Being Reformed, Provisionism in Rome, Aquinas in Geneva

Greetings. Welcome to The Dividing Line. It's late in the afternoon, evening really, here in Phoenix. Sorry to be late. It's been a very, very busy day. It's been a very cool day. Second coolest day on record for this time of the year.

Only been, I think, three degrees cooler once back in 1947. And that was a long time ago. I was not around then. Some of you think that I was, but I was not. And so therefore, we had to break the Coogee out.

It's a new one, never been seen before. So breaking in the fall weather in style with our Coogee. And we're doing things differently. You may notice the camera's a little bit different. Rich isn't here.

Rich is someplace else. I can't tell you where he is. He may be in a gulag someplace. They may have gotten him first. I don't know. I might be in a gulag someplace. There might be a guy over there with a gun telling me what to say.

Not really. But this is actually how I've been doing a lot of programs recently here in the studio and doing it electronically using a camera that's, it's actually a camera sitting on a camera. So it's pretty much the same camera angle that we're used to, but not quite.

So anyways, we're doing it differently just for this program because we definitely, I definitely wanted to get a program in today. It's going to be an incredibly busy week. I was a day late getting home.

We have to have, we have to have that flexibility. If, you know, I'm, I have to judge what's safe. I also have to look at weather. And we had some fronts move through. And since I'm going west and fronts go east, that means wind right in your face.

And when you're pulling fifth wheel, at least, at least my unit is somewhat aerodynamic. So when it's a headwind, okay. Yeah. It still slows me down a lot. I was, I, I was down to eight miles to the gallon for, for a while and going uphill a little bit as well as you're going up over the continental divide.

But then some of the wind was crosswind and boy, that, that can be fun. My unit does really well in wind. It's fifth wheel. That's why we've got a fifth wheel. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again, Derek Melton for giving us that advice during the formative period of our decisions about these things and explaining why fifth wheel is more aerodynamic and easier to control and handles wind better and all this.

Long story short, I'm starting to get to know, especially the KOA campgrounds. I like KOA. The folks have always been really nice. Almost always very nice and easy in, easy out. You know what to expect.

I like that. I'm sure there are fancier places. I don't need fancier places. Especially I'm just staying the night. I just need a place to pull in, hook up and I can do that real fast. In fact, Rich will have to testify.

I would be inappropriate, but Rich will have to testify that just a matter of hours ago, I parked our unit back in our storage area. And the people up until this point in time, in fact, I think the first time we parked there, there was nobody on either side of us at all.

And every time there's at least been one side open. This first time, two big old honking units were in both the slots next to us. And these are not very well. And if you know anything about the RV life, it's backing that baby up.

That is the challenge. It's very difficult to see. And you have to do everything backwards. Well, not everything backwards. That's the problem. You start out backwards and then sort of have to shift. And anyways, and I'm doing this alone.

So Rich will have to testify. I sent a picture. And yeah, it was, we got it, got her in there not fast. But we got her in there. And that's, that's the important part. Anyway, so long story short, I've already lost a day this week.

And so we're sort of rushing to get to this. And there's so many things that we want to comment about, and want to be encouragement to everybody about, especially as we're hearing all sorts of things about possible problems in the very near future.

One thing is for certain. I hope you enjoyed 2019. I did. And I know looking back that that was probably the last bastion of normalcy, freedom, prosperity, at least in our generation for this country.

I know I, I, I, I can see some scenarios where we draw back from the brink, where we recognize the utter foolishness of communism, socialism, and all of its associated isms. And we draw back and learn our lesson.

I just don't see that happening right now. I see all sorts of people yelling and screaming about it. But what I don't see is a recognition of the worldview issues that would require be required for the society as a whole, to recognize where we went wrong.

The myth of neutrality, the central aspect of Christ's law that was so foundational in an understanding of who man is, and how we're supposed to treat one another, and what freedom is, why freedom should even be cherished by mankind.

