Debate Review on Justification w/ Dr. Stephen Boyce

Post. Tenebrous, oh this isn't Anthony Rogers, sorry. Hey welcome to the Apologetic Dog where it's our heart's desire to contend for the gospel of grace. I see Anthony Rogers in the side chat. I want to just thank you so much brother for all that you do for the kingdom and thanks for joining us today at the Apologetic Dog.

And so if you're new to the Apologetic Dog, this is an apologetics ministry. Once again we're contending for the gospel of grace and if you see somewhere embedded in the logo, I got the logo over here, you see 1st Timothy 620 where Paul tells Timothy, oh Timothy guard the deposit that's been entrusted to you and do this by avoiding irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge.

And so we do that by standing on the truth. The Father or Jesus told the Father your word is truth. And so here that's what we hope to do. We pray that God would bless our time by vindicating the Christian worldview and destroying any rival thoughts that goes against the knowledge of God.

My name is Jeremiah Nortier. I serve as a pastor and elder at 12 Five Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. So if you're in the Northeast Arkansas area, please come check our fellowship. We'd love to get to know you and just show you around.

And so let's see what else. Oh yeah, today we have a special episode where I have a guest, Dr. Stephen Boyce. What's going on? What's going on.

Jeremiah? I like to say I named my son after you because I have a son named Jeremiah. Yes. But I didn't know you by the time he was born. I named him after the prophet. So, but it's good to be on your show.

I've never been on your show before. We've dialogued a lot, but I don't think I've ever been on your show.

Oh yeah. When all my tough Greek questions, I'm like, I got to hit up Dr. Boyce. So thank you for just helping me out. It's real quick. I just want to encourage people, if you're new to the Apologetic Dog channel, just please like, subscribe and share.

And Dr. Boyce, tell us a little bit about your ministry, where you come from, where people can find you.

Sure. So I work with an apologetics network that's called FACTS. It was stationed out of particularly Explore Christianity at one point. And I started my own entire podcast that was kind of a side gig as a result of the side gig.

It turned into what I was studying at the time of doing my PhD, which covered church fathers, apocryphal works, canonicity was the main portion. And then the secondary to textual criticism. So I started a channel called FACTS, which is an acronym, Fathers Apocrypha Canon Text Scripture.

So we talk anything that, it's about two years old now, and we just started dual launching through YouTube as well. And so we launched YouTube about four or five months ago. And the podcast is on any of the platforms.

You can go to, you can go to Spotify, you can go to Apple, Podbean, Google Podcasts. It's on multiple platforms. Just look for the Jerusalem Cross, and you can put my name in. I'm joined with a co-host, Tyler West, who's on that as well.

And so we do anything in relation to those subjects. And we've actually been sanctioned into the Diocese of Carolina. So we're actually doing apologetic work within Anglican churches moving forward, and also going through the process of continuing those relationships.

And actually, and beyond that, we don't just do that as well. We work with Baptist churches. We work with Lutheran churches. I mean, there's multiple platforms that we're doing apologetics in. It's all a part of the kingdom of God.

And so that's the main thing that we do. Yeah, we're trying to get them to catch up a little bit, you know, trying to get them to catch up. But obviously, we have a lot of good relationships. You get a weight on us.

Tyler and I growing up there. Well, you know, you're a little slow in the Baptist side. So, you know, we have to wait up. But no, we were, Tyler and I were both Baptist ministers, obviously, at one point.

So we have tremendous friendships and relationships still in the Baptist Church. So we work closely with many of.

Those pastors. Well, I praise God. So, Stephen, Dr. Boyce, what would Dr. Boyce be called? Stephen's fine. Yeah, Stephen's good. Stephen, I remember two times watching you specifically on the Internet, and one was with Dr. Leighton Flowers.

Y 'all had a.

Debate back in the day. Remember that? Which one? I've debated him twice. It was.

A really long proposition, and I think it was basically, can the unregenerate man respond positively to God? And I remember a point you made. To this day, I remember like standing up like, oh, I understand.

I remember Leighton Flowers' point was, see, Adam can respond to God right after he sinned. And you're like, well, he ran, he resisted, and rebelled. So like, what's your point.

There? Three R's. Three R's. I alliterated that in Baptist Seminary, too. Which, by the way, so debating him on that subject, and then we ended up doing a side debate on a Catholic channel on limited atonement.

