Calvinism vs Arminianism Day 4

And good afternoon good morning welcome to the dividing line and this is part number two of The debate between myself and Michael Brown today. We have texts chosen by dr. Brown. And unlike the first part of the debate where I chose the text and I went first this time since he chose the text He will be going first and so without further delay.

I welcome welcome you back Michael Brown. How are you doing? Great to be on the air with you again today. Hey, it's good to be with you, too. Dr. Brown's coming to us via Skype. Let's hope no one launches a DNS attack on Skype just simply to mess everything up.

Because the sound quality is is so good. It's not like when Skype first started when it would be something like this, but you talk with him. So he sounds like he's right here in the studio with me. But I think he's on the other side of the United States right now actually.

Luke 13 and Deuteronomy 5: God’s Desire and Human Response

But today we are beginning with Luke chapter 13 Verses 34 and 35 and so dr. Brown your 8-minute opening statement. Go ahead. Luke 13 34 of Jerusalem. Jerusalem who killed the prophets and stone those sent to you.

How often I've longed to gather your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But you were not willing. The meaning of the short and poignant passage Which has a parallel in Matthew 23 37 is quite straightforward and not surprisingly.

It's one of the passages that persuaded the respected Calvinist scholars Ned Stonehouse and John Murray to write quote. We have found that God himself Expresses an ardent desire for the fulfillment of certain things which he has not decreed in his inscrutable counsel to come to pass.

This means that there is a will to the realization of which he is not Decretively will the pleasure towards that which he has not been pleased to decree which they say is indeed mysterious. But what may be mysterious especially for Calvinist based on a host of biblical texts?

It's quite obvious here in Luke 13 34. We have a moving expression from Israel's Messiah. He addresses Jerusalem as the personification of the nation as a whole. Just as the prophets often did as in Jeremiah 2 to go proclaim to Jerusalem as I noted my commentary there Jerusalem represents the people of Israel not merely a city or a geographical location, but the people themselves both past and present.

Jesus longed to gather her children together meaning the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Representing the nation as a whole as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But she again represented the people and their leadership were not willing.

In fact the Greek twice uses the verb fellow. To will wish desire the Lord is saying I was willing in fact over and over again. But you were not willing as expressed by da Carson. Jesus claims to be the one who is long to gather and protect his rebellious nation or as noted by RT France as Jesus Contemplates what lies ahead of the people he came to save it gives him no pleasure.

He had wanted to gather them not to condemn them. The simple and undeniable sense of the passage is plain and according to John Calvin Christ speaks here in the person of God. James has written that quote.

A vitally important point to make here is that the ones the Lord desired to gather are not the ones Who are not willing. Jesus speaks to the leaders about their children that they the leaders would not allow him to gather.

Jesus was not seeking to gather the leaders. But their children. This one consideration alone renders the passage useless for the Arminian seeking to establish free will ism and quote. Actually the reverse is true.

First although the context in Matthew 23 37 in particular focuses on the Jewish leadership. This is not the case in Luke 13. So it must be demonstrated rather than assume that Jerusalem speaks only of the leadership rather than the people as a whole.

Where else is this usage found in Scripture? Thus the ESV renders with Oh Jerusalem Jerusalem the city that kills the prophets. This would be in keeping with other New Testament passages like acts 236 which indicts the entire house of Israel at first Thessalonians 2 14 and following where the Jewish people or Judeans are held responsible for killing the prophets and the Messiah himself.

Which major lexicons or top gospel scholars understand Jerusalem here to mean the Jewish leadership only? Second to more specifically challenge James's argument who says that Jesus didn't want to gather Jerusalem's leaders together.

On what textual basis Can he make that statement. And third and most importantly even on James's interpretation? We see that Jesus was seeking to gather the children of the leaders yet What he wanted to happen did not happen.

The children of their leaders called here Jerusalem's children if we follow James Interpretation suffered terribly just as their leaders did. This is confirmed in Luke 1941 to 44 where we read that when Jesus drew near to Jerusalem He wept over it saying would that you even you had known on this day the things that make for peace but now they are hidden from your eyes for days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and Surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground you and your children within you.

They will not leave one stone upon another because you did not know the time of your visitation. Note carefully these words you and your children within you. There can be no possible mistaking of the fact that Jesus wanted to gather Jerusalem's children.

