Can a Christian Lose Salvation?

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well good evening, good evening ladies and gentlemen. The Sovereign Alliance is proud to present to you tonight's debate,

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Can a Christian Lose Their Salvation? I am Michael O 'Fallon, the

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CEO of the Sovereign Alliance and I'll be moderating tonight's debate. Firstly I would like to thank the following,

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Pastor Josh Bice, the G3 Conference and all the representatives of Praise Mill Baptist Church.

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Mr. John Sorensen from Catholic Answers, whom we would not be here debating without his sacrifice and work.

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Richard Pierce, my good friend from Alpha Omega Ministries and lastly the staff and godly servants of the

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Sovereign Alliance, including Kathy Kang, Stuart Adams, Janica Lamb, Ryan Dick, of whom

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I am indebted for their sacrifice and teamwork. This year marks the 500th anniversary of the formal start of the

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Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis on the castle church door in Wittenberg.

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We do not live in the 16th century and that is the past. The problems we face in our day are different from those they faced then.

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We have learned to some degree to live without bloodshed over theological issues, but tonight we wrestle with the question, can a

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Christian lose their salvation? With perspectives coming from both a reformed

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Protestant and a convinced Roman Catholic. In the 21st century we live in a world and a culture that has all but abandoned the concept of serious scholastic debate.

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In fact, most in today's community of higher education are seeking safe spaces instead of atmospheres where one's personal beliefs and presuppositions can be challenged.

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Tonight, here in this room, in this place, you are in a very, very dangerous place.

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There is no safe place to hide here tonight. It is my sincerest hope that even those that are convinced will be challenged to dig deeper and to mind the great resources of their faith.

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So without any further delay, let me please introduce our first participant.

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This gentleman earned a master's degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville after his conversion to the

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Catholic faith and is currently pursuing a degree in philosophy from Holy Apostles College.

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He serves as a staff apologist for Catholic Answers and specializes in teaching Catholic Catholics to graciously and persuasively engage those who disagree with them.

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This man models that approach each and every week on his radio program Catholic Answers Live, where he dialogues with atheists, pro -choice advocates, and other non -Catholic callers.

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He is also a lecturer who travels throughout the world speaking on subjects related to the Catholic faith and is the co -host of Hearts and Minds, a weekly radio program that discusses timely issues from an internal perspective.

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In addition to being a public speaker, this gentleman is the author of three books, Answering Atheism, Persuasive Pro -Life, and his latest book,

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Hard Sayings, A Catholic Approach to Answering Bible Difficulties. Would you please welcome with me

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Mr. Trent Horn. Our next participant is the director of Alpha Omega Ministries, a

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Christian apologetics organization based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is a professor having taught

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Greek, systematic theology, and various topics in the field of apologetics. He has authored or contributed to more than 24 books including

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The King James Only Controversy, The Forgotten Trinity, The Potter's Freedom, and The God Who Justifies.

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He is an accomplished debater having engaged in more than 140 moderated public debates around the world with leading proponents of Roman Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormonism as well as higher critics such as Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and John Shelby Spong.

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In recent years he has debated in such locations as Sydney, Australia, as well as Moss in Toronto, London, South Africa as well.

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He is an elder in the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, has been married to Kelly for more than 32 years.

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He has two children and two grandchildren. Would you please welcome Dr. James White. Well unlike what you have seen over the past year and a half as displayed here in American politics, we are going to have a formal scholarly debate.

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Non -ad hominem and no I have not slipped any questions to either one of the debaters. We will start with two 20 -minute opening statements, two 15 -minute rebuttals.

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We will then take a break. After that we will have four different sessions of cross -examination.

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During that time the person who is receiving the question is not allowed to ask a question back.

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After that period we'll take another short break in which we would ask, and these will be passed out during our first break, that you if you have any questions for one of the debaters, please note who the question is for and please place down one question.

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Not two, not three. Those will be immediately discarded. Just one question and who that is going to be directed to.

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Myself and Mr. John Sorensen from Catholic Answers will then pick out five questions out of those that are submitted and we will then ask the debaters those questions.

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At the end of that time we will have two 10 -minute closing statements. So without any further ado, let me please bring to the stage

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Dr. James White. Well good evening.

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It is tremendous to see the large number of people gathered here. We still have some people coming in.

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I understand something's gonna be happening here in Atlanta this weekend. There's gonna even be more people getting together but the neat thing is what we're doing here has more eternal impact than anything else.

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It could be happening this weekend here in Atlanta. So I congratulate you on being here.

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I thank Mr. Horn for coming across the United States as well. I hope you will be blessed by tonight's debate.

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Can a Christian lose their salvation? Few topics have been clouded by more extraneous considerations than this one.

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Emotions, traditions, family situations very frequently end up entering into this discussion and they really should not be a part of the discussion.

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We need to focus this evening on the key issues that separate Roman Catholics and Reformed Christians on this particular topic.

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Let me begin with a definition. God will not fail to save each and every one of his elect people.

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None shall be lost. That is the thesis that I will be defending this evening.

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Now obviously you may notice by the way that is stated this is very different from the common once saved always saved mantra of Arminian evangelicalism.

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I will not be defending this evening the idea that you can tip your hat toward God, shake a preacher's hand, just do something, have some warm feelings about God, accept a few facts about Jesus and then go your merry way and you've got your ticket punched to heaven.

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I don't believe that. The New Testament doesn't teach that and I will not be defending that. But more than that, without the recognition of the

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Father's election of a specific people, Christ's death in their behalf, atoning death in their behalf, and the

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Spirit's sealing of that same specific people, notice the Trinitarian aspect, there is no reason to believe in eternal security.

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In other words, synergists, people who believe that salvation is the result of multiple forces, normally the will of man and the will of God cooperating together, synergists have no consistent reason to believe in salvific assurance.

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And I will not attempt to defend that and if you are a synergist here this evening, you need to realize that on that issue, you're on the other side of the

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Tiber River from the early reformers and from the best of the Reformation. And so I will not be representing any of the perspectives where people have tried to wed these two concepts together because I do not think that that is possible at all.

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So the issue then is this, is salvation the work of God's kingly freedom, monergism?

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Does God save and God alone or is it a cooperative effort subject to failure, synergism?

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If it is solely God's work to his own glory, then obviously God will not fail to accomplish all his holy will.

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As he says in Psalm 135, 6, he does everything he desires in the heaven and the earth.

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Daniel 4, 34 through 35, even the pagan Nebuchadnezzar recognizes that no one can stop

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God's hand from accomplishing what he wants to accomplish. And of course, the apostle Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1 that he works all things after the counsel of his will.

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And so if God is the one who is bringing about the salvation of a specific people to his own glory, he will not fail in accomplishing what he desires to do.

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To put it in another way, can Jesus fail in his task? I say he cannot, and here is why.

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Jesus says in John chapter 6, verses 37 through 39, all that the

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Father gives me will come to me. And the one coming to me I will never cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.

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And this is the will of the one who sent me, that of all he has given me, I lose none of it, but raise it up on the last day.

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Now, please note that Jesus is talking specifically about salvation.

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And he recognizes that the Father can sovereignly give to him a particular people. The action of the

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Father's giving results in all who are thusly giving coming to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. If you are coming to the Lord Jesus Christ in true and saving faith, it is because the

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Father has given you the Son. Now, we may get into this evening about the idea, some people have the idea that there can be non -elect

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Christians and those people can be lost and things like that. I think this text refutes that, but we can get into that if that comes up later on in the debate.

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But the point is, Jesus says, the one coming to me, I will never cast out.

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Why? Because he's come down out of heaven. He's come out of heaven to do the Father's will.

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Can any Christian ever conceive of the idea that the Son would fail to do the

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Father's will? I hope no one could conceive of that concept at all. So, what does he say?

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This is the will of the one who sent me, that of all he has given me, then he switches to a neuter pronoun here, wrapping up all of the elect.

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I lose none of it, but raise it up on the last day. Now, that requires Jesus to be a powerful and perfect Savior.

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But it also means for him to be the Savior that the Father would have him to be, he must lose none of those that are given to him.

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None. If he loses even one, then he has not done the Father's will.

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Jesus truly saves. The question that must be answered this evening is this, can Jesus fail to do the will of the

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Father? I affirm that he cannot. In John 8, 29, he says that he always does what is pleasing to the

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Father. And so, Jesus must be able to be a perfect Savior of the elect.

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He must possess the capacity to fulfill the Father's will for him.

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Jesus repeated this reality in John 10, verses 27 through 29. Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give to them eternal life, and they will never perish.

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They will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand.

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My Father who has given them to me, sounds familiar back in John chapter 6. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them from the

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Father's hand. Here is the true grounds of believing that true

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Christian salvation cannot fail to be completed by the work of the

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Father, Son, and Spirit in the life of each one of God's elect. There is none that can snatch out of the

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Father's hand. There is none that can snatch out of the Son's hand. The Father and the Son are one in the salvation of God's people.

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And Jesus says, I give to them eternal life, and they will never perish.

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If there's something I can do to destroy this, then Jesus' words become invalidated. And notice again, this is specifically on the subject of receiving eternal life, the issue of salvation itself.

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Jesus' power to save, seen in his perfection as intercessor, is laid out in Romans chapter 8.

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Listen to these beautiful words. Who will bring a charge against the elect of God? God is the one who justifies.

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Who is the one condemning? Christ Jesus, the one who died, rather was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who is also interceding for us.

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Think about what is laid out here. Here is the picture of the law court. And the question that is asked is, who can bring a charge against the elect of God?

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You see, if any of the elect of God could be lost, someone has to be able to bring a charge. There has to be some kind of sinful action, some failure on their part that could be chargeable before God.

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But the question is asked, who can bring that charge? God is the one who has already brought down the gavel in the light of the perfect work of Christ and said, you are righteous, you are just.

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So God is the one who justifies. Who is the one condemning? Is it Christ Jesus, the one who died, rather was raised?

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No, because he is at the right hand of God. And what is he doing? He is also interceding for whom?

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For us. Who is the us? The elect of God. And so, who can bring a charge when the son has died in their place, his righteousness is perfect in their place, the father has declared them righteous, there is no place for one to bring condemnation.

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How then can the thesis of this evening's debate be concluded? In any other way then, there is no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus.

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And again, the specific subject is the subject of salvation itself.

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The reality of the son's perfection is redeemer of his people, prophesied in the very name given to him.

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Remember what the angel said? You'll call his name Jesus. Why? Because he will save his people from their sins.

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Not try, he will accomplish this. This is affirmed with fervor by the author of Hebrews.

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Yes, Hebrews, the person who wrote Hebrews 6. If that comes up tonight, I actually hope that it does. Notice in Hebrews 7 .25.

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Therefore, he, Jesus, is able to save. And then I didn't translate the

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Greek, eistoponteles, because it could be translated two ways, either forever or to the uttermost.

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They're related concepts, obviously. But the point is completely, not only temporally, but in extent, to the uttermost, those who draw near to God through him.

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Notice it's a specific group. It's hearkening back to the day when the people would come to the sacrifice of Yom Kippur.

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It was only a specific people that came. Those who draw near to God through him, why?

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Since he always lives to make intercession in their behalf. His ability to save is because of his endless life and the perfection of the work that he presents before the

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Father in their behalf. That's why, as Paul said in Romans 8, there is no condemnation.

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What's the only reason why I would stand before you this evening? Knowing that there have been so many apostates down through the centuries, and the

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Bible talks about people who walk away from the faith, make shipwreck of the faith, all the rest of these things. Why would

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I stand before you and take the crazy position that God does not fail to save his elect people?

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Because it's what the Bible teaches. If you focus upon what it teaches about God and his accomplishment, it is very, very, very clear in what is being said.

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In Hebrews chapter 10, by this will, we have been made holy through the once for all, once for all offering of the body of Jesus Christ.

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And I'm sure this evening, this is going to come out, this is one of the fundamental differences between us. I do not believe that there could ever be a meaningful basis of, quote -unquote, eternal security in the

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Roman Catholic system as long as you have the mass as a propitiatory sacrifice that perfects no one.

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If you can go to mass over and over again and not be perfected, then it makes sense that there can be no reason to believe that salvation is an eternal thing that cannot be lost because there is no once for all.

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There is a representation over and over again. This speaks of the once for all offering of the body of Jesus Christ.

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It is not represented even in an unbloody fashion. And in Hebrews 10, 14, for by one offering, he has what?