I don't know how it ended up happening that way, but it did. And the first debate you're referring to is actually on Marlon's channel. And then after, and it was crazy, I had two debates back to back.

I had a textual criticism debate the day after that, and then I debated Leighton Flowers the day before. So I was exhausted. And then Flowers had to be on his channel the very next week, going into the debate and discussing it on his own channel.

So we got to spend more time doing an in-depth analysis. And I don't think, you know, I like him as a person. Leighton's a great guy. I mean, he's a super nice guy. We would chat back and forth all the time.

But man, I just, I think he's got like scripted lines, and he doesn't know how to get off of them. Sometimes it's like, man, I don't think you understand Calvinism why you say you do. So I just quit talking to him about it.

And my life's gone a lot.

Smoother. So.

I got to meet Dr. Flowers in February, I spoke at a conference in Tullahoma, Tennessee. And I saw the man. So I went over there and I introduced myself. And you know, he told me he says, you're one of the nicest Calvinists I've ever met.

I was like, thank you.

Don't be don't be flattered. He says that to all of us.

True.

We also got to. I traveled to Texas when he debated Dr. White. And I don't. Did you get to watch that debate? Oh, yeah, you did. Because you you said something on Facebook. You're like, these two never need to debate again.

Yes, I made a bold proclamation. Because it's bad, like in and I thought, I thought it was unproductive. Everybody clearly had an attitude going into it that was brewing from previous encounters and engagements.

And, and I stand by my statement. And late late and actually responded to me on that. But maybe he'll take my advice. I don't.

Know.

Well, I think he's actually I forget where he was working at one of the seminate seminaries in Texas, I think, but he stepped down from that position so he could pursue more time at Soteriology 101. When I interviewed Dr. White, a couple months ago, we got a kick out of that of saying, Oh, we all knew it was coming.

Well, it's funny, as he told me in one of his discussions, he said, he said, he said, you know, I do more than just talk about Calvinism. I was like, I'd like to find that content. Where is that? Where can I find that?

Because I've never seen it. So you know, he says he does apologetics, but I maybe he does. Maybe it's just on a spare time off of internet streams. But every time I hear him talk, it's on Calvinism. So.

Well, that's just one of your many debates. We actually, you had a debate here recently, and that's why we're having you on. And so I'm going to show this first graphic that kind of illustrates the nature of the debate or was on justification.

And so I'll pull up that graphic here in a minute. But but tell us a little bit before how all y 'all got roped into this debate. Did somebody initiate it? Did Marlon reach out to y 'all? How'd this come about?

I think it was Marlon, because actually it was Samuel who came to me and said, Hey, we should debate Trent Horn and Jimmy Akin as if they were already set up to do a debate on a subject. I'm not 100 sure.

But all I know is Samuel said, let's do it. Next thing you know, I'm thrown into a message with Marlon, Samuel and others. And and we went back and forth. The debate almost didn't happen because Jimmy Akin didn't like the format originally.

And I'm talking about within two weeks now, less than two weeks before the debate, which kind of irritated us at first. But we gave them a counter offer and made it work. We kind of turned it into a part one, part two debate instead of trying to merge it into one giant debate, which I, you know, I wasn't happy, still not thrilled about that format, but we made it happen.

It worked out. And honestly, you know, Trent Horn, Jimmy Akin, they're great guys. They're super easy to be around, have conversations with. I have nothing but respect for them, always have. We have our differences clearly.

And that was demonstrated in the debate. They're good men. And I think they're doing some good things as well. But it happened. We can get into a lot of the how it happened functionally as it went on, because I think some of that was flying the plane as we were or building the planes.

We were flying it, as they say, because the format was very different than two on two debates. And it was almost two debates made into one, which left a ton of content out there, but very little time to actually discuss it.

And then things started happening in the debate that took us off the main subject. And I won't blame Jimmy Akin for that. But at the end of the day, somehow we ended up on purgatory for a minute and eternal security by the end.

And we actually left the realm justification on on quite a few occasions between both cross examinations. So yeah.

Yeah, I just want to pull up that graphic again. Can you see this on your end? So that's the graphic in the background. Want to shout out to Marlon Wilson at the Gospel Truth. Hey, that brother's been doing some also awesome work, moderating, hosting debates now for a few years.

And so any idea, any idea how many debates you've done on there? You've done at least two, right? With flowers?

I think I've been on there four times. I debated flowers. I debated Jack Shannon. I was on there for an interview as well. That wasn't a debate. This debate, there may have been another one. I've been on there four or five times now, at least four.