I know here in Luke 19 that Jerusalem cannot simply refer to the leadership. But they were not gathered. What he so fervently desired did not happen. This was a cause of profound sorrow for our Lord who did not rejoice at the impending destruction of his beloved city and his beloved People saying yes, this is what my father and I decreed for you.

And so shall it be. Now he wept over Jerusalem saying if only you had known if only who had understood the time of your visitation. Again, the text is abundantly clear and is in harmony with many other biblical passages.

Our sovereign God because of his own free choice to create human beings with a measure of free will. Often desires things for his people and for this world that do not happen cause you in grief and pain.

That is the world he chose to create in his own inscrutable wisdom. One in which he allows us a measure of free will and seeks a reciprocal love relationship with us and in the midst of it He continues to work out his sovereign purposes bringing good out of evil and life out of death ultimately for his eternal glory.

Next passage Deuteronomy 5 28 to 29. In Context these verses follow Moses recounting to the children of Israel what happened when God spoke the Ten Commandments to his people from Mount Sinai one generation earlier.

The people were terrified at God's voice and asked that Moses speak to them on God's behalf. Saying that they would do whatever the Lord required God accepted their request and then said if only It would really be their desire to fear me and obey all my commandments in the future so that it may go well with them.

And their descendants forever. This was God's desire. But of course what else would a loving father desire for his children? What else was devoted bridegroom desire for his bride? What else with compassionate creator desire for his chosen nation?

Again, the meaning of the text leaves. No ambiguity is the opening Hebrew phrase me etain means would that if only it speaks of an ardent wish or desire as in Job 6 8 where he cries out. Oh that I might have my request.

In fact, the expression occurs nine times in Job pointing to the passionate desire inherent in the phrase. Also using the same idiom as Psalm 14 7. Oh that the deliverance of Israel might come from Zion.

The New Jewish version to the passage under discussion here in Deuteronomy 5 bears citing. I have heard the plea that this people made to you. They did well to speak thus. May they always be of such mind to revere me and follow all my commandments so that may go well with them and with their Children forever.

God wants things to go well for his beloved people. Thus Moses says in Exodus 20 20 in a similar context immediately after the giving of the Ten Commandments. Do not fear for God has come to test you that the fear of him may be before you that you may not sin.

Parallel to this is the expression of God's desire in Isaiah 48 17 to 19. Thus said the Lord your Redeemer the Holy One of Israel I the Lord am your God instructing you for your own benefit. Guiding you in the way you should go if only you would heed my commands and your prosperity would be like a river your triumph.

Like the waves of the sea. Both this passage in Deuteronomy 5 28 and 29 persuaded Murray in Stonehouse to recognize that God does not decree that everything He ardently desires will come to pass and as I stated at the outset while they call this mysterious from a biblical perspective.

It is quite obvious how utterly contrary to the clear and consistent testimony of the word is the notion that one God did not desire the salvation of the entire nation of Israel to he did not desire that they would obey and hence be blessed.

Three while repeatedly proclaiming his desire for their well-being he secretly decreed the destruction of many of them and. For the unequivocal words of the Father in the Old Testament and the Son of the New Testament do not mean what they say.

Must instead be turned on their heads in order to fit a theological system. Not so and I remind you these passages cannot be passed off to what is sometime called the prescriptive will of God found in His law where God commands his people do not murder do not commit adultery.

In Contrast with an alleged secret so-called decree of will which amount to what God really wants to happen. Irresistibly causing his people to do whatever they do by way of an unconditional decree including all their sin and evil.

To the contrary God does not want his people to sin or do evil. In these passages describe the heart and mind and desire of God he desires blessing not cursing for his people life not death. Which is why he says elsewhere in Deuteronomy choose life that you and your descendants may live.

All right. Thank you very much. And now my eight minutes begins now. In eight minutes of discussion. We never had any demonstration that the term gathered means I want to save it was just assumed. But it was never proven.

It was never even attempted to be proven that gathered means the same thing as bring into eternal life. There are all sorts of covenant all sorts of covenant language here. And it was also very confusing to me that it sounded like dr. Brown was somehow Distinguishing between Matthew's use of this logia and Luke's both are judgments passages even though Luke only provides a small snippet of this and places it within the context of Jesus going to Jerusalem and and a prophet must Not perish outside of Jerusalem.

