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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line on an afternoon program.
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Is it Thursday? Are you sure it's Thursday? Okay, all right, that's good. Hey, we're doing a number, another jumbo
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DL because I have some pretty good questions here I wanted to get to. And this morning was asked something in channel that sort of made me recognize that there was some stuff
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I needed to address as well. So we're going to do, we'll do that in the first half hour here up to four o 'clock. Might take a break,
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I'll sort of let Rich know if we want to take a break so I can grab a drink or something like that. And then we will dive back into the two debates we're following right now, the
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Fernandez -Comas debate as well as the Slick -Perkins debate.
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And I might go Slick -Perkins first and then go back to Fernandez -Comas, we'll see. We will see.
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But we'll have another jumbo DL, don't get used to it. But I've just got a lot of stuff to be covering, so hopefully that's a good thing for you.
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After the program is over, immediately after the program, right? It will be immediately after the program, right?
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That's how we have it set up? Approximately three seconds. Three seconds. Okay, about three seconds after the program.
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We are going to play the Bible study from PRBC last evening.
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I'd like to invite you to stick around and listen to it. It was a little unusual. It's not the normal kind of Bible study we have, and especially if you would say that you hold
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Reformed theology, I think that you would find it to be useful. It is up on Sermon Audio as well.
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Yes, sir? Are we going to call that the jumbo dividing line bonus feature? If you would like to do that.
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I realize that you now, doing the Wayback Machine stuff, have to come up with titles like that.
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I really don't have to think about that too much myself, very much. Anyways, I will be semi -distracted today because we have a studio audience as well, and it's very difficult to get well -behaved studio audiences, especially when they're
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Reformed Baptists, and Reformed Baptists tend to be just the wildest people, and so Mr.
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Figge is out there on his iPad talking to people and channeling. I can see it glowing, reflecting in his ...
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I thought they gave you former Navy SEALs, like a skin thing so people wouldn't really see you in the dark or something.
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I'm not sure what that is, but okay, he's not a former Navy SEAL. He was in the engine room of a submarine for a while, and that would make you sweat a lot.
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That's for sure. Was it pretty ... Did it smell down there? Oh, yeah. Really smelled bad, didn't it?
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They put the people with the strongest stomach down there. Is that the idea? Okay. Yeah. It's not the people who are the best with nuclear engines.
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It's the people that don't have to throw up on the nuclear engines that go in the submarines. Yay. That's great.
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That's wonderful. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Let's get to some of the questions that have been sent in.
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One of them is addressed to me.
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You came to my church a bit ago and shared much in a brief amount of time about Islam, its errors, etc. In particular, I was struck by your discussion of how they got it wrong in the
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Qur 'an on many simple issues of theology and revelation, representing, for instance, the Trinity as Jesus the
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Father and Mary, to name one I remember. I would love to hear if you have run across another in particular, if you'd give me further thought or discussion on it.
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I was researching Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi and came across a claim by al -Badawi that the
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Qur 'an claims the Jews called Ezra the son of God and Messiah, accompanied by a miraculous raising from the dead and recitation of the law by heart.
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I think it was in Book 9 of the Qur 'an. I know this is farcical, but would love to hear a bit more in particular on how they approach this scholastically and ironically, since I've found several later
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European mainland non -Islamic German commentators referring to it, too, without much debate.
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I would appreciate your time if you give it. Thanks for any comments. Your study I've shared. Yet, the Qur 'an does say that the
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Jews called Ezra the son of God, and generally, since I am unaware of any historical evidence of that whatsoever that would be contemporaneous or relevant, generally, the excuse that I've heard is, well, you know, we don't know every single group of Jews that existed out there, and therefore, there may have been one that had that kind of a viewpoint or something like that.
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Obviously, if I ever got to listen to a Jewish debate with a Muslim, I'm sure that question would come up.
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But it's not a real major issue that I've brought up because the fact that it could just simply be dismissed as, well, you know, it might have been just some small group or something like that, even though if it was a small group of Jews that did that, then could it be a small group of Christians that had the views that the entire
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Qur 'an attributes to all Christians? That becomes the question at that point, and I'm not really sure exactly how that would be handled.
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The next one, I thought, I have to remind myself all the time that we constantly have new folks coming in, and so when
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I encounter questions that I've addressed many, many times in the past, you've got to understand, sometimes it's difficult for me to remember where I've addressed a question.
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If I've done a, you know, I remember doing seminars at all sorts of different contexts, and sometimes it all starts mishing and mashing together in your brain as to where you've talked about these things or not.
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But we've got a lot of folks coming in who have not listened to, you know, the Wayback Machine or read—for some reason we have folks who will listen to the program but don't read any of my books, for example, where I lay out a lot of the foundational issues in regards to scriptural authority and the
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Trinity and things like that. And so here is a question that has to do with the subject of the canon.
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These are issues I've addressed many times before but evidently need to address once again.
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I understand scripture bears its own authority as it is God's very word or God breathed, as Paul says. Although, when talking to unbelieving friends, they mentioned that, quote, the
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Gospel of Luke only got in the canon by one vote, end quote. Now, I've tried to look up this claim about the
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Gospel of Luke only getting in by one vote but can't find any information on the Internet about it. Well, the
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Internet is not yet the repository of all human knowledge and, in fact, the reality is that the
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Internet is repository of, I think, much more of human foolishness than it is human knowledge in many ways.
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But the reason that you will not find anything about the Gospel of Luke getting in by one vote is because it's bogus, it's silly, it's—anyone who knows anything about church history at all knows that that's just outrageously silly and yet there are lots of people who will hear one person say something and then they'll repeat it as if it's a fact and so on and so forth.
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There is no such thing as a council that took a vote on what books got in the
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New Testament and it's going to say later on at the bottom of this email, it says, and also when and how exactly were the
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Gospels and the non -Pauline books accepted as God breathed? I believe it was finalized at the Council of Nicaea, but I'm not exactly sure.
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I would highly recommend to our questioner finding a little article I wrote for the
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CRA Journal, I don't know how long ago now it's called, What Really Happened at the Council of Nicaea? If you
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Google that phrase, what really happened at the Council of Nicaea, or even if you search for it on my blog, I'm sure I've got the link to it there, too.
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It's not on our website, it's on CRI's website, but let me once again say this, this is one of my pet church history peeves.
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The Council of Nicaea had absolutely, positively nothing to do with the canon of Scripture.
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The Mormons will tell you that, and the Muslims will tell you that, and every group under the sun will tell you that the
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Council of Nicaea had something to do with the canon of Scripture. The reality is, from a church history perspective, the
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Council of Nicaea had absolutely nothing to do with the subject, did not address it, did not bring it up, did not debate it, was not relevant at the
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Council of Nicaea whatsoever, and all you've got to do when someone says, oh, the Council of Nicaea, could you give me a single primary source that says that?
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And in fact, if you want to go back, yeah, thank you,
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Raz, equip .org slash article slash what dash really dash happened dash at dash
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Nicaea, is that an end dash? There's no HTML or anything like that after that?
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Okay, well, that's, it's out there. So you take a look at it. The issue of the canon actually comes up after that.