No, no less than four. I know three debates, one interview on Canon, I.

Believe.

I think I got you beat by one. But we flew Marlon from California to Jonesboro, Arkansas. And I was his first live in person debate. So there were some kinks that came along with that. We had to record it, and then he had to air it later.

But it was so much fun getting to meet Marlon in person. I told Marlon though, I think I can post him up.

I don't know about that. You know, Marlon's a nice guy, but he's a big dude.

I was sizing him up. I got to see him in person. So with this kind of long debate, it was kind of like two debates like you're talking about. You're essentially saying that there was a few things left on the table.

And so I wanted to show people your triangle here. And maybe take a moment to kind of explain what you would have liked to discuss more. I thought this illustration was very helpful for the things that you're bringing up.

Yeah, so the point I made in my original slide was that justification, I believe has been limited in its definition. We say, well, it means to be made righteous, declared righteous, something along those lines.

And it does. It most certainly does. But I demonstrated through 1 Timothy 3, verse 16, that the word justification or justify must have a greater effect because Paul said of Jesus that he was justified in the spirit.

And we don't believe that Jesus needed righteousness imputed to him. We would say he was a perfect, sinless son of God. He didn't need righteousness imputed. And then I demonstrated through his ministry how he said that his works declared who he was, that they affirmed him, even challenged people.

If you don't believe my words, believe my works. And then he condemned people for rejecting his works. And so multiple times we see Jesus validated by his actual works of what he said he was going to do from the baptism of where the father said, this is my beloved son whom I'm well pleased.

There's a proclamation from the proclamation comes vindication and validation. And yeah, you have it pulled up there in the old King James. It actually has the word justified. And so but it's the same word.

It's from the same Greek word. And so we see that justification must have a multifaceted viewpoint. It's not just being made righteous before God. So on the chart, how does one become righteous before God?

Because the question of the debate, which I think was ignored a couple times, was how does one basically get justified before God? You're justified before God by grace through faith. Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteous.

So he was made righteous by faith. And I try to demonstrate through the life of Abraham that Ephesians two is played into it from Genesis 14 to 15. He was met by the high priest slash King Melchizedek in chapter 14, who greeted Abraham with wine and bread, demonstrating the early preliminary, in my opinion, form of what became Eucharist.

And he which was an initiation and an option of grace. It was an imputed grace to him. And by the next chapter, I don't think it is in any way, shape or form an accident that he ends up believing God in his kind of righteousness.

He was given grace and he acted in faith. So you have by grace through faith. That's right there in Genesis 14, 15. So he's made righteous before God. It's done. He in his standing before God is righteous.

But justification has itself played into different ways, too. Because once you're made righteous before God, we believe that faith is not alone when it comes to its activity. Faith is played out through works.

And that's what James two is teaching, which we'll get into that more in the clips. So when you come down into this, when somebody when somebody is looking at their life, what we we look at is the activity of God working in and through us.

And the way that we connect with God the most is through the sacraments. And the sacraments are a way of validating our justification before God. It doesn't justify us in the sense of bringing us righteousness before God.

It actually validates and justifies what God has already done for us. And it validates ourself. So we're justified before ourselves as a result of taking of sacraments and experiencing the grace of God, because sacraments are simply a means of grace.

When we receive the overflow of God's grace through sacraments, we then spill those things out into the lives of others. And that's what Galatians five is teaching when it talks about love working itself out.

And we talked about that in the debate briefly. So what is the evidence of somebody who is justified? What are the true works of a justified person? Well, it's spelled in love and charity. And so the acts of love are what validate us before others.

They're the works that reveal to men that we have been made right before God. And we are spilling that over into making relationships right with others, bringing peace and grace into our communities and our relationships.

And that is infused by our contact with God through sacraments. So it's it's in the proper order from being made righteous before God by faith, and faith—and I use the word carefully because we explained alone—that is what brings righteousness before God.

The result of that is we will be constantly justifying ourselves and being justified before man by these two avenues. So that was the point of that.

Yeah, what I really liked about this is usually I talk about the justification before God and then the justification before man, kind of going to Romans 4 and James 2. But the way that you illustrated this with the triangle as you brought out the sacraments—and forgive me for my my Baptist tendencies here with talking about ordinances.

I tell people, sacraments, ordinances, we're still we're talking the same language. But I loved what you said is this is a kind of justification for ourselves. And I've heard you say this, that it sanctifies us.

