Scripture and Tradition

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:47

Well, greetings. Welcome to the Dividing Line. My name is James White. I don't see myself, Rich, for some reason. I'm not sure why, but that's okay.

00:53

I don't, well, there I am. Well, no, I'm not. It doesn't matter. Hey, as long as it's working, that's okay.

00:59

I'm going to pull this down a little bit. The wind is blowing it around. We're still on the road and we'll be again starting

01:07

August 1st. This is just sort of a pre -trip and we could be having some weather we're in the middle of a bunch of thunderstorms here.

01:18

And so it was coming down like anything just an hour ago.

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And now it's real nice, but hey, we need the rain big times.

01:29

And so I've probably seen an inch and a half, two inches of rain.

01:35

For some of you, that doesn't sound like a lot, but for those of us in Phoenix measure rain in the tenths of an inch, that's pretty cool.

01:45

It really is. So we'll see if we can get that to stop moving around. Anyways, welcome to the program today.

01:50

Got a lot of different things to try to cover in the brief amount of time that we have to discuss these things.

01:59

It doesn't seem to have been widely distributed. Maybe I did not get it out into my social media links well enough, but I wrote a little something over the weekend.

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It was either Friday or Saturday, where I responded to and interacted with Richard Braselis's thread, his response thread on Twitter.

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You might be able to do a single response on Twitter, but after that, if you try to respond to individual points,

02:36

Twitter was never designed for that. I honestly think the technology we used, we used an old program called

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Blue Wave in the old BBS days, bulletin board system days, that I think was still better as far as actually allowing for a meaningful conversation to take place.

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That was in the late 1980s, to be honest with you.

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There was an advantage to the BBS days. You know what it was? You wouldn't get an immediate response to what you wrote, because it has to go through all these nodes and there are these mail packets.

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Literally, it could be two days before you get a response from the person you're writing to.

03:28

That's good. I think sometimes the instantaneous nature of social media just allows for a massive buildup of emotional energy rather than intellectual energy.

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It just piles the emotions on and it probably was better back then.

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You had a couple days to think, chill out, stuff like that.

03:57

I think that was probably a good idea. But anyway, someone was specific. I just happened to notice

04:03

JTL on Twitter quoting the one tweet out of this thread.

04:13

I had responded to all this over the weekend. I wrote an entire article, posted it on the blog. Again, maybe people didn't understand what it was.

04:23

I guess I didn't just say, okay, here is my full response to Richard Brussels' thread. If you want to see what

04:29

I have to say, read that. Maybe people just ignored it or something. I don't know. But one more time, since no one seems to want to talk about it,

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I have very clearly said multiple times for months now, if people want to see a sit -down discussion, then let's start planning it.

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It's not one person against 10 people. It would be even representation. It would be at a location where there would be live streaming so everyone could be a part of it.

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It would be far enough in the future to allow for writing and presentation of papers, for panel discussions, and who knows, maybe a debate in there someplace if there was a amenable topic that would fit into that.

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But it would not be one person traveling to take on five or six people in their context.

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It would be an open discussion that would require meaningful interaction.

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So I rolled that one out there a long time ago. I did not hear.

05:51

People will say, oh, I responded to you here. I responded to you there. If I don't follow you on Twitter, I have realized that even if you tag me,

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I don't necessarily see anything. I've used TweetDeck. I've used TweetBot.

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And they weren't overly helpful.

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And they would have failures, things like that. And so I'm just using the standard browser interface on Twitter.

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And some of you have noticed, even during the program, Rich will say, oh, someone just said this.

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I'm just sitting there staring at the Twitter and I don't see it. And I might see it an hour later, two hours later, the next day.

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I don't know. So some of you say, oh, I responded to this and I responded to that. Well, I didn't see it. And I have not seen anybody on the other side go, that's a really bad idea for this reason.

06:57

That's a really good idea for this reason. I've seen nothing. But I'll tell you,

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I'm not sitting here investing my time looking for stuff. If someone gets quoted, if someone screenshots, screen shoots, screen quotes.

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By the way, screenshots are great and wonderful, but they're hard to interact with because it's a graphic.

