking questions down because there will be a

Q &A after the debate thus far.

At this time, we will enter into our cross -examination round and the cross -examination round will have two 10 -minute opportunities for the affirmative and the negative to ask questions.

Those who have the party has asked a question and have one minute to ask the question. And the person that's answering the question has two minutes to respond to the question uninterrupted.

That said, the affirmative, you are up for your 10 -minute cross -examination of Jeremiah Nortier.

So am I, okay, one minute, is that right? One minute to ask the question, okay. Okay, I need to listen better, sorry.

All right, first question. Is an external act under consideration in Romans 6, 17 and 18?

A visible action, as I have proved. Absolutely, because the context is about sanctification, not justification, so it's important to define terms because if we're talking about sanctification, it means that we're being conformed into the image of Christ in the light of what that work he's already done in us.

If you follow the whole argument of the Apostle Paul, he's talking about the condemnation for all men who suppress the truth, and salvation has always been by grace through faith, and we see that with Abraham.

And so Romans 6 kind of shifts gears. It talks about how we're to be set free from the power of sin on its penalty, and it's in the context of sanctification.

So I hope you hear me clearly. Yes, I think it is talking about outward works. So you're acknowledging my proposition.

In sanctification, and that's really huge because until you, in my opinion, until you define justification and show the differences in how it relates to sanctification,

I think you're making my case all day long because justification has to do with faith and sets us free from the penalty of sin, and in Romans 6, it's talking about being set from the power of sin within sanctification, and yes, that has to do with external action.

Okay, so why do you believe that Romans 6 is about sanctification when the word's not even in there?

Okay, so I'm glad you asked that because it is in there twice.

Actually, sanctification is only mentioned two times in the whole book of Romans, and it's mentioned two,

I wanna show you since I have two minutes. I wanna show you the two times it's mentioned in Romans 6, and it's actually in verse 19, right after the two verses of the proposition.

So if you keep reading in verse 19, and I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations, for just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.

If you look at verse 22, sorry, I have it kind of covered up. I haven't talked to myself.

It says, but now you have been set free from sin and become slaves to God. The fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.

But when did that start? At justification. Okay, so was it at a point of an external act of obedience according to what

Paul said? Sanctification, yes. Justification, no, because that was by faith and by definition.

Hold on, hold on. I get to answer and you don't interrupt. Okay, go ahead. So justification, once again, is the legal act of God declaring men free from the penalty of sin by definition.

And he makes this so clear that it is by faith apart from any works of law, any works that we do.

And faith is immaterial. Faith is of the heart. So now we're talking about sanctification.

Guess what? It's talking about works. It's talking about external actions, but that's not talking about our justification.

At what point in time were the Roman saints delivered from their past sins?

Are you talking about, just according to what Paul said, in Romans chapter 18? The penalty of sin or the power of sin?

Just at what point in time were they delivered from their past sins? Because all of the language is past tense.

They weren't delivered until a certain time. It was at the form of external act of obedience.

So you don't wanna qualify between the dominion and reign of sin versus the penalty of sin? Well, we can say the penalty of sin is eternal death,

Romans 6 .23. Right. Okay, but my question is, is an external act under consideration in Romans 6 .17

and 18? That's my proposition. Are you able to negate that it was not an external act of obedience?

Verse 17 and 18. Just using those two verses. Well, those two verses, we will always look at in context.

And so those two verses exist in the broader context of Romans 6. And I think you understand now it's talking about sanctification, which by definition is being set apart from the world and conformed more into the image of Christ, being set apart for special use.

So what I think is I want people to at least understand, and we can keep talking about this over and over and over again.

I don't mind. I will talk about other things in my cross -examination time. But you have to distinguish between the power of sin, because it talks about dominion and reign of sin in your life.

And Paul's already talked about the judicial aspect of the penalty of sin, and that's taken care of in justification.

At what point were they delivered from the power of sin? So this is under sanctification.

It has to do with works, obedient works, right? To glorify God and demonstrate saving faith to mankind.

I agree that this proposition, these two verses in the proposition are having to do with works of sanctification.

The problem is in your proposition, you brought up the term the penalty of sin. I'm saying that's wrong. That has to do with justification.

That's earlier in the book of Romans. Okay, according to verses 17 and 18, at what point were they justified?

They were already justified. Paul just built his case for the first five chapters. If you look back at Romans chapter five, verse one, hold on, we see that people that put their faith in Christ, therefore have been, past tense, justified by faith and have peace with God through our

Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So after one's justification by faith alone, meaning apart from any works, now a believer lives in sanctification, and he is mortifying the flesh, warring against sin and its power.

And one last thing, because we do understand that glorification is future, and one day we will be released from the presence of sin.

That's still not yet. Where does Paul use the phrase faith alone? In Romans. He uses faith apart from works.

That's the historical phrase of sola fide. For example, when I talked to a

Church of Christ preacher who was putting out letters in the newspaper, it said that people would misapply sola fide, sola gratia, sola

Christus, and I explained that that actually has a context in history and it reflects literally the doctrine of justification by faith apart from works.

So that's what faith alone means when it's historical context. Okay, do I have to understand all of that to understand the book of Romans?

You have to understand that it's faith apart from works. That's what the Apostle Paul teaches us clearly, and he even goes into Ephesians 8, 9, and 10 to distinguish, to Christians, it's not your ergon, it's not your human accomplishments that grounds our sanctification, and you know why?

Because then we could boast about what we do. We could look to God and say, hey, I did that baptism. Right, my hand might not have made it in, but I at least was doing all these obedient acts, and that's not gonna save a person because Jesus works alone and saved.

So were the Roman Christians justified at faith alone?

Faith apart from works, the definition of faith alone. Okay, so faith alone. Where is that at in Romans?

Faith alone. We see faith, but where is faith alone at without elaborating on sola fide and other terms?

Well, sola fide, and the historical context is against the Roman Catholic Church, okay?

So this term actually is historical, and the point is when Martin Luther was talking about that, and even early church fathers, they were going to these verses in Romans 3, 27.

They were going to verses in Romans 4, verse 5 that talk about how our justification is by faith apart from works.

And so another way of saying that historically is sola fide, faith alone.

Okay, so why is that not in the text? What?

What you just said. Justification by faith apart from works? Faith alone. Okay, you're asking the same question, and I feel like I've sufficiently answered this.

You're trying to convince the audience or myself that one is justified by faith alone, and you're trying to convince based on all these various terms and theological concepts are used.

But why don't you use the scriptures, especially Romans, Romans chapters one through five, to show that faith only is what's safe?

Because it was at the point, according to my problem, taken from these two verses, it was at the point of their external act of obedience when they became slaves of right.

It was not until then. Would you agree to that? No, it's absolutely wrong, and we've actually -

I just quoted Paul. No, well, you quoted Paul in sanctification, and once again, you're showing how you're conflating sanctification and justification.

And so it's unfortunate because I actually believe everybody is understanding what I'm saying. Faith alone is a historical context, so if we're gonna use that, we have to let context tell us how that came about.

Martin Luther was talking about that we are saved by faith alone apart from the sacramental works of Rome.

And he did that by quoting so many verses, but he went to Romans chapter three and Romans chapter four, and Ephesians two bears this out.

Please understand, sola fide means justification by faith apart from works.