And I've always tried to tell people absolutely—and we maybe differ on some of the nuances—the Holy Spirit is present within the the sacraments. And even as Reformed Baptists we say yes and amen in slightly different ways.

But in many ways this is sanctifying before others in the koinonia, in the congregation, and then also for ourselves. And so I just I really appreciated kind of this third dynamic that I've never really thought about, but I loved how you brought it out.

Well I mean at the end of the day I.

Mean when you look—and I mentioned this very briefly about Jesus himself. If you're in John's Gospel, for example, after he was threatened to be stoned and people were rejecting him, people were talking about what to do with him.

It talks at the very end in John, right before he does the great miracle in Bethany. When you look at Jesus's ministry, he left the place of the people for a while and he went back to the place where John first baptized.

And I reflected on that for a while. It's like, wait, why did Jesus go back and isolate himself to the very place where he was baptized by John? And he took—I think what he did is he encouraged himself and he strengthened himself in the proclamation because it is in that place he heard the words, this is my beloved son whom I'm well pleased.

The rest of his community was rejecting him, saying I'm not pleased with Jesus, and they were constantly trying to find a way to trap him and kill him at this point. And he just needed time to go back and remember his baptism.

And in remembering his baptism, it strengthened him and validated the work he was doing despite the responses he was getting. And so when I think about that, if Jesus does that, do we go back to these sacraments and these moments where God does something to us?

And when that happens, it comforts and encourages and validates our call. This is who I am. And if I'm not living within my baptism, then I go to confession. I repent. And if I'm not living out the part of abiding in Christ that comes in the Eucharist, well, then I repent.

I mean, that's what I do. That is a good check and balance for us because when we are in sin, we need the sacraments. We need these means of grace to give us the ability to overcome the sin. And in doing that, it validates us that we're dealing with sin, grace is being given, and as a result, it gives us encouragement and justification before ourselves.

And once we solve the sin problem with our own heart before God in the sanctifying process, what's going to be the result of a person who comes out of that clean? They're going to love others. That is, these aren't maybe, like, these are connected.

They're not one out of three. If you are justified before God, you will.

Predict these acts, and that's some of the debate as well. Yeah. So to me, justification is the core for a lot of these topics, and I was really glad you debated Jimmy Akin and Trent Horn, because they've been debating Dr. White for a while, and so I just I think a lot of clarity was brought out.

Now we're gonna get into kind of how works comes into the equation. Now you've already kind of been talking about it with the triangle here, but two-on-two debates are hard, because so much is left on the table, and that's okay.

I know with debates, a lot of times you hear things for the first time who are challenging, and debates are supposed to spark your interest to go continue your study. You know what I mean? Correct. And so is there anything else you want to kind of set up before we kind of... we got maybe four or five clips here that I'd love for us to touch on.

I want to encourage the side chat. If you have any questions for Stephen or myself, definitely put them in the side chat, and we'll bring them out, and I'll give Stephen a chance to kind of engage with that.

But yes, anything.

Else you want to add? Love to. No, I'd love to. I'd love to have feedback from the audience. I always enjoy dialogue, so we'll hit some clips, and if some comments come in, we'll pause and we'll talk about them.

That'd be great. I guess.

Another thought here, because I've done... A lot of my debates revolve around the nature of justification, and so kind of going back to the top of the pyramid, maybe this gets highlighted a lot within Protestant circles.

Now, are Anglicans... Are y 'all still Protestant? I know you've said kind of Reform Catholic, so... By.

Definition, yeah. By definition, we are Protestants. We were Protestants before Luther, so you know, it wasn't for good reasons. You know, King Henry VIII didn't split with Rome on good... It was not what Rome makes it out to be, because at the end of the day, they say, oh, the whole movement was started on a man wanting a divorce and couldn't get it.

No, the iceberg was hit long before that. That was just the straw that broke the camel's back. There was issues with the papacy. There was issues with some of these medieval traditions that were getting in the way.

The people of England were already getting frustrated with the abuse of power, so King Henry VIII was just the last straw. There were so many things leading to it. It would have happened with or without that.

It made it take another 20 -30 years, but it was moving.

We already got a question from Adam Carmichael. Steven, why did you let Jimmy.

Keep talking so much? Yeah, so this was part of the issue, and I'm glad that's a great question, because I think it needs to be stated. So part one was Jimmy and Samuel. Part two was me and Trent. Now, we were told that any of us could jump in for the dialogue side of each other's part one, part two.