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I have, and I may have mentioned this before, but I have a little app called

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Text Sniper. Now I'm on a Mac, so I don't know if there's a Windows version of it. But if you're on a

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Mac, Text Sniper is this little, it's up in my menu bar.

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And I just click on it, hit capture text, you select whatever's on your screen. And I've found this to be really, really useful.

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You can convert any of your screen caps straight to text, puts it right into your, the storage thingy.

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And I have a really cool thing for that too. What is that one called?

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Oh, preferences. Oh, come on. Copy clip.

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Okay. That's what it's called. I use something called copy clip. I don't know how many,

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I think I've got a hundred from my clipboard that goes back forever and ever. And that's, so between the two of them, it's really, really helpful to be able to convert that kind of stuff.

08:45

But back to what I was saying, you all may have responded and you all may have said it's a really bad idea.

08:56

No one ever saying to me about it. And so if people don't screen cap it or quote it, I just don't, I'm not necessarily going to see it.

09:04

So people are saying, well, yes, I'll pay your way.

09:14

Which part of I'm not going to California do you all not get? I am going to New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, on this trip where I'm speaking at the

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G3 conference at the Museum of the Bible. Okay. If people want to do something like this, let's do it in Texas.

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Let's do it someplace where there's still at least some semblance of law and order.

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What is the problem with that? I don't, I can't even begin to understand. Well, no, it needs to be in California.

10:09

Okay, fine. Then you all just tweet in California. You all just teach in California.

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Don't let anything out of California. Just not interested. I don't believe that California is no longer a state of law.

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It is a state of people. So the rule of law has been overthrown there.

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And so the attorneys generals, they won't.

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You don't know why they'll accuse one person of one thing, one thing. I don't have any confidence whatsoever that if something were to happen in the state of California, that I wouldn't run into that kind of stuff.

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So why in the world should say, if you're going to talk about these things, then you have to love California. Sorry. Been there many, many times in the past, but I wouldn't travel to Venezuela.

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Would you? Anyway, it doesn't make any sense to me. But like I said, we have thrown that out there for a long, long time.

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No one has, to my knowledge, said why that would be bad. I think a lot of people have been like, yeah, that would be a good idea.

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Let's do that. All right. Then let's do that. There you go. So we'll throw that out there.

11:27

There's a bunch of stuff I'd like to talk to you about, about, you know,

11:35

Uncle Joe's cookies, but I won't today. Especially in light of Uncle Joe getting the chicken pox and after having eaten four cookies, completely eaten those cookies, and they were the best cookies you could eat, and yet he still got the chicken pox.

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And all I can tell you is there are articles in such things as Lancet and the

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Journal of Virology that are coming out, and when you see those things, grab them while you can.

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I was a little surprised that certain well -known television commentator people, that their recent discussions of these things were actually allowed on that big video platform, because we've been taken down for a week for talking about Joe's cookies the way they did, but they're a lot bigger than us, so, you know, the censors are willing to take out little people.

12:51

They know there's going to be more pushback if they take out the big guys. But we'll have some more to say about that, and also more to say about the fact that, and I said this on Twitter yesterday, if you have plenty of food in your mouth, be thankful.

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There are a lot of really smart people around the world that are saying that's not going to be the case for much longer for any of us, and it's all 100 ,000 % purposeful.

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There's no reason for it at all. It's not supply chain.

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It's not ships. It's not transport. It isn't Putin. It is absolutely purposeful, and it is meant to create a completely dependent subclass that can be controlled by very, very, very evil men and women.

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I just think, I said this a couple times now, I just think that we are unwilling to believe that there are the kind of evil people in this world, and I don't know how we can't be,

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I don't know how we can't be watching what's going on in the world with drag queens, story hours, and all the rest of that kind of stuff taking place and not realize just the the evil that's just, that is literally on the level of Sodom and Gomorrah evil, but I just don't think that people can wrap their heads around the idea that those smiling people on TV want to wipe out half the world's population.

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They want to enslave people. I just think we're like, no, no, that's, no, and if you don't, if you don't realize that, it could be hard to have much of a message to proclaim to those individuals.