That's literally the whole point of Paul's opening chapters in the book of Romans. Why do you have -

Is that time? Oh, okay. Let him ask the questions now.

Thank you. All right, so now we're gonna have Tiffany cross our mission from the negative. Okay, so obviously,

I'm wanting to let everybody know what we're talking about is baptism. Is that the external work of obedience?

Is this the external act in that proposition? Yes, it is. Everybody knows this. So yeah, I'm going to ask about baptism verses.

I'm glad he wanted to talk about Romans chapter six because I hope you see that that was talking about sanctification.

And so justification by faith alone comes early. Let's make sure we have some questions to be able to talk about.

So my first question, Brock, is does it please God when a person is baptized? Sure, we have to command it.

So it always pleases God to obey the name. Yes, no, actually, we're in agreement there.

So my next question is how in Romans 8 .8 that says those who are in the flesh, those who are in the flesh cannot please

God. And it's my understanding that those who are in the flesh are unforgiven of past sins. They are unregenerate.

They are in the flesh. They do not have the spirit. So how can those who are in the flesh please

God? Well, first of all, you said your understanding was, I think you said unregenerate, is that correct?

And you used, you say sanctification, you say sanctify? No. Okay, and you used

Romans 8 .8? Let me restate the question briefly. Romans 8 .8 says those who are in the flesh cannot please

God. So my question is how can someone who's unforgiven, unregenerate, in the flesh do anything to please

God like baptism? Well, he's writing to a group of people who obeyed an external act.

And that external act, according to the context of Romans 6, is baptism. So I have no problem talking about baptism.

That's the context. So he's writing to a group of people who had obeyed an external act, and that external act according to the context of baptism.

Okay, so that didn't answer my question. I said how are those who are in the flesh, those who are unforgiven, those who are unregenerate, how can those people do something pleasing to God when he says those who are in the flesh cannot please

God? Your definition of unregenerate is not the Bible definition of regenerate.

So you're gonna have to define your terms about regeneration or one being unregenerate.

So in the flesh, my understanding of the context of Romans 8, you have those, therefore, there's no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Those who have the Spirit. Then you have unbelievers that are in the flesh that are hostile to the things of God.

And I'm asking you, your position, because someone who's not baptized yet has not had their past sins forgiven, they would be unregenerate under this umbrella.

And I'm asking you, how can someone who is in the flesh, unregenerate, unforgiven, do anything like baptism to please

God? The same concept applies to repentance.

Would you agree? No. Okay. So let's stay with Romans then,

Romans 8. You keep going to Romans 8, go to the book of Romans all together, and you're talking about regenerated folks and degenerated folks, okay?

But Paul is writing to folks who had been regenerated. So - Before their baptism?

No, they were baptized at, they were regenerated when they were baptized. Right, so how did someone who's in the flesh do anything to please

God when Romans, or when Paul says that no one in the flesh can do anything to please God? You're using

Romans 8 to try to negate Romans 6. That's exactly what you're doing. Romans 6, he's already discussed the next triangle act of obedience that they obey.

Baptism is the context, and you're using Romans 8 to try to negate that. No, it actually flows together because he's talking about justification, and sanctification, and he goes back to that believer's justified state, who's on the way to in sanctification, to glorification, but I would like to move on.

When a person is walking into a baptistry to get baptized, Brock, do they receive anything in exchange for that?

Repeat the question. Sure. When a person is walking into the baptistry in order to get baptized, do they receive anything as an exchange for their baptism?

I would quote the Bible, Acts 2 .38. They ought to repent and be baptized, and they are forgiven of their sins.

So upon their baptism, they receive forgiveness of sins. So your understanding of Acts 2 .38, as the

Bible says, so your understanding of Acts 2 .38 is that when someone gets baptized, they actually are forgiven at that moment.

When Paul says, for the one who does not work, for the one who does work, it is no longer a gift because they are earning a wage for themselves, and then in verse five, he says, to the one who does not work but believes and has faith, that's how they receive in exchange forgiveness of sins.

So I'm actually having trouble with your interpretation of Acts 2 .38 with Romans chapter four.

Could you further elaborate on that? Sure, my interpretation of Acts 2 .38, I'm just gonna quote it because that's what it means.

Then Peter said unto him, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. That's my interpretation. You actually didn't give an interpretation, you just read it, and I'll let everybody else see that when

I ask you for an interpretation, you just read it. I'm asking you to explain on it, but that's fine.

I hope everyone sees it. It's actually my turn to ask questions, Brock, so if you would, I'd like to ask you a question.

Okay. All right, guys, let's get back to the question and answer. So Romans 10, verse nine says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is

Lord and believe with your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. When did Paul confess

Jesus as Lord? Was it before his baptism? Was it when Ananias spoke in Acts 22, 16, or was it after his baptism?

Well, since it's essential to salvation, I would say he did it before, because baptism was the culminating act of Paul's salvation,

Acts 22, 16. So I would like to - And again, you just - I'm sorry.

Confession with the mouth is an external act. So I would actually -

I just see that in front of my Bible. Oh, sorry. So go ahead. So what I would like to talk about just a little bit is, for one, we have different definitions of confessing, because I believe it's a heart of worship, so it manifests itself externally, but it stems from the heart.

I'm curious - Is that in the text? Is that in the text? Yes, it's literally the definition. So my question is, when did

Paul confess Jesus as Lord? In Acts chapter 22, we read in verse eight,

Paul asked, in Psaltarsis, who are you, Lord? Now, this is when Jesus appeared in the

Shekinah glory of God, shining all around him, and he says, who are you, Lord?

Now, at this point, I don't think Paul knows it's Jesus yet, and he says, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting.

In the verse 10, he says, what shall I do, Lord? So is Paul not confessing

Jesus as Lord yet? Sure, he's confessing Jesus as Lord. That's essential to one's salvation.

How can you do anything after, or how can you do anything after that if you don't believe that Jesus is

Lord? So Paul's understanding of confessing Jesus as Lord, and that God raised him from the dead, was

Jesus was persecuted by the Jews, and he played a helping hand in that. Now he's resurrected, standing, talking with him, and Paul knows that he's the divine man,

Kyrios, and Paul's understanding of Romans 10 is that when you confess Jesus as Lord, then you are saved.

With the heart one believes, and Paul absolutely believed this truth, he is, present tense, justified. So I'm having trouble understanding your position.

When, so you agree that Paul confessed Jesus as Lord before his baptism? Sure. Okay, I think that totally destroys your position, but anyway.

He was also baptized for the remission of sins. Right, afterwards, demonstrating his faith. I absolutely agree. When did

Paul receive the gospel before or after his baptism? Well, how can anyone be baptized if they haven't first received the gospel?

Well, I would tell someone that the gospel is a proclamation. It's the good news that Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law, and that he died, buried, and was resurrected, and if you believe that in your heart, then you will be saved.

So that's the gospel. What verse is that? That's a lot of verses, and I would actually.

Just give one. Okay, 1 Corinthians 15, Acts 16, 31. It doesn't say that.

Let's go to that passage, and you're gonna have to. Actually, I'd like to ask you a question. Galatians 1 says,

Paul says, for I would have you know, brothers, the gospel that was preached to me was not by man's gospel, for I did not receive it from any man, nor was taught it.