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If you go to my YouTube channel and look for one of my early responses to Abdullah Al -Andalusi, they put up a video, the
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Muslims did, talking about the Council of Nicaea and allegedly people who were there, who talked about how the canon was formed.
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Well, I just, I point out that like the people they said were there had been dead, you know, hadn't, you know, were born 350 some odd years, everybody who has been in Nicaea was dead by the time they were born and stuff like that.
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And just tore it apart. In fact, they pulled that, they pulled that video down so you can't even go and look at their original video anymore because it disappeared, as well as should have.
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The Council of Nicaea had absolutely positively nothing to do with the canon of scripture. There was no council where people sat around with smoke -filled rooms, you know, the way we think about how the debt ceiling deal went through, you know, well, we'll give you this.
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If you'll give you that, well, I'll take a Matthew and you take a Peter, you know, and this kind of a situation.
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It just didn't happen. That is not how the canon was determined. If we want to use the term determined in that way, in any way, shape or form.
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And so there wasn't any votes. The only time
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I know of any discussion about the canonicity of a book is in regards to the
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Old Testament. And it was about Esther and it wasn't a situation where, okay, after we've had our discussion, now we're going to have a vote.
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Even that wasn't a vote situation. So it just didn't happen. That's not how the canon was formed.
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It's a naive view of how the canon was formed. So anybody running around says, well, the Gospel of Luke only got in by one vote.
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That is absolutely positively playing in a fantasy world that has nothing to do with history itself.
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Now, of course, I think we can sort of blame ourselves for why this stuff becomes so popular.
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Because who talks about church history in church anymore? Most people, most of our regular listeners know that years ago
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I did a whole series on church history. It's still bopping around out there. In fact, I think Razor's Kiss had it someplace.
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And MP3 had converted all the – this was back in the old real audio days. And I think
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RK converted it all over to MP3 and has it hiding someplace, my entire thing.
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And we have it too in MP3? No. Oh, you need to ask him how?
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Oh, okay. Yeah, that would be a good thing to do because we have some real audio stuff that we need to convert too.
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Anyway, you know, we've done it. And I certainly talk about church history. But I understand most people, church history?
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What is that? And people can get away with it. All right. It goes on to say,
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And it kind of weakens one of my arguments. When talking to unbelievers about knowing Scripture as God breathed through the objective testimony of the
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Holy Spirit, Jesus says, My sheep will hear my voice. Because that would mean nearly half the Christians that decided that the book of Luke should not be in the canon obviously didn't think it was
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God breathed. And if I claim the testimony of the Holy Spirit is objective, which I do a certain regardless, how can that be?
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Well, many problems with your argument here, brother.
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Yes, Jesus says His sheep will hear His voice. But that does not make that an objective individual witness.
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And the canon of Scripture was not determined by,
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Oh, well, 90 % of everybody said yes. And so the other 10 % just weren't listening to the
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Spirit well enough or something along those lines. I'm not saying the Spirit was not involved, but I would highly recommend to your reading a little book
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I wrote called Scripture Alone, which has a section on the canon and attempts to present an understanding of the canon that comes from a theological perspective, first and foremost, rather than just looking back at what happened in the history of the church or something along those lines.
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And so it is not the case that there was a vote. And if it was the case that it was 51 % to 49%, then you would have a situation where, well, why didn't the 49 % hear the same objective revelation of the
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Holy Spirit? No, the Holy Spirit deals with people en masse. He deals with the church as a group.
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He provides guidance to the church that is directly commensurate to the, what?
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What, the book? They can find the book. We don't need, I don't need numbers.
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No, not the books. Something else, yeah, they can find the books. The early church,
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God put out the same amount of effort to make sure that the church had the canon of Scripture as he provided in the inspiration of Scripture because he had a purpose for Scripture.
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He had a purpose in giving the church the Scriptures, and therefore he safeguarded them.
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And it wasn't a matter of, well, he had to give some type of a revelation to 51%, to make sure to get the right
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Scriptures into our hands. That just isn't the case. He goes on to say,
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Another hole in this argument is the fact that John 8, 1 through 11 could very well have been added as our earliest
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Greek manuscripts show. Well, it's actually John 7, 53 through 8, 11. The Perikepe adultery, the story of the adulterous woman, and I don't think it really is any, there is any question that this text was added at a much later period of time, especially, to me, the greatest evidence of this is the fact that in a number of manuscripts it appears in the
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Gospel of Luke. And when you have a story that moves from one gospel to another, depending on what manuscript you're in, and doesn't appear basically in the first half millennium of the church, big issue.
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But what's more important here is now we're confusing textual critical issues with canon issues.
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Because the Gospel of John, first of all, was never questioned by anybody, anywhere, as far as I know.
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It is the earliest attested gospel that we possess. And so its canonical status was thoroughly established long before the
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Perikepe adultery ever even appeared in its pages. So there is an anachronistic element here that a later accretion to the book could have something to do with some spiritual testimony as to the canonization of the book.
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That's, again, why we sort of have to know a little something about church history and a little something about the time frames that we're working on here.
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People might say, if the testimony of the Holy Spirit is objective, then why wasn't that caught, or how come the Christian body as a whole couldn't tell?
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Again, this takes us into another interesting area that I don't think the writer is going into, but that some
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Reformed people have gone into. And that is the concept of an ecclesiastical text, where the church somehow becomes, via a leading of the
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Holy Spirit, not only a determiner of canon, but then a determiner of the text itself.
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And I don't know if it's still out there. It's been a while since I searched for it. But I bet you it is out there in some form.
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The written debate, if you can call it a debate, given that I only had, I think, if I recall, this was pre -Twitter, but it sort of prophetically looked forward to Twitter.
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I was asked to do a written debate with Doug Wilson on the subject of the ecclesiastical text.
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He had embraced, the folks up in Moscow had embraced, this ecclesiastical text theory that basically is
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TR -onlyism, but it's based upon a theological theory that since this was the text received by the church, therefore it should be the text that we stick with.
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And of course my whole argument there is, but it's not the text received by the church in the first place.
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But that's another issue, and I think that came out. If you search for it, it was in Credenda Agenda. So I think probably somewhere on the
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Credenda Agenda website in the old archives, you'll find that debate that Douglas Wilson and I did.
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And you'll discover that whenever, and the reason I say this presaged Twitter, was we had, if I recall correctly, 100 words per round.
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100 words. It's better than 140 characters. It's probably about 5 or 6 tweets.
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But you still have to be extremely focused in what you're doing and use an economy of words.
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And whenever I would ask specific questions about specific texts, he couldn't answer that, because this theory sounds great in generals, it just doesn't work well in particulars.
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That's the problem with it. And that's sort of the direction this is going, is, well, why couldn't the
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Holy Spirit or the Church of the Body tell about textual variation? And since the vast majority of Christians don't even know what textual variation is, how could they have a meaningful...
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I mean, are we really going to put Romans 5 .1?
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There's a textual variant in Romans 5 .1. It's the difference between the indicative and the subjunctive of ecumen.
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Let us have, or we have. Are we going to put that out on a table in the middle of a church service and have everybody read it and then go into a prayer room and pray about it and then take a vote on it?