14:59

Anyway, had a few quick items here, and then

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I wanted to, that's not what I wanted. Where did they go? Oh, there they are. This will go with discussion a little bit later on, and there are a bunch of things that came to mind since last

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Thursday and since we last spoke. We literally have

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Reformed Baptist leaders saying that Reformed Baptist circles are infected with Socinianism.

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Scott Swain said, so I think it's safe to say, Socinianism is making a comeback, and that it's very online, and so this is,

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Dr. Swain is very good at doing the, this whole group at doing the subtweeting thing.

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They don't want to be specific because then they have to actually back up what they're saying, but they will do the subtweeting thing, so online

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Socinianism. Of course, you can find anything online, but I have not ever met in a

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Reformed Baptist church anyone who was infected by, influenced by Socinianism, not once, never.

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Remember, there are definitional beliefs that mark Socinianism, and what you're seeing here is a particularly pernicious and bad form of illogic and irrationality, and here's how it works, and this is a common thing, so this would be useful.

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You will see this pretty much every single time a leftist speaks, and most of the time when someone on the right speaks as well, if they're being, you know, for years and years and years, people have asked us, why don't you use arguments that are, you know, very popular right now?

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I'm we wouldn't promote it because it utilized forms of argumentation that we recognized were invalid forms of argumentation, and they may have been very popular, and some people even said,

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I've seen Mormons that were converted by this kind of argumentation. It's like, well, if you're converted by bad argumentation, then maybe someone else could come along and use bad argumentation to convert you back out.

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We have to be truthful in all of these things, and so you listen to Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, AOC, any of these individuals, and a lot of people on the right as well, and you will find this form of argumentation.

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What you do is you find a position that the people that you're trying to influence find to be reprehensible, something to be rejected, and then what you do is you create connections that are not connected to what defined the evil of that position or that person or that movement or whatever else it might be, but is connected to something that is not definitional of who they were, what they stood for, but you can then use that to make a connection to the person that you want to attach to them.

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It's not a definitional attachment. It's not logical. It could be made to attach that idea or that attitude or that person or that action, a historical event to anybody, but that's what you do.

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It's not the definitional aspect that you connect to somebody else. It's something that's not definitional, and so someone will say, well, the

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Sassanians rejected the creeds and confessions of the church. That's exactly what

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Johann Eck said about Luther, right? Yeah, it's exactly what

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Johann Eck... Johann Eck knew what

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Luther was up to before Luther knew what Luther was up to. I would imagine

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Luther... Eck went to his grave going, I told you so, I told you so.

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He really was the early warning bell, ding, ding, ding, ding, warning, warning, bad stuff coming, and because of politics and the situation in the

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Holy Roman Empire and Frederick and Charles and all that stuff, the church and the empire did not move quickly enough, and Eck was vindicated, but Eck made that argument at Leipzig against Luther, and on one level he was right, but he wasn't dealing with the substantive reality of what

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Luther himself was yet teaching, because Luther hadn't... It was Eck that forced

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Luther to come to understand Sola Scriptura, the issues of traditions, things like that, and so the

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Sassanians rejected church and confession. Luther... So Luther was a Sassanian. Well, that's historically anachronistic.

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It's absurd, but that kind of argumentation is all over the place, and evidently that's what's being done today.

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No person in their right mind is going to accuse me of Sassanianism, because I just turned around and go, and so I have over 30 years of audio, video, and published material defending the pre -existence of Christ in the

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Doctrine of the Trinity. So that's the definitional aspect of Sassanianism, and so you're really just committing complete suicide as far as your credibility is concerned to make that kind of accusation.

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What they want to try to do is to say, well, if you don't accept our view of confessional tradition or the relationship of creeds to Scripture, then you're a

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Sassanian. That's not definitional Sassanianism. There have been meaningful, important discussions on that for hundreds and hundreds of years.

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Call someone Sassanian about that. That's just simply being a desperate liar. A desperate liar.

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So just stop it. Repent of it. Ask forgiveness. You don't even have to ask me. The result of this, unfortunately, is

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I saw, and I'm not going to, well, I'll just read this tweet.