I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and so it seems like you agree with me that Paul received the gospel, which is unto salvation, before he was ever water baptized.

Am I understanding you correctly there? But nonetheless, he was water baptized. That's not my point. He demonstrated his faith, which is sanctification, and it's interesting that you're agreeing.

Where does it say that at? James chapter two tells us that. I'm talking about Paul, not James. Where does it say that? What happened with Paul?

They're going to agree with each other. It's not gonna be pitted against each other, so I guess in short, do you agree with me that Paul received the gospel before he was baptized, that he confessed

Jesus as Lord by the Spirit, was a child of God, had his sins forgiven at that point way before he was baptized?

Let me ask you this. Do you believe that repentance, confession... You can only ask me a question one extra time. Okay, what was the question?

So do you agree with me that Paul confessed Jesus as Lord before he was baptized, and that he received the gospel before he was baptized?

Sure. Thank you. All right, that's time right there.

I think everybody's alarm is chiming off at this time. All right, so we're going back to the affirmative. You have 10 minutes to cross that in your mind or two.

Since you mentioned Romans 10, 9, and 10, let's go to Romans 10, 9, and 10.

Since Romans 10, 9, and 10 explicitly states that unbelieving people, and it's referring to the unbelieving

Jews that did not receive the prophet's report, Paul's report, did not confess with the mouth

Jesus as Lord, do you believe man must confess with the mouth the

Lord Jesus to be saved? Oh, repeat that last part again. I'm gonna time myself to make sure

I don't forget. Do you believe man must confess with the mouth the Lord Jesus to be saved?

So obviously the answer is going to be yes anytime you just read scripture. I'm curious to hear your interpretation.

So yes, what that means is when you confess Jesus as Lord, that means a heart is trusting and believing in his saving work, and that demonstrates itself out with words of affirmation no different than the tax collector said,

God be merciful to me, a sinner. He's doing what Joel 2 .28 said, confess it upon the

Lord and you will be saved. That's what was said in Acts 2. So yes, I believe the verses that you literally read.

Okay, so Acts 2 .38. Acts 2 .38, let's go there for a minute.

Can I read this verse as it is given here in Acts 2 .38

and understand it without your commentary? If someone were here tonight, let me ask you like this.

If someone were here tonight and they came to you and said, Jeremiah, do

I need to repent and be baptized in order to receive forgiveness of sins as the text states or remission of sins, what would you tell them?

Obviously, if anybody says, do you believe this verse? I'm gonna say yes. Now, I'm never wanting to take a verse out of context.

A lot of times I explain to students that someone can say, the Bible says there is no God. Now I'm gonna say, hey, let's actually look at the whole verse.

Let's actually look at context. And so what Psalm 14 .1 says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no

God. So what's important to Acts 2, anybody that comes up and asks me, I would explain them the context.

So what you have to understand is this is a narrative book of the Bible. Acts is telling a story.

This is not the same type of book in the Bible that we read in Romans, Colossians, 1

Peter. These are giving us theology. So I would make a distinction between the book of Acts and the gospels with didactic text.

That's important because we're reading a story. And so more in the context, you see the Jews. That is the primary context there in Acts chapter two.

And you do see proselytes, but it's once again in a Jewish context. And when they hear the word baptized, especially in the name of Jesus Christ, they understand this means to be immersed into his authority.

They would have understood the ceremonial cleansings of the Old Testament, like we see in Yom Kippur, Numbers chapter five,

Exodus chapter 30. They understand the ceremonial cleansings are external actions that demonstrate a heart cleansing, something that is spiritually true.

So let me ask you this. I'm just gonna ask simple questions. Try to say yes or no this time.

Must a person do what Peter said in Acts 2 .38 in order to receive remission of sins?

Must he repent and be baptized? I mean, that's what it says. Must they do it? I appreciate your recommendation for me giving a yes or no answer, but I would encourage you to answer any question the way that you like and use up to two minutes to give context rather than perhaps if I disagree with that misformulated question,

I would have to unpack that. But anytime you read a single verse, you will hear me try to develop the context.

So we're gonna continue to do this. When he says, for the forgiveness of your sins, he's invoking the, the definite article.

Remember when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes through the Father except through me.

He is saying that he's the way and the only way. And so the forgiveness of sins is only accomplished at Calvary.

And what Peter is telling us is that forgiveness of sins that happen at Calvary can be personally applied to you.

That's why we look at the word repentance and see how repentance is always in the Gospels and throughout the book of Acts.

It's repentance that is applied to somebody's account. But it says repent and, coordinate conjunction, correct?

Right, so they go together. Right, in this sense, and this goes back to earlier, you must be justified and you must be sanctified.

And so think about the context with the Jews. He is calling them to repent and the backside of repentance is always faith, they go hand in hand, and it's immaterial and of the heart.

He is calling them to repent and believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And then, coordinating conjunction, he's calling them to demonstrate that faith the way that James 2 talks about us, to not just have a mere said faith, but to live and bear fruit of what's truly on the inside.

So yes, repent and be baptized. That's what Christians ought to do. They ought to be believed and have faith in Christ and be justified and then to demonstrate that in obedient works of sanctification.

Yeah, but he's not referring to Christians. He's referring to folks who have not been forgiven of their past sins.

And here's what Peter said, repent and be baptized. So evidently, I can't, according to you and what you're telling me,

I can't just read it and say, there it is, that's what it says. I have to understand everything you just said in order to understand a simple verse.

Well, I would agree. None of these people know what you're saying. I thought you were done with the past tense. Well, none of these people,

I say none of these people, most of these people do not understand all of the things, all of your commentary on a simple, explicit statement commanded by Peter.

Peter said, repent and be baptized. Is that a question? Yes. Okay, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.

Do I need, must I do that in order to receive forgiveness of sins? If you ever spoke a verse,

I will 100 % agree with you. For Brock, you have to understand context. So if you ask me, no, no, just this one verse, don't go anywhere else.

I'm never gonna concede to that. I'm always gonna say, you gotta look at the context. I believe what all of scripture says, you can't just isolate one verse by itself and build a whole theology out of one verse.

You have to look to the totality of scripture. I would encourage people to look to scripture alone and all of scripture.

That's how we build any type of doctrine. And Brock, what I'm afraid is you're looking to narratival texts, meaning texts that tell a story, and you're imposing those texts onto explicit doctrinal texts in theology, like what the

Apostle Paul's doing, because he uses baptism differently in his letters. In 1

Peter 3 .21, Peter says, baptism saves us. My question is, does baptism save us?

Well, my translation actually says, baptism now saves you, but once again, I want to look more into the context.

So if you would give me a moment to turn. We gotta hear his explanation. In my two -minute response to your question,

I wanna develop context. I hope everyone is seeing a pattern here. I'm asked about one particular verse, and every single time he asks if I believe it, and I say, yes, but what is the context?

Here's the context in my minute 45 seconds left. You gotta look at verse 20.

He says, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water.

Baptism, which now corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal for God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The context bears out. There is a type going on with Noah and the ark and the water.

The water is not salvific. It is actually an instrument of judgment. What is salvific is the ark, and so this is important going into the next verse, where we read baptism, which means immersion.

It doesn't mean wet immersion. It means that you can be immersed into a particular context, and this is what he goes on to say with my 15 seconds left.