Still it's the exact same logia. And so to attempt to interpret it outside of its methion context where it's given its full context in regards to the specific Jewish leaders. I I find that not to be a meaningful approach to ex-jesus.

First of all, it is very clear despite the Denial that was just offered that Jesus himself is the one who provides the contrast between the Jewish leaders and those who Jesus was seeking to gather and that in the context of the destruction of the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

Which in both of the Matthew and Luke references comes right after this behold your house is left to you desolate I say to you You will not see me until the time comes when you say blesses he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Both and with the exact same judgment narrative. I find it odd that we are attempting to overthrow the entire biblical testimony about God's decree on The basis of a judgment passage rather than upon a didactic text that specifically addresses these these issues.

I think we're gonna see that in each of the examples that have been provided in our debate today. It was to the Jewish leaders that God sent the prophets. It was the Jewish leaders who killed the prophets and sent them Was sent to them.

Hence the use of Jerusalem the capital city as the symbol for the leadership. It would be similar to my saying Addressing someone in Washington DC everyone recognizes I'm talking about the leadership of the nation.

Jesus speaks of your children. And yet the vast majority of the time this text is used that is simply dismissed in fact frequently isn't even quoted because they don't see the distinction here because they don't see the Judgment that is being brought upon the Jewish leaders.

For what it is that they are doing and this comes out very clearly in the in the Mithian context in Matthew 23 13 Which comes before Matthew 23 37? But woe to you scribes and Pharisees hypocrites because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people and You do not enter in yourselves nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.

Jesus comes proclaiming the kingdom and those who are already in charge of things say no, we do not want to have your message. The Judgment that comes in Luke 13 and Matthew 23 is upon individuals who have stood in their rank Religious rebellion against God the very ones that are in the day very danger of committing the unpardonable sin they have stood before the very Messiah himself and have resisted his preaching of repentance and His ministry of warning about what is coming upon Jerusalem within Jerusalem itself.

This is the great Judgment that is going to come upon them. So where or how does a judgment Logia? Establish the idea that the gathering mentioned is a synonym for salvation. Dr Brown didn't tell us if this is anything other than salvation itself rather than the proclamation the coming judgment upon Israel.

To which there would be mixed response. How is this text even slightly relevant to the issue of God's decree or the allegedly all-powerful will of man? There are just so many questions that are raised by this and I just might note.

Very little time was spent in exegesis of the Luke in passage. It's alleged clear meaning was brought forth with dozens of other passages, but immediately went to this idea that this the desire of God expressed in his holy Words the fact that he desires holiness the fact that he says thou shalt not kill that somehow this means there is no decree of God that includes the evil of man and so and we immediately leave a judgment text upon the Scribes and Pharisees and Expand this out to a Bible wide denial that results in the scriptures being Tremendously contradictory to themselves.

We have all these examples of Where God hardens the people's hearts? I mean, how are we supposed to understand this in light of Jesus's own words? In John chapter 12 that God had hardened their hearts.

They could not believe. These are gonna be some of the questions that I'm going to be asking. We also had Deuteronomy chapter 5 presented and again, I I'm not sure what exactly is being said here other than well.

This is what God truly desires to happen. Well, of course God's desires are always holy and just and representative of who he is. But evidently the idea is well, and if he has those desires, then he would never decree anything other than that folks simple question here.

Did God desire Pilate to do what Pilate did. Did God desire Herod to do what Herod did. Did God desire the Jewish leaders? To turn over their own Messiah to the Romans for crucifixion. What was the answer of the early church to that in Acts chapter 4 verses 27 to 28 28?

They did exactly what your hand had predestined to occur not what you saw in the future, but was against your desire. They did what you had predestined to occur you see once again we come back to the same issues that dr Brown and I raised when we first spoke on his program and that is he denies That there is a decree of God that gives form to what happens in time.

Despite the many texts of Scripture that make reference to this and says no. That is not the case whatsoever. Since God says I oh that you would do that that means that's the only desire he has and that's the only Will that he has and that's just all there is to it.