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Perfected for all time those who are being sanctified or the holy ones. That's the argument of the book of Hebrews.

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The reality of the God -centeredness of salvation is seen as well in how Christ's work as savior is applied to his people.

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Specifically, God's justice is maintained through the great exchange that takes place in the divine judicial act of justification.

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Note Paul's assertion. He made him who knew no sin to be sin in our behalf in order that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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Our sins imputed to our sin -bearer. His perfect righteousness imputed to us as the sole basis upon which we have peace with God, which is why the apostle

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Paul can say in Romans 5, 1, therefore have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. It's the great exchange and that righteousness that is ours allows

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God to remain holy in the forgiveness of a sinful people. The perfection of Christ's righteousness, positively and negatively, becomes the possession of the believer in Jesus Christ so that I stand before God, not clothed in my own righteousness, but in his.

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This is another key element of fundamental difference between the biblical teaching and that of the modern

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Roman hierarchy. In Romans chapter 4, the apostle Paul addresses this issue and he says, now to the working one, the wage is not reckoned or imputed as a gift, but as what is owed.

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But to the not working one, but who instead believes upon the one justifying the ungodly, his faith is reckoned or imputed as righteousness.

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There's a direct contrast, a 180 -degree contrast most clearly seen in the original language between these two statements, between the person who is doing something to gain something from God and the person who recognizes the impossibility of that and instead of that, believes upon who?

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The one justifying the ungodly. That's what saving faith looks like.

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And his faith is reckoned or imputed as righteousness. The result of that is then found in these words.

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Just as David spoke of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits or imputes righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, whose sins have been covered.

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Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Here are the apostles quoting from Psalm 32, verses 1 through 2.

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Who is this blessed man? Is there such thing as this blessed man today? Well, it's going to be important in our consideration this evening to ask ourselves this question.

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Are you the blessed man or woman this evening? The gospel says, if you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ alone, trusting in his once for all work upon the cross, you have been transferred to the kingdom of Christ, your sins have been forgiven, you have been declared righteous in God's sight, and you have been sealed with the

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Holy Spirit of promise. Jesus' work on your behalf is perfect, and he will not fail to raise all his sheep on the last day.

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But here's the issue. In historic Roman Catholic teaching, there is no blessed man.

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For all sin, whether mortal or venial, is imputed to the one who commits it. All of you who are

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Roman Catholics, at least Orthodox Roman Catholics, I'm not talking about the universalists out there and people like that, but if you know your teaching, if you commit a mortal sin, to whom is that imputed?

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To you. And you lose the grace of justification, you have to go through the sacrament of penance, you have to be re -justified, or you die as an enemy of God.

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Well, what if you commit a venial sin? Well, the temporal punishments of that, the stains of that sin abide on your soul.

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You have to go through penance, that's why you say, our fathers, and hail Marys, and things like that. And if you don't do it with proper contrition and things like that, when you die, those stains are still upon your soul, and that's why there's a place called purgatory in Roman Catholic theology, because you are not yet fit to enter into the beatific vision, to enter into the very place of God.

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And so, if you commit a mortal sin, it's imputed to you. If you commit a venial sin, it's imputed to you.

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So, who is the blessed man of Romans 4, 8? Blessed is the man to whom the

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Lord will not impute sin. In the context of Romans chapter 4, it's every single believer in Jesus Christ.

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And if your theology of salvation, if your soteriology does not allow you to see that, if your soteriology has too many sacraments in the way, and acts of man in the way, to recognize that it is nothing of you, none of your righteousness.

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You either stand before God clothed in the seamless robe of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, or you will be rejected.

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Nothing else is going to avail before him, not before a holy God. So, if your sins are still being imputed to you, rather than to your sin bearer, then you're not the blessed man of Romans chapter 4.

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And yet, the reality is, from Paul's perspective, every single believer in Jesus Christ is that blessed man.

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And so, I ask you the question, which are you this evening? When we look at the doctrine of salvation, when we look at what the

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Bible says, there's two ways to look at it. And the common way of the religions of man is to look at it from man's perspective, and to place ourself in the center.

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And so, there is a very man -centered perspective that looks at the Bible, and what must

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I do? What are the things that I need to do? And the idea is we set up a system, and there are things we do, and God makes, you know,

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God has to be involved. I mean, there has to be some grace somewhere. But it's what

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I do, and it's the things that I contribute that will determine, in the end, whether I am going to be in the presence of God.

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The reality is, as unpopular as it might be, the gospel, my friends, is about God, first and foremost.

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It's about what the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, decreed together to do to glorify the

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Trinity in eternity past. It's about the Father as the fountainhead of grace, who elects a particular people unto salvation.

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It's about the Son, in His great condescension, who enters into human form to give

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Himself as the sacrifice. The elect people are joined to Him, and the

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Holy Spirit, who then comes, at the time appointed by the Father, raises to spiritual life, takes out that heart of stone and gives a heart of flesh.

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And it's all about God. It's not about me. And that's why Paul can say, if you're in Christ Jesus, you only have one person to boast in, and that is the

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Lord. There can be no human boasting. There can be no pride. There can be no arrogance.

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It is all about what God has done in us. And if it is indeed the intention of Father, Son, and Spirit to save God's elect people, there is no power in heaven or on earth, including those elect people that can frustrate the eternal

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God from the accomplishment of His own glory. And that is the only reason to believe in the perseverance of the saints and in eternal security, but that's why

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I believe in it. Thank you very much for your attention. God bless. Thank you, Dr. White.

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Mr. Trent Horn now has 20 minutes for his opening statements. All right.

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Well, I'd first like to thank the G3 Conference and Sovereign Productions for their help in organizing this debate.

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And I'd like to thank James White for being here to represent his side of this important issue. The topic we're debating tonight is, can

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Christians lose their salvation? I will present evidence that shows the answer to this question is yes.

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Even if someone has come to Christ and been forgiven, he can still lose his salvation through apostasy or other serious sins.

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My opponent says the answer to this question is no, or a Christian cannot lose his salvation. In order to argue his case tonight, my opponent will need to do two things.

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First, he needs to show the Bible teaches that a Christian cannot lose his salvation, or what has been called the doctrine of eternal security, or the perseverance of the saints.

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I'll address that evidence in my next speech. Second, my opponent needs to explain how the abundant warnings in Scripture, that salvation can be lost, do not contradict his position.

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Before I present those passages, however, let me explain two things this debate is not about tonight.

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Number one, this debate involves a Reformation issue, but it is not a Catholic -Protestant issue.

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It is an issue of technical difficulties. Let's see. I guess for most of you here, that was foreordained.

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So, what can you do, right? So, this is not actually about Catholics and Protestants.

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What I'm here tonight is I'm going to be representing the historic view in Christianity. I know a lot of people here may think that your salvation cannot be lost, but this is actually the minority view in the

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Christian community. This view that my opponent represents is rejected by Catholics, Orthodox, other ancient branches of Christianity, as well as widespread parts of the

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Protestant community. Martin Luther himself believed it was possible for a Christian to commit apostasy and lose salvation.

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So, it will do no good to argue justification by faith alone entails eternal security, for many people believe in justification by faith alone, but reject eternal security.

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This is the view that's standard among Lutherans, Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals, and other Protestants, or many

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Anglicans, I should say. It's only Calvinists and some evangelicals who believe salvation cannot be lost.

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In fact, this doctrine my opponent is defending was unknown in the Christian church for the first 1 ,500 years of the church's history.

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Therefore, I am advocating a thoroughly biblical view held by the majority of Christians, both historically and today.

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If you don't believe me, then I challenge my opponent to present a prominent Christian writer who believed the doctrine he's defending before John Calvin.

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While some in the reformed tradition try to trace this teaching back to Augustine, he said of believers, if, however, being already regenerate and justified, he relapses of his own will into an evil life, assuredly, he cannot say,

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I have not received. Because of his own free choice to evil, he has lost the grace of God that he had received.

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According to the Calvinist biblical scholar, John Jefferson Davis, Augustine believed, quote, one's justification in baptismal regeneration could be rejected and lost through sin and unbelief.

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Second, this debate is not about true and false Christians. One piece of evidence against the claim that a

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Christian cannot lose his salvation are the testimonies of untold numbers of people who were once Christian but are now not.

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How does the defender of eternal security account for these people? Some like Zane Hodges and Charles Stanley take the radical position that nothing, not even apostasy or grave sin can cause us to lose our salvation.

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A Christian could become an atheistic serial killer and his heavenly reward awaits him. But I'm relieved my opponent and I do not hold that view that he calls punch -ticket

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Christianity. But most defenders of eternal security will say, like my opponent, that someone who becomes an apostate was really never saved in the first place.

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They were a false Christian. They were not a true Christian. But if a true

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Christian is defined by the fact that he would never fall away from the faith, then no one could ever be completely sure he was that kind of Christian because none of us has infallible knowledge of the future.

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But 1 John 5 .13 says, you may know that you have eternal life. So this view of salvation contradicts what the

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Bible teaches. Now, the assurance that John speaks of does not mean we can never lose our salvation.

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What it means is that we can know that we are in Christ and provided we remain in Christ, we will spend eternity with him.

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That is the essence for what it means for Christ to give believers eternal life. Eternal life is not a synonym for unending life because the damned will also have unending life.

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According to the late Baptist scholar, Dale Moody, eternal security advocates, like my opponent, work with the false assumption that the adjective eternal is an adverb, as if it says the brother eternally has life.

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It is the life that is eternal, not one's possession of it. Eternal life is the life of God in Christ, the son of God.

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And this life is lost when one departs from Christ. In fact, the first letter of John is filled with commands to love

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God and neighbor that when followed or ignored, confirm if we are actually in Christ or not.

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Once again, eternal life means unending life that is united with Christ. So if the person leaves

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Christ, then he will have lost eternal life. I agree that some people claim to be

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Christians but never received the gift of faith or were even false professors of the faith. But it is a fallacy to say that because some people who fall away from grace were never saved in the first place, that therefore all people who fall away were never saved.

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The Bible teaches that some people with authentic faith who become regenerate members of the body of Christ can later fall away.

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Jesus says in John 15, 2 and 6, every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

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If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up and they gather them and cast them in the fire and they are burned.

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In Romans chapter 11, Paul describes the Gentiles as branches that were grafted onto the ancient olive tree of Israel.

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He says of the unbelieving Jewish people, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith.

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Do not be conceited, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

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Behold then the kindness and severity of our God. To those who fell, severity, but to you,

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God's kindness. If you continue in his kindness, otherwise you also will be cut off.

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You can only cut off or take away something that was united or attached in the first place.

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Or in this case, true believers, regenerate Christians who later separated themselves from Christ.

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Now let's examine other scripture passages that teach a Christian can lose his salvation, not in the sense of misplacing it like your car keys, but in the sense of forsaking it through grave, freely chosen sin.

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Moreover, you will see these passages don't describe how the elect behave because they are saved.

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Instead, they prescribe commands for the elect to obey so that nothing prevents them from being saved.

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Jesus will never fail us when it comes to our salvation, but we can certainly fail ourselves.

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I'll summarize these passages into three types. The teachings of Jesus, the teachings of Paul, and the teachings of the other apostles.

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First, Jesus told the apostles, you will be hated by all because of my name. But it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved.

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In Luke 8 .13, Jesus said some people have no firm root.

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They believe for a while, and in time of temptation, fall away. In Matthew 24,

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Jesus says the master or God will set the faithful servant over all his possessions.

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But the unfaithful or wicked servant who beat his fellow servants will receive a much different fate.

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Jesus says the master will assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, a common reference to eternal damnation.

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Notice the master will assign him with the hypocrites. According to David Sim in his study on apocalyptic eschatology in the gospel of Matthew, Matthew makes no distinction between the ultimate fate of the wicked inside the ecclesia or church and the fate of those outside it.

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Throughout the gospels, Jesus links our initial union with him through faith. And our final eternal union with him through continued obedience.

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John 3 .36 says, he who does not obey the son will not see life.

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But the wrath of God abides on him. In Matthew 18, Jesus tells the story of the servant who was mercifully forgiven by the king in a large matter.

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But refused to forgive his fellow servant in a much smaller matter. The king threw the servant in jail, and Jesus told his audience, my heavenly father will also do the same to you if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.

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In Matthew 6 .15, Jesus makes this teaching even plainer. But if you do not forgive others, then your father will not forgive your transgressions.