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Is that how you determine the variant reading at Romans 5 .1? There would be some people who would think that sounds like a really good idea, rather than looking at the manuscripts and looking at the internal evidence and stuff like that.
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No. It goes on and says, Now I haven't engaged any unbelievers who have been astute enough to present such an argument, but if that was presented to me,
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I think I'd be hard -pressed to be able to rebut such an argument on the foundation of my assertion that the Testament of the Holy Spirit is objective. Well, I'm not sure what this writer means by the
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Testament of the Holy Spirit being objective. What do you mean by that? The work of the
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Holy Spirit can be objective in the sense that he can do things such as inspire
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Scripture, but it sounds like what's being said as well, the testimony of the
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Holy Spirit to individual Christians in regards to the canon of Scripture is somehow objective, and I've certainly never made that argument.
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I think that the work of the Holy Spirit is objective in the sense that he has objectively brought about the proper canon of Scripture to accomplish
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God's purposes, but I'm not sure what this testimony amounts to.
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And of course, as I said at the end, and how exactly were the Gospels and Pauline books accepted as God -breathed?
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Well, the very form of the question begs the historical reality, because it is assuming there is a mechanism, an external mechanism, derived by the
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Church whereby they sought to certify books as God -breathed, because it asks, accepted as God -breathed, as if the
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Church has the right to do that, as if the Church has the right to even define such things, which the
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Church never has had. That's where it says, I believe, it was finalized in the Council of Nicaea, but I'm not exactly sure. No.
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Much more complex history of this, you have the Muratorian Fragment, you have the development of the 39th
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Festal Letter of Athanasius, and all the other things. There's a discussion of these things on our
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YouTube channel, as well as in Scripture Alone, if you want to really look into that. But the canon of Scripture did not come about.
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That's where, by the way, one of the real problems with these lists you see on websites, where you have a date, and then this happened.
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And when it comes to theological developments and issues like that, it almost never worked that way.
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It didn't just happen that way. That greatly oversimplifies the actual process of Church history itself.
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Now, I wasn't going to spend quite as much time on that, because there was one other thing I wanted to do, and I only have about six minutes to do it in.
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Some of the comments that I've made in regards to how Oneness Pentecostals abuse lexical sources have confused people.
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And one of our, I believe, British friends and channelists this morning was complaining a little bit, basically saying that I had discouraged him in making the comments that I did, and basically saying, well, look, it's pretty obvious these folks don't know the original languages, and therefore they're abusing the original languages by looking up lexicons and saying, well, this source, and this is the most authoritative source out there, and it says this.
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And what I was pointing out is that the majority of the time, these folks are abusing and misusing the lexical sources, because they don't understand how language works.
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What I wanted to do very briefly, hopefully this will be somewhat helpful, though I could go long, long, long on this, and I just can't in the time period that we have.
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What I'd like to do is suggest a book to you, if you are serious in your study of the meaning of words in the
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New Testament. It's by Dr. Moises Silva, and it's entitled, Biblical Words and Their Meanings.
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Now, Figge, you're distracting your friend. It's sort of like in a class here, you know. He's trying to listen.
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He wanted to know what that book was, but you were talking to him. And it's just, man, I just got to watch the kids all the time.
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It's hard. It was Dr. Seuss. Yeah, Biblical Words and Their Meanings.
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Actually, I think the name has changed since I read it in one of its first editions many, many moons ago in college and seminary.
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But Moises Silva is the author of Biblical Words and Their Meanings. It will introduce you to what's called lexical semantics.
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And what it did for me is that it made lexicons understandable because it made language understandable to me.
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We Westerners have a very mechanistic, almost forensic view of language, which has advantages, but it also has disadvantages, especially when the language was written by people who didn't have that same kind of perspective that we do.
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At the same time, it's very important even in English. One of the errors that people have is they look up a word in a lexicon and go, ah, it means this.
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For example, look up the word Lagos in Bauer, Dunker, Arndt, and Gingrich, the largest, well, it's not the largest, but largest single volume lexicon we've got going right now, one of the most popular.
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There are many definitions given. There are many uses noted because Lagos has a wide semantic domain.
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That means if you were to think of it as a large circle and the meaning of that word in any given context can fall within the parameters of this large circle, and it's the context and usage and author and the surrounding terms that will determine where in that semantic domain the meaning is to be.
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Now, if you just go to a lexicon like, oh, I'm just going to take, well, the first meaning here is the most popular and therefore that's the base meaning and therefore that's what
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I'm going to say it means in every place that it's found in the New Testament, you are abusing the language. Because Lagos can mean everything from word to thing to matter.
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It has a large, wide semantic domain. And if you don't look at the contextual usage and you force a meaning on it from someplace else, you may not even be close to what the original author intended.
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And we will hear at one point Mr. Perkins quote the BDAG and say it talks about a thought in the mind as if in John 1 .1,
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therefore, that's what it means. What you always have to check is even when a lexicon like BDAG gives a biblical reference indicating that from their perspective, this is where in the semantic domain that particular verse is, that is interpretive on their part.
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That's got no more authority than any other interpretive commentary does. What the range of meanings in a lexicon should do is provide you with the semantic domain, the range of meanings possible for that particular word.
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That's what's important to understand. And it's always important if that lexicon actually gives the reference, at least you can say, well, the editors of such and such a lexicon says it means this.
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That's one of the things that's nice about the loa nida Greek lexicon is it's based upon semantic domains, and so you'll find the same word in numerous different entries based upon semantic domains, and they'll let you know.
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It might be in this one here, it might be in that one there. You have to look at the context, make those decisions for yourself. It's a whole lot more difficult to abuse loa nida in that way than it is some of the others because the way that it's laid out based upon semantic domains.
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And so when you're looking words up in a lexicon, realize that what the lexicon is to give to you is a range of meanings, and then it's your job, not their job.
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It's your job to determine via the context where in that semantic domain the meaning is to be found for that particular phrase, word, usage, context, sentence, paragraph, whatever.
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But to hear people quoting a lexicon saying, it says it means this here, and they're not even actually looking at the entry where the lexicon itself cites the verse, when you hear that, you know you're dealing with someone who has no earthly idea how to actually accurately use these things.
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And I realize that BibleWorks and Accordance and Logos makes all this stuff available to us. All this information available to you.
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And what's scary is that that convinces a lot of people they actually do know the languages. And I've said many times, a little
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Greek is a dangerous thing. Because a lot of people go, well, I just put my cursor right here on this word and a box opens up and it tells me it means this.
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Well, I just put my cursor on Logos and a little box opened up and it says noun, masculine, singular, nominative, word, speech, message, book, volume.
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Well, which one fits here? Well, it can't tell me that. And if I put it on Ain down the way, and it tells me third, singular, imperfect, indicative,
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I've got to know what imperfect means. I need to know something about tense mode and voice in Greek.
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I need to know something about lexical forms and roots and all sorts of stuff like that to make heads out of tails.
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And so even having the information in front of us does not guarantee that we will use it in an appropriate fashion.
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So just some things I wanted to share with everybody right off the top at that point.
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We'll go ahead and skip over the break if you don't mind.