We abandoned all those things. And even the people that I see trying to fight communism, they're, they're basically secularists. Most of them are secularists. I mean, I'm not talking about those of us who are Christians who are trying to sound the alarm and say, Hey, this is, this is what this is going to lead you to.

It's going to lead you to absolute abject slavery. We are, we are, we are selling our souls into slavery and our bodies into slavery. When, when there's somebody else that controls everything, what you can think, what you can say, what you can wear, what you can eat, where you can go, who you can associate with.

When, when there's someone, when that's, when that's going on, you, you've become a slave. That's, and that's where we're headed. It's slavery or freedom, one of the two. The problem is liberty and freedom requires responsibility and requires a worldview that is sufficient to, to bear, to bear up the responsibility.

And that just simply is not what I'm seeing. For example, everything going on right now with the uh, people protesting worse law and all the associated aspects of what you will not hear even from Christians, sadly.

And I listened to a lot of people talking about is the discussion of the reality of adultery and fornication. It's just, it's a given in our society that you have the right to have sexual pleasure outside of marriage and without the benefit of marriage and sexual pleasure just simply for the sake of that, rather than for the building up of the marriage and the relationship inherent there.

And so once that's a given, you can, you know, we can sit there and talk about, Hey, look at the ultrasounds. That's a human being. You were once one of those, all those things are true, but the other side is just simply going to say, well, you can't force people to, to, to carry a pregnancy.

Well, but that person really chose that activity that led to that pregnancy. Well, what about rape? Well, that's, that's a, that is a, another issue that likewise is very important because it speaks of the simpleness of, of the act, the sacredness of the act that rape destroys and violates.

Again, it all goes back to worldviews, but I hear no one simply saying, well, the issue here is the promiscuity and the, the, the utilization of abortion as a birth control methodology. And so I don't even want to talk about that.

And I want to talk about sanctity of life issues in regards to the sanctity of sexual behavior between a man and woman in marriage. Just don't want to go there. And without that, you're putting band-aids on gushing wounds.

And that's not going to, that's not going to accomplish anything in the, in the long run. And this, this culture has numerous gushing wounds and it's, it's going to bleed out a whole lot faster than I think any of us ever thought that could.

And we want to be very, very clear to tell people why this is, this is why it happened. And this is what could have been done about it. And this is what needs to be done in the future, because what will rush in to take its place, this soulless, anti-human, anti-rational, anti-life, techno-tyranny will be brutal.

It will be cold. And thanks be to God, it'll turn on itself. It will turn on itself, don't know how long. Soviet Union stood for 70 years, but it will turn on itself and it will destroy itself. I mean, this is, the Soviet Union was able to borrow some capital from its past.

There was still a, a Christian past that it couldn't, it couldn't get rid of that. The Soviet Union did not have the time to secularize its societal base, though they forced the Orthodox church to compromise in many ways and stuff like that.

There are those who didn't, but still that was still, you know, the babushka down the road still had that mindset. What's different here is that these people have prepared the environment. And so now you're, you're looking at a secular young generation.

And so it's going to be different. I think it's gonna be much more brutal. But that could result, I mean, not a It could make it last longer, especially because of the technology or it could cause its implosion even faster because there is no moral fiber in secularism.

Secularism's moral fiber is, is pure fantasy. There's just nothing there to ground it. And, um, which is why I keep saying secularism is the greatest enemy that has ever stood in the way of the progress, the kingdom of Christ.

That means he who conquered death will conquer secularism. Um, but Rome was conquered over hundreds of years. And so I have to keep in mind, we tend to impose our own timeframes on things that are not necessarily biblical, uh, timeframes.

And so I wasn't going to talk about any of that stuff. Um, but, but there we go. So anyway, the point being where you are, you guys seeing all sorts of things that naturally rob us of the peace of God that passes understanding, you know, if you, we can't help right now.

Um, in your church, Rich said he was talking to somebody today called the ministry. Um, we are talking to people who are greatly fearful and not in the cowardly sense, just simply going, I'm going to lose my job.