Baptism, which now corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body.

I think Peter could not be more clear, saying it's not the water that saves you. That's not what is salvific right here, but he goes on to say, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience.

We need to ask the question, what is a good conscience? Peter actually says earlier in the context that you must sanctify the

Lord Jesus in your heart and give a defense for these things, having a good conscience. So it always goes back to the heart matter, trusting in Jesus.

That is the baptism that now saves you, looking to him and saving faith through the resurrection of Christ.

Okay, so first of all, none of the text says that, number one.

Number two. We have 20 seconds to ask a question. You mentioned that the baptism is somehow not water baptism, correct?

Is that your question? Yes. Okay, Marlon, can I have two minutes to respond to that? Well, I actually appreciate the question,

Brock, because I want everybody to understand, we are looking at one of the epistles.

This is different than the flow and the narrative of Acts, and I agree, baptism in Acts is talking about water baptism.

They come up out of the water. This is congruent with what the great commission was given to us by Jesus, but when we look to the epistles, we are getting theology and doctrine to believers who have already been baptized.

So they're talking about these spiritual truths. They don't understand this is something that had already happened in their life and he's pointing to the spiritual reality.

Baptism means to be immersed, and so we always have to ask what context. One way to illustrate this is 1

Corinthians 10, verse two, where the people of Israel were baptized into Moses.

I've actually had Church of Christ say, well, there was water around, and I'm like, yeah, but they weren't immersed in it. He actually split the water wide open and they walked through it.

Immersion there demonstrates that they were immersed into the leadership of Moses, and so what

I'm saying is the sheer fact that he's already talking to believers who were baptized and given them doctrine, typically, and I would say almost every time, we realize that this is, again, connected to one's authority and leadership, and this context bears out that baptism, being immersed, is not in water.

Literally goes on to say not as the removal from dirt from the body. What would do that? Well, a ceremonial bath would actually wash away dirt from the body, and then he goes on to qualify what that baptism is.

I would just simply appeal to the context every time. He says, appeal to God for a good conscience.

Peter was a Jew. His audience was Jewish. He would have said what Hebrews would have said, that the blood of Jesus, this is how we are cleansed from an evil conscience and has a good conscience.

That's the type of immersion that Peter is talking about. How much time do

I have left? Do I have more time? You're out of time. You're out of time. All right, so now the negative half, 10 minutes to cross over to Peter.

So, Brock, hey, thank you. I'm having a good time, and I know, like you said, we have compassionate times, and at the end of the day,

I love you, and I think you would say the same to me. So, thank you for this time, and I'm glad that so many people are here.

Like, I truly mean that. Sure. So, my first question. We've talked about a lot of good things so far.

So, are Christians today justified before God the same way that Abraham was?

Yes, by faith. Okay, what is your definition of the word justified?

To be declared righteous. To be declared righteous from anything? Elaborate. Sure, no,

I mean, am I trying to attack you kindly, but no, I mean, I really wanna have a good conversation.

My definition of justification, when I say my definition, I really am trying to appeal to dekiosis, right?

I mean, that's, and you tell me, you look at Bible tools, and so we're on the same page in that respect. Do you agree with this definition of justification?

The legal act of God declaring a person innocent, no longer guilty of the penalty of sin.

Sure. So, when was Abraham declared guilty from the penalty of sin? By his obedient faith.

Okay. He was justified before God by his obedient faith. That's the context of Romans 4.

So, when you say obedient faith, I agree. I agree. Where we disagree, as I think, how we understand justification and sanctification.

So, I believe sanctification flows out of justification. Do you agree with that? I believe once an individual is justified, they ought to sanctify themselves.

Sure. Set themselves apart by obeying the words of the Bible. Well, and I appreciate when you say that, and it sounds like you agree with me, when they are justified, the penalty of their sin,

I mean, you would say past sin, and I'm kind of granting that for the time being, but it seems like at the point of justification, that is dealt with.

And then I agree, we now work out our salvation with fear and trembling and sanctification.

Is that a, do you agree that that's a good way of looking at this scripture? I'm not sure the,

I'm not sure of the question. I mean, what does this have to do with Romans 4? You know, about faith and so forth?

Well, when you say obedient from the heart or obedient faith, I say yes and amen to that.

Sure. Because I say you have to obey the gospel. What that looks like is faith in Jesus, justified, declared righteous, and the penalty of sin.

And I'm trying to press you on the proposition a little bit because I think that's justification. And so I don't understand how you can agree with me that that's dealt with at justification, and then we now live in sanctification from the powers.

It really, it stems on our definition of tolerance. And I think you would agree.

You believe that a person is justified, declared righteous by God, by faith only, without any human action, am

I correct? So I'm asking, okay, yeah, I was thinking you were asking me questions. So yes, but I would appeal to the word of Ergon for works, negates any possibility of you getting up and performing anything as a part of that justification.

So I guess since I have to ask the question, do you agree with that? An individual, a person who has never become a

Christian, they're servants of sin. They are justified at the point of an external act of obedience.

Romans 6, it was baptism. They obeyed the death, the burial, and resurrection. They did not become slaves of righteousness until that happened.

So the ones that he's writing to in Romans did that. So there's a lot of reflection by Paul, reminding them of what they did.

That's the point of the past tense words of Romans 6. So feel free to take two minutes, but can you give me a definition of the word works and a definition of the word faith?

Okay, faith is action based on what you believe.

All right, sorry, say it again, sorry. Action based on what one believes.

That's for works, I'm sorry. So my bad, this is my mistake. Define works first, and then faith.

Okay, so you got human works, right? We understand that.

The works that Paul's talking about in the book of Romans were the works of the old law.

Would you agree to that? No, because Abraham, did

Abraham come before the Mosaic law? Sure. So he was justified. That's why he used

Abraham as an illustration. He was saved by faith, not alone. It doesn't say alone.

The text doesn't say that. He was saved by faith. Not apart from works? He was saved by faith.

Apart from what? Obedient faith. Apart from works, I'm asking. Not apart from what God said. No, I'm saying was

Abraham saved by faith apart from works? He was saved by obeying God.

Okay, you're not, okay. That's the answer. Okay. I'm not gonna play on your definition of terms.

I want to ask a question. I want everybody to see that I'm having trouble getting a straight answer when I say, was Abraham justified by faith apart from works?

And you say, once again, what? He was saved by obedient faith. That's what Romans four says.

That's the point of Romans four. No faith was considered in the sight of God until obedience occurred.

I'm not gonna play on your definition of terms. Sure, well, it's not my definition of terms. Well, I'm gonna take faith apart from works.

So I've made that very clear. Well, the context is the works of the law of Moses. That's the context. That's the answer.

So, well, I appreciate it. I do appreciate your answer. And you can answer however you want. So I'm not gonna try to tell you to say yes or no.

So you can do what you want with it. So another question is in the gospel of John, towards the very end of the book, after Jesus's resurrection,

John 20, verse 30 says, that Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which were not written in this book, but these things were written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

Christ, the son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. If someone only had the gospel of John, would this be sufficient enough for somebody to have everlasting life and be saved?

But they don't just have the gospel of John. So I'm not gonna play into just having the gospel of John because none of us just have the gospel of John.