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I 100 % do not want the congregation I pastor listening to the Dividing Line. I absolutely want them reading

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Scott Swain, Richard Brassellus, Matthew Barrett, Craig Carter, Petty France, and Dolezal.

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Don't care if they read Thomas or not, no one is saying that he absolutely must be read. When the metaphysics that are being demanded by the people you're quoting came from Thomas?

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Okay. But here's cancel culture. And as a pastor, you have the right to say that.

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You also have the responsibility to then, before God, explain why.

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And if you're doing that based upon lies, misrepresentation, straw men, so on and so forth, you'll be held accountable for that.

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So there you go. And Richard Brassellus responded to that tweet by saying,

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I am loved. I'm full. Again, there you go.

23:35

So all this comes back to, I saw a Reformed Baptist professor that defined biblical hermeneutics.

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This is what, rest of the program, I'm going to be jumping into the London Baptist Confession. So if you want to grab your copy, we're going to be talking about soul scripture today.

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I think there's just some important stuff to note about that. And it goes beyond all the stuff that we're dealing with these days.

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But here is the definition. Biblical hermeneutics.

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I'm reading it directly. Biblical hermeneutics. Number one, grammatical historical exegesis.

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Number two, New Testament priority, parenthesis, Christ is the lens through which we read the

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Old Testament, parenthesis, closed. If what that's saying is that the

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Old Testament is the New Testament, concealed, the New Testament is the Old Testament, revealed. If what that is saying is what

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Christians have always emphasized in regards to the unity of scripture, the fact that the

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Tanakh is just as much the Anustos as the

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New Testament is, okay. No problem about that at all.

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The reality of messianic prophecy, that from the beginning this was always

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God's purpose over against some odd views that, you know, once Israel rejects

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God, then there's another plan that he puts into place, stuff like that. Okay, fine. But here's the key point.

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Here's number three. This is under biblical hermeneutics. So biblical hermeneutics, grammatical historical exegesis,

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New Testament priority, number three, the creeds and confessional tradition of the church.

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The creeds and confessional tradition of the church.

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How does that work? I mean, again, we're talking about doing biblical hermeneutics.

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Now, it's possible that a distinction is being made here to where instead of talking about biblical exegesis, we're talking about going beyond that to the creation of a particular theological construct.

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Possible. But hermeneuo is normally interpretation.

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And so I had a Reformed Baptist student point this tweet out to me and say, you know, when

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I look at earlier writers, I don't see this emphasis.

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I see an emphasis on scripture as having supreme authority because of its nature.

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And that's exactly right. That's exactly right. So I want to comment on this idea that is present amongst

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Reformed folks. And I want to focus upon some dangers and some limitations that we must have in our discussions.

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And so I want to look at the London Baptist Confession of Faith, chapter one of the Holy Scriptures. And I want to just, you know, this is not inspired scripture.

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This is subject to the scriptures and it says that. But it says some things that I'm, you know,

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I'm constantly being accused of being non -confessional and everything else. And it says a lot of things that I think a lot of other folks might want to think about, well, they're being confessional.

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It's not my ultimate authority, but this is a section on scripture, isn't it? Holy Scripture.

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The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

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It's the first statement. The Holy Scripture is the only.

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But please note that. That means that scripture is in a class by itself.

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And central to everything that I have been saying over the past seven months now on this issue, absolutely foundational to all of it, is that my understanding of soul scripture is that it's based upon the nature of scripture.

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Because it is the only Theanostas revelation in the church. It's the only thing we have from God that is

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God -breathed. Right? And here the scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

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So it's sufficient. It's certain. And it's an infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.

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Mighty big words. Mighty big words that would not have been said by the

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Counter -Reformation, for example, which is the background out of which much of this comes.

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Although the light of nature and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God leave men inexcusable.

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Romans 1 .20. Yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God and His will which is necessary unto salvation?

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That would be due to two different reasons. It's not God's intention that that be the mechanism, and due to the thought.

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Both come together to explain that. Therefore please the

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Lord at sundry times and in diverse manners to reveal Himself and to declare that His will unto

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His church and afterward for the better preserving and propagating of the truth and for a more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world to commit the same holy unto writing which makes the holy scriptures to be most necessary those former ways of God's revealing

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His will unto His people being now ceased. So the scripture is necessary because God no longer has prophets.