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We'll take one maybe, yeah, we'll go ahead and take one at the bottom of the hour. Because by then I'll definitely need to do more than just swig a few sips of this
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Propel Fitness Water. We're going to need to take a break now.
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Hello, everyone. This is Rich Pierce. In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program, the need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater.
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I am convinced that a great many go to church every Sunday, yet they have never been confronted with their sin.
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Alpha Omega Ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner, making no excuses.
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Man is sinful and God is holy. That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior.
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We are to come before the Holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well.
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Support Alpha and Omega Ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.
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The God Who Justifies, theologian James White calls believers to a fresh appreciation of, understanding of, and dedication to the great doctrine of justification and then provides an exegesis of the key scripture texts on this theme.
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James White proclaims with passion the truth and centrality of the doctrine of justification by faith.
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Saturday? Yes. I certainly feel like it. There is absolute evidence that you should never seek to hum while drinking.
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And that means my ventriloquism gig is over. That's it. I'll be tweeting the King James Only group right now.
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Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. Struck deaf again. Deaf. Dumb. Struck dumb. Dumb.
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Struck dumb. They pretty much figure you were already dumb. Yeah, they're kind of dumb. Yeah, but this is a different kind of dumb.
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Moot. But I wasn't talking about King James Onlyism there. So only the one that's Pentecostals could get me on that. Oh, that's a good point.
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But I don't think they want to be with Gail Riplinger much anyways. So that's great.
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So now I get to use the cough button all through the rest of the program until that little thing clears down there.
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That's just really great. Well, anyways, that's all right. I'll at least be able to turn the microphone off once in a while while we're listening to the debate that took place between Roger Perkins and Matt Slick on the subject of Oneness Theology.
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We are in the middle, well, actually the very beginning of Roger's opening, if I don't let him say more.
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We're never going to get to anything that Roger Perkins has to say, so let's get back to it. John 4
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Christ says that the Father is Spirit. Hebrews 5 -7 says that Christ prayed in the days of His bliss.
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So He didn't pray from the standpoint of one divine person praying for another divine person, each with their own will, each with their own mind.
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I would say we cannot have— Now, I want to address that because this is going to come up many, many times.
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Hebrews 5 -7 is the text that is being utilized there.
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Notice the way it was utilized. He prayed in the days of His flesh, and then the interpretation was that what the text was saying is
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He was praying from His flesh, and hence that's the fleshly side of Jesus praying to the divine side of Jesus.
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But is that what he says? Hebrews 5 -5, So also Christ did not exalt
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Himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by Him who said to Him, by Him who said to Him, who said to Jesus, You are my
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Son, today I have begotten You. Well, that would be the Father. So a distinction of persons, but this was said before the
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Incarnation, so you'd have to say, well, it's just a prophecy. You are my Son, today I have begotten
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You, and He says also in other place, You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
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Priest forever? You are a priest forever. See, in Oneness theology, the
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Father is not a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek, is He? But Jesus is, but Jesus has to be two persons.
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So you clearly have two persons in view in Hebrews 5 -5 and 6, but not in Oneness theology, because the
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Son is not an eternal person. The Son is a human nature. The Son is a human body. That then is the context that takes us to verse 7, which says,
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In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence.
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Now, that says nothing about Jesus praying from His flesh.
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It is talking about, of course, it's looking back on the time of Jesus' Incarnation, during His earthly sojourn, and He offered up prayers and supplications.
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To who? To the Father. This doesn't say His flesh prayed to His divine side.
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This view of Jesus as two persons, not one person, but two persons, just makes a mishmash of the
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New Testament presentation. That's why this viewpoint has been rejected historically. So, with loud cries and tears to Him, who was able to save Him from death.
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So, are you saying that the fleshly side of Jesus was praying to the divine side that could save the fleshly side from death, and He was heard because of His reverence?
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What does that mean? Well, some people say, Oh, what do you mean? He was heard. Jesus wasn't heard.
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He died. But He was resurrected, and it's His resurrection that demonstrates He was not left in Sheol.
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He did not see corruption, so on and so forth. It is so painfully obvious, it was in Hebrews chapter 5, is what you have all through the book of Hebrews.
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A clear distinction between the Father and the Son. But it's the Son who is still divine.
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The Son's not just a fleshly nature that came into existence in Bethlehem. And so it is a misuse of Hebrews 5 .7
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to say, Well, in the days of His flesh means that His flesh was the source of prayers to His divine side.
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I mean, over and over again, Mr. Perkins will say, You're adding to the Bible! You're violating the Sola Scriptura! If you want to talk about adding to the
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Bible, there is certainly something that is not to be found in the pages of Scripture whatsoever.
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He isn't the Father. Otherwise, He couldn't be the representation of the Father. Now, please do not ask me how that jumped to 39 minutes.
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And I was at 19 minutes beforehand. I'm not sure how on earth that happened because that's not even
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Roger Perkins speaking there. That is Matt Slick speaking there. I really need to get
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Sonocent. Sonocent is this really cool program. I have it on my Windows site. I need to get it installed on Parallels on my
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Mac. And I was going to do that right as Windows updated and crashed
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Sonocent. So, I got it fixed again today. I got a few things imported back into it. Let me see if I can get back to where we really were here.
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There was no one. And so, according to a Trinitarian theology, we would have God No.
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2 who lost eternal glory and ask for a handout from God No. 1. How can we have co -equality if God No.
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2 is asking God No. 1 to return his glory, which glory at the time would be eternal glory, which he would not be able to lose?
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So, notice again, the issue is oneness
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Pentecostals have a Unitarian God and a schizophrenic Jesus. And that's the cost.
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Once you adopt that as your foundation, then you look at the Trinity as three different gods and different gods are praying to each other.
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Rather than recognizing the being of God is unlimited, eternal, and can be shared fully and completely by three divine persons, the
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Father, the Son, and the Spirit, we believe that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit communicate with one another.
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If they love one another eternally, how could they not communicate? If God cannot communicate, how could he communicate to us the ability to communicate as our
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Creator? So, obviously, the ability to communicate is a part of God's capacity.
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And if there are three divine persons, then there would be communication between them. And so, there is no necessity of saying you've got one
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God praying to another God. What you have in John 17, and I must have skipped over something there because that just doesn't sound right time -wise here.
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It was 1859. Okay, that's where I jumped ahead. I don't want to miss this because there was a statement that he was just about to make in the earlier section here.
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So, let me grab it, and I apologize for that. Okay, notice what he says.
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He's going to say that's one person praying to another person, exactly what we say.
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Now, listen to his objection and ask yourself a question. Is this a serious objection?
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Is this a serious argument? Well, every time he says that,
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I want you to remember that the person who's doing the praying is God the Son, according to their theology.
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Okay, the person who's doing the praying is the Son, and now he's going to say
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God the Son. Notice how this works. Remember, in Trinitarian theology, we have being, and we have person.
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Now, I've had one of these guys say, yeah, you're using unbiblical terminology. They have to use that. They have to.
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When they talk about Jesus, they have to talk about persons. They have to talk about being. They can't avoid this. This is the language.
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We function on the grounds of being and person every single day.