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Some people claim this is just a parable about the importance of forgiveness and has nothing to do with salvation, but it clearly does.

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According to Mel Shoemaker, former professor of New Testament and Theology at Azusa Pacific University, a failure to forgive others may result in the forfeiture and loss of the father's forgiveness and our salvation.

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In fact, this parable directly teaches the possibility of losing salvation. Note that the servant is first forgiven by the king.

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And then when he refuses to forgive his fellow servant, the king revokes his forgiveness.

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Jesus means us to understand very clearly that we can be forgiven by God and then become unforgiven, and thus be prevented from receiving salvation.

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Some of you here tonight may have a strong emotional reaction to what I've just said.

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But Jeremiah 17 .9 says, the heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick, who can know it?

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Rather than letting our feelings guide us to an answer on this question, we should entrust the word of God with that responsibility.

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What did Paul teach about this issue? He wrote to the Corinthians of the gospel, by which also you are saved if you hold fast the word which

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I preach to you. And warn the Corinthians to not be deceived about the seriousness of sin.

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He specifically told them to not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexual, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

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In commenting on this verse, the biblical scholar Robert Gagnon, a Presbyterian biblical scholar, says,

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Paul was clearly concerned that believers might return to former patterns of sinful practices that could lead to loss of salvation.

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Paul even confided to the Corinthians, saying, I discipline my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others,

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I myself will not be disqualified. The word rendered disqualified is adhocimos, which

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Paul uses in other context to describe Gentiles, God gave up to sin, and false teachers who oppose the gospel.

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Paul recognizes the possibility that he might become adhocimos, which literally means unfit or has failed the test if he was not vigilant about his spiritual life.

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The highly respected Protestant biblical scholar C .K. Barrett said that Paul's conversion, his baptism, his call to apostleship, his service to the gospel do not guarantee his eternal salvation.

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At the very end of his life in Second Timothy, Paul does conclude he will finally be saved.

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He writes to Timothy, the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight.

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I have finished the course. I have kept the faith. This means if you abandoned the race, or if you did not keep the faith, you would not be saved.

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Paul tells Timothy about people who failed to do these things, people like Hymenaeus and Alexander, which

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First Timothy 1, 19 through 20, says they suffered shipwreck for their faith. Paul makes this clear when he tells

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Timothy, for if we died with him, we will also live with him. If we endure, we will also reign with him.

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If we deny him, he also will deny us. If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

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God will never abandon us, and God will never deny us. But that doesn't mean we won't do the same to God, because we have the capacity to be faithless.

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If God allows us to forsake our salvation, he is still faithful. God hasn't broken any of his promises, since he never promises that it is impossible to lose one's salvation.

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Merely promising a person is justified by faith, or justified by faith, apart from works of the law, does not entail salvation cannot be lost.

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So if it is lost, God is not faithless, even though we are faithless.

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In fact, Paul told the Galatians that if they forsake Christ and return to Judaism through circumcision, then they were severed from Christ.

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You who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen from grace. What does it mean to fall from grace?

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Martin Luther said, to fall from grace means to lose the atonement, the forgiveness of sins, the righteousness, liberty, and life, which

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Jesus has merited for us by his death and resurrection. To lose the grace of God means to gain the wrath and judgment of God.

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Death, bondage to the devil, and everlasting condemnation.

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What about the other New Testament writers? What do we find in the letter to the Hebrews? Well, the author says, for we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the words from the beginning.

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He also says in chapter 10, verses 26 through 27, for if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment, and the fury of fire will consume the adversaries.

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I agree in Hebrews 10 .10 and 10 .14, Christ sacrifices once for all, never repeated, and perfect.

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But notice that if after receiving the knowledge of that truth, a Christian continues to deliberately sin, that perfect sacrifice no longer remains.

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Instead, something worse will come. The author then compares in the next verses, the punishments for those who broke the old covenant with the punishments for those who will break the new covenant.

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He says, anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

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How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve, who has trampled underfoot the son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the spirit of grace?

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The only punishment worse than physical death is eternal death. So the author of Hebrews is warning his readers that they face eternal death if they fail to hold fast our confidence firm to the end.

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In closing, let me remind everyone that I do not deny that it is God who saves us.

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God is the author and finisher of salvation. Man is the author of damnation. If we are saved, it is because of the grace of God working through us, and we have no reason to boast.

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While commenting on 1 Corinthians 10 -12, which says, let him who thinks he stands take he that he does not fall,

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Augustine said, he who falls, falls by his own will. And he who stands, stands by God's will.

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Not everyone who receives God's grace will go to heaven. They may reject that grace, just as Adam, a person who was definitely created to be a true believer in God, rejected the grace he was given in the

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Garden of Eden. This is important because some advocates of eternal security exaggerate psychological security they think that their view holds.

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But it's a fact of life that you, we've known people who've been Christians for years, had evidence of being converted by Christ, being regenerate, then walked away.

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You could say they were never true Christians, but if you say that, then you can't securely know you are a true

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Christian, because you don't have infallible knowledge of the future. As one Baptist woman put it, we did a

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Bible study on assurance, and for a little while, I'd be okay, but the doubting would always return.

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Many times I prayed, God, save me if I'm not saved already, but that gave me no assurance.

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Advocates of eternal security ultimately offer no more security in this life than advocates of conditional security.

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It is God and his promises that we can be confident in, not our own performance. So we should not be lured by false hopes.

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We should take the Bible seriously when it acknowledges the possibility that Christians can and sometimes do lose salvation.

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The good news, as Jesus reveals in the parable of the prodigal son, is that no matter what we have done, no matter how far we have strayed from the

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Father, he will always take us back. The Bible teaches that we can know if we are in Christ, and we can also know if we have fallen into grave sin and must return to Christ through confession.

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As Jesus himself said in Luke 8 .13, there are some people who have no firm root.

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They believe. They believe for a while, and in time of temptation, fall away.

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Let us heed the Bible's exhortations to not be among their number.

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Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Horn. Dr. James White now has 15 minutes for his rebuttal time.

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Starting, starting. I'm sorry, my clock boy here is having some issues.

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There we go. Okay, there we go. All right. On my program last week,

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I predicted how the debate would go. And Trent listened and obeyed, because that's exactly what

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I said would take place. I said, I will have to spend my rebuttal period explaining the difference between prescriptive and descriptive texts in Scripture.

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Now, I'm really looking forward to hearing Trent's response to the many passages that I presented, where Jesus says, none,

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I save all, none shall be lost, et cetera, et cetera. Because I'm hoping that we all believe that we need to take all of this revelation given by the

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Holy Spirit of God and believe it consistently. We can't just take one and set it against something else.

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And so, with that in mind, I want to simply lay down some principles here for the texts that Trent presented, because this is not the first time this subject has been discussed in the history of the

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Christian church. And we're obviously very familiar with all of those passages. What are those passages about?

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Well, when we look at texts of Scripture, we can view them prescriptively, or we can view them descriptively.

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Either they are prescribing to us things that we must do, things that we must accomplish.

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He who endures to the end shall be saved. And so, by your enduring to the end, you bring about your salvation.

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God wants you to be saved, but it's up to you to endure to the end. He'll help you out as much as he can, but there's really not much you can do about it.

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That's the prescriptive way of looking at things. The descriptive way allows for the passages

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I presented to be true and then applies them to the application passages as to how

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Christians live the Christian life. And so, what you then have is, he who endures to the end shall be saved.

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Amen, I believe it a thousand percent. But it is not my enduring to the end that brings about my salvation, and God is not helpless unless I somehow work up an enduring faith.

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Saving faith is called the gift of God in numerous passages of Scripture. It is the work of the Holy Spirit within the elect's heart and life.

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And so, these passages describe. That's why we need the warning passages. Oh, they are so vitally important because when

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I am regenerate, when I have that heart of stone taken out and a heart of flesh put in, that flesh wants to know what is pleasing to God.

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What does he warn me against? What does he exhort me positively to? And so, we have descriptive way of looking at Scripture and the prescriptive way.

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And the prescriptive way cannot deal with the text that we already presented. Now, I can't say that Trent hasn't dealt with them yet because it's not his turn for rebuttal yet.

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But I want us to listen very carefully. Does he deal with those texts and explain how

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Jesus can be a perfect savior while at the same time saying, well, what that really means is he tries real hard, he provides prevenient grace.

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But in the final analysis, even though God does as much as he can, it's fundamentally up to us.

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Now, he said, this isn't a Catholics and Protestants debate. Well, in a sense, that's true. As I said, if you're a synergist, you're already on that side of the

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Tiber River anyways. You're already in agreement with Roman Catholicism on one of the key issues of the Reformation.

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When Luther debated Erasmus on this subject, he said to Erasmus, you of all my opponents have touched upon the key issue, the hinge upon which it all turns.

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What was it? The free will or the bondage of the will of man. And so, if you are on the other side, well, that's exactly the case.

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I would like to ask Trent, where and when did Martin Luther say that God's elect can be lost?

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Not that a Christian... Remember, he lived in a day where everybody was called a Christian. You were born into the Christian faith when you were born into a society and you were baptized.

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Where did he say that God's elect and at what time? Because there's more than one Martin Luther, at least if you know his theology over the development of time.

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Unknown for 1 ,500 years. Well, I really don't want to take the time to read all of this, but maybe at a later point in the debate,

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I will take the time. But I would like to direct you not only to some of the earliest writings of someone like the disciple who wrote to Diognetius and his acceptance of the concept of the imputation, the righteousness of Christ and stuff, but I'll just right now refer you to the writings of Fulgentius, the

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Bishop of Rus, between 467 and 532, for a number of statements. He was a very

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Augustinian theologian who very clearly enunciated the very same things that I would read to you.

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And maybe, as I said later on in the debate, I'll have time to be able to read those things to you. We were told, well, 1

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John 5 .13 tells us we can know we can have eternal life. But on the basis of what?

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In 1 John 5 .13, he's referring to the preceding chapters of the Book of John, which says, if you love your brother, things like that, we grow in our assurance.

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And certainly, we do. The saint who has walked with the Lord for 40 years and seen the Lord provide and grown in the grace and knowledge of the

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Lord Jesus Christ is certainly going to have a higher level of assurance than the brand -new convert. But I find it strange that that assertion would be made by a

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Roman Catholic when you have Ludwig Ott saying in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma that the reason for the uncertainty of the state of grace is just this, that no one can know without divine revelation whether they have fulfilled all the conditions which are necessary for achieving justification.

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You can't know whether you fulfilled all of them. So, you can't have a certainty of that. Well, I'm awful glad I know someone who did fulfill all the requirements for justification, and his name was

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Jesus Christ. And that is the only reason that I can have any certainty about justification myself.

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By the way, I do not understand eternal life the way that Trent said to me of simply duration of life.

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It is quality of life. It is something the person possesses now in this life in union with Jesus Christ.

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Let me give you an example of some of the passages that were presented. And again, illustrate the difference between prescriptive and descriptive reading.

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Think about John Chapter 15. It was just presented to us in Trent's presentation, the vine, the branches.

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And then remember another that also came up about the parable of the soils, the parable of the soils.

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Now, in both of these, those who would deny that the work of Christ in salvation cannot be lost would say, you can gain your salvation, lose your salvation.

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Well, in Roman Catholicism, you can gain the grace of justification, lose it back and forth, back and forth. Certainly, if Hebrews 6 is relevant to this, it says no, it's once and done at that point.

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But if that's what this is about, consider something about both parables. In John Chapter 15, the vines that are cut, the branches that are cut off, what did they not do?

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They did not bear fruit. And in the parable of the soils, what did the soils that did not, that were rejected, that did not bring forth what?

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Fruit. In both instances, the issue was the bringing forth of fruit.

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And what was Jesus' teaching? That if you abide in Him, you bring forth fruit. Now, it's not my abiding in Him that brings forth fruit.

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He's the one that brings forth the fruit in me. The point is that these branches that are cut off, the soils that bring forth just temporary growth were not the soils in which true salvation was taking place.

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I admit, there are apostates. 1 John 2, 2 says, they went out from us.

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Why? So it might be demonstrated they were not of us, for if they had been of us, what does it say?

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They would have remained with us. Yes, there is apostasy.

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Yes, there are false professors. Yes, there are people that fall away. But the only way to hold the entirety of Scripture together, including all of the clear, inarguable statements of the perfection of the work of Christ, is to recognize that these were false professors.