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He's no longer giving new revelation. Notice He commits these things holy unto writing for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against what?

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The corruption of the flesh. There is a natural rebellion.

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We see it every single day online. There is a natural rebellion against a sufficient revelation from God.

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We always want upgrades. We want something that will fit for us.

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That's the corruption of the flesh and the malice of Satan and of the world. It's been committed to writing.

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That's what the holy scripture for which it ought to be believed dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church but holy upon God who is truth itself the author thereof therefore it is to be received because it is the word of God.

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As far as I can tell this embodies the ontological supremacy of scripture.

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That is the supremacy of scripture that is based upon the nature of scripture.

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And again go back to scripture alone which I wrote a long time ago. A lot of people have found very helpful.

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What does it say concerning solo scriptura? Why solo scriptura? Because the nature.

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It's the author's thoughts. It's God's speaking. Everything that I say about relationship to tradition and everything else is based on its ontology.

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It's being. And I also think that you take that section, paragraph four, and you make application of it today.

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Now remember these men are writing within what viewed itself as a

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Christian culture. They're not dealing with secular humanism. There is no transgenderism.

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There is no Darwin. You take what is contained in those words and apply it today.

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And the insight that is found there I believe is the essence of what

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Cornelius Van Til was saying. And the essence of what those who have abandoned

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Van Til never understood. And what the majority of those who reject presuppositional apologetics don't understand either.

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Because the authority of scripture for which it ought to be believed. Not for which we provide arguments.

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There are lots of. The next section itself will talk about all the arguments that demonstrate that scripture is what it claims to be.

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But the point of the confession is it's not those arguments that actually make the scripture those things.

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And it's not those arguments that provide the solid foundation for believing those things.

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The authority of scripture. It's a little bit like simplicity. Maybe we can use that. It's a little add a little bit of omnipotence.

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Add a little bit of this. Add a little bit of that. And you build up to oh poof. You add the last one in.

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There's God. No one's saying that. No one that I've ever met believes that.

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In the same way, the authority of scripture is not built up by the number of arguments you can come up with.

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Because as anyone who's dealt with atheists for any period of time knows, the atheist will focus upon the weakest argument you present.

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And will use that as an excuse to not even respond to everything else you've said. But the reality is not all the arguments for the inspiration of scripture are equal with each other.

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And so they will look at the weakest argument and focus upon that. The authority of scripture is not made up of this argument plus that argument.

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And finally I get enough arguments together and boom there's the authority of scripture. No. The authority of the holy scripture for which it ought to be believed dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church.

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Now think about it. If it is the word of God then that makes sense. Because when remember in the olden days here in the

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United States when you would swear an oath you put your hand on a bible. Not that anybody anymore understands what an oath actually used to mean or anything.

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But you put your hand on a bible. You were swearing by what?

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Something that had a higher authority than you. So how do you prove

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God speaking? There can't be a higher authority.

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It can't be the collection of lesser authority arguments until you finally pile it up far enough.

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That doesn't follow. It doesn't work. So it depends not upon the testimony of man any man or church.

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Now it's interesting it's or church not the church. But there is clearly a rejection here of lesser authorities establishing an ultimate authority.

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The authority of holy scripture depends what? Holy upon God, who is truth itself, the author thereof.

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Therefore it is to be received because it is the word of God. So this is the issue of the ultimacy of authority.

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The ultimacy of authority and the circularity of ultimate authorities.

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An ultimate authority cannot appeal to a higher authority than itself to validate its claim of authority in any system within the world we live in today.

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The reason for the extreme skepticism, for the rise of scientism, the literally debauched state of modern philosophy is because in a secular system man has to take the center point.

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We have to take that center. We have to, everything has to be related to us and God never intended us to take that position.

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God created this world to be understandable with him at its center. His self -revelation. We see ourselves in light of him and that's why that old

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Hebrew poetry, but let's just be honest, I think there's a lot of Christians that are embarrassed in this world to stand before the wise of this world and quote the words of old

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Hebrew poets like, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.