We have the Holy Testament. Right, so I think, obviously,

I could affirm that because this word is pastuo and the context qualifies that even Thomas had pastuo and confessed

Jesus as kurios in God. And so I just want, one more time, are you sure that if someone just had the gospel of John, hey, that may happen.

And I'm saying, this is a gospel, right, the power of God unto salvation, and tell me if I'm representing your position correctly.

If it's under your position, they would not have sufficient knowledge in order to be saved. They had

John three. Okay, thank you for that. Born of wine, sir.

Born of water. So would you say that baptism is only a work of God? Well, it is a work of God to which man must submit.

That's what the Bible teaches. So my question was, is baptism only a work of God?

Meaning, is it not also a work of man? It's a work that God contrived.

He invented it, and he said man must do it. Okay, I think we're talking past each other because it was my understanding that your position and us talking with one another outside of this is that you see baptism, and maybe even

Colossians 2 .12, someone would try to appeal to that, and I would say, I think baptism there is talking about a different context, but I would say, yes, baptism is a work of God.

It's also a work of man, and so I'm trying to figure out if you're saying that it's just a work of God and not a work of man or both.

But, okay, so God invented what we would describe as the work of baptism.

You would agree to that, correct? Baptism was invented by God. Would you say that's true or false?

Just working with it. Time is running out, so if you wanna respond, go for it. Okay. I'm gonna ask another question. Okay, so baptism was contrived in the infinite mind of God.

God said you must do it. That's why we teach, that's why I teach that baptism is necessary and required before one is forgiven of passing because the

Bible teaches it. So in Luke chapter 16, verse 15,

Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and said, you are those that justify yourselves before men, but God knows the hearts.

And so in Luke chapter 18, this would be my final question, he had a Pharisee that trusted in himself.

And I think by contrast, and maybe you would agree with me, the tax collector did not trust in himself.

That's inferred based on the Pharisee doing that. And so he said, God be merciful to me a sinner.

And the text says that he went home justified. Is a Christian justified the same way in this parable?

Well, Luke is referring to things before the cross.

So as far as an individual today to be saved, to be delivered from past sins, they must repent, they must be baptized.

That's how they receive remission of past sins. And it seems to me you're conflating unnecessary tradition by the

Pharisees with what God expects of man today. Like Pharisee was wrong because of his unnecessary tradition and submitting to it.

Thank you. All right, good job, guys.

Great cross abomination. All right, so now we're gonna transition to closing remarks once again. This is our 10 minute closings for both affirmative and negative.

Also audience, as you have gathered here, is it fine? Oh, I'm messing up.

All right, we're both fine. I'm messing up the format. But yeah, five minute closings.

Once again, as you have gathered all this information that was thrown at you in such a bombardment way, make sure you have questions with those thoughts and have some thorough questions because we'll have a 30 minute

Q &A after the closing remarks, all right? That's it. Affirmative, you are up for a five minute closing.

So I would encourage all of you tonight to open the

Bible such as passages that have been introduced, such as Acts 2 .38

to try to negate baptism and being a work of man as one meriting or earning their salvation and accept it.

That's what I would encourage you to do. But I also want the record to show tonight that Jeremiah has not negated my proposition.

My proposition tonight was to show that an external action was required before deliverance of past sins.

He has not negated that. We need to understand that. Baptism can be discussed at another time.

The concept of justification can be discussed at another time. Sanctification can be discussed at another time.

But we're here tonight, or I'm here tonight to prove my proposition and his responsibility is to negate the proposition.

I hope you have seen tonight that he has not done that. He has not went to Romans chapter six, verses 17 and 18 and negated the fact that it was an external act to which they submitted.

And it was at that point in time, that exact moment in time when they became slaves of righteousness. Therefore, all of what they did after that was because they became slaves of righteousness, not before.

They were servants of sin before that external act. I want the record to show that.

He has not negated my proposition. That's all I need to say. All right, thank you so much.

All right, Jeremiah, you're up for your rebuttal. Brock, thank you so much.

I actually really did enjoy this dialogue and I love you. And I hope we can continue to have interactions with each other and hopefully we can set up something like this again someday.

Like I'm all for it. And thank you so much for a big gathering. I thought this was wonderful.

Just know my heart is purely love for every one of you and Brock. And I really did enjoy this time.

I really did want to paint a picture of the gospel of grace. Now, I'm all for the proposition.

I really do feel like I showed in Romans chapter six that talked about sanctification, not justification.

And that's the big problem here is we actually gotta look more in the context. I think if you just read in verse 19, he tells us that obedience from the heart leads to sanctification.

That obedience from the heart first justifies us before God and then leads to being conformed more into the image of Christ and set apart from the world.

So in my remaining time, I just want to go back to the book of Romans. One verse that a lot of us are very familiar with is for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

And I've actually been guilty of just stopping right there at that verse. And it goes on to say, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption in Christ Jesus.

I love that because he says, well, we are justified by grace. And that's why in Romans four, he says to the one who works, it's no longer a gift because you've earned it.

That's why you can't do Ergun. That's why you can't do Ergodson. That's why baptism will never be the means of having forgiveness of sins.

It is faith alone in Jesus Christ that justifies us. And then we demonstrate that faith by external actions of obedience, which are works.

And so it must rest on faith. That's why later in Romans chapter four, Paul says, that is why it, the promise of salvation that goes through Abraham depends on faith in order that the promise of that it may rest on grace.

And then Paul says in Romans chapter 11, verse six, but if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works.

Otherwise grace would no longer be grace. And so I think something that's very applicable to us is the book of Galatians.

There was a Judaizer heresy that they believe you had to add the words of circumcision in order to be saved.

And what you see there is that Paul begins that letter by saying, you are turning, you are deserving yourself from the grace of Christ and embrace a different gospel.

It's because they were no longer embracing a gospel of grace and so that breaks my heart.

But then he goes into saying that we are justified not by works alone, not by the things that you do and your performance and the things that you can accomplish, but it's by faith.

And when I say faith alone, it was interesting because I would have loved to talk about James two because faith alone is talked about there.

And it's talking about in a justification with men that we're not saved by faith alone, but for men.

We demonstrate that inward faith that we have justified before God and for men. And so what

Paul goes on to say is that when we are immersed in Christ by faith, that is how Jew and Greek are all saved.

And then he gives a strong review of Galatians five verse four. And it talks about being estranged and severed from Christ.

When you don't look to Jesus and his work alone based on grace through faith, then you are starting to fall away from grace.

You've lost your grasp on the gospel of grace. And you've now embraced what's called works righteousness.

So I implore everybody to look to the only savior, Jesus Christ, and trust in him alone. Don't trust in yourself.

The tax collector said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. He did say that under the law in this parable, but we are all saved by grace through faith.

We've always been justified the same way. So my last thought is the scriptures alone teach that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, all to the glory of God alone.

Thank you. All right, thank you both parties for those close remarks.

This time we'll be taking another five minute intermission. And once again, audience, there will be a 30 minute

Q &A. So if you have a question, write it down so you can keep it in mind. And the mics there will be the question, where the question will be asked.

So five minute intermission. All right, we'll wait at this Q &A.

Once again, this Q &A is 30 minutes. The way this Q &A is gonna work is that we have one microphone there and one microphone on this side of the room.