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They were the ones who had the soil that was too thin, or it was too rocky, or whatever it was, and there was a religious reaction, and there was a false faith.

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There are such people, but that does not mean that the elect of God, chosen by the

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Father in eternity past, united to the Son in His death, sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise, in Ephesians 1, verse 14, which indebts

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God the salvation of that individual, and hence, if that individual is lost, God is the one who is defaulted.

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All of those passages that would make Jesus a failed Savior, the Spirit a failed seal, the

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Father failed in His decree, all those passages have to be taken into consideration as well.

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And when we do, we recognize what is actually being presented here.

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He said, Jesus will not fail, but we can fail. Now, that is the very essence of synergism.

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That is the very essence of the concept that salvation is this cooperative effort. And none of the passages that I presented to you in John 6 or John 10 can allow for a synergistic interpretation, or at least we're still waiting to hear that, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that could possibly be presented.

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And notice, when we had a lot of these texts, it was, well, here's a parable, and the application would be this, where what

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I presented to you was, here is didactic teaching on the subject of how a person is made right with God, why they're made right with God, what

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God's role in these things really is. And the result of those presentations was the specific statement on God's part that He will not fail.

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If you really want to see a good illustration of the difference between prescriptive and descriptive, look at John 3 .36

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that was cited. He who does not obey the Son, the wrath of God abides upon him.

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So, now you see it's my obedience that is necessary to be added to the work of Jesus Christ.

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Read what came before that in John 3. Read what is being stated there.

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I agree, those who have been changed by the Spirit of God, those who have had their heart renewed by the

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Spirit of God will desire to obey Jesus Christ. But please don't tell me that what you're telling me is that the consistent message of the

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Gospel of John is that Jesus tries to save, but without my added obedience that I can fail at,

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He won't be able to do it. That is not the message that the Apostle John was attempting to communicate to those to whom he was reading by any stretch of the imagination.

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We are told, if you do not forgive others, then your Heavenly Father will withdraw the forgiveness that you've had. I would like to know if there is anyone in this audience this evening that is so lacking in your own analysis of your own heart that you think that you have forgiven with perfection throughout your entire life as a believer.

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Anybody? Well, what's the standard? Well, I did pretty good. That's not what

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Jesus said in Matthew 18. You see, I take those words very seriously, but I do not take them in isolation.

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And I do not take the idea that the perfection of my offering of forgiveness to others is a standard by which

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Jesus is to be measured as a Savior, that His work will fail if I don't work up perfection of forgiveness.

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Obviously, what Jesus is communicating there is meant to be taken by the softened heart, the fleshly heart given to us in regeneration as a recognition.

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Consider what I have been forgiven of, and that means I must be forgiving toward others.

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But it was not Jesus's intention to teach us that God's going to try really hard, but unless you come up with perfect forgiveness for others, you're going to be lost.

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That was not what was being communicated. In 1 Corinthians 6, you had the list of all those sins.

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And it was said, see, these will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Well, that's exactly right. They will not.

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Eternal security, the perseverance of the saints is no libertarian willingness on our part to just break

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God's law and live in any way that we choose to fit. We are talking only here about the elect of God who have had their hearts changed.

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They're not going to live as they want to live. They're going to live in the way that shows love for God and a recognition of what's happened in their hearts.

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But the whole text wasn't cited. The very next verse was, such were some of you, but, and what does it say?

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You did this. You did that. You cleansed yourself. You gave perfect forgiveness.

01:00:00

You were faithful and endured to the end. Every action that the Apostle Paul says, but such were some of you, but you were washed, not you washed yourselves.

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There is a way of washing ourselves in service, but not in salvation. You were washed. You were redeemed.

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You were justified. It was all what God did, not what man did. You see, the consistent reading of the

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New Testament is not one of prescription that adds to the finished work of Christ.

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It is description that tells us what we are to do as believers as a result of that. Galatians 5 .4,

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who is being addressed there? Those who are seeking to be justified by their keeping of the law.

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Not true believers. True believers, what did Paul say in Romans chapter 4? What is the object of their faith?

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The God who justifies. What did it say in Romans 4, 4 through 5? To the one not working. But the ones in Galatians 5 were the ones who were working.

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And when it says, you've been severed from Christ, well, that means you had to be in Christ. No, his point is real simple if you understand

01:01:07

Paul's perspective. There's two ways. There is either perfect obedience to the law, which no one can do, or there is the way of grace.

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You can't go down both roads very far. And so, if you started down this road, you've fallen away from Christ, you've been severed from that direction, you better be able to be perfect in your obedience going this direction because that is the only way to go.

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Now, while I have time to get to Hebrews chapter 10, I would just simply ask a question, and maybe we can during the cross -examination ask

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Mr. Horn to explain why he bolded the phrase by which he was sanctified.

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Who was sanctified? Who was sanctified there? There is a consistent answer that takes into consideration the argument of the book of Hebrews, and there's a common answer that doesn't.

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And so, we'll take a look at that. Keep in mind, folks, there's your issue. Prescriptive, descriptive.

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Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. White. Mr. Trent Horn now has 15 minutes for his rebuttal period.

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If only Jesus could carry my laptop like he carries my sins, but well, let's see.

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All right. All right.

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Well, thank you very much, James, for that response. First, I will say, if there are any synergists here tonight who are basically

01:03:02

Roman Catholics, we have free literature for you at the table. If you're interested in just coming out is what you really are.

01:03:10

And number two, James said, yes, well, I predicted everything Trent was going to say tonight.

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Well, it doesn't take a genius to predict your opponent in a debate is going to present the strongest evidence against your position.

01:03:21

So, clap to that. All right. Let's take a look at some of this here. I'd like to comment a little bit on God's sovereignty and Christ's perfect sacrifice on the cross.

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My opponents claim that I limit God's sovereignty, you know, but it's actually my opponent who's doing this.

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He claims that God would never bring someone only to initial salvation, or he'll never let someone lose salvation.

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God would never do that. But who is my opponent to say how much grace God gives to anyone, believer or not?

01:03:52

God is sovereign. Here we are. As Augustine said, of two pious men, why should perseverance to the end be given to one and to the other it should not be given?

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God's judgments are even more unsearchable. He also implies that, you know,

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Jesus' sacrifice isn't perfect, under my view. Well, first, where in the Bible is he talking about where the sacrifice on Calvary is described as perfect?

01:04:15

I didn't see that in his presentation. In fact, I would say that the infinite value of Christ's sacrifice means there wasn't just a perfect amount of grace to atone for our sins, there was infinitely more than was necessary for that task.

01:04:29

That's why 1 John 2 .2 says that, he himself is propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

01:04:38

Likewise, 1 Timothy 4 .10 says, we have fixed our hope on the living God who is the savior of all men, especially of believers.

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We both agree God must give us grace if we are to be saved. And we also agree man must respond to that grace, at least by making a saving act of faith.

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The question is whether God has given us the freedom to reject his grace or if we're simply puppets.

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And God has given us that freedom to reject it. Look at Matthew 23 .37, Jesus says,

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Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stone those who are sent to her? How often

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I wanted to gather your children together, that the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling.

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Jesus' will was to gather the children of Jerusalem together. But God's will can decree what will happen and also expresses desire that may not come to pass.

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And I'll give more examples of that here in a little bit. The fact that God can desire to save people who resist his grace, including people who once believed in him, does not prove

01:05:42

God's saving actions are imperfect. They only prove we are imperfect. God will save everyone he has chosen to persevere.

01:05:49

But the Bible teaches that not every believer is given that grace. As I showed in my opening statement when

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Jesus said, some believe for a while, but in times of trouble, they fall away. And James said, well, in Luke 8 .13,

01:06:00

they didn't bear fruit, so they weren't real believers. Where does it say that in the verse? In Luke 8 .13, it doesn't talk about fruit.

01:06:06

It just says they believed for a while. They didn't have root, and then they fell away. I thought faith was a gift that only comes from God, so how are they believing if they're not true

01:06:14

Christians in the first place? The same with John 15. They don't have fruit, yeah, because they weren't willing to receive

01:06:20

Christ's grace. They resisted it. But they're still a true Christian. They're attached to the vine. You don't cut branches that aren't attached.

01:06:28

So that doesn't really make any sense. Let's talk about 1 John 2 .19.

01:06:33

My opponent said, well, you know, they're apostate. The apostates were false Christians. They went out from us. They weren't really of us.

01:06:39

This passage doesn't say anything. It doesn't say everyone who ever leaves the faith was not a true Christian.

01:06:45

Not at all. In fact, it doesn't say they were never of us. It just says they were not of us. John was talking about a specific group of heretics, the docatists, who denied

01:06:53

Jesus had a real physical body. And so when they left, their heresy was discovered. They may not have started as heretics, just as most people who leave the church are faithful Christians.

01:07:04

But then they fall away, as Jesus said in what I talked about. Let's go through the verses that my opponent brought forward.

01:07:11

John 6 .37, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out. First, as my opponent did mention, the text of this passage refers to all the

01:07:22

Father gives him, the body of believers as a whole. Note also the tense of the verbs. Jesus does not say every person the

01:07:28

Father gave me will always come to me. Instead, Jesus is saying the whole body of believers the

01:07:34

Father gives me will come to me. And conditionally, note the tense of the verbs here, those who keep coming to me will not be cast out.

01:07:44

That's actually later in John 6 .40 and John 6 .44, the tense of the continual coming. But I can back this up with a good commentary on this passage.

01:07:52

It says, the wonderful promises that are provided by Christ are not for those who do not truly and continually believe.

01:08:00

As you see here, that's from my opponent's commentary on this very passage drawn by the Father. What about John 6 .38

01:08:08

through 39? For I've come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.

01:08:14

This is the will of him who sent me that I would lose, all he's given me, I would lose nothing but raise it up at the last day. In the

01:08:19

Bible, God's will can express what he decrees will come to pass or what he desires that may or may not come to pass.

01:08:28

The Protestant biblical scholar, Ben Witherington, notes of this passage, we are not told here that someone

01:08:34

God draws or even Jesus chooses may not commit apostasy or rebellion. Even though the fourth gospel has a strong view of God's sovereignty, it also recognizes that there are things that happen that are contrary to God's desires and will.

01:08:48

For example, 1 Timothy 2 .4 says, God desires that all men be saved but Jesus said some men will face everlasting condemnation, so that won't happen.

01:08:56

John 6 .38 through 39 represents a similar desire. Or consider this, does

01:09:01

God desire that no member of the elect commit adultery? I think he desired, he commanded us not to.

01:09:09

So certainly God desires no member of the elect commit adultery but have there been people who were faithful their whole lives, maybe in a bad part of their marriage, they commit adultery and then they repent?

01:09:18

They certainly do. Was God's will thwarted somehow by this creature?

01:09:23

No, because even though God wills certain things, he desires them, they may not come to pass because they're wills of desire rather than wills of decree.

01:09:31

In fact, in John's gospel, in John 17 .12, Jesus says of the disciples, the father gave him,

01:09:37

I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

01:09:45

But wait, I thought everyone the father gave to the son would be raised up. Jesus says here, I guarded them all but some are still lost according to the father's will, that God can have a subtler intention here in these passages than what my opponent is reading into them.

01:09:58

That God can desire to save those who will persevere to the end, those he foreknew and foreloved who would persevere to the end, not just to everyone who would receive his grace but those who would persevere.

01:10:11

Let's look at John 10 .27 through 29. My sheep hear my voice,

01:10:16

I know them and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. The passage does not say that becoming one of Christ's sheep mean you will always be one.

01:10:25

Instead, it is those who through the grace of God continually hear, know, and follow Christ that are the ones who belong and continue to belong to his sheep.

01:10:34

In fact, while Jesus says, no one shall snatch them out of my hand, notice the conspicuous absence in the text.

01:10:41

Jesus never says, oh, and I will never let them stray. But Jesus talks about straying sheep a lot in his own parables in Matthew 18 and Luke 15.

01:10:51

But no one will snatch them but he never promises they can't leave of their own accord. Let's talk about Hebrews 7 .25.

01:10:59

I think this is the closest thing that my opponent has put forward to show that, well, Jesus' sacrifice is perfect.

01:11:06

It forgives all sins universally and only for a limited group of people. But it doesn't say that.

01:11:12

The text says, he is also able to save forever those who draw near to God through him.