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And if Mr. Perkins wants to object to that, I'm going to say, Mr. Perkins, are you a human being? Yes. Are you
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Roger Perkins? Yes. Are all human beings Roger Perkins? No. You just demonstrated that you're using the same categories that I do, because you recognize the difference between who you are personally, your personhood as Roger Perkins, and your nature as a human being, which can be generically discussed, and yet it's also specifically discussed when we're talking about you as an individual.
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You can't get around it. That's just basic. That's just how we work.
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And so, to argue, well, the Bible never uses that terminology. Well, whenever the Bible has God speaking, it is operating in those categories, and you can complain about the
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Bible operating in those categories. That doesn't change the reality of the fact that it operates in those categories, and that we need to deal with it.
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So we have God praying to God. If you look at John 17, we have God praying to God.
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No, we have the Son praying to the Father, both of whom share the unlimited nature of God, that being of God that cannot be limited.
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Do you believe God's being can be limited? If it cannot be limited, then how can you argue that it cannot be shared fully by two divine persons who are communicating with one another?
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He says that the hour, he says, Father, the hour has come. Well, what hour has come?
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Crucifixion has come. Revelation 13a says He is the Lamb, slain from before the foundation of the world.
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Is that the new also? No. Is that literal also? I'm not sure what his point here is.
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I mean, if we take the Revelation 13 text that way, and there's two different ways of translating, and I think most people are aware of that fact.
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But even if we take it as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, that would be the absolute certainty of God's accomplishing
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His purpose. That's a great proof text against oneness theologians and people like that.
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I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Not oneness theologians. Forgive me. Against open theists. They both start with O.
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It's sort of like Muslim and Mormon. I keep mixing those two up. At least, you know, you can understand that one.
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It's perfect understandable. And how many dividing lines do we have up now? How many?
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Almost 1 ,000. That's at least 1 ,000 hours worth of stuff. I've done at least 107 public debates.
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Let's say they averaged only two hours each. They're probably more like three, but let's say two hours each. So let's say 1 ,200 hours, and how many sermons at PRBs?
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Let's say 1 ,500 hours of stuff that's available right now of me talking.
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I will mix up Mormon and Muslim because they both start with an M. I will speak up I will mix up oneness and open theism, but in none of that, in none of that, have
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I ever mixed up Minneapolis with Istanbul. Just so that everyone understands.
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Okay? Because I was born in the Minneapolis area, and I've always been able to figure out the difference between Minneapolis and Istanbul.
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I'd say you're looking at at least 2 ,000. I really don't need to inflate the numbers, because I think many of those dividing lines are 90 minutes long.
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Like the jumbos you're doing now. Honestly, Rich, you're diluting my point here. Just so you know.
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You're not helping. Figgy, if I give you a signal, do the seal thing, where you don't even see him move, and his neck's broken.
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Just so you know. Jamie, I didn't say that to you. That would be messy if you did it.
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Uh... Excuse me. Anyways, let's get back to the debate here.
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What I was trying to say was the Revelation 13 text, and the Lamb Slaying from the Foundation of the
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World. Great text against open theists who couldn't know if that was actually going to be accomplished, or process theologians, or whatever else.
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But I'm not really sure of the application that's being made here, I'll be perfectly honest with you. It's in the mind of God. Oh, because it's in the mind of God.
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So, you need to understand, the preexistence of Jesus is something that's denied by classic
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Oneness theology. The Word, the Lamb, these are all ideas in God's mind that will be actuated in the person of Christ, but Jesus, the
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Son himself, does not exist preexistently, which is why I will focus upon that.
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I will demonstrate that the Scriptures teach us that the
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Son does exist preexistently, and if I can predict possible responses, especially in light of some of the comments that Roger will make on Philippians chapter 2 especially, and in listening to Mr.
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Anderson, Mr. Anderson, in listening to Mr.
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Anderson, that's the sound of inevitability. Anyways, some people don't even begin to understand that, but other people are getting it quite clearly.
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Anyways, I just, let me just say to you, because I know you guys are listening, and I welcome you to the program, and I hope you like the fact that we're playing your position, we're giving you all this air time to make your arguments and responding to them, and looking forward to the debate in Brisbane, it does seem to me that the only way to get around the exegesis that I offered in 99, that I'll be offering again, and hopefully with even more clarity, is to go to sources that are fundamentally in conflict with the foundational presuppositions of oneness theology.
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That's the only way you can go. I was looking at a source just yesterday.
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I have been invited to do a podcast later this year with Chris Date with an anti -Trinitarian.
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And I started looking at the book that this anti -Trinitarian has written, which is primarily aimed at yours truly. And I was chuckling at a couple things.
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He follows Anthony Buzzard right off the cliff on Psalm 110, and it just amazes me.
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And we even had somebody in channel today mentioning that these people are using the
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Psalm 110 thing. I mean, that one isn't even arguable. So the
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Jews 900 years after Christ didn't believe in the deity of Christ. Well, there's a strong argument. I've never even thought of that one before.
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Evidently, they don't listen to the unbelievable radio broadcast, didn't know that we had Anthony Buzzard on the Jewish Voice broadcast, and didn't see how that stuff fared.
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But anyways, it's out there, and I was looking at it, and I was just noting that whenever you encounter anti -Trinitarians, does everybody in the audience know what
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Sassinianism was? Sassinianism was a system that an anti -Trinitarian system that developed that really historically clearly leads right out of the
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Christian faith into unbelief, right into atheism. Why? Because to adopt its viewpoints is to adopt an abandonment of the foundational belief of Christians that God has spoken with clarity.
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You have to go to sources that do not believe God has spoken with clarity. And I really think that the only way you can get around what the
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Bible's testimony of the preexistence of Christ is, is to go to sources that no longer believe the
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Scripture is harmonious with itself. So when I hear people quoting Jimmy Dunn and other people like that,
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I just know this is a movement that has implanted within itself the seeds of its own destruction.
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By going there, you are destroying the foundations that you stand on to begin with. And we'll see how that turns out.
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Now notice that, John 17 3, the Father is the true God in eternal life. We spent
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I don't know how long in channel today trying to explain to someone the issues in John chapter 17.
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I beat my head on the table, trying as clearly as I could to lay out what the issues were.
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But isn't it weird to hear a oneness person quoting John 17 3, saying the
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Father is the one true God. Whereas then they're going to turn around and say that Jesus was
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God incarnate. Again, the schizophrenia of Jesus. But what you really need to understand is, press them, press them, press them to define.
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Is the Son divine? No, the Son is not divine. But Jesus was
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God incarnate, but the Son was not divine. So you need to understand where they're coming from, and I think that's a fair a fair analysis of that.
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Isaiah does say that Yahweh does not share His glory with anyone. Which is why the application of passages about Yahweh to Jesus, and specifically in the
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Karmic Christi, the fact that every knee bows to the
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Son, and identifies the Son with language used of Yahweh, well, again, might help to understand why
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Christians have come to the conclusions they've come to. No, we only have one
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God. We would have the second person of the Trinity, who did not lose eternal glory.
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He voluntarily set aside the exercise of His divine privileges for the purpose of becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.
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That was something He did before the Incarnation. Obviously, Oneness folks go with the
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Lutheran Robert Raymond interpretation of the Karmic Christi. I'll be ready for that.