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You learned that at vacation Bible school when you were seven. Yeah, I'm glad I did.

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It's still true. And every truly wise man I've ever known believed it and continued to believe it the more they learned, the more they learned.

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And so the only foundation, the only authority, it depends on God who is truth itself.

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So it's not God who conforms to standards of truthfulness. It's God who is truth itself, the author thereof.

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And there's, for a lot of people today, there's a problem because even in Christian churches and in Christian seminaries, they call themselves

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Christian. And every time I say this on the dividing line, I get people who are like, oh man, that's really depressing.

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But if you believe that God is the author of all of scripture, you are in a small minority.

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You are. I've been in too many seminaries. I've talked to too many professors.

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They don't really believe it. God is the author thereof. And if it is therefore his speaking, that you put your hand in front of your mouth and you feel that breath, the very breath of God, that's what theopneustos means.

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If this is God's speaking, yes, men spoke men spoke from God as they're carried along by the

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Holy Spirit. Okay, there's your clearest description

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I know of inscription. Men spoke from God as they're carried along by the Holy Spirit.

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He's the author. He uses men. So there's different vocabulary. There's different style.

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All those things are true. But he is still the author thereof. And since he is truth, then if he speaks it, it is true by nature.

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Not by proof of, oh, look at that archaeology over there.

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Am I diminishing the benefit of that archaeology over there? No. But that's not sufficient to establish that it's actually

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God speaking. You see? So it is to be received because of what it is.

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And the church has nothing else like it. That's why it cannot be subject to, it cannot be a subcategory.

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Roman Catholicism, sacred tradition, written, oral, right? Oral tradition, written tradition.

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It's theopneustos. It's unique. There's nothing else like it. That's why

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I asked Mitch years ago in our debate in San Diego. Back when you could still go to San Diego.

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Safely anyways. Has the Roman Catholic Church defined any word that Jesus ever said or any of the apostles ever said that's not found in scripture?

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Infallibly. He said no. It's all we've got. And it's enough.

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It is enough for God's purposes. So like I said in the next section, we may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church of God.

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Notice the difference between church and the church of God. So I think that's where the difference is between four and five.

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We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church of God to a high and reverent esteem of the holy scriptures and the heaviness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the stuff, the consent of all the parts.

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Well that's... If I were to identify almost anything that is missing from the vast majority of seminary educations in Bible today, the consent of all the parts, it's just granted by the vast majority of people that there is no consent of all the parts, that the

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Bible is self -contradictory. It is. And that's because there are difficult texts that I don't necessarily have an answer to, but there have been difficult texts in the past that we don't have answers to, that we do today, that we do now.

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And it was always because we were just ignorant of what had been there.

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So I continue on. The consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole, which is to give all glory to God, the full discovery it makes, the only way of man's salvation, gospel, and many other incomparable excellencies and entire perfections thereof are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the

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Word of God. So does that contradict what we just saw in section 4?

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No. Notwithstanding, yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the

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Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts. It's not from the arguments.

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Those arguments are there. There are lots of arguments. If man was not fallen, then it would be obvious to man the supremacy of Scripture.

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But man is fallen. Man is fallen. And so our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority of Scripture is the work of the

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Holy Spirit within us. And that Holy Spirit comes in so only the regenerate man is going to have that full persuasion and assurance.

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And it comes by the Spirit, not by the number of arguments you can present. Now, there's nothing wrong with presenting arguments, but they're only going to be useful to those who are regenerate.

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Well, can't God use arguments? Well, God can use all the means He wants. But here's where you have to be careful, because the tendency on our part is to use the arguments as if we are granting to the rebel sinner the ability to judge

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God and His Word. Isn't that how it always works? Well, here, let me present to you some arguments that show the

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Bible is the Word of God, as if they are in the position to make that decision.

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If you've ever watched the debate that I did with Dan Barker, University of Illinois years ago, now you understand why

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I said the things that I said. Because even when I presented evidence,

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I did so by saying I am not in any way, shape, or form suggesting that we have the right to judge

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God's existence. I'm not allowing you to climb up on the throne and pretend that you're the judge.

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I'm giving you this evidence so that you might see your creatureliness and acknowledge that which you're suppressing.