I'm losing my benefits. I'm going to lose my health insurance. I'm, I'm, I'm going to be treated as a non-human for refusing to do what a tyrannical government authority is demanding that I, because I know that I can stop.

I know if I take that first step, there's going to be a second, third, fourth, fifth. And once you take the first step, you can't really go back and say, you know, I shouldn't have done that. Sorry. You're already in the path where you go.

And it's just worse and worse, worse. It doesn't get better and better. Anybody who thinks that these tyrants, once they've tasted of power are going to go, well, that's, that's far enough. That's, that's good enough.

We're going to, we're going to go back to the freedom thing now. And the premiers in, uh, in Australia and, um, Trudeau and Canada and all the rest of these people, they're, they're nothing but tin horn tyrants and their, their use of the same phraseology and the same lies.

So people, they recognize that they see these people, they recognize that that's, that's a tyrant over there. If I start following him, um, you know, for my sake and the sake of everybody else, I can't do that, but it's very costly.

And that's why I said in the last program, uh, church needs to set up funds within each fellowship to try to help people, um, who are facing these issues minimally with just daily food. Um, but other things as well.

And we see these things and we cannot help, but think about our own situation, our families, our children, our grandchildren. And so there is a real need, uh, for the peace of God, which passes all understanding.

We all know how, we all know how to have it. I do. There are a bunch of you, you will testify. You have to testify for me that I've been preaching this sermon over and over again. The only, the only power these people have is the power that I give them by loving the stuff they can take from me, loving my comforts, loving my ease, um, loving the things of this world.

It's the only power they have. I know that. I know that. And, um, I think we all know that deep down in our hearts. And so we need to pray that, uh, God would increase our love for him and his truth and purchase of self-love and love of things this world, because that's the only way we're going to stand firm.

So, um, anyway, that's, uh, it's going to be a completely different holiday season. We're going to look back, if not this year, the next year, the year after that, we're going to look back on times of plenty.

I think most of people my age are, are going to have the experience of going, remember when you could go to a store and there were freezers full of big, huge turkeys that you could buy for relatively small amount of money.

I think the day will come when we will go remember that because it won't be that way. Socialism never has full freezers, full of turkeys only for, well, for the elite, but the rest of the people who work for the elite, because that's what socialism is.

Um, they don't get to see them. They don't get that kind of experience. And, uh, I think it's gonna be, I think there's gonna be a lot of sitting around going, remember back in 2019 when we could do this and we could do that.

And man, they, they really, really got us in there. They, they snuck up on us and boom. And, uh, how foolish we were. I think it's going to happen. I think we're going to look back at it. So anyway, um, I did, I've just looked over, I follow the Grand Canyon National Park Service on Twitter and they posted some pictures.

It snowed. This was an early, early season. I mean, it was, I've, we've had many Christmases, much warmer than today. And it snowed and there are some beautiful pictures of snow on the rim of the Grand Canyon and stuff like that.

If you never get a chance to do that, if you get a chance to do it, um, I haven't seen the Canyon with my own two eyes, at least on the rim since 1985. I've flown over it a few times, but, um, that's what happens when you live in a state that has that kind of stuff.

We all know how that works, but I won't get into that right now. Um, I saw a, a tweet this morning. And so I wanted to discuss it from, uh, Soteriology 101. I guess something happened while I was on the road.

I guess I, Rich told me a little bit about it in a text message, but I don't, somebody did something with URLs or something and directed them over to us. And I guess we got accused of doing it. And it's like, what, what are you, what are you talking about?

Anyway. Um, and so there are two tweets and I just want to use this as an illustration, once again, of the difference between God-centeredness and man-centeredness in your understanding of grace. This was the issue of the Reformation.

God-Centered Grace Versus Provisionism

Okay. This, um, I, I saw, uh, R. Scott Clark, I think it was responding either to Owen Strand or to Jeffrey Johnson, I think it was Owen. And, uh, I think Owen had, was talking about the G3 movement and he used the term reform.