He's just like a man. He really wishes we do these things and yet I know that dr. Brown rejects open theism. And so if he rejects open theism, then we have an even odder situation here. And that is we have God.

Oh that you would do this. I know you're not going to and I brought this creation into existence. And when I brought the creation to existence, I knew you weren't going to and so I brought creation existence just simply so I would be eternally disappointed in these situations.

Is that really what a Synthesis of all of script revelation rather than just taking a part of it now Dr. Brown's already said or he made the accusation. Well, you're turning a text on its head simply for a theological system.

Well, we both feel that that's what the other one's doing. I believe dr Brown is ignoring the many texts of scripture where God talks about Accomplishing all of his holy will bring about his purpose and simply asking the question.

Does that please God? When in the final analysis we saw this in the preceding part of the debate. We look at Ephesians 1 it says that he is accomplishing all things according to the counsel of his will.

Is that the case or not? I think dr. Brown is saying no. He's not accomplishing all things according to counsel as well. There's all sorts of other wills involved and there's also the brother wills that are doing the exact opposite of what God would have to do.

We need to have a completely biblical view of these things and the idea that God expressing his holy desires in consonance with his own his own nature is Somehow to mean that he cannot excuse me. He cannot have his own holy Decree just simply does not follow.

We now have four minutes of cross-examination each and then we have three minute closing statements. We are in the first part of the debate. Dr. Brown your four minutes. Okay, no debating hype here James.

I'm kind of stunned by the comments you made both for putting words in my mouth that I never spoke which I hope to clarify. Along with when we get to Deuteronomy 5 you accuse me you go to the passages.

I didn't hear a syllable about Deuteronomy 5. So let's go back to specific texts. I never said that gathered meant Save what do you believe gathered means in the passages in Luke 13 in Matthew 23? Well, I certainly did not attempt to put any words in your mouth.

Dr. Brown, however everything that you said Led to the conclusion that that's what you were talking about. So if you want to clarify that that that'll be that'll be great. I did actually refer to Deuteronomy chapter 5 especially in regards to his desire that they would walk in his law.

So I I want to correct both of those those statements right right from the beginning. The gathering that Jesus talking about is the same gathering that isn't found in Deuteronomy 23 13 and that is Jesus seeking to proclaim the kingdom of God to all the inhabitants of his of.

Well, Israel will use the term generically here and not make the division between Galilee and and Judea and specifically the proclamation of repentance. And the coming judgment of God upon Jerusalem. All right.

So he wanted to gather them and who are the children the children would be the people under the authority of the Jewish leaders. Okay, they were not gathered. It didn't happen, which is my whole point.

I had I didn't say anything about save even though you kept arguing as if I had or that's what I was alleging. My whole point was that Jesus wanted to gather them as many Calvinist scholars recognized.

But they weren't gathered hence Luke 19 you and your children are gonna be destroyed. Yes, the preaching of the prophets has always been under the assumption that if they were to Respond, then they would receive God's blessing the whole reason as Jeremiah 7 makes so clear.

The whole reason that you have this constant lack of hearing this lack of obedience is the demonstration that it is Not simply being amongst the people of God that makes you the people of God. All right.

To this Jesus long to gather them together and it didn't happen. How often I've gathered you through the ministry of the preaching. Yes. Okay, so what he desired to happen didn't happen. That was my whole point in the passage as expressed through the preaching.

Yes. That does not mean again. You just you just assume what's you just assume that there there can be no no consistency between The preaching of the Word of God the the prescriptive will of God in his law and The decree of God as to what's going to take place.

Okay, so in a lat which is really properly not just a judgment passage in genre, but a lamentation passage. So he is lamenting pouring on his heart. This was his fervent desire. Yet. He decreed the opposite of that.

That's what you believe. He decreed the judgment of Israel. Yes, there's no question about that. Okay. Yeah, so when we get to Deuteronomy 5 We're not looking at prescriptive will do not murder. We're looking at God's desire for his people.

So again, you're saying that God desired that his people would not murder but decreed that some of them would yes. Okay. Do you have any reason then for? Why so many other Calvinist scholars read these passages differently than I.

I can't answer for them. I just simply recognize that these scriptures are very very plain in Making the assertion that anything that takes place has a purpose. God has not created purposeless evil. He is over and over again in the same text talk about hardening hearts.