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You know, it's funny. If I was debating somebody, if I had a debate coming up, you know,
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I'll be debating Abdullah Kunda down in Sydney, and if I knew that, now,
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I may be ignorant of what Abdullah has written, and so I might not know that he's written something on, hopefully, the topic we'll be debating, which
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I hope is on the Incarnation, and so I might not read it if I just didn't know about it.
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But I have this thing up on my website. It's a big, long page.
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Not only all my debates, but what I've written, including the information of the fact that I wrote a feature article, which was a lengthy exegetical and theological discussion of what?
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The Karmic Christi for the CRI Journal. Beautifully done. Beautifully laid out. Beautiful artwork.
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The editor almost shot himself when the secular graphics guy misspelled
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Philippians in about 84 point font. He just, oh, he just felt terrible, as did
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I. But I go through all that stuff. I've dealt with that stuff.
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It's there. I would highly recommend that those who are going to engage in debate take a look at it, because it's not going to be the first time that we've addressed these particular issues, and I've interacted fairly with the
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Lutheran slash Robert Raymond interpretation of the Karmic Christi, and we'll be ready for that.
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...and ask for a handout from God No. 1. How can we have co -equality if God No. 2 is asking
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God No. 1 to return His glory, which glory of the time would be eternal glory, which would not be able to lose?
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Not be able to lose? Agreed. Not be able to lay aside for His own purposes in the
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Incarnation? Remember the Mount of Transfiguration? Did Jesus walk down streets glowing in bright light?
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No, He did not. There was a reason why that glory was reigned in.
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And it was not something He lost. It was something He laid aside of His own accord.
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One of the great beauties of the Gospel. ...and later the
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Greek -English lexicon points out that ... ... ... ...
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... There is another abuse of lexical sources.
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I have looked up Parah in both Bauer, Dunker, Arndt, and Gingrich, and I believe he said
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Thayer's. I found nothing like that. I did find, again, a semantic domain, and especially when you're talking about a preposition.
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Remember, prepositions are not determined by cases. Prepositions rule cases. And so,
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Parah, when used with the dative, is going to have a particular semantic domain, and the issue would be, did you notice there was a little bit,
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I can only describe it as sort of a weasel word there. It can mean. That doesn't mean it's what it means here.
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And, if you're going to quote these lexical sources, then you quote the lexical sources saying the semantic domain allows for this meaning, and that's the meaning here because, and now you have to demonstrate you can actually read the language.
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There's no reason for you to even be raising these issues if you then can't take the next step and actually do what you have to do in the text itself.
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And so, when you talk about what Parah means, in John chapter 17, verse 5, the glory which
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I had with you be in the Father's presence before the world was, Parah say auto, when you come to that, what is the reason a
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Trinitarian is going to be citing that? The reason a Trinitarian is citing that is because it clearly indicates to us two persons in communication.
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The glory which I had with you. What Roger Perkins is actually telling us here is that an idea in the
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Father's mind has been actualized and is now speaking and is pretending to have had preexistent conscious existence.
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Which, of course, makes no sense whatsoever. If I was an idea in God's mind,
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I would not think back to the period before my existence and use the personal pronoun and a past verb, speaking of possession, to talk about what
01:00:24
I had in the Father's presence. The Son, as a divine person, is speaking to another divine person and saying, glorify me,
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Father, with the glory which I had in your presence before the world was.
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And no matter how hard our oneness friends try, they cannot get around what that text says.
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And the harder they try, quite honestly, the more desperate it sounds.
01:00:59
The more desperate it sounds. So we will continue with our examination of that.
01:01:06
Don't freak out, Brother Pierce. I am not going to reach over to my water bottle and choke myself again.
01:01:13
Not going to do it. Did it once already, not going to do it again. Half an hour to go.
01:01:22
You guys don't have to stick around. If you guys are falling asleep over there, I'm not sure if...
01:01:29
Our studio audiences... The last two studio audiences we had have been stuck with jumbo DLs. Normally we'd be wrapping up right now and everything would be cool.
01:01:37
One hour sitting down, that's not bad. Ninety minutes? Gets a little long.
01:01:42
No two ways about it. But hopefully everybody in the audience recognizes that we have some important stuff to be discussing because now we go back to...
01:01:56
That's a high quality sound effect. That there. Some people have sound effects queued up and they do stuff like that.
01:02:04
We really work on the cheap here. There's just absolutely no way two ways about it.
01:02:11
It's great. We love doing the dividing line. Let's get back to the Phil Fernandez Comus debate on Reformed Theology.
01:02:21
We are approximately 40 minutes in and we are still in Dr. Fernandez's opening statement.
01:02:28
He is doing the I don't believe in limited atonement here are some proof texts but I'm not going to exegete any of them thing right now and we are providing at least a brief response not quite as in depth as we do and the potter's freedom or something like that but just to demonstrate that there is counter exegesis to every single one of these verses and I think it's counter exegesis that is extremely strong because it is based upon a recognition of the fact that the
01:02:54
Bible teaches that the atoning work of Christ is directly associated with his intermediary work as high priest.
01:03:02
And if you really want a more in depth discussion about this last
01:03:08
Sunday's sermons available at sermonaudio .com at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church and the coming two sermons this coming
01:03:16
Lord's Day at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church will really be on the central text on that.
01:03:22
We've already done a number of the important ones in chapter 7 and chapter 9 but last Sunday we finished up chapter 9 and chapter 10 we're talking about the repetitive sacrifices and the finished sacrifice and now we're going to be getting into the argument from Psalm 40 and how by the one will we have been perfected forever and how this is just central to the argument of the book of Hebrews as to the perfection of the atoning work of Christ.
01:03:47
That is the real reason but these lists that Arminians quote in my experience almost never show any understanding of what we believe about the relationship of the intermediary work of Christ, His intercessory work and His work upon Calvary's cross.
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They're very surface level. They do not even seek to answer these questions because in my opinion
01:04:13
Arminian theology is fragmented theology. It is chicken coop theology and what
01:04:21
I mean by that is, and I've used this illustration many many times, they have their belief about the atonement, they have their belief about salvation, they have their belief about the
01:04:32
Bible, they have their belief about God, they are separate from one another and they get very uncomfortable when you force them to bring those things close to one another to check them for consistency.
01:04:47
And that is the problem. Are we listing the sermon audio stuff at PRBC now too?
01:04:53
Oh good. So you can go to PRBC .org and the links to sermon audio will be on the new PRBC website.
01:04:58
What's that? I can't hear you now. You've got to use the microphone. I do not read lists. The new website's up.
01:05:04
I know the new website's up. It's all there. We didn't even have sermon audio links on the old website. Well that's why we went to a new website.
01:05:11
Well that's very good. Alright, let's jump back into the list of verses here. 1
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John 2 1 and 2. Hebrews 2 9. Okay, just throw out 1
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John 2, don't read it, but I would just direct you back to February of 2010 maybe
01:05:32
March of 2010 here on The Dividing Line where we engaged in a rather lengthy dialogue on that subject and in fact if I recall
01:05:41
John Sampson called in once and we had a long discussion about that particular one. Instead I want to look at one that we don't normally spend too much, well actually
01:05:51
I think I did just recently Hebrews 5 -9. Yes I did actually read the section on Hebrews 5 -9 recently, but I don't remember who we were dealing with.