And we all know R. Scott Clark, um, seemingly, uh, feels that he has a, uh, the ability to copyright the term reform. And there are, let me put it this way, the people who are reformed, who want to copyright the term reform, so as to narrow it down, but yay big, so that I'm not reformed.

And, um, even at amongst historically reformed denominations, as much them that aren't reformed, it gets down to a pretty small, small group that are truly, the truly reformed, the TRs. Um, and so he responded to Dr. Strand, I think, or Dr. Jefferson, um, Dr. Johnson, um, Dr. Jeffrey Johnson, there you go.

Uh, and, and said, what, what makes this reform? And this would be one of the issues. What makes something reformed? Well, for them, patal baptism and a certain understanding of covenant theology, application of covenant theology, absolutely definitional can't be reformed without it.

Calvin would have kicked out Geneva, which he would have. But this morning, I was listening to someone talking about a female Presbyterian minister who was writing a book about the moral good of abortion.

And I go, I bet she practices patal baptism, just not for the babies she aborted because she's had abortions. Um, but I bet she practices patal baptism. Who's more reformed, me or her? By a long shot, but it depends on how you define reform.

Um, Dr. Clark has actually helped me over the years because of his narrowness as to what is to really focus in on what the heart of being reformed is. And again, the people who want to do that, if you don't want me in your club, I don't want to be in your club either.

Fine. You, you all go do your thing. I've pretty much discovered that you all end up in these little enclaves out there and no one's really paying attention to what you're doing anyway. So you all, that's fine.

We're good. Um, when I, when I consider what defines being reformed, it would be, um, not only, uh, the five solas, especially sola deo gloria, but it would be God centeredness in all aspects of theology.

And especially in light of human rebellion in soteriology. There are many who want to use, um, elevated language of God centeredness in salvific areas, but then redefine everything. Norman Geisler, great example in his book, which I wrote a book in response to many, many years ago, um, constantly redefining terms, wanting to borrow reform, reform terminology, and then gut it of any meaning so that it, it all still boils down to a man controlled man centered, um, system.

And so I really think that when you, when we look at, um, the issues with provisionalism, revisionism, um, latent flowers, soteriology one-on-one, and that small cadre of people, we get a lens that allows us to clarify these things.

And so the tweets were as follows, actually it says October 9th, but it popped up in, up in my feed this morning, for some reason, probably somebody responded to it. It follows me as a man, you know, how Twitter, uh, the last verse of scripture says the grace Lord Jesus be with all, all has been put in all caps.

Amen. Revelation 22, not the grace Lord Jesus be with some as consistently applied Calvinism might suggest anticipating the charge of universalism. This is only an issue for those who, who assume effectuality onto God's provision.

Now that's, that's not the kind of preposition that you're probably accustomed to. So let me repeat that. Anticipating the charge of universalism. This is only an issue for those who assume effectuality onto God's provision, i .e. anyone who has grace provided to them must be saved, which is not, I suppose it was supposed to be a correct assumption.

The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people, which is from Titus chapter two. Now let's see if we can first understand what's being said. And I'd like to respond to it, um, on the program today.

And hopefully that would, um, yeah. Oh, where'd it go? Oh, there it is. Sorry. Be careful what you click on. I, not only is the program live, I'm the only one working and it's back in the dry weather.

Oh man, being back there in Atlanta and some of those places, whoo, humid, but back into the dry, dry, dry. All right. So last verse of scripture does say, let's look at it. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.

Amen. Now that's NASB 1977. However, um, once again, I think it's important, uh, that we recognize a few things. The book of revelation, we have the smallest number of manuscripts of any book in the New Testament.

I've mentioned that many times in my lectures over the years, and we really don't have a majority text. Uh, even the Byzantine texts is split into numerous subcategories in the book of revelation. When you get to the end of the book, hopefully everybody's aware.