01:11:17

That to the othermost is relegated to a footnote in this translation. But the majority reading is to save forever.

01:11:24

Even if it's to the othermost, what does this mean? Well, it can mean that Jesus is able to save for all time because the previous three verses talk about how the old high priest would always, you know, take their retirement package in the sky and had to be continually replaced.

01:11:38

But Jesus, the new high priest is eternal. He doesn't have to be replaced. He can save for all time. He's not like the old high priest.

01:11:44

Or Jesus can save us from any sin. There is no sin too big he can't save us from.

01:11:50

But the text is far too ambiguous to read into it that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross means a certain group of people have all of their sins forgiven in one moment and can't possibly lose their salvation after that.

01:12:03

It can't be done because notice the promise in this passage only applies to those who draw near to God through him or through Christ, not those who abandon him.

01:12:16

My opponent didn't talk about the verse here, but he obliquely referenced it when he talked about we were sealed with the

01:12:22

Holy Spirit. If you're sealed with the Holy Spirit, doesn't that mean you're going to receive your inheritance? Well, no, not necessarily.

01:12:29

What that shows in Ephesians 1 .13, Paul is saying the Holy Spirit is an earnest or down payment. God makes us to show that he can and will give us our heavenly inheritance.

01:12:39

But that doesn't mean the inheritance is unconditional. If someone buys your house, they give you a down payment, you give them the keys, they give more payments.

01:12:48

But if you kick them out of the house, no more payments. Similarly, if we reject

01:12:53

God through apostasy or grave sin, we will at least temporarily lose our inheritance.

01:12:59

You know, I asked for somebody in the past, you know, first 1 ,500 years of the church who taught this doctrine,

01:13:05

I got a reference to Fulgencius, but not a citation. So, it's like I can't interact with that in any way.

01:13:11

Though I can cite another father, Irenaeus in the second century. He said, those who do not obey him being disinherited by him have ceased to be his sons.

01:13:22

And my opponent agrees with me. You have to live the life of a child of God to receive your inheritance. If you would have committed apostasy and died an unrepentant sin, you would not receive your inheritance.

01:13:31

Now, he would say you were a false Christian and we'll talk about that a little later. But the question is rather, does

01:13:37

God promise in this verse to keep that from happening? To keep us from doing something to disinherit ourselves?

01:13:44

It doesn't. In fact, in Ephesians 4 .30, Paul says, don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5 .5

01:13:50

.6, he says, know with certainty no immoral or impure person, anyone like these people has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.

01:14:00

And further, let no one deceive you with empty words. That someone could be deceived to think that it doesn't matter if I'm elect.

01:14:09

If I am truly elect, I won't lose my inheritance. That's not what Paul is teaching. In fact,

01:14:14

F .F. Bruce, the renowned New Testament scholar in his commentary on Ephesians says, the fact that they still have to be warned against such vices shows how strong in a pagan environment was the temptation to indulge in them even after conversion, which shows the danger of losing our inheritance.

01:14:33

Let's look a little bit more. My opponent brought up Romans 4 .8. There's no problem with the position that I'm arguing.

01:14:41

I don't see eternal security in this doctrine, in this verse. Who is the blessed man? The blessed man is anyone who has experienced

01:14:49

God's forgiveness. That's what Paul is talking about. He's saying that you don't...it is not required to receive

01:14:54

God's forgiveness to have to prescribe to the mosaic works of the law. That's why in Romans 4 .9,

01:15:01

Paul is saying, is this only for Jews? Is it for the circumcised and the uncircumcised?

01:15:06

He makes that reference there. That's what he's talking about. And this debate is not about Catholic theology, but I will say

01:15:12

Catholic theology has no problem with talking about the imputation of sin, none at all. We just reject that it is a legal fiction.

01:15:20

When God declares righteousness, it actually comes about just as when God declares, let there be light, there really will be light for you all to see.

01:15:28

So, this verse does not mean, in order to prove my opponent's point, it would have to...it means if you've been forgiven, amen.

01:15:34

If you go to God and ask, seek forgiveness as David did when he committed sins, because it's quoting the

01:15:40

Psalms and what David is singing God's praise. If you ask for forgiveness, your sins will not be counted against you. You've been made clean.

01:15:47

But it doesn't mean that once you are justified initially, that all future unrepentant sins will not be taken into account.

01:15:54

If you do that, you're two steps away from anti -lordship salvation. Great debate, by the way, between my opponent and Bob Wilkins on that.

01:16:00

I highly recommend seeing. So, we also talked about Romans 8, 33 through 34.

01:16:09

Once again, I don't see where eternal security comes in this passage. Who are the elect? Well, in verses 26 through 28, we find out who they are.

01:16:17

They were those that God foreknew. Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

01:16:26

But if by foreknow, my opponent means foreordain or predestined, well, then the verse becomes redundant.

01:16:32

Those whom he predestined, he also predestined. A more plausible interpretation than divine determinism is that God knew who would accept his offer of salvation and cooperate with his grace, so he predestined those people, the people he knew would love him and continue to love him to final salvation or glorification.

01:16:49

The verse does not say everyone who has ever been a Christian has received the same gift of perseverance.

01:16:57

I want to talk a little about my opponent. When the evidence that I put forward, he said, well, it could be prescriptive or descriptive. And it's very startling.

01:17:04

What method did he give you all to determine if a passage is prescriptive or descriptive? Did he give you an exegetical technique, a way of reading the text?

01:17:11

No. He said, well, we have to start with our theology of monergism. And if that's true, then obviously these texts are all descriptive.

01:17:19

They don't say, do this or you will lose your salvation. But what if the theology of monergism is not true?

01:17:24

The problem is even if he shows some of these verses are descriptive or could be taken as descriptive, he has to prove all of them are.

01:17:32

If even one is prescriptive and says you must do this or you'll not be forgiven, then we have a problem.

01:17:38

For example, Matthew 18, the text doesn't say because you have been forgiven, forgive.

01:17:45

That would be descriptive. It says, if you don't forgive, you will not be forgiven.

01:17:51

The passage clearly is prescriptive. It sounds, and only a theological pre -commitment would deny someone from recognizing that.

01:17:58

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Horn. We have four 10 -minute periods of cross -examination.

01:18:07

During that time, each debater will have the opportunity, starting with the affirmative position, of then asking the opposite side questions which will need to be answered.

01:18:21

There can be a clarified question just to clarify, but not a question back during this period.

01:18:30

Okay, folks, thank you so much. And to start the question and answer period, we have 10 minutes.

01:18:41

My clock man is ready. 10 minutes from Dr. White questioning Mr. Horn.

01:18:47

All right, thank you very much. Oops, sorry. There we go. Testing, one, two, three.

01:18:53

All right, we're working. All right, Mr. Horn, you said something in your rebuttal period that, if I understood it correctly, changes everything, and that's why it confused me.

01:19:05

You said something along the lines, and I was writing as fast as I could, God wills to save all that He has chosen to persevere.

01:19:13

And you talked about the gift of perseverance. Do you hold the position that there are people that God gives the gift of perseverance to who will never lose their salvation, but then there are other

01:19:26

Christians who are truly born again, but He doesn't give them the gift of perseverance, and they may or may not make it?

01:19:31

Is that the position you're taking? That's the position that I... That's why

01:19:36

I cited Augustine on that point. He talked about how perseverance to the end, that you could have two pious men or two regenerate justified people, and one is given perseverance to the end, and another has not.

01:19:48

That ultimately, coming into union with Christ is by the grace of God. So, God can elect to give someone grace so that they come into faith, so they come into the body of Christ, and He might give other people grace that will sustain them through all the way to the end.

01:20:06

And some people, I think I would say all people are given enough grace to come to know

01:20:11

God because God desires the salvation of all people, but ultimately, not everyone will be saved.

01:20:16

And those who are saved do so because God has elected them to be saved to final salvation.

01:20:25

Okay, what you just said there at the end confused me because... So, there are people, someone could be elected to come to Christ, but not necessarily to stay with Christ.

01:20:35

So, he elects them to be temporary believers. Yes, that's the only thing that makes sense of Jesus saying they fall away, or Paul saying they're severed from Christ or they fell from grace, that the definition of a temporary believer would be someone who had grace and then fell from grace.

01:20:51

It doesn't make sense to say you fall from grace if you never had it. It'd be like saying, you know, hey, don't mess around on the monkey bars, kid.

01:20:58

You have fallen from the monkey bars. If that was a roundabout way of saying, well, he was never really on the monkey bars in the first place.

01:21:04

But, so there are elect people that are not elected to salvation.

01:21:11

Yes, and we see these examples in Scripture. In John 670, Jesus said, I chose the 12, or literally,

01:21:18

I elected you 12, yet one of you is a devil. Jesus chose the 12, but Judas was not elected to final salvation.

01:21:26

So, all these other people are like the unique son of perdition. He's one example of someone who fell away, a very famous one,

01:21:33

I will add, but... So, you don't see anything special about being the son of perdition, the one that was prophesied in the

01:21:38

Old Testament Scriptures to function in a particular way? Why, there's something unique there, just as there's something unique when

01:21:45

Peter accepted Christ, you know, when Peter understood the revelation of God.

01:21:52

There were other unique figures in Scripture. Obviously, you know, people have unique roles in salvation history, but that doesn't preclude there are many nameless people who are elected to come to Christ and don't stay.

01:22:05

Most of the Scripture passages that I mentioned, it talks about nameless people who fall away, and Jesus warns nameless people, but real people who can fall away.

01:22:13

So, you believe in the eternal security of the elect who are given the gift of perseverance.

01:22:20

To final salvation. To final salvation. Yeah, I mean, God... Isn't that what I believe? Is that what you believe?

01:22:27

I believe that the elect who are given the gift of perseverance to final salvation will never fall away.

01:22:36

So, the only difference between us is that I don't believe that God elects people, that He joins them with Christ, Christ dies on their behalf, all the rest of that stuff, and then

01:22:46

He doesn't give them the gift of perseverance. Is that the only difference between us? Yeah, the difference between you and I is I believe God is sovereign. He can do as He pleases.

01:22:53

Well, that's an interesting way of putting it, but that doesn't really answer the question because it sounds like you are admitting that the will of man in the case of the elect who are given the gift of perseverance will not be able to undo the decree of God in the final salvation of those individuals, right?

01:23:19

Well, what you're saying is that when God wills something, it's necessarily going to come to pass.

01:23:25

That is true in some cases that God wills the creation of the universe and here it is.

01:23:31

But God can will other things, and I gave the example earlier that, for example, God certainly wills that no member of the elect sin, or at least an uncontroversial example would be commits a serious sin, like has an abortion or commits adultery.

01:23:45

I think you and I would be clear, God doesn't desire anyone, especially a member of the elect, to do that, but they still do.

01:23:55

So, God can will for something to come to pass, but it might not because He's willed to decree other things like man has free will.

01:24:03

We can describe the prescriptive and descriptive will of God at another point, but prescriptive will versus His decreative will.

01:24:10

But it sounds like what you're saying is that in the case of the elect that God gives the gift of perseverance to, that man's will cannot undo what

01:24:24

God chooses to do, that they will be saved in finality, and that is all due to God's sovereign decree, right?

01:24:31

No, that's not the way that I put it. You and I have very different views about God's sovereignty. You hold that God is sovereign, and this is a topic for another debate.

01:24:40

We're talking about the perseverance of the saints. Your espousing idea of God's sovereignty being that He's foreordaining things, that He's, you know, actively willing or causing these things to happen.

01:24:51

In my point of view, it makes sense. If God creates human beings, He will perfectly foreknow who will choose to love

01:24:57

Him, who will choose to remain with Him, and He gives those people grace to persevere to the end. He's not under any obligation to give other people any certain amount of grace, including letting them come to Christ or letting them fall away.

01:25:11

There's no failure in God's will on this part. Why would He give a grace, the grace of perseverance to people that He already foreknows are going to persevere?

01:25:22

Because the reason that they persevere is because God, you know, everything that we do, as I said before, what

01:25:28

Augustine says, He who stands, stands by God. He who falls, falls of his own will.

01:25:36

I think it would just say that anything we do coming to God, for example, our initial salvation is by grace alone.

01:25:43

We don't merit it with works or faith or anything like that. That is by grace. And so, God gives different amounts of grace to different people.

01:25:51

And He has the authority to do that. Freely? God does? Freely? Is there anything in the creature that determines this?