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You already know God exists. Now you know why I presented it the way that I did. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life is either expressly set down or necessarily contained in the

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Holy Scripture. The whole counsel of God is either expressly laid out or necessarily contained in the

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Holy Scriptures. In other words, there are things that because the Bible teaches

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A and B, and A and B are related to one another, A and B together make

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C. You can't deny C. It's that second level theology that we've discussed a number of times in the past, but especially over the past number of months, where you take these divine truths and when you see how they relate to one another, that gives you that next level.

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But you can only take that so far. You got these next level and then they're related to one another.

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But there eventually comes a point where you cross the line into speculation from what could be meaningfully derived from Scripture.

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And we have to be very careful at that point. Unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by a new revelation of the

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Spirit or traditions of men. And I think that means we need to be very, very careful that when we are doing theology and we're doing our best to look at the whole counsel of God found in the

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Theanostos Scriptures, that we do what Calvin said, if God makes an end of speaking, so do we.

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If God makes an end of speaking, so do we. We'd have a whole lot less division if we did that.

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Whether by new revelation of the Spirit, so much for the Montanists, Joseph Smith, CBN, or the traditions of men, whether that be

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Rome or even our own. Nevertheless, we acknowledge the inward illumination of the

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Spirit of God to be necessary for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the Word. And is that true?

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I'll never forget sitting in the studio at KFYI in Phoenix, Arizona, debating an atheist years and years and years and years and years ago.

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Long before I even knew what a presuppositionalist was, by the way. Well, okay. Two, three years, maybe?

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Anyway, wish I had known then. But I was a teenager, almost. I might have been 20, 21, something like that.

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And this atheist said, what's made a very interesting conversation, this atheist said, if you read the

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Bible, the Bible teaches that God is sovereign over all events in time.

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And he elects a certain people into salvation not based upon anything that they do. That's just, if you just read the

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Bible, it says it. I don't believe it. I think it's terrible, but that's what the Bible says.

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So you can understand what the Bible teaches. I've had atheists go, yeah, well, look at Bart Ehrman.

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Bart Ehrman looks at the Gospel of John. Yep, the Gospel of John is teaching that Jesus is a divine person. Come on, duh.

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You gotta believe it. But yeah, it's right there. It's right there in the text. You understand what the text is saying.

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But we acknowledge the inward illumination of the Spirit of God for the saving understanding of such things as are revealed in the

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Word. There is a saving understanding. And that there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church, common to human actions and societies, which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to the general rules of the

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Word, which are always to be observed. What's that? Well, that can be a backdoor if abused.

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But what it's really saying is the Word is so wisely given to us, so wisely given to us, that it is applicable in so many different places in so many different ways.

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It's not like the Uniform Code of Military Law or something, you know, that's 27 volumes long and sections

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C, subparagraph, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, it was never intended to function in that way.

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That there are areas where God's truth has to be applied in different cultures, different times, different languages, and that this is to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence, according to general rules of the

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Word, which are always to be observed. So there are general rules that then they have to be applied.

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And sometimes we have disagreements as to how they're to be applied. And if we approach those like we're trying to protect our own little kingdom, then it causes church splits.

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And if we approach those as in we just want to benefit the people of God, it's different.

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All things in Scripture are not alike plain themselves, nor alike clear unto all, yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and open in some place,

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Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, and the due use of ordinary means may attain to a sufficient understanding of them.

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That also means there's nothing waiting out there for 1 ,200 years to be added to Scripture before we can finally get it.

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Oh man, if we had just known this all along. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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Because you see, and I'm not getting into section 8, we could talk about the texts and stuff like that, not what we're talking about today.

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We have in the past. Section 9, the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself. Not confessional tradition, not creeds.

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There's no, the only place where that's going to be mentioned is the next section.

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The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself. And therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any

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Scripture, which is not manifold, but one, it must be searched by other places that speak more clearly.

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Thomas Aquinas did not believe this. Did not believe this. I was just looking at some things he said regarding the errors of the

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Gentiles. And when you look through this material, you know, he's talking here, necessary to be subject to the

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Roman pontiff for salvation, you know, stuff that we would recognize as completely an error. But when he is dealing with particular issues, in so many of these sections, his ultimate authority are citations of early fathers, many of which are highly questionable.