We've talked about this a million times before, uh, about what happened with the Texas receptus, with Erasmus, last six verses of revelation chapter 22, translated from Latin Vulgate into Greek by Erasmus.

Um, he did that just to get done with revelation, which he did not have any respect for anyways, and to get the New Testament published and printed and published. And then before the second edition, he told his printer, go get these guys New Testament, which had come out since Erasmus had, and fix revelation based on what they did, not knowing that they had based their book of revelation off of his.

And so he lived the rest of his life thinking revelation had been fixed. It hadn't, uh, it was just as much of a mess as it was in the first edition. And it was a mess because as I mentioned, he did not have a stand, a self-standing manuscript of book of revelation.

He had to extract Greek from a Latin commentary. And there were lots of problems aside from missing the last few pages. There were lots of problems, uh, in, in that process. So what all that means is if you look at the word all, uh, in revelation 22, it's, Hey, caught us to put, what do you, yes, you met a pontoon is the simplest reading, but there are a number of variants, um, including, uh, in verse 21, you have with all of the saints, that's the reading of Sinaiticus.

Um, then so, so be with the saints, I'm sorry, is the first three, all of the saints with one possibility of all of his saints, that's a manuscript 2030 and, and a couple of Syriac versions. Um, and all of us is another.

And then the short text is found in Alexandria, Alexandria, which Alexander, this is, um, often taken as the primary text in the, in revelation. Um, but the point is there are some other interesting readings here, including with all of the saints, all of his saints, and all of us, uh, those are the other, uh, other readings.

And, uh, with all is simply the reading of Alexandrinus and the Vulgate, all these other trips have extensions at that point, which is not unusual in conclusions and so on and so forth. It'll be interesting to see what the CBGM, CBGM is going to struggle with our relation, uh, partly because even if they do an exhaustive correlation, which they will be able to do because you've got people who've done exhaustive relations in the past.

And there hasn't been that many manuscripts found since then. It'll be interesting to see what they do with it. I'm wondering if revelation will be the last, maybe they'll, maybe they'll follow Erasmus and, and do that at the, at the end.

Um, I don't know. Um, but the point being, this is not an overly good text to be trying to make this point. Did Soteriology 101 look at the underlying text, look at the variants? I've never heard him commenting on that kind of stuff before, so I sort of doubt it, but this just is a singularly bad example to try to make this point on.

First of all, in light of, I mean, there are, let me see here. Yeah, well, even, uh, I just noticed this, there is a text note in the 77 NASB, some ancient manuscripts read the saints. So I don't know what, uh, Leighton's, uh, default translation is, but probably didn't look at that.

So then it says, uh, not the grace Lord GSB with some. Now the question here has to do with the, first of all, this is a epilogue. It is a closing statement. It is not meant to be, I mean, trying to turn this into some kind of a dissertation on the extent of grace or nature of grace is, um, again, indicative, I think of a really poorly chosen text, uh, to try to do that type of thing, but notice the assumption and this assumption is played out in the second tweet.

What grace are we talking about? Reformed theology recognizes multiple kinds of, uh, just as we recognize multiple kinds of divine love. And so you've got restraining grace, you've got empowering grace, you've got a redemptive grace, grace actually brings salvation.

Um, and so the idea behind this is that there's only one kind of grace and there's no such thing as an effective grace actually brings salvation. That's pretty much what the second tweet says, anticipating the charge of universalism.

So in other words, if someone were to say, ah, you believe everyone's going to be saved. No, I know he doesn't believe everyone's going to be saved. I would not make that charge. Um, instead he affirms what I think is much, much greater issue.

And this was the issue of the reformation. This is why Layton Flowers is not on the reformers side of the reformation. He is on the Roman Catholic side of the reformation. That's, there is no question about that.

Hopefully even he would admit that, even he would admit that on this issue, he is on Rome's side. He's on Erasmus' side against Luther. He is with Saddle Leto against Calvin. Hopefully he'd admit that, that he's against winged.