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Oh that's right it was Brother Jack. Remember? This is one of the few verses
01:06:06
Brother Jack actually read. And it was Hebrews 5 -9 and I went through and talked about the rest of what is said here about Hebrews 2 -9
01:06:20
I'm sorry, Hebrews 2 -9 about the brethren and being made like the brethren and all the all the specificity of the language that was used after that.
01:06:28
That's right. So we did it was just recently on a radio Free Geneva that we addressed that particular subject where I went through and talked about bringing many sons to glory make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering that could not be applied to every single human being because they don't have salvation.
01:06:47
He who sanctifies those who are sanctified I'll have one source so it's talking about those who are sanctified calls them brothers the congregation
01:06:55
I will sing your praise. It said the children God has given. Just went through the the text and demonstrated that if you want to make verse 9 universalistic for every single person on the planet once again you're stuck with dun -da -dun -da -da universalism itself which would be grossly inconsistent because I don't think any of these folks actually are universal.
01:07:24
Romans 11 32 we were just told somehow teaches universal atonement let's take a look at it for God has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all just think about that just for a second using that as a proof text for universal atonement what does it inevitably mean for God has consigned all to disobedience now has
01:07:56
Paul already explained this to us in Romans yeah I remember Romans 5 in Adam that he may have mercy on all so if the mercy there's nothing about the atonement here at all this is not even mentioned but if you're assuming that the mercy on all means the cross then don't you realize this is one of the key universalistic texts in other words
01:08:22
I sort of wonder how would an Arminian argue against universalism how would
01:08:30
Phil Fernandez argue against a universalist who looks at this and says see there it is he has consigned all to disobedience that he may have mercy on all there it is if you think that's the atonement and if you think that mercy if you take all there as each and every individual and you don't take it the way that Romans 5 did those who are in Adam those who are in Christ Jews Gentiles Jews Gentiles if you don't see it in categories and you make it individualistic there's no way out of universalism you're stuck so there you go
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I would be interested in seeing how he responds to that 1st Timothy 2 1 -6 oh
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I missed the Titus one there didn't I was that Titus what was what was Titus 2 -11 I was going to do both of them and I forgot
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Titus 2 -11 ah yes for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation for all people teaching us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions have all been taught by the grace of God to teach to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions now
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I do believe it should be translated bringing salvation for actually it says every man so what does that mean again it either means that every man has received salvation because it doesn't say the potentiality of salvation the grace of God has brought salvation to every man teaching us shouldn't you maybe define the man by the phrase that says teaching us
01:10:20
I mean it's the same sentence that's one of the things that you know I'm so thankful I was showing our visiting brothers out there my 1550
01:10:30
Stephanus text earlier and was pointing out that that was the last edition published prior to the insertion of the verse divisions chapter divisions have been done before that but the verse divisions we have today and it's so much easier to find things because of that but it has so cut the text up in people's minds because people just look at that and stop at a comma and not read and in fact in Greek it's pasen anthropois paidiousa hemos so it's the hemos is actually only one word separated the us hemos is separated by one word from anthropois so if you're just reading that it's so obvious that an individualistic reading goes against the text because teaching us well how does the grace of God how did the grace of God teach let's go back to our
01:11:37
Amorite high priest he seems to be a rather amiable fellow to use as examples how did the grace of God if this grace of God is the death of Christ how did the grace of God teach the
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Amorite high priest to live to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and live self controlled upright and godly lives in the present age waiting for by the way and the pros decamino it goes right back to hemos so there you have a clear indication that the us are those who are waiting for the blessed hope and by the way that connects directly into the end of Hebrews chapter 9 where Jesus will appear a second time without reference to sin to bring salvation to those who are pros decamino those who are waiting eagerly for his appearance so there is a consistency with the usage of that term as well but you have very clearly this terminology being used of those who are waiting eagerly for the returning of Jesus Christ so again we don't find anything here in regards to any indication that the intention of God in the atonement of Jesus Christ was anything other than to unite a particular people to Christ so that his death is their death his burial is their burial his resurrection is their resurrection and so that when he enters into the presence of the father in our place who pair him for us book of Hebrews again that when he appears for us that he will not be appearing there to seek to accomplish something that the father son and spirit have not together decreed to accomplish nothing in the text that goes there mainly because well it's just really not being dealt with on that level at all.
01:13:34
1st Timothy 4 .10 and the list goes on 1st Timothy 4 .10 I think I missed one there but I'm sure of 1st
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Timothy 4 .10 entire appendix in the potter's freedom again well let's just go ahead and look at it and just I did this just a few weeks ago
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I did this on the JACK program just a few weeks ago so I'm not going to do it again but once again especially those who believe
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I don't see a consistent Arminian reading of it because it would lead to universalism once again when your arguments against particular redemption are only arguments a universalist would use but you're not a universalist that's an indication that the arguments you're using are not overly compelling.
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God draws all people to himself he has said if I be crucified if I be lifted up from the earth
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I will draw all men unto myself Dr. Fernandez Dr.
01:14:31
Fernandez does the cross draw all men what is the biblical teaching of the natural man's response to the cross of Jesus Christ what does he think the cross is 1st
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Corinthians chapter 1 what is the preaching of the cross to those who are perishing it's foolishness to the
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Jews stumbling block to the Greeks foolishness Colossians 1 .24
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says but to those who are the called Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God what makes the difference in the one thing the cross to those two different groups the electing grace of God to those who are the called not to those who are the foreseen to those who are the called and so whenever anybody quotes
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John 12 .32 I just ask wait a minute are you seriously telling me that you think that the
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Bible teaches that the cross is attractive to the natural man that it draws the natural man
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Paul says it's a stench in their nostrils see the only way to understand
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John 12 .32 is to realize the Greeks had come seeking Jesus that's why they looked up Philip, Philip's a
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Greek name we want to see Jesus Jesus does not appear to them he does not meet with them and he explains that if I be lifted up in crucifixion
01:16:06
I will draw all men what does that mean the only way to understand it in context is all kinds of men
01:16:15
Jews and Gentiles because the Bible is very clear the cross is repulsive outside of the electing grace of God that changes the heart of man
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John 12 .32 and God convicts even the non -elect of their own belief
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John 16 .7 -11 ok and what does that mean is that somehow opposed to the doctrines of grace no the
01:16:48
Holy Spirit of God brings conviction and in fact restrains the evil of men why do you assume the conviction of sin is only for the purpose of bringing someone to salvation why can't
01:17:04
God use his law and use the spirit of God to restrain the evil of men for his own purposes didn't the spirit of God restrain pagan kings from doing things what about Abimelech so the assumption is well the
01:17:23
Holy Spirit would only try to save somebody why? God can't have the purpose remember remember the promise it's a really cool promise when the laws is given and the people are given the land and the men are told that they need to appear before the
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Lord on the day of atonement and one of the really
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I love this practical issues that is raised in the text is you know if you live across the river from a bunch of pagans and they know that the men always leave at such and such a time each year to go down to Jerusalem to worship
01:18:03
Yahweh you know that would be a pretty good time for them to come over and take all your women and run off you know and remember what the promise is if they will be faithful God will not even allow the pagans across the river to desire their land how does he do that?