There are times when he does not allow preaching of the Word of God that would result in the salvation of people. I simply have to take all that the scripture says. I can't just take one section say ah here.

It is God's desire is that everybody's good and therefore if there's anything it goes against that I'm just going to dismiss it. It's it's right there in the text. All right, and I would look at it. Let's just be consistent with what the text says and it's much easier to put things together.

So, okay, I think that my my turn for the four minutes is so I'll ask you the question. In light of what you just said. Did God desire to harden the people of Israel's hearts so they would not believe as in Isaiah 6?

No, his highest desire as we'll see. Another text was that they would repent and live if they refused to then he desired to bring judicial punishment upon them. Then that's the way it always works. So there are multiple desires from your perspective in God's in God's heart.

Oh, no, it would just be like a parent. I desire that my child does not sin and mess up if he does sin. I desire that he learns properly from his punishment and does not escape punishment. So the hardening so the hardening that God brings is actually the same thing as a parent punishing children.

Well the the hardening we know from God's perspective you have to look at the vocabulary that's used. Vocabulary that you say for example with Pharaoh begins with hazak or the hazeh to strengthen. God does not take someone that desires or is crying out or is longing to and then hardens them.

He confirms us like it's often been pointed out the same Sun that that bakes the the the the earth melts the clay. So sometimes God's loving word coming to someone produces hardness. Could Pharaoh have done other than what he did.

Could found Pharaoh was set in a certain course. God confirmed him in his course if at any moment he chose to repent. I believe there would have been grace, but God also raised him up knowing exactly who he was.

Well, wait a minute. So so if it was God's intention to demonstrate his supremacy over the gods of Egypt in the Exodus and in the plagues Pharaoh could have frustrated that by repenting right? No God foreknew this man.

That's why he raised him up. That's what Paul says in Romans 9 for this very purpose. I raised up amazingly though. Of course, we have to get away from the text for exegeting to try to argue your points.

Well, well, did you you raised all sorts of points to go far beyond the text? So I'm just simply having to answer the the very issues that you raised up. So God raised up Pharaoh based on his foreknowledge of what Pharaoh would do.

Not not for any other reason. So so Pharaoh could not have done any other way did because God foreknew what Pharaoh was going to do in that sense. Yes, okay. So so that knowledge that God has of this this foreknowledge.

Are you taking a middle knowledge perspective here or a simple foreknowledge perspective? I'm not looking at it from a theological perspective but from an exegetical perspective to be honest and. And we see in the text that he hardens himself over and over and over before God then confirms him in his hardness.

So there's consistency there. We don't see that Pharaoh is seeking Pharaoh is seeking to fear God. We don't read that God hardened the magicians who were saying come on stop already. We see that God confirmed in his hardness a man that was already set in that course.

It's consistent in Scripture that you don't see anything contrary to that ever happening in terms of hardening in Scripture really, so when when you're talking about your understanding of the Lukan passage when Jesus specifically addresses this issue in John 1239 and I'm sorry when John specifically addresses this text in John 1239 and says for this reason it was impossible for them to believe.

Do you believe that that is simply because of what they had done or because of what God had done? Judicial hardening. Beginning with their own hardness God confirmed them in it at just a second Thessalonians to those who do not love the truth God will give over to delusion.

So they believe a lot. It's consistent. There's no mystery here. So that's true. I I agree a thousand percent, but so their free will is taken from them. There's. Yeah, you at one point. It said well Pharaoh could have done other.

How about those people in in John 12, or is it over with for this? I said theoretic. No in John 12. It was at that moment. It doesn't say for all time doesn't say that they were damned and doomed for all time.

But at that moment they were blinded and there was judicial hardening. Sometimes God gives us over to our sins and we're captive in them. God can draw us again and grant us repentance, but he does give us over to our sins again it's consistent the way it's used in Scripture and your Three minutes for your closing statement.

All right.

Really?

There can be no exegetical denying of the plain sense of Luke 13. Matthew 23 is as reformed. New Testament scholar Da Carson explained Jesus often long to gather in shelter Jerusalem by metonymy including all Jews as a hen gathers her chicks.