He's, he's against the reformers. Um, because of what he says, this is only an issue for those who, and this is such odd language and terminology, uh, assume effectuality onto God's provision. How about actually believe sola grata, well the solas, my grace alone, uh, you know, Spurgeon's little book, Grace Alone, that central Protestant for quite some time, reformed belief that grace actually saves.

It's actually powerful in and of itself to accomplish what God desires for us. That little thing. So what he's saying is assume effectuality onto God's provision. So you build this idea of God providing something, but not actually accomplishing what it's intent, the provision is intended to accomplish, but you leave that to man.

So that's the, that's the mindset of provisions is you're, you're just, it's a possibility. You make the possibility available. Again, this was, this was the difference between Rome and its sacramental system.

God's put the grace out there. You work the sacramental system, you get it. Trace meets, do this, do the sacraments. I mean, Leighton's a good Romanist along those lines, just doesn't have a poem. Um, but on this issue of the will of man, the ability of man and the nature of grace, he is, he could move in to an apartment in the Lateran complex and nobody noticed him as long as everybody was talking about this.

Now I, I was just trying to, I was just trying to think of what Leighton would look like in a, like a Cardinal's robe and it was funny because probably by the end of this program, there will be a meme out there with Leighton in a Cardinal's outfit.

Anyway, um, he'd fit in. This is, this was the, this was the dividing line. And so he says, I eat anyone who has grace provided to them must be saved. So notice, notice how all of this, instead of looking upward and going, what is the intention of God's grace?

God is the source of it. It's the expression of his power. It's divine expression of power. And he, the reason this language is so stilted is because to try to turn that into something that's totally controlled by man is not easy to do.

So you assume effectuality onto God's provision means God actually accomplishes what he intends to accomplish. And we can't assume that despite the fact of the Bible. And anyone who has grace provided them must be saved.

So now you have this idea of grace that either tries and fails or grace. It's just given with no particular purpose. It's just thrown out there like, you know, peanut butter drinks. What is trying to avoid is efficacious grace, redemptive grace for by grace, you have been saved.

That grace, you know, the grace that we need, the grace that we sing about. All that stuff. Well, we don't want that. We don't want this. This is where the dividing line is so clear. And I think it's clearest here because Leighton probably wasn't even thinking about anything other than expressing positively his belief system.

That's what makes it so clear. But he does at least try, we should acknowledge, he does try but fail badly. And it gives us an opportunity to point this out. You know, I keep telling the one thing I wish the Courtens did was take input in that little teeny tiny box, make the box bigger, folks, make the box bigger, easier to see, is he tries to substantiate this in Titus chapter 2.

Titus chapter 2. If you want fuller discussions of these things, I've preached a number of sermons on Titus 2. I remember very clearly doing so on a Sunday night at PRBC. So it's on sermon audio someplace.

But briefly, what he says is, which is not a correct assumption. The grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people. He is quoting from Titus chapter 2. Here's what it says. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and appearing the glory of a great God and Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself the people for his own possession, sell us for good deeds.

Now, tremendous text, well worth more time than we have. As I said, if you want to pursue this, I would mention that we have done that a number of times. But just a few key issues here. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, Leighton is understanding to be, well, that means since all men will not be saved individually, then the grace of God is not all that is needed for salvation.

That's the argument. That's what happens when you read just the first quarter of a sentence. Because this isn't some peanut butter grace that provides a general salvation based upon man's freedom. What kind of grace is it?

It's saving grace. Why? Because look at verse 12. Verse 12 begins with a participle. And the participle has as its referent the grace of God. And what does that grace of God do? It's a teaching. It actually does accomplish what God intends it to accomplish.

It teaches us. Well, what does it teach us? It teaches us to deny ungodliness. Now, how could that possibly be? How could grace teach you to deny ungodliness? Well, because people tend to have very sub-biblical views of grace.

The grace that saves and redeems is the same grace that sanctifies and makes holy. And so the grace of God that has appeared brings salvation to all men. Who are these men to whom this grace has come?