This side, this microphone is questions for Brock. And this side microphone is questions for Jeremiah.

Make sure that your question, you get right to your question. There's no debating the interlocutor back and forth.

Just get your question in. And the interlocutors, the debaters, have one minute each to respond to that question.

I mean, you can do it every once. You can say the person getting asked it's two and the other person gets one. Okay, we'll keep it at three.

Okay, that's fine. All right, so the person that's initially getting asked will be two minutes. And then the person responding to the question.

Two minutes? Yeah, one person. The person asking the question is two minutes. No, no, no, no, no, no. The person asking the question get like 30 seconds.

They need to get their question out rather fast. The person that's responding to the question first, it's two minutes.

The second person will get one minute to respond to that same question. All right, so we can start with.

I know this is supposed to be the subject of my office. Office right now, I got to put this off throughout.

I didn't want to, you know, I normally make a bunch of alternative questions. I got a lot of fallback.

It's almost five words. Also, I will mention, get the questions.

They're all my centers. For my centers, they're classified. That's good.

So I'm choosing everybody for the fallback. Well, how much of my experience is dead?

You know, I can't even count out what we've done. Well, for the context of these individuals, context of them.

The context for these individuals, they were seriously dead in the course of the month, 5 -12, all seen.

That's the context. And according to 4 Thessalonians 3, Matthew 20, no one can do good.

That's a quotation from Psalm 14. And the reason why no one can do good is because they said no to God.

So that's how I would answer that question. I actually really appreciate the question because it gets to the heart of the issue that man is spiritually dead and the trespasses and sins, they are actually not seeking after God.

So the man in flesh doesn't even want to submit to God. Doesn't want to be baptized.

Doesn't want to be obedient to the things. They don't want to believe and repent. So it gets to the heart of man.

It's actually like a heart of stone. And so what we need is spiritual regeneration.

We need the Holy Spirit to come into our heart and transform us for us to see the light of the gospel.

And I think the question did a really good job of saying that another big part of this dialogue is anthropology.

Natural, biblical understanding of nations that they were then sent can't respond to these problems.

All right, question. This is for Rob.

Oh, okay. So, back to Timothy 3, it says, again, all the prophets and their religions said everyone who believes in God receives forgiveness of sins through his name.

So the, our question is, trying to get a lot of you,

Paul said, gives the human, that when the living never said what must

I do to be saved, it's not what shall we do, it's what must I do to be saved.

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. I'm in your house. It brings you back to 2 .3, which emphasizes faith in the name of Jesus.

Let's try to get to the question. Okay, so the question is, it's like, if Paul said, if Paul answered what must

I do to be saved as a specific question, and the specific answer to that specific question is believe in the

Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, does that verse make enough to save or do you need other things?

Okay, so you can go to Acts 10 and Acts 16. Cornelius was not saved only at faith.

He was baptized in his household. You're saying, is there a God who works in the amount of falsehood?

All right, yeah, no, no response. Brock, go ahead, respond. And no, no argument back and forth.

Just Brock, go ahead and respond and that'll be it. But he was not saved until the baptism. But you tell him, but his salvation didn't occur.

You realize that in Acts 16, his salvation didn't occur. Did you tell me that's the context of what's happening?

She's not allowed to speak to the next speaker. She knows that, there's a lot of security in that thing. She said that, maybe she's a little scared, but there's a lot of security in that thing.

All right, that's, all right. Next. Sorry, I got a minute left.

Oh, sorry, you got two minutes left, Jeremy. I'm about to go to the next question, man. You got two minutes,

Jeremy. Well, I, I, But you got one minute left. What I really like about the question, there is something different in Acts 2 and Acts 10.

The Jews are asking a broader question, what must we do? And what you get is repentance, which is also faith, and it's strictly linked together, which results in justification.

And then we see the demonstration of the faith, which is absolutely, you are baptized to demonstrate your faith in Christ.

And I love the question, actually, because he had a more specific question in Acts 16.

You know, 10 is related. He said, the Philippian Genesis, what must I do to be saved? Now, if I remember, you're certainly correct.

Paul doesn't say, believe and be water baptized. He says, believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.

I believe with all my heart that that is a sufficient gospel proclamation. Right, next.

My understanding is that your position on James 2 is that you're talking about sanctification of Abraham when he speaks about Abraham in James 2.

But it seems to me that the word sanctification is not of James 2, but the word justification is. So what it looks to me like you're doing is you're saying, well, this is sanctification.

It doesn't say sanctification, it says justification. But here, justification means sanctification. And I think the way you're doing that is by saying, what does justification mean?

So, my question would be, then, that if it is just a behavioral justification for being in James 2, it would be certain.

He's talking about the sacrifice of Isaac. And that was an action that God gave him to do on a mountain alone.

And if it was for the purpose of justification before men, why would he not have him go to the middle of the sea, where a lot of people are?

Why have him go to a different place outside of the land? So I think, I mean, I think that's a great question.

Like, I look at you and say, yes, my side needs to have a good answer to that, because you notice

James and Paul are both talking about Abraham. So this is where we'd be a little different, because I agree that there's no sanctification.

But what we do see is a justification before men. And when you do go back to Genesis chapter 22,

Abraham said to the two people traveling with him, me and my son are gonna come back. So he did. So it did demonstrate to those two men.

I would say that Abraham did demonstrate his faith before at least one person, right?

And it was Isaac, who was a part of it. We can see that it's the angel of the Lord, right? Which is usually a

Christophany, and he's not heaven. He's on man's level, and it says that he now sees, basically, that he was obedient.

And I would say that God is omniscient. So he didn't actually burn anything, but from the human level, his faith was justified to the world, but it gets even better than that.

Moses writes the whole Torah, right? So now you have millions of Jews seeing

Abraham's faith that was justified in Genesis 15, now being vindicated before men, right?

And then another application is James. We now see Christians, we are justified before God the same way he quotes

Genesis 16, six. And that's also, I really do believe this with all my heart, since I got 40 seconds left.

When you start the context earlier in verse 14 of James chapter two, it says, my brothers, what if someone said faith?

A lot of people say that they're Christians, but show me, right, that's verse 18. It's literally a dialogue between people.

One of you says to them, I will show you, you show me, and he says, show me your faith.

And so I believe when you carry this out, Abraham was justified by works before men, but Abraham was justified by faith before God.

That's my response, but thank you. Oh, let me take one question. Yeah, go ahead. Thank you.

My simple response to that is since Isaac was the only one who went up with Abraham, Abraham, or Isaac, would have been dead before that would have occurred.

So it makes no sense that Abraham would have been justified before men if Isaac would have been dead.

All right, next. All right, so this question is for Brock. It's a three -part question, but it's real quick.

I kinda need you to dumb things down for me so that I'll completely understand. Sure. When you say what is the visual external action, what are you specifically talking about?

The context says it was baptism, so I have to say that. Okay, and what does that accomplish? Well, the

Bible says it accomplishes forgiveness of sins, Acts 2 .38. Okay, my last question that goes along with this.

I go and I am saved. I have accepted Jesus Christ as my savior and all of that good stuff, all right?

I'm not been baptized. So if I die in a car accident tonight, what does that mean for me? The Bible says that no one, the

Bible, first of all, doesn't refer to anyone being saved by simply accepting Jesus into the heart.