01:26:02

Well, there may be something in the creature that God foreknows who will love Him, but that would go to another question about whether election is conditional or unconditional.

01:26:10

But I didn't really hear an argument tonight to say that election is unconditional. Okay. But if you're given the gift of perseverance, you're going to be saved no matter anything else.

01:26:21

Is that true or false? If you're given the... If God gives you the gift of perseverance, you will be saved.

01:26:29

If it's the gift of perseverance to final salvation. But the point is, I'm saying not every

01:26:34

Christian. What we disagree about is which members of the elect may receive this grace and what is the reason they receive this grace.

01:26:42

Because the reason may be God knows who will freely respond in different ways to enter into a relation with Him.

01:26:50

But I guess that I want to back up a little bit though. I'm not saying that people are able to freely resist

01:26:57

God's grace. That if they're going to be... What is sustaining them to the end of their life, what is sustaining them so that they remain with Christ is going to be

01:27:07

God's grace. But that grace isn't irresistible. Man can freely choose to resist it.

01:27:13

There will just be some people who choose to not resist it and die unrepentant.

01:27:19

But is the grace of perseverance resistible? Because you said that if a person's given the gift of perseverance unto final salvation, that they will be saved.

01:27:28

So is that gift of perseverance resistible? That gift may be given to people who, because they love

01:27:36

God and will continue to love God, won't resist. But here's the thing, just because they won't fall away from God later, they won't resist

01:27:43

God. They still need grace at the beginning of their life onward to continue in the Christian life, to continue to grow in righteousness.

01:27:51

I know that you've been really... You're upset about synergism. I'm not being upset. I'm just completely lost as to why would

01:27:58

God need to give a gift of perseverance to those whom he foreknows are going to freely continue to choose to love him?

01:28:08

It sounds like it's given based on what they do. The reason they love him is because they continue to receive the grace he gives him.

01:28:14

They don't reject it. If the grace is not there, they are incapable of loving God, just as if there's no gasoline in the tank of the car, the car won't go anywhere, even though the person can push the gas or the brake.

01:28:25

But he... Okay. So, just briefly here at the end of my time,

01:28:31

I'm trying to understand, because it sounds like what you're saying is that in the case of some people, God is actually able to save them by giving them the gift of perseverance.

01:28:43

But it sounds like you're saying he only gives that gift of perseverance to people that he foresees are going to continue to love him, which is what perseverance is.

01:28:51

So, he gives them the gift of what he foresees they're going to do anyways? He understands how they'll respond to that gift.

01:28:57

And so, God will give his grace in different ways. I think ultimately, the disagreement we're having here, and I'll finish my question, is you've put forward a very strong presentation saying, it is

01:29:07

God alone who saves, man is not involved in any way. But I haven't really heard a lot of evidence to the contrary.

01:29:15

Whereas, if you read in Scripture, especially the passages I talk about, about where people can fall away from the face,

01:29:21

I think it's very clear that God sustains us from beginning to end in our salvation. People can resist.

01:29:27

Some people will not. God knows that they will love him. But their love on its own is not enough to enter into the kingdom.

01:29:35

Their love has to freely receive that grace God gives them, some to initial salvation and some to final.

01:29:42

Okay, Mr. Horns, turn now to ask the questions. All right. All right.

01:29:54

I have a question for you, James. Can I call you James? Yes, of course. We had a fine dinner last night, call you. We live in the same city, so we've got another thing in common.

01:30:02

Along with a few million other people. That's true. Avid writers, but you're much better than I am, so I will tell you that.

01:30:07

This guy's ridden like a million miles. You talked about mortal and venial sin as being a defect in the

01:30:14

Catholic view of soteriology and justification. But it seems to me you agree that if someone claims to be a

01:30:22

Christian but commits a big sin, apostasy would be an example, unrepentant apostasy, that would prove that they were a false professor.

01:30:32

Well, I don't think it's a matter of big sin versus small sin. The sin of apostasy, specifically trampling underfoot the blood of the son of God, which is also the sin in view in 1

01:30:41

John when it talks about the sin of death, that is the key issue, and it's something that a true believer cannot do.

01:30:48

Well, not just apostasy. Let's say, for example, a member of your church left, let's say it was someone who has homosexual attractions, and he's lived a celibate life but then is deceived by somebody like Matthew Vines and thinks,

01:31:01

I can be a faithful Christian and a homosexual, and lives a homosexual lifestyle till the end of his days.

01:31:09

In your view, would that show that person was a false professor? From our perspective, yes, it would.

01:31:15

But I can't...look, I'm not going to claim to be able to look in someone's heart, but I'm going to say from the church's perspective that that person would be put out as an unrepentant sinner, yes.

01:31:26

But, okay, do people have to repent of all their sins?

01:31:33

Because, for example, let's say there's someone who lives in a homosexual relationship their whole life. James 3 .2 says, we all stumble in many ways.

01:31:39

So, a member of the elect who gossips frequently and never repents of the calumny they talk about others, would that person turn out to be a false professor?

01:31:51

Well, again, the question is not, are there false professors in the church, which I believe that there are, and that's why we try to proclaim the whole counsel of God in the church so that you bring to bear the condemnation of gossiping, for example, and trust the

01:32:06

Holy Spirit of God will bring conviction of that. The question is, if a person is truly in Jesus Christ, how do they have peace with God, and what do the passages in Scripture instruct them as to how they are to live in light of the peace that they have with God?

01:32:21

So, a person who would be the gossip should be a person who is brought, it's brought to their attention that that is sinful in God's sight, and they're displeasing him.

01:32:31

And what if they don't repent of that? Well, I've never encountered someone who, when faced with that particular, you know, when brought before the elders or people that they know and love...

01:32:43

Well, I'll give you another example, forgiveness. You said, I said, that Jesus required us to perfectly forgive. The word perfect is not in the verse that I cited.

01:32:52

He says, he just says, if you don't forgive your brother. I know a very famous person who shall remain unnamed who's publicly said he's never asked for forgiveness from anybody.

01:33:02

So, there could be people like this... You just lost your 501c3, by the way, just so you know.

01:33:10

There's no... Who is the unforgiving man in Trent's question?

01:33:17

But it just seems to me that if... Is this being live -streamed? Did someone see that? If members...

01:33:23

The point here is that if members of the elect, it seems to me, they won't go on committing, you know, living a homosexual lifestyle, but they will stumble in small ways.

01:33:34

Yes. But isn't there... What's the difference between a sin -like homosexuality and stumbling in small ways?

01:33:41

How's that not like mortal... It's a willingness to be corrected and to allow the word of God to speak. If a person...

01:33:46

If I go to a person in my congregation who's gossiping and they're bringing condemnation to others and they're bringing division, and they go, well,

01:33:54

I don't think the word of God actually says that, or I'm not really under the authority of that. That's the same thing as a person who would buy into Matthew Vine's arguments as well.

01:34:02

It may be what we would call a lesser sin, but it's the willingness to hear the voice of Christ. Jesus says, my voice, my sheep hear my voice.

01:34:11

There is going to be a willingness to be corrected by the word of God. That's what is going to be seen in the lives of the elect.

01:34:16

Well, let's look at the warning passages then. And I know you wanted to talk about Hebrews.

01:34:22

I would enjoy talking about Hebrews as well. So, in Hebrews 10, 28, 29, it says that there's a severe punishment for someone who breaks the new covenant.

01:34:33

How much severe punishment will be deserved? Who has trampled underfoot the Son of God and regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified.

01:34:43

Who's the he? That's right. In your book, The Potter's Freedom, on page 245, you say the he who is sanctified by the blood of the covenant is

01:34:51

Jesus Christ. Right. Okay. Hebrews 9, 12 through 14,

01:34:58

Hebrews 13, say that the blood of Christ purifies and sanctifies believers.

01:35:05

Wouldn't an ordinary person take Hebrews 10, 29, if they've read the whole book of Hebrews, to have that same category that the blood of the

01:35:14

Son of God is purifying and sanctifying a believer, not Jesus Christ?

01:35:20

Wouldn't an ordinary person? No, they would not.

01:35:25

Is your view the minority view on this passage? It may be, but the fact of the matter is the book of Hebrews... So, you're a very extraordinary person.

01:35:31

No, what I'm saying is the book of Hebrews is very often misinterpreted because people don't know the Old Testament. If you don't understand the book of Leviticus, the book of Hebrews is going to be a closed book to you.

01:35:40

If you don't understand what happened on the day of Yom Kippur, the book of Hebrews will be a closed book to you. And as a result, church history has demonstrated, especially after origin, the allegorical interpretation methodology became popular, that the book of Hebrews was absolutely tortured as to its real meaning.

01:35:55

Hebrews 10, verses 10 and 14 had already talked about the perfection of the individual for whom Christ had died.

01:36:01

If you knew what the high priest did, then you would know that before the offering on Yom... It's actually not

01:36:07

Yom Kippur, it's Yom Kippurim. It's multiple atonements. And before the offering for the people was made, the high priest had to give an offering for himself.

01:36:15

And that when he brings that blood in, there is the sanctification of the high priest himself. Why does he bring the offering for himself?

01:36:23

Because he himself is taking the position, before he can bring the blood of the people in, there has to be cleansing of everything in the entirety of the tabernacle of the temple.

01:36:32

Does Jesus, the new high priest, have to be cleansed? Jesus... What did he do with John the

01:36:38

Baptist? He was baptized by John the Baptist, right? And John said, no, I should be baptized with you.

01:36:43

What does Jesus say? Suffer so it would be so now, for thus it fulfills all righteousness. Are you saying the baptism of Jesus cleansed him in the same way that...

01:36:54

No, I'm saying that he obeyed the law. For example, in Luke 2 .22, it is said that the offering for sin was made for he and his mother, just as the commandment was made.

01:37:03

There was no sin in him, but they were following the law. In the same way, the high priest, he sanctifies the offering by the presentation of himself.

01:37:13

Are you saying that Jesus, in his offering, did not sanctify himself? What I'm saying is that the blood, that whenever Scripture refers to the blood of Christ sanctifying, when it says the blood of Christ sanctifies, it always refers to sanctifying believers.

01:37:31

And you said, well, a lot of people don't understand the Old Testament. Thomas Schreiner is a reformed theologian like you.

01:37:37

He holds eternal security. Schreiner probably understands the Old Testament, would you? Right?

01:37:44

Certainly. Okay. Well, this is what he says in his commentary on Hebrews. He says, it is awkward and unnatural to see a reference to Jesus in the pronoun instead of believers, for it makes little sense to say

01:37:56

Jesus was sanctified by his own blood. Jesus is the one who sanctifies in Hebrews 2 .11,

01:38:02

not the one who is sanctified. So, my last question on this point is just this. If biblical scholars and ordinary...wouldn't

01:38:10

an ordinary person then, when they read this passage, why is it you think that people come to this conclusion that it's the believer?

01:38:20

Doesn't it seem to me that the only reason we have to say that it's Jesus is because we can't have a true believer punished with eternal death?

01:38:27

Because the blood of the covenant is what is under view here. It is the seriousness of what this person has done.

01:38:33

And notice what it says, has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified. This is the same covenant that only a few verses earlier perfects those, and by one offering, makes them complete.

01:38:45

The author is not going to, in a matter of only 14 verses, turn around and completely contradict what he had just said as the evidence of his argument against the repetitive sacrifices of the old covenant.

01:38:57

You're making the writer of the Hebrews contradict himself. How am I making him do that when he's simply saying that those who violate the new covenant have a severe punishment?

01:39:07

They've regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified. So I guess we're going to have to...

01:39:15

Let me ask my last question, I guess. Nope, we're... Well, who wants to let 30 seconds go to waste?

01:39:25

Well, you say it's a perfect sacrifice, but Hebrews 10 .26 says, if someone deliberately sins, it no longer remains.

01:39:32

Well, I just think you need to read what anyone writes. Like, if I read your book, I would allow what you write in paragraph

01:39:39

A to determine what comes afterwards. And since Hebrews 10 .10 -14 comes before Hebrews 10 .28

01:39:46

-29, I think we need to read it in order, not backwards. I've read it in order. It's not the parts

01:39:52

I don't understand, it's the parts I do understand that concern me. Why are you holding... Because it's your interpretation of Hebrews that's incorrect.

01:39:59

Dr. White has 10 minutes for cross -examination. I think you said it's my turn, so.