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isn't that by his spirit? so the spirit of God can actually restrain them from even desiring to come over and take the
01:18:37
Israelites land as they go up to Jerusalem to worship doesn't say anything about the spirit causing them to be converted though does it?
01:18:45
so God's spirit could be active in restraining the evil of men in a completely non -salvific way even under the old covenant, why not in the new?
01:18:57
you see we have an assumption here that is an unwarranted assumption that the spirit of God is active in any way it must be just to bring about salvation and that simply isn't the case this is going to come up a number of times in the audience questions and unfortunately not ever get a real meaningful response and the meaningful response is the
01:19:17
Holy Spirit does more than merely bring about salvation the Holy Spirit restrains the evil of men the
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Holy Spirit is God's active presence in the world today and he's accomplishing many things salvation is one of them but what about when a nation is under the judgment of God and there are not many people being saved in that nation does the
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Holy Spirit just simply leave? see there's an assumption that's been made and it is a very easily challengeable assumption still
01:19:51
God will only save those who respond in faith to his drawing Jeremiah 29 13,
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Joel 2, 12 so here goes and here we have Old Testament texts rather than New Testament texts you would think if you wanted to substantiate the statement that was just made about the drawing of God why not go to the key text that talks about that which is
01:20:17
John 6, 44 all the Father gives me will come to me the one who comes to me
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I will never cast out John 6, 37 and then John 6, 44 no one is able to come to me unless the
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Father sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day there's the drawing and yet the drawing results in being raised up on the last day and we know being raised up on the last day is that's receiving eternal life in John we can demonstrate that directly exegetically from the text all those who are drawn are raised up on the last day so why would you go to Joel or Malachi or someplace else when you just you just made a statement that's actually directly contradictory to Jesus' own use of those very words why would you do that 13,
01:21:06
Hebrews 11, 6 James 4, 6 through 8 the list goes on as well yeah the list goes on of verses that have absolutely nothing to do with this it's also interesting to note that both
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Augustine and Calvin in their writings denied limited atonement this is called historical anachronism limited atonement quote unquote was not an issue for either of them and it seems that Mr.
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Comis and Dr. Fernandez had come to an agreement beforehand that yeah yeah yeah
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Calvin didn't believe in limited atonement well hmm while that was not a primary issue for Calvin in any sense of the way sense of the matter
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I think that those, and I know exactly who they are who have been gathering citations from Calvin primarily from the commentaries not from the institutes but from the commentaries and there are other quotes to be drawn from the commentaries that are just the opposite might be interpreting
01:22:19
Calvin in the same way because they tend to be hypo -Calvinist, really the squishy kind that yeah yeah
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I believe in election but when you really push them they're really not overly strong on it I have a feeling they're interpreting even
01:22:36
Brother Calvin in the same way they would interpret numerous biblical texts as well to just simply state this this was not there is no place in John Calvin where he says the doctrine of limited atonement is false and it's interesting the men who knew him the best were very clear on the subject and you simply have to accuse them of being, well those second generations guys, they always go against, go farther than the original, etc.
01:23:05
I think there's much to be said for a consistency on Calvin's part that goes beyond this, but the point is that was not one of his debates, so to read back into either
01:23:17
Augustine or Calvin conclusions, that'd be like saying well you know Calvin was really against federal visionism, well that's a modern thing that's not something that you'd have to, the only meaningful type of argument you could make would be, well
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I find in Calvin certain teachings that would be inconsistent with a modern federal visionist understanding or something like that, that's the only fair thing you can say, but to read something back into history like this and make this kind of just blanket statement
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I think is just utterly unwarranted. This was not something that was settled until after Calvin's death, the sin out of Dorton.
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Chris is aware of this, so there's no real argument there. A biblical reputation of irresistible grace, the
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Calvinist believes that God's saving grace cannot be resisted by the elect when
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God has chosen to regenerate them. The Calvinist believes that the elect are spiritually dead until given spiritual life and regeneration and therefore the whole concept of resistance makes no sense.
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And as I've said many many times, as soon as this issue comes up if you find anyone quoting from Acts chapter 7 or from the
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Gospels where it is said that the Pharisees resisted God's will for them or something, you know you're dealing with someone who doesn't understand what we're saying.
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Because we're not saying the Holy Spirit of God has never resisted. We are not saying, because that would assume the very thing we've already seen is an error, the idea that all the
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Holy Spirit does is seek to save. That there's never any conviction, restraining, anything like that.
01:25:02
And that's not what we say. So if that's what's about to come our direction, well...
01:25:21
What does that have to do with the doctrine of irresistible grace?
01:25:29
I mean, well, it says that man has the ability to harden his heart in regards to regeneration.
01:25:39
I mean, I thought this was talking to Christians who already had received the grace of God.
01:25:47
He's at least addressing the Christian congregation, right? And so, once again, if you understand what irresistible grace is, it's a very specific claim.
01:25:57
It's a very specific claim that men are dead spiritually, and that they have no ability to save themselves, they have no ability to cooperate.
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There needs to be a radical spiritual resurrection, and that that is the giving of life.
01:26:14
So, when you deny irresistible grace, what you're saying is, is that dead sinners have the capacity to resist the call of God to spiritual life.
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That truly, Lazarus could have said, No! I've been over that one before.
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The Son of God could call up, Lazarus, come forth! And Lazarus could have said,
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No, thank you! That's what's being said. Not that there's people who have resisted the
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Spirit of God, because none of these texts say the Spirit of God was attempting to bring spiritual life, was trying to bring them to spiritual resurrection.
01:26:55
And they somehow, in their state, that would be like saying that God could blow across that valley of dry bones, and the dry bones sitting there bleached in the sun.
01:27:07
And I used to say, and us out here in Arizona knows exactly what that means, but now everybody in Oklahoma and Texas knows, too.
01:27:15
Because we've got 115 today, but they've got it worse in Oklahoma City.
01:27:20
It's about the same temperature and about twice the humidity. No, thank you. But, at least now the analogy goes farther.
01:27:30
It's like saying those dry bones bleached in the sun. The wind blows over them, and they go, uh -uh, nope, nope, no flesh going up, no, you get off me, flesh!
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Nope, ain't gonna happen. That's what we're being told? Really? I don't understand the motivations, but I understand the sincerity of folks who believe that they are somehow protecting
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God's character or something, but I just don't believe they have understood what it is we're really talking about.
01:27:56
Who knows what will happen next Tuesday? We ought to just try to do a regular deal.
01:28:04
Five days a week, an hour and a half a day. Thanks a lot, Rich. I appreciate that. We'll see what happens next
01:28:10
Tuesday. See you then. God bless. We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for.
01:28:25
We need a new Reformation day. It's the sign of the times.
01:28:32
The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm. Don't you lift up your voice.
01:28:39
Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise. I'm going virtual.
01:28:46
I'm going virtual. I'm going virtual. I'm going virtual.
01:29:23
I'm going virtual. I'm going virtual.