No one was saved on those terms, and I understand it's kind of an emotional question because what happens in the car wreck doesn't negate what

God commanded. So you're saying that if I have accepted Christ into my heart.

All right, okay, we're the baby of the Bible says. Okay, so I don't understand. Okay, Brock has answered the question.

That's Jeremiah, you have one minute to respond. Well, it is an emotional question, but it's so good because it demonstrates, in my opinion, the folly of works righteousness, saying that if you didn't do the right works necessary to be saved, then it's not gonna happen.

And what I love about what the Bible teaches, I mean, we can look at John 3 .16, we can look at Ephesians 2, we can look at many passages and acts that whoever believes upon the

Lord Jesus, they will be saved. And I deal with hospice care. I deal with a lot of people that aren't going to be able to make it into a body of water.

And it's a joy to me to be able to say, look to Jesus and Him alone, and you will be saved in one day.

You may meet me there, but I will get to see you one day in court. All right, next.

I was gonna ask a question now. Jeremiah said that we're talking about being justified in some way, but nobody else did on that system.

Excuse me, sir, can you speak into the mic a little bit more? Earlier, it was talked about Paul's conversion.

It mentions a fact that he believed and it comes to a point where it was said that he was justified.

Now, after that, Acts 9 tells us that he prayed for three days after that.

And then when Ananias arrives in chapter 22, verse 16, he says, and thou, quite curious thou, arrives at me that I should wash away my sins, calling on the name of the

Lord. So we see he still had his sins that he didn't forgive. If he said that they were justified before their sins, they would still have their sins.

If he died on that stage, where do you go from here to do that? Don't Ananias still have his sins?

So thank you for the question, because this is ultimately asking the question, what does Acts 22, 16 mean?

So let me read it in context, because something that I care a lot about is context. I don't want to just simply read a verse and say the

Bible says what it says. I want to help you understand more of the context. So he says, why should you wait, rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling upon his name?

Well, this is Ananias. And we gotta ask the question, how did Paul understand what Ananias meant?

Well, he tells us in Romans chapter 10 that calling upon the name of the Lord is being saved.

This is worship from the heart when you literally look at the definition. And so what

I see in Acts 22, it's not the water baptism washing away sins. I would say the washing away of sins is according to Paul in Romans 10, calling upon his name.

I simply ask the question, when did Paul call upon the name of the Lord? And it happened before his baptism.

I like, this is hard for me to, like I scratched my head. I'm just like, man, it's so amazing.

Saul of Tarsus, who was killing Christians, going against the way, the way of Christianity. Jesus is the one that interrupts his life.

And you got the Shekinah glory of God and this booming voice. And Paul knew that this was God. He didn't quite have an informed conscience.

And he said, who are you, Lord? Which is Kyrios, the divine name. And he reveals himself as being,

I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. This is a resurrected Jesus.

And then he says, what must I do, Lord? I don't understand how we can't say, well, obviously

Paul was confessing Jesus as Lord, which this is reflective in the heart that believes and trusts in him.

And then we look at Romans chapter 10, he says, you are saved. You are believing in the heart and you are present tense justified.

So I would honestly push back at the context of Acts 22, 16. Paul. Regardless of what

Jeremiah just said, Paul's sins were not washed away until he was baptized. I just want you guys to know that's what the text says.

He used Romans 10, talking about the calling on the name of the

Lord. In the same context, those Jews did not obey the gospel.

They were unbelieving Jews. How do we know that? Because they never confessed

Jesus as Lord with their mouth and thus they did not obey the gospel. So. Okay.

Is this for me? Yes. Okay. Yes. I thank all of you. I thank all of y 'all for being here today.

Really, I thank all of you. I'm asking this question sincerely because I just wanna understand your position better.

I've heard a lot of people tell me what you believe and I just wanna hear it straight from you, okay? So, you say that Acts 2 .38

says that souls are forgiven but they repent and baptize and those are the synonyms for each other, correct?

Well, my position is that because that's what the text says. Okay. So, in the gentleman, I'm sorry, sir,

I forget what your name is. In the gentleman's introduction for you, he mentioned that you are the church that belongs to Christ.

So, if a person who belongs to a different denomination, such as a

Baptist, secular, et cetera, et cetera, they repent and they baptize, they belong to the church of Christ.

Well, if one did what Peter said to do in Acts 2 .38, their understanding would be they're being added by the

Lord to the church. There's only one. So, the concept of even more than one church is not even viable.

There's only one church, Ephesians 4 .4, one body. So, the idea of other churches is not even in the

Bible. It's not even scriptural. Jesus only has one. In order to be a member of that church, repentance and baptism is necessary.

And again, that's the text. I'm just quoting the Bible. Right, okay, so the denomination. That's it. That's it.

So, I actually really like the question because it's asking about what is the church.

And actually, there's actually times where we can see where there's churches plural. So, there is a singular church in which

Jesus is building, and then there's multiple churches. This is what we understand is there's a universal church body.

And I would say that there's all the, the Church of Christ is a denomination.

They don't teach that, and I respect their views, but I would say literally by the definition, they are gathering together and they hold to a set of doctrine and beliefs.

So, they are a denomination in my view, whether they say they are or not, but I would be charitable to talking about those things.

And I agree with the gentleman. If someone looks on the Lord Jesus, repentance and faith, they are saved even if they are in different denominations.

Now, they may be saved in the light of that theology, but I would recognize genuine believers of God scattered worldwide.

I have a question here.

And it's about, so, it's not me.

And, it's about, let's say, and he says, what does he mean?

That's not true. Father, that's not true. On the other hand, that's true.

So, I think, if there's any opposing to that,

I'm sorry, but we all agree that, for those people on the cross, we probably want to recognize those who are in faith.

So, we need to stay, but there it is. All right, Mr. Chairman, that's all

I've got. That's okay, I love you. So, let me start with the people on the cross.

I think a lot of Baptists and the cross debates spent way too much time about the thief on the cross.

Did Jesus make the promise before he died to the thief on the cross? I wouldn't say yes, but what did he fulfill the old covenant after his death and did the thief on the cross after?

I would say yes, but what's more fundamental there is by him saying receive me into your kingdom he is expressing a heart of repentance and faith that's why he's actually a good example and then you asked about Philip in the

Ethiopian eunuch my understanding that text in Acts chapter 8 is that the eunuch is reading

Isaiah 53 and Philip came along kind of really cool by the Holy Spirit right and then he said he explained the gospel explained the gospel to the

Ethiopian eunuch. You know what the Bible tells us about when someone receives the gospel? Salvation. It's the power of God unto salvation and what did he do as a result of believing in the gospel?

He was baptized. Of course he was. That's what Christians do. Those who believe in Jesus then demonstrate that faith outwardly to people by being obedient in works.

He would have believed the gospel by faith just like Paul teaches and Romans and Ephesians and this harkens back to what

Jesus said many times in the gospels. He gets to respond to our little dialogue.

It is interesting that every conversion account in the book of Acts all culminated in baptism.

Acts 2 they repented they were baptized for the mission of their sins they were added to the church and brought up the Ethiopian eunuch.