01:40:08

I really... It's very difficult, yes. Okay. I'd like to get to some other texts as well here.

01:40:14

I have so many of these written down. I completely lost what you were saying in Romans chapter 4.

01:40:23

If we could go back to what you were saying about... You said that Romans chapter 4 is about anyone who receives forgiveness of sins.

01:40:34

Is that what you said? Apart from the Mosaic law. Blessed is the man whose sins God forgives.

01:40:40

That's the point that Paul is making here. So, when you look at verse 6, just as David also speaks, the blessing of the man to whom

01:40:46

God credits righteousness apart from works, you interpret works to be merely the Mosaic law. What is the question?

01:40:56

Romans 4 .6. Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God imputes or credits righteousness apart from works, then that's the introduction to Romans 4 .7

01:41:08

and 8, the citation from Psalm 32. So, you just said something about the Mosaic law. So, are you interpreting works as solely the

01:41:14

Mosaic law? I'm saying that's one way that the verse can be interpreted. I'll take two points to this. Number one, even if one interpreted this broadly and came to the conclusion of justification by faith alone, as I said earlier, that doesn't entail eternal security.

01:41:29

Because one could say, you are justified, your sins won't be credited to you because you simply have faith in God.

01:41:35

But if faith leaves, then God, because He's sovereign, He could decree you're forgiven, then decree you're unforgiven, just as He does in the parable of the unmerciful servant.

01:41:44

Second, yeah, I would say that it makes the most sense to say, Paul is talking about, as he does, righteousness apart from works of the

01:41:51

Mosaic law. That in order to be justified, you don't have to, in the controversy in the church, you don't have to become a

01:41:57

Jew before you become a Christian. And the great clue to that is after verse 8, it says, is this blessing then on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also?

01:42:05

So, you could look at it either way, but in either case, you don't get the doctrine of eternal security. In Roman Catholic theology, if you commit a mortal sin, is it imputed to you?

01:42:17

Is it imputed? It destroys charity in the heart of man. But, so it is imputed to your account.

01:42:24

You are held accountable for it. Yeah, just as when I've said these other verses that if someone, in 1

01:42:30

Corinthians 6, if they commit these other mortal sins, adultery, homosexuality, things like this, they won't inherit the kingdom of God.

01:42:37

But blessed is the man who does this, who seeks forgiveness from God, for if he does that, his sins will not be taken into account.

01:42:44

So, if you commit a mortal sin or a venial sin, it is imputed to you, right?

01:42:51

You are held accountable for those sins. Yes, but I don't see how that pertains to the doctrine of eternal security.

01:42:57

Well, I'm asking you as you look at Romans 4, 8, when it says, blessed is the man to whom the

01:43:03

Lord will not impute sin. How does that work if every sin you can commit is imputed to you?

01:43:12

You're assuming that what it means is that when someone is justified by God, sins will never be imputed to them, will never destroy charity in their heart, any onward in the future.

01:43:25

Which, as I said before, I don't see how you're reading of this, that, well, blessed is the man, his sins will never...

01:43:31

It doesn't say they will never be imputed to them. What does ummeh mean? What does ummeh mean?

01:43:37

Yes. Isn't that a strong negative? It means will not. Ummeh lagesetai, that's the strongest way of saying will not be imputed.

01:43:46

So, you said, well, that, by the way, is not my reading of the text.

01:43:52

As I read this, the blessedness, verse 9, of forgiveness of sin is his by faith before he is circumcised, which is his argument against the

01:44:04

Jews. But his point is, blessed is the man to whom the

01:44:09

Lord will not impute sin, and that's the explanation of what crediting righteousness apart from works is.

01:44:15

So, how am I not reading... What is the positive reading on your part of verse 8? The two -point here, the reason the sins will not be taken into account is because the person repents of them and seeks forgiveness.

01:44:26

That I think the distinction you're trying to draw, so I'll make two points, a smaller point and a larger point.

01:44:31

The smaller point being is I think you're trying to set up a dichotomy here and saying, well, Catholics believe in infusion of righteousness and Romans 4a teaches imputation.

01:44:41

And so, clearly, since you, you know, you don't believe in that, this contradicts your theology. No, we believe that, you know, righteousness of God can be imputed to us.

01:44:51

I just said it can't be a legal fiction. And what I said in the passage, blessed is the man that the sin will not be taken into account is because he's confessed.

01:44:59

Going back to Psalm 32, it's talking about seeking forgiveness from God, like when King David sought forgiveness from Bathsheba.

01:45:05

So, that's the smaller point. But, I mean, you and I can debate justification, you know, until the metaphor escapes me,

01:45:13

I guess, until the cows come home and someone credits them to our farm or whatever. We could debate justification however long you want, but you could believe in justification by faith alone and imputed righteousness, but it wouldn't follow from that that you have eternal security because people like Martin Luther or Wesley or others believe that if faith leaves, if you commit apostasy, then you lose your justification.

01:45:37

That legal decree is legally reversed. And I haven't really seen any evidence to show God would not do that even if the

01:45:45

Protestant theory of justification is true. You said in John 6, verse 37, that you introduced the term conditionally, but then you seem to stop and say, well, actually, that's later on.

01:46:02

So, I wasn't certain what you were saying. Could you... I was referring to, because I thought that we might go talk a little bit more about John 640 or John 644, which talk about how the person who is believing on Jesus, who is coming to Jesus, that he will be raised up.

01:46:20

That, as you say in your own book, the promise is that it's conditional that... Did I ever say it was conditional?

01:46:25

No. I'm saying it's the natural progression of that if the father draws someone to the son, the father draws, they'll come to the son, and those who keep on coming, who keep on believing, they will be raised up to life because there's nothing in the text that says the drawing is some kind of irresistible grace that forces people to always...

01:46:44

That means they will always come to the son. I don't see that. So, let me... Well, you say you don't see it, but let me try to help you to see it.

01:46:51

And we'll pray that you'll see it. All that the father gives me will come to me. Which action comes first, the giving of the father or the coming to the son?

01:47:04

In the text, it says that the father gives all, which is the whole body of the body of believers.

01:47:11

So, the father gives the body of believers and they come. Do you believe that the text is indicating a relationship between these actions?

01:47:21

Between the father giving and our coming. Yeah, I would say so, that anyone...

01:47:26

You can't approach the son unless you're drawn or given by the father. That's the necessity of grace.

01:47:32

Is that everybody? Is everyone given by the father to the son? Is every... Every human being?

01:47:38

Every human being is given by the father to the son? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

01:47:43

Well, in other words, isn't this a specific people? Well, yeah, what FF Bruce says in his commentary on the

01:47:50

Gospel of John, he says that this is the neuter singular. He's talking about how that this is the whole body of believers, of believers who are given.

01:48:00

And so, you know, if you believe in Jesus, you're going to come to him. So, the believers are given, they come to Jesus. And the one who comes to me,

01:48:08

I will certainly not cast out. But it doesn't... But you have to come to Jesus.

01:48:15

Didn't you just conflate believing and coming? Aren't they the same thing? They're the same thing, aren't they?

01:48:21

You can't come to Jesus without believing in him, right? Well, our life with Christ is one that's a process that includes belief.

01:48:29

I know you disparaged obedience earlier, but Romans 1 .5 says that we have to practice the obedience of faith. I never disparaged obedience.

01:48:35

Well, you said as if obedience wasn't something a part of maintaining our inheritance in the kingdom of God.

01:48:41

I said it wasn't the basis upon which we earn it, but that's a different issue. I want to stick with John 6 .37.

01:48:48

In John 6, believing and coming are parallel, are they not? Okay, fine. Yeah, those who believe will come to Jesus, but it doesn't say that they're always going to come to Jesus or they can't ever leave.

01:48:59

Okay, so, but I'm just confused here because it sounded like in your mind, you said

01:49:04

God gives the ones who are believing in Jesus. The order in the text is we believe in Jesus because God gave us.

01:49:11

Well, it's the all, all that the Father gives you. What is that all that's being given?

01:49:17

What makes the most sense? It's the body of believers, or I guess you could say the body of people who will come to believe.

01:49:23

I don't think that changes the argument at all. Those who are given by the Father to the Son will come to the

01:49:28

Son, and the one who comes, the one who continues to come, will not be cast out. But if someone stops coming,

01:49:35

Jesus may not cast them out. Look, if I say to you, if you come to the debate table after the debate to talk to me,

01:49:41

I won't cast you out. It doesn't mean you can't leave on your own accord. So, I don't see eternal security here.

01:49:47

But Trent, can't you see that the very verse before verse 37 says, but I said to you that you have seen me and you are not believing.

01:49:56

He's explaining the unbelief of these individuals, and he explains it on the basis that you have to be given by the

01:50:03

Father to the Son to believe. To clarify, in order to believe, faith is a gift that must be given.

01:50:12

A person cannot have faith on their own merits or initiative.

01:50:18

You have to receive the gift of faith. But it doesn't follow from that that if someone receives the gift of faith from God, that they will not throw away that gift later.

01:50:27

And so, I don't think that you've shown John 6 .37 proves eternal security. That's our time. We now have another 10 -minute period where Mr.

01:50:37

Horne can ask questions, finally, of Dr. White. And I would ask that the questions that have been chosen by Rich Pierce and John Sorenson be brought up to me, please.

01:50:47

Thank you. Let's talk a little bit about Galatians 5 .4.

01:50:55

You gave an interesting illustration. One is someone who straddles two roads, and you can't go down the road of grace and the road of law.

01:51:07

Indefinitely, you're going to pick one or the other. If someone is on the road of grace, doesn't that mean

01:51:13

God gave them grace and they are part of the elect? The specific statement says, look,

01:51:20

I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

01:51:26

That's the context. That's verse 2. That has to be understood before this.

01:51:31

So he is addressing individuals who would be willing to add to faith in Christ, human activity, human accomplishment, entering into the old covenant, whatever else it might be.

01:51:44

People who would add to the work of Christ. So these are people who are claiming to be Christians. They're claiming to be

01:51:52

Christians, and then they want to do something where, but they're not Christians. Well, if they will accept circumcision, then they have not understood what the gospel is.

01:52:03

So they haven't been given the grace God gives someone to know circumcision is not the route you're supposed to go.

01:52:09

They are in danger of being deceived by these individuals, yes. And Paul is extremely concerned about it.

01:52:15

There were people in Paul's time who would have been tempted to become Judaizers. Did they not become

01:52:22

Judaizers because of their merit, or did God give them grace so they would not become Judaizers?

01:52:28

God would have protected his elect people because they're his sheep, and he will lose none of his sheep from their entering into...

01:52:36

They could have entered in temporarily to error, but they would not be lost.

01:52:43

But they would not be lost in... I'm sorry? But they wouldn't do it permanently. No. Okay, so...

01:52:49

In fact, I think we would probably agree given your perseverance. Yeah, somebody, as Jesus says, the person who doesn't endure to the end will not be saved.

01:52:58

Yes. Matthew 10 .22, I agree with that. But the problem here is you're saying, well, they're not

01:53:06

Christians. Well, what I'm saying is they're in danger of accepting non -Christian teaching because if you accept circumcision,

01:53:17

Christ will be of no advantage. You can claim Jesus all you want, but if you do not accept him as he is in the way that God has ordained, that is not the gospel.

01:53:28

And so, I want to be warned against false gospels because that's what the book started off by warning me against.

01:53:34

I don't want to be anathema. So, if a Christian in Paul's church accepts circumcision temporarily and then returns, has he through that process fallen from grace?

01:53:48

Well, it says in verse 4, you are severed from Christ who? I guess you're saying that there's somebody who can temporarily accept circumcision.

01:54:00

It seems to me... I have known people who have gone into error and who have been delivered from the errors of their ways, yes.

01:54:05

So, they fell from grace? They would have moved away from this. They've no longer had access to God's grace, but if they're of God's sheep, he's going to keep them.

01:54:15

So, okay. But that's not being addressed here. But that's the point then because if it's only temporary... I didn't answer your question because I rhetorically asked a question

01:54:23

I shouldn't have done that. Let me non -rhetorically answer your question. I read verse 4 and then

01:54:28

I stopped and I said, who? You have been severed from Christ who? You who are seeking to be justified by law.

01:54:39

And so, this is a person who is seeking to be justified by law.

01:54:45

The redeemed are not going to be seeking that. So, this is an unredeemed person who is severed from Christ and fell from grace.