So once that started, I became immediately confused, because I was going to let Samuel answer as much as possible. You have 15 minutes to ask questions off your dialogue, and so I wanted to make sure Samuel had as much time as he needed to ask Jimmy anything he wanted.

Jimmy started targeting his question at both of us, and the issue that I had—and this is, you know, again, I love Marlon, but here's one of the criticisms I have Marlon to date. Jimmy was only letting us have one-word answers, and in the one-word answers—because I, twice, you can go back and watch the clip, twice, I said, yes, but—and he said, no, no, no, it's all needed.

That's all needed, yes or no. But in a cross-examination, the person asking the question is supposed to have less than 60 seconds to ask it, and the response is supposed to be less than 60 seconds to answer it.

In a 15-minute dialogue with one guy asking two guys questions, that's a minute, a minute, and a minute. That's three minutes just off one question. So that should give you—I don't know why there's balloons going up—but that should give you a total of five questions.

That should give you a total of five questions and five responses from two guys. So at that point, Jimmy took a lot of time to ask a couple of his questions, and then he cut us off to only answer one-word answers, and I was honestly waiting for Marlon, because I think it's really bad etiquette.

Now, Dr. White would disagree with me, because he does all the time. To intrude and make a scene within the debate to say, hey, hey, hey, Jimmy, shut up. You know, like, you need to let us—it looks bad to do that.

That's really where I was kind of waiting for the moderation. Now, I'll tell you this, and Samuel will validate what I'm saying. After I got cut off the second time, he knew I was getting—Samuel knew I was getting mad, because he knows me as well as anybody.

And he said, all right, we got a new strategy. He's like, I can see you're getting frustrated. I said, yep. I said, we are going to start inserting ourselves. I said, I'm going to end up looking like a jerk by the time this is over, because I'm not getting cut off again.

And I was waiting for Marlon, and then Marlon, I think, picked up on it, because by the second round, he actually said, okay, guys, you know, let's take less than 60 seconds to answer and ask questions.

But that wasn't ever really discussed in the cross-examination of how much time to take for each side. So that was kind of the dilemma, too. So once we got settled in on kind of how we were going to do this and who was going to insert, that didn't happen until the second cross-examination.

And after that, I don't know if anybody remembers this, but Jimmy was asked a yes or no question, and he went to explain his yes, and I said, nope, no, it's all needed to know. So I turned it back on him in the second round.

But yeah, there should have been better moderating in that part, and honestly, better communication from all four of us to make sure we understood who was, how long a question should be asked, and how long a response to that question should be.

Well, I think Marlon does a great job. Things can easily get out of hand. If anybody has watched some of the past debates, he had to end up deleting one because it was just so wild. And so Marlon has a tough job.

Marlon does a great job. And, you know, I've done I think 11 debates now. And Stephen, kind of what you're talking about, I've thought, okay, you know what, I'm going to be more shrewd with my time than earlier in the earlier debates.

Now, it's easier when they're live and in person debates to be a little bit more shrewd, meaning, hey, I really need kind of a pithy answer here. And you know what, if you're smiling, if you're maybe it's lighthearted a little bit, and they don't feel so attacked, they understand that, hey, and this is how I always set my debates is whoever's asking questions, they are the one that has to control time.

Now, you made a good point. People are going to interpret and perceive what they want to, and have different conclusions. So it's really a tough call. And I've had people tell me that I'm very firm, but kind and loving, but that doesn't mean I'm going to let them just waste all my time.

So it's some of those things you got to make a tough call in the debate. And as you know, two on two debates are a totally different beast than one on one debates.

Yeah, because you got four people involved for people trying to talk over each other. And, and it really wasn't my turn, either. I was asked the question under Samuels. But yeah, so I mean, it there were so many dynamics happening in that first cross examination.

I think everybody was still a little bit taken back by the giant 10 to 12 minute pause that happened. Where Jimmy's voice went out. So yeah, so Jimmy, Jimmy was quiet for a good long time. He was muted for a good 12 minutes.

And we still to this day don't know what happened to his microphone system. I, again, you know, it sounds like I'm picking on Marlon, but he knows I love him. But he's got to get better.

Software for debates. But can we all agree that Marlon needs to get we need Marlon, you got to get some stream your height. I'll tell you what, a bunch of us will we'll pitch in and we'll help get you a stream yard account or a cam live baby.