He did exactly what they did in Acts chapter 2. Rejoicing did not occur until the baptism occurred so and by the way with the thief on the cross obviously we do not know whether or not the thief on the cross was baptized perhaps he was but two

Jesus did have power to forgive sins on earth and he did live under the old law which did not require water baptism.

All right before you ask a question ask your question make sure we're answering asking only one question.

I understand you want a little clarification before things like that but you are limited to one question so if your question is a clarification question that's right so go ahead.

Can you hear me? Sure yeah okay so before the clarification part my question in regards to we talked about Roman 3 28 and so it says for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law and so my question is you know can

I read that to somebody with the expectation they're going to believe it and if I could have that additional question

Sure you can ask them to read it. Okay my turn now.

So it's a great question this is what the Protestant Reformation kind of boiled down to is Martin Luther championed against the

Roman Catholic Church Romans 3 28 that we are justified by faith apart from works of the law.

What is beautiful is Romans chapter 4 tells us that this happened with saints before the

Mosaic Law he did in Romans 4 verse 6 talks about King David in his 32nd

Psalm he was justified the same way that Abraham was before the law even though David was under the law and then

Paul identifies his justification his the penalty of all of his sins was taken care of by Calvary even for Christians that come after the law's fulfillment so I agree that we are saved all by grace through faith just like Abraham and all saints of all time.

Thank you. My question to you

I guess goes back to the book of Matthew chapter 7

Jesus comes to save us. It says not everyone comes to save us but he did do the will of my

Father. Now Jesus Christ our Lord this time did the will of my

Father for justification not for sanctification. So what

Matthew is talking about is so important because you can't just have a said faith that's literally

James 2 14 right if someone has truly been regenerated by the Holy Spirit think about it they've been brought from death to life they no longer want to live in the bondage or sin they want to make war against it you know what's going to happen out of a regenerated heart that now has saving faith in Jesus there will be much fruit but you have

Pharisees I believe the text someone can check me on this but Luke 16 15

Jesus is rebuking the Pharisees and he says you are trying to justify yourself before men but it is

God that sees the heart and so I love that because I think that's basically repeating what is in Matthew chapter 7 this is what it comes down to it's another definition that we didn't get into tonight and that is a definition of regeneration this means a new birth now it's my position when the

Holy Spirit radically transforms your life with the gospel proclamation you have a radically new nature that's not like the old man this produces works because I agree with the gentleman's question that if someone just said that they had faith in Jesus hey

I'm a Christian I know a lot of people that say that and if you look at their life I would say man they are far from Christ I would

I would say you've told me one thing but I suspect what's on the inside that's why the

Bible tells us that there are tears among the weeds not everyone who says Lord Lord or says they're a

Christian will be saved there will be much fruit from someone that when they confess Jesus is Lord and their heart is actually truly regenerated you will see much fruit my response to that is no conversion account in the book of Acts no one was regenerated by Jeremiah's definition of regeneration

I would challenge all of you to test that with the conversion accounts in the book of Acts uh yeah so uh

Romans chapter 4 brought up a couple of times tonight and I was curious if I could could I read a small section of it yeah that's your question okay

Romans chapter 4, verse 4, is the text of the product. It says, Now, for one who works in the way we have not yet, but as it is due, if the one who does not work on the reason that you justify the iniquity of the state is coming to righteousness, just as David also speaks a blessing to the one to whom

God has righteousness upon them works. This little section 7 and 8, I think, defines what has been mentioned in verse 6, which is

God has righteousness upon them works. Righteousness here is defined as blessed are those who do all that is good and forgive them for the sins of covenant, blessed are the men that have sinned before whom

God has not sinned. So, I think we've got to take it down a little further. Verse 10, it says,

How long was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after or before he was circumcised.

He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had out of faith while he was able to be circumcised.

And so, what I'm trying to figure out today, it seems as though what's being said in chapter 4 is that righteousness is the forgiveness of sins and the fact that the

Lord will not count the man's sins against him based on what he has done. And this would be okay, so far from worse.

How is it that God does that, especially in the light of verse 10 and 11, that this is all done before he has done any external work whatsoever, at least in this passage, in regard to circumcision?

Sure. The context of Romans 4, as we think about the example of Abraham, obedient faith is under consideration in chapter 4.

And I guess it depends on how you determine works in Romans 4, how you define work.

The works referred to in Romans 4 are the works of the law of Moses. And he was not saved by the works of the law of Moses.

He was saved by his obedient faith. His faith acted upon God's commands, thus he was saved.

So, the context of Romans 4, the works of the law of Moses, he was not saved by the works of the law of Moses.

So, Lawson's way smarter than me, so I'll just leave that as it is. But he did quote from Psalm chapter 32 here in verses 7 and 8.

And this is really important because David is saying this under the law, right? So, he's saying that blessed are those whose lawless deeds, their lawless deeds are forgiven.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against whom the

Lord will not count his sin. This is really important to understand.

This is a legal transaction that is taking place with a sinner in Jesus Christ. The fact that Jesus is the perfect Savior and has absolute perfection and righteousness, when that is credited to your account, it doesn't just forgive your past sins, but all of your sins.

Jesus, God sees your entire life. So, this is a very strong case because Abraham was justified way, way, way before the mosaic was.

So, mankind is in a really big predicament, right? Because we're all hostile to the law.

We don't want to follow it. That's what Romans 8, 7 says. We cannot submit to it because we don't want to.

Those who are in the flesh are all men. We can't do any works. We're in a big, really big problem.

That's why Romans 3, 23 says we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We're all in the same predicament. Nothing you say, nothing you do can save you.

That's why the gospel of grace says all of that was accomplished at Calvary. The totality is the

Greek word. It is finished. Jesus did all the works necessary. That's why we can't bring any works to the table.

So, how do we get out of this big predicament? God in his wonderful omniscience provided a way, his most wise counsel.

He says, don't do works. Look to me in saving faith. Faith is not a work of man. I believe it's a work of God.

So, I think a deeper question is how does a person even put their trust in Christ? We must rely on the

Holy Spirit regenerating our hearts, producing that desire to repent and believe in Jesus, which is not a work of man.

Again, I'm going to keep the response simple. The way he just defined regeneration is never found in the book of Acts.

Again, I challenge you to find one example. Questions for Brock?

Acts 2, 38 reads, And Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins.

You will receive a gift of the Holy Spirit. Something I believe that we would both agree on is that faith and repentance are two different things.

I believe that we would also agree that the Bible clearly teaches that faith is necessary for being justified and forgiven.

So, knowing that faith is necessary for salvation, how can Acts 2, 38 be a formula for salvation when faith is never reached?

First of all, these individuals in Acts 2, 38, they demonstrated their faith by repenting and being baptized.

And faith by no means in the Bible negates obedience, ever.

Faith is never demonstrated outside of obedience, not one single time. So, keep my answer simple.

Yeah, we just need to make sure our simplicity is always grouped in context. And something that's interesting is, you know,

Brock will just say, Acts 2, 38 says what it says. It means what it means. I believe it.

And I do too, but you always have to explain it. I doubt Brock believes that repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

I bet he would give us his commentary and explanation of how that's the Trinitarian formula in Matthew chapter 28.

So, unless he baptizes in the name of Jesus Christ, I would think he's being inconsistent on his own terms. All right.

That's it. That's it. I'm sorry. I know people have questions. That concludes this debate.