Those who've been taught to deny ungodliness. To deny the kosmikos epithumias. Kosmikos, worldly, cosmopolitan. Kosmikos, worldly epithumias. Almost always negative desires and wants. So the negative aspect, this grace that has appeared is a teaching grace.

And so in whose lives does God wish to instruct them to deny ungodliness and worldly desires? What is that? That is sanctification. So the unsaved person, the unregenerate person, the non-choice meat, I guess.

Are they taught to deny ungodliness and worldly desires? How can they even be taught? They have no ears to hear. They're spiritually dead. Oh, well, not really from their perspective, I guess, huh? But this is sanctification.

So are the unsaved sanctified by the grace of God? But then on the positive side, this grace teaches us to live sofranos, sensibly, in a self-disciplined manner. And righteous. Righteous and in a godly fashion.

In this present age. So this is clearly referring to people who have been delivered out of the power of this present age. And who's that? Well, we know what the Apostle Paul says about that. Look at Colossians chapter 1.

We've been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. So this is grace that teaches us holiness. Now, I think it's beautiful because saving grace is a part of God's purpose in forming the elect in the image of Christ.

And that's what is then said. Looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. That's a gramble-sharp instruction. God and Savior are both in reference to Jesus, despite what some King James-only has tried to say to get around the reference to the deity of Christ here and rescue the King James Version of the Bible.

And then a description of Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us. That's substitutionary atonement. And here's the us. Who's the us? We're the ones who are instructed by the grace of God. So the Hasen Anthropos is all men to whom the grace of God comes.

Jews and Gentiles. That's primarily the Jewish-Gentile divide wiped out. Very consistent with Pauline theology, Galatians, Romans. No need to explain it here. He's referring to Titus. Titus knows what the message of the gospel is.

But very consistent with Paul's position. But then Titus 2 .14 is not consistent with Leighton Flaherty's position. Who gave himself for us, that is particular redemption. That he might redeem us. Christ's self-giving has a purpose in the sovereign decree of God.

That he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself a people for his own possessions and those for good deeds. Now aside from all the Old Testament passages in which this language is being drawn, the point is this is very similar to the Golden Chain.

These are divine actions, not human. These have their origin in what God is doing. He gives himself for us. He redeems us. The purpose is to redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself a people.

That's sanctification. Is that not what verse 12 is about? Yep, that's consistent reading. Zealous for good deeds. Sounds like, oh, Ephesians 2 .8 -10. For by grace you've been saved. Yeah, that same one.

Same author, same idea. But in provisionism, that grace cannot be effective. It cannot be efficacious. That's Rome. That was the Reformation. I stand against it. I invite you to stand against it with me.

Thomism, Reformed Identity, and the Authority of Scripture

Okay. Wow. Okay. Changing directions. I got a lengthy Facebook note from Josh Sommer, S-O-M-M-E-R. And there's a quote when I was in Conway, Arkansas. Here's the quote. There are some real zealous folks just view Thomas in an odd fashion.

They can somehow disconnect him from all of his errors. And they're just so fascinated by his great intellect. How he got to what he believed about God is an issue. I am not new in finding Reformed fascination with Thomas Aquinas to be troubling and confusing.

I have expressed this for decades. Long before this current... I expressed that before SES became the big issue. You know, Sunday Evangelical Seminary, Norman Geisler, Aquinas, the central aspect of the theology of SES and SES's presentations, and the central aspect of why so many people from SES converted on fallacism over the years, so much so that they wrote books about it.

Even before that, when I was a teenager, I wasn't Reformed in the sense of didn't have the knowledge of the terminology. And so once I started wanting to know more about how to defend my faith, about the only thing you find in the Christian bookstores is Norman Geisler stuff, so you get Aquinas thrown at you.

So, you know, I'm studying the theistic proofs and stuff and going, okay, man, it's pretty tough to use on the street. It seems fairly complicated, but maybe I just got to keep working at it. I mean, if Norman Geisler does it, then that's how it has to be done.