That's what I use. And it's been a great software. So and we look and we love Marlon. So it's all good. So I do want to bring up a clip where you did get a pretty good interesting interaction with Jimmy on.

I think it was john chapter five, verse 24. Because they were really pushing back on some of your exegesis of what Jesus was saying in john five. So let me play this first clip. And then I'd love to get your thoughts on it.

Going back to verse 24 of that chapter, the one who has eternal life, he does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. There is a transformation that is there and the word not is not comes is indicative.

It's not a subjunctive verb here. So there is a definitive action that has taken place both in the transformation and the passing of what will not happen what will.

Happen. Okay, that's, I'm going to need to respond to that. Sure. So you're introducing a grammatical point and it goes the mere presence of the indicative mood does not do this. The indicative mood is not used to refer to definitive irreversible actions.

The relevant verb is passed. He's passed from death to life. But what but passing does not mean an irreversible action. I can pass from from Arkansas to California for a work trip and then I can pass back from California to Arkansas to go home.

So if one passes from death to life, he can by unrepenting pass from life to death, which is the point of the parable of the prodigal son, where the son leaves the father and goes and lives a life of dissipation, and the father says, my son is dead.

He's become spiritually dead.

Yeah, I would say that that's reading too much in the indicative. The passage doesn't say he will not come into judgment. It just says he does not. I worry, but I share Jimmy's concern about over reading it.

All right, Stephen. Hey,.

You have all the time you want now.

Yeah, so the thing is, like I, we were talking about the word comes not comes at first. Erica Tay in Greek, I believe it is. And I didn't even get to the word has passed. Because obviously, Jimmy wanted to jump in and I was trying to be respectful and let him do it.

But he talks about it. And so when we were getting into both verbs, because both they're not comes and has passed meta beckon, I think. And when you look at both, they have the indicative, not just one, both.

In fact, has passed is a perfect indicative. He actually contradicted the whole point because the illustration in which he uses was going from one state to another doesn't mean I can't go back through those states again, which I appreciate Samuel jumping in because at that point, my speaking lines were over and says, do we really want to compare traveling from states to life and death in this passage?

Because what what was ignored is in verse 24, we have the statement about believing the words, truly the one who believes on the things that I've said, and him who has sent me. So you're believing the words, you're believing him who sent me, ultimately, you're believing in God has eternal life.

And this is the part where Samuel was trying to emphasize the idea of eternal, then what does eternal mean? Because it's temporal at this point. And the transformation that is brought here is that you have not come into judgment because you now have eternal life and you have passed from the state of death.

And it's not, it's a, again, it's a perfect verb. It's done. The action is done. And it is indicative is definitive. Like, let's not soften that a little bit. Now I'm not saying that, you know, that settles the whole debate on one single verb in its tenses.

I'm not saying that. And that was never the point of my, my argument. I didn't bring John five up. Somebody else brought John five up. I was merely responding to the fact that somebody jumped straight to, we will be judged according to works in that passage, but ignored the whole beginning section of John five about believing on him who sent, believing on him who sent Jesus and that their state and condition has gone from death to life in a definitive way.

And then you have the eternality of that. He has eternal life, which was what Samuel, but again, I didn't get to explain any of that because somebody wanted to respond immediately because I was actually going to tie it into Samuel's opening about the term eternality.

Yeah, so I had the verse pulled up, just kind of let everybody kind of get caught up to what we're talking about. So when Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life.

And so that's really important because I know in Roman Catholic doctrine, you know, and y 'all made this point earlier in the debate of if eternal life can be lost, then it's not really eternal life. Stephen, I saw them immediately like, like they tensed up, like they've heard that before, but you could tell they do not like that line of logic.

But I think there's some true weight behind that understanding of like eternal life. It's happened to you, right? Whoever the Son sets free is free indeed, you know what I mean? Yes. So there's not a... you don't see.

This in the teachings of John particularly, this idea that when Jesus comes to save, that there's the potentiality of that salvation. You see definitive acts of saving, transformation, people who... the woman at the well, I mean, go to John 4, right?

Jesus speaking in Nicodemus in John 3, he's inviting him into this kingdom. He's inviting him to the new birth that is from above, not from the earth. It's something that happens to you like the wind just hits you.

You are born of water and the spirit. And when you look at the dynamic of that, Jeremiah, going back to the prophet Ezekiel, the promise, I will give you a heart of flesh. I will take the heart of stone.