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He lived in a day of anachronism. He utilized a lot of resources that were inaccurate, forged.

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But so often in Thomas's commentaries, the

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Scripture passages that he ties into any particular context have nothing to do with it. Remember, we looked at Romans 4.

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And instead of really digging into Psalm 32 and seeing what the whole argument is, he comes up with, well, that's original sin, that's mortal sin, that's venial sin, has nothing to do with what the text is actually talking about.

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That's the problem. That's the issue right there. That's what we're struggling with.

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The infallible interpretation of Scripture itself, not the church, not the early fathers, not the great tradition, not the great tradition, not the great tradition.

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Yes. Oh, sorry. I thought that was Rich. Rich may have been going, stop yelling at the camera.

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And therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture, like Philippians chapter 2,

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John 10 30, John 8 58, John 17 5, which is not manifold but one.

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So origin was wrong in his view. It must be searched by other places to speak more clearly.

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And then by the creeds, and then by the, no, it's not what it says. And if you're doing that, you're not confessional.

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Number 10, the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all of them decrees of councils,

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Nicaea, Chalcedon, Ephesus, 2nd

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Nicaea, Trent, Vatican 1, Vatican 2, supreme council by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits are to be examined, and whose sentence we, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the

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Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit, into which Scripture so delivered our faith is finally resolved. Amen.

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Go on to my grave defending that. Go on to my grave defending that.

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And so when I hear people saying, well, Nicaea becomes a necessary lens for the interpretation of Scripture, I go,

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Nicaea's authority, on the basis of this, this is a confessional position,

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Nicaea's authority is only as faithful as Nicaea is to that which the

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Zionist does. Same with Chalcedon. And when

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I reject Nicaea 2 and its veneration of images, I do it because I'm examining it on the basis of Holy Scripture.

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And so when I hear someone say that there is a process in history that finally came to completion in the middle of the 13th century, where we finally get to the

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Orthodox doctrine, the Trinity, and I know that much of that development was not based upon exegesis, but upon the compilation of statements from early church fathers over time,

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I know we've got a problem. I know we've got a problem. We really do.

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We really do. So who's really being confessional? Is the question. It seems like section 10 seems to be saying that all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, and what is the great tradition?

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It's the collected opinions of ancient writers, which can be useful.

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It can be. But it is to be examined and sentenced on the basis of Holy Scripture, because it's all of a different nature.

01:00:01

None of that is Zionist. It can be useful. We can be thankful for it. And I am.

01:00:09

If I wasn't thankful, I'd say, why would I teach church history? Why would I have been doing it for 32 years? It doesn't make any sense.

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But that doesn't change the reality that that needs to be subjected to the

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Holy Scriptures. I hope that even for non -reformed

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Baptists, that's a useful discussion on the issue.

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And I don't know about me, it gets me excited. I am so thankful for the Word of God. I'm so thankful that God has preserved

01:00:47

His Word for us. And even if this this world that hates that Word so much, does everything in its power to destroy that Scripture.

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Can't do it. Won't do it. Won't be able to. Rome tried. I can see lots of people wanting to try today.

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But they won't be able to do it. God will preserve His Word and He has done so for us.

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So, I'm not sure.

01:01:18

I think. Pretty certain. I'll be back in the regular studio later this week.

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And it's up to Rich and I to figure out the schedule.

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I've got a few days home and then over three weeks on the road. Home about 12 days and then full month.

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31 days. Longest trip I've done. Lord willing. Your prayers for safe travel and my health would be very, very much appreciated.

01:01:53

Going back to G3. Looking forward to seeing everybody at G3. Talking about the Bible and then going to be speaking a number of other places and teaching early church history at Grace Bible Theological Seminary.

01:02:07

All a part of the traveling that I've got going on. A lot of it over the next two months.

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So, your prayers and your support very much appreciated. So, yes.

01:02:26

Oh, okay. Looks like Rich but it's not.

01:02:32

It's a dear brother in another country. So, anyways. Thank you for watching the program today.