But despite the woes pronounced Jesus like the Sovereign Lord in Ezekiel 1832. Took no pleasure in the death of anyone. According to the Puritan author William Perkins the things which he willeth namely the gathering of the Jews by the ministry of the prophets Was begun and practiced long before his incarnation.

Wherefore as I take it here his divine will is meant or the will of his Godhead. Which is also the will of the Father and of the Holy Ghost. According to Calvinist author Walter Chantry notice that Jesus is speaking to a people who are finally going to perish and he knows it.

But these people are about to be consumed by the wrath of God as the main intent of Christ's statement. He's pronouncing a curse upon them yet in the midst of sentencing them Jesus expresses his love for them and a desire that they would repent and believe.

He reminded these very people who would soon perish that they had been repeatedly invited to come to him. He assured them that even at that moment He desired them to freely partake of his saving mercy.

In verse 37 Our Lord said I would have gathered you but you would not. The Savior sincerely desired their conversion. He wanted to gather Jerusalem into his saving and protecting grace, but they spurned his severe his sincere invitation and refused to turn.

Finally writing in the banner of truth Gerald hamster expressed how fervently the Savior longs for the salvation of the lost. If only the unconverted sinner could know how rich a love dwells in the heart of our precious Redeemer.

He understands the plight of the sinner is no one else. His gracious warnings are a proof of this no less so as tears. That's why they cry out to the sinner. I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

But whether that the wicked turn from his way and live. So not only is James missed the overwhelming clear sense of the passage namely that what Jesus so fervently desired did not happen. But he also rejects the interpretation of many top Calvinist past and present as for Deuteronomy 5 28 and 29.

There's no reason to get ourselves twisted in some kind of a theological pretzel that God Arden Lee desires that his people do not sin and yet preordain some of them to sin that God longs to see his people repent.

And yet has a system set up that he has preordained that many of them will not repent.

No.

He has set up a system in his own Sovereign will give it a limited free choice so that people can refuse his grace because love cannot be coerced. God wants a reciprocal relationship. This is what our sovereign God set up and according to Ephesians 1 11 in the midst of everything that is happening He is working out his sovereign purpose and he will get for himself the people for his glory and his glory alone.

His desire is that people will turn and repent he grieves when they do not but ultimately in the midst of it He will accomplish his sovereign purpose. All right, thank you very much. I agree with much of what's around has just said.

Unfortunately, he seems to be trying to drive a wedge between myself and others that others have tried to do too. In fact, I'm sort of sensing their influence in some of this as well. What happens in Matthew 23 is a condemnation of the Jewish leaders even just now dr Brown had said how long often I wish to gather you but you were not.

Jesus never said that. He said how often I'd gather your children together. But you would not. The condemnation of the you would not and anything in regards to the ability of man Has to do with the Jewish leaders and their resistance to the ministry of Jesus.

Any other use of this text Simply is inappropriate now. Dr. Brown has said ah, but all I'm saying about this text which is not the normal Arminian use this text is that Jesus desired to do something that did not happen and Once again, we are driven back to the necessity of recognizing that God's holy will.

Expressed in his law is that we be perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. His holy desire is for that which is good and just and righteous. But God is not a man and God's desires also include his own decree which gives form to the very substance of time.

You see God desired to save many people alive in the days of Joseph. To accomplish that he decreed the selling of Joseph into slavery in Egypt. That involved the evil actions of men. But God was sovereign over those things and His sovereign purpose was holy and just in the one action.

You have the desires of men that are evil and the desires of God that are good.

Now.

If we have simply a foreknowledge perspective here to where well God created and he saw these things gonna happen Then how can God be said to be accomplishing his holy? Well, it's not his holy. He's not accomplishing anything at all.

In fact, all of prophecy seems to be nothing more than then God acting as a CNN reporter and Telling us what he's already seen in the future rather than the accomplishment of his will and folks. This is a major difference.

Because in one God has a specific plan that he is accomplishing not just major goals. I'm gonna try to work things out at the end think of how any one of those events and especially The crucifixion itself was the result of the decree of God or thousands and millions of free will choices of human beings in One of those instances God is worthy of being worshipped for accomplishing all his holy will.

In the other I don't know that he is and that's really what we're talking about here is Allowing all of Scripture to speak to this vitally important matter. Okay, now we are moving on as quickly as we can to the next section eight minutes this time.