01:54:53

Anyone who seeks to be justified by law will not find Christ to be of benefit to them.

01:54:59

In that situation, in that day, could there have been people that when they first read the book of Galatians in the congregation, were torn between the authority of the apostle

01:55:09

Paul and the false teachers that they liked so very well? That's not even what's being addressed.

01:55:15

What Paul is saying, there is not two ways of salvation. Did you say this is an unredeemed person he's talking about? The one who is seeking to be justified by law?

01:55:24

Yes. So, they don't have grace. If they're seeking to be justified by law, they don't understand the gospel.

01:55:29

Then how do you fall from grace if you never had it in the first place? Because you are moving away from the sphere where that could even be an area of action in your life.

01:55:39

You are assuming all through this, and I haven't really challenged it as yet because it's sort of part of another debate, but you are viewing grace as a substance, something that could be merited, the saurus meritorum, the grace that is in it, so on and so forth.

01:55:56

I would challenge that concept of grace as ever even entering into the mind of the apostle or entering into the mind of any of the

01:56:05

New Testament writers. Could I be thinking of grace as the favor of God that you could do something to fall from, as Paul says in Galatians 5, 4, that when the word ekpipto is used to fall, is it ever used in another place to describe someone who is just never united or attached to something in the first place?

01:56:24

Doesn't it talk about chains falling off or flower petals falling? Severing and falling is showing a complete disjunction.

01:56:32

The way of faith is of grace. The way of law is not. Paul's already established these categories earlier in Galatians.

01:56:40

And he's saying, if you're going down this direction, you're not going that direction. You can't go both directions.

01:56:45

Just to summarize before we move on, to fall from grace doesn't mean you're on this path to grace and you go down here to law.

01:56:53

It just means you were never here in the first place and you've always been doing this. No, I simply say, verse 4 says, if you are seeking to be justified by law, this is the only people this is descriptive of.

01:57:06

The only people it's descriptive of. And they need to understand they're trying to meld, and this is an area where I think

01:57:14

Rome does this, they're trying to meld grace and works. And Paul's point is, these two things are completely disjuncted.

01:57:22

They cannot be put together. Okay, so you would say then, one last question then about the understanding of the meaning of the passage.

01:57:30

Would you at least agree an ordinary person, when they read something like, fell from grace, means a person had grace, now they no longer have it?

01:57:41

And let me finish, and an ordinary person or even a learned person like Martin Luther, it would be understandable why they might come to a conclusion like that.

01:57:50

If the ordinary person wasn't, you know, and when you keep quoting Martin Luther, what time in Martin Luther's life?

01:57:59

Because that changed over time. If you're familiar with the difference between Martin Luther before 1525, after 1525, about 1535, and then after, there are different periods.

01:58:07

So I just bring that out. Is there a writing in Luther where he affirms the position you're defending tonight? I believe it would be consistent with what he writes prior to 1525.

01:58:17

After that point, I mean, in light of his debate with Erasmus, and before the influence of Melanchthon.

01:58:24

But let me at least finish what we're saying in Galatians chapter 5, because we're getting into something else there. But the point of Galatians chapter 5 is this comes after the establishment of these categories of grace and works that the rest of the entire book is about.

01:58:39

And I don't think you're allowing those categories to be indicative of what is being said right here.

01:58:45

I think I'm just reading them the way anybody here or a pretty famous German guy from 500 years ago would read them.

01:58:52

So why don't we move on to Romans... How about Romans 11 .22?

01:58:58

I think that's very interesting because you talked a lot. You know, we were talking about Romans 4 .8. I think it made clear even if you have a

01:59:05

Protestant theory of justification, that's a side issue to what we're debating tonight. It doesn't show eternal security that Paul even says at the end of Romans, in Romans 11 .22.

01:59:16

If you don't continue in God's kindness, you too will be cut off. So the first question is, wouldn't an ordinary person take the...

01:59:25

not you, wouldn't just an ordinary person take the plain meaning of this text to be, you can be in God's kindness, but then leave that state and be cut off?

01:59:35

If they ignore the context, an ordinary person could make that error. But if you read Romans chapter 11, it's talking specifically here to the

01:59:42

Gentiles and warning them against boasting against the Jews who have been hardened for this particular period of time and cut off.

01:59:51

And therefore, they're not to boast against them because there is a purpose why God has hardened them at this point in time.

01:59:56

Are you saying that you are individual Gentiles? The you are the Gentile people as a whole.

02:00:02

Well, it's a singular you. Paul's addressing a hypothetical person. It doesn't matter if it's singular because a singular can be used of an individual representing a group.

02:00:10

I agree with that. So then we can talk about the group then. He's talking about the Gentiles. Are they Gentile believers or unbelievers?

02:00:16

They're Gentile believers. So Gentile believers can be cut off from God's kindness? Gentile believers need to be warned not to boast against the branches.

02:00:24

What will happen if they do that? The individuals, again, all the warning passages are given to us by God's grace to tell us this is what

02:00:33

God wants us to do. This is what God does not want us to do. And what happens if we don't do it? And when they start doing that, the question then becomes, do we look at this as, well, okay, if Gentiles, if there's ever been anyone in the history of the church that has an anti -Jewish perspective, as the papacy did for hundreds of years in a horrible sense, then that means that they've been cut off.

02:00:58

Right. Yeah, I mean, the papacy, they should model Luther when it comes to talking about the Jewish place. No question about it.

02:01:03

No question about it. All right. We are going to move straight into our cross -examination period.

02:01:10

And the first, excuse me, out of our cross -examination period into our question and answer.

02:01:16

And how this will work, folks, is that I will have a question first for Mr. Horne, and then we'll have one for Dr.

02:01:22

White. Each of the two debaters will have the opportunity when the question is posed to them, one minute to answer, and then the opponent will have 30 seconds to rebut.

02:01:33

Okay, so the first question goes to Mr. Horne. The question is this. In Romans 8 .29,

02:01:40

does God know the person or does God know about the person? It could be either.

02:01:48

I'd like to bring the text up here. The dispute, or not a dispute, way of understanding the text, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined.

02:02:04

It could be either that the person, the word there is prognisco. He could know about what they are doing.

02:02:11

Some would say that he entered into, you know, a divine, you know, relationship with that person.

02:02:18

You can look at it in different ways, but I haven't heard any reason to go against the view that God foreknows those who will love him and will continue to love him, and they're predestined to glorification.

02:02:29

I don't think I really heard, and I didn't hear an argument tonight that from this passage in Romans 8, it follows that everyone who becomes a

02:02:37

Christian will be brought to glorification. And I think what I quote in Romans 11 .22 shows that some of those

02:02:43

Gentile believers or Jewish believers, they can be cut off if they don't continue in God's kindness. Okay, and time.

02:02:48

And Dr. White, you have 30 seconds. I'm sorry, I did not hear what the time frames were. One minute and 30 seconds.

02:02:54

Thirty seconds, right. The problem is that using prognosco here, this is a completely unusual way of reading.

02:03:03

This is an active verb. This is something God does. And every time that God is the one who does this action, the object is not what someone does, it's a person.

02:03:14

Jesus is foreknown, the elect are foreknown, Israel is foreknown, it's never actions. So that would be a completely inconsistent way of understanding it.

02:03:21

And if Romans 8 .30 doesn't tell you that everyone who's foreknown comes to glorification, I don't know what verse would.

02:03:28

Okay, Dr. White, it's a question. Do we have free will both before and after we are saved?

02:03:35

Gracious sakes, no. John 6 .44 says, no one is able to come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I'll raise him up on the last day.

02:03:44

We have creaturely will and as the fallen sons and daughters of Adam, it is far more common in the

02:03:49

New Testament for the Bible to tell us what we are not able to do than what we are. We are not able to hear the words of the son of God if we do not belong to God.

02:03:58

We are not able to see, we're not able to hear, we're not able to do until drawn by the father to the son.

02:04:04

And in John 6 .44, all those who are drawn are raised up by the son. So that is an effective drawing on the part of God the father.

02:04:12

Then as a redeemed believer, our will is still impacted by sin, it's still a creaturely will, but now it has access to the divine impulses of the spiritual life and the spirit of God who dwells within us.

02:04:25

And so we freely, out of that new heart of flesh that's been given to us, desire to do what is pleasing to God.

02:04:31

And that's why we do those things, not to add to the work of Christ that we can be saved. It's fine. Mr. Horne?

02:04:38

I, that's, none of that is in the single verse that James is quoted. At first, it doesn't say,

02:04:44

I will raise up all of them on the last day. It says, I will raise him up on the last day. And it simply says, no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.

02:04:51

There's nothing in here about some kind of irresistible drawing where the person has to go to Jesus. It certainly doesn't say the person will always remain with Jesus or this drawing will keep the person from ever leaving

02:05:02

Jesus in the future. That's being read into the text rather than being drawn from it. You can't come to Jesus without being drawn by the father.

02:05:09

And if you remain with Jesus and cooperate with that grace, you'll be raised up on the last day. And Mr. Horne, the next question is directed towards you.

02:05:17

Do you believe you are saved, a .k .a. going to heaven? If yes, why, based on your comment about no one actually knowing?

02:05:27

Thank you, smiley face. Well, Mr. smiley face,

02:05:32

I am very grateful you brought this up because it allows me to address a point that my opponent brought up earlier about Ludwig Ott.

02:05:39

What Ott is talking about is that we can't have absolute certainty. This comes from the Council of Trent, it's in the catechism.

02:05:46

A person cannot have absolute certainty that they are in a state of grace or absolute certainty they will remain in a state of grace throughout the rest of their lives.

02:05:56

But you can have moral certainty. You can say, well, I can look at my life and have moral certainty.

02:06:01

I'm obeying God, I'm obeying his commandments, and I can know if I am in a state of mortal sin or not. Moral rather than absolute, absolute would be the sin of presumption.

02:06:10

And as I said in my presentation, those who have eternal security as their view, you can't have the absolute certainty either.

02:06:18

You can't possibly know you won't fall away later. So you can't know, well, I know I'm a true Christian.

02:06:23

How do you know that? Because you know you'll never fall away. Who here is tempted on a daily basis?

02:06:31

There you go. Dr. White. The citation I made of Ludwig Ott, the point that I think should cause anyone to take a second look at it and be very concerned is that it says that no one can know whether they have fulfilled all the conditions necessary for achieving justification.

02:06:50

And the dividing line between us this evening is one fulfilled all those conditions for justification.

02:06:58

His name was Jesus Christ. And if I am in him by faith, then that's why

02:07:04

I have peace with God. The next question is for Dr. White. Can you explain how and why it is in the parable of the unforgiving servant that the master first gives him but then punish him later as a result of his actions, thereby appearing to be based upon these actions?

02:07:25

It is fascinating to me that once again this evening, we have had clear passages where Jesus is specifically addressing his power and capacity as savior and saying that it is perfect and he loses none of those that are given to him.

02:07:39

Over against parables where Jesus is talking about using, for example, unjust stewards.

02:07:46

He's talking about using unrighteous judges. And we go, well, that means this represents

02:07:52

God and this represents this and therefore it must mean this. The situation here is that you have to establish that this individual had been forgiven a great deal before you can then see the unforgiveness of his heart and the pettiness and the fact that he does not respond to the forgiveness that he had received.

02:08:12

Then you read back into that, well, that's God doing this and this is how somehow God justified him and as a result of that now he's unjustifying him because he does not forgive these other individuals is to miss what is actually being said, which is forgiveness flows from a truly forgiven heart.

02:08:28

And Mr. Horn? This is a classic example of theology being read in the text. It doesn't say anything about his uncaring, unregenerate heart was exposed.

02:08:38

The king forgives the debt, then the servant commits a crime and then he has to pay the debt again.

02:08:48

He was forgiven of the debt, then he is unforgiven and the parable explains what God does.

02:08:53

I just let the text speak for itself. I'm not reading theology into it. Matthew 6 .15, if you don't forgive others, your

02:09:00

Heavenly Father will not forgive you. I just let it say what it says. Mr. Horn, the next question is for you.

02:09:06

If you lose your salvation, what do you need to do to get it back? You have to confess your sins.

02:09:14

Now, this question is different. Sorry, this question is unique from the topic we are debating.

02:09:19

We're debating whether salvation can be lost. Now, people who say salvation can be lost are going to disagree about how one is to obtain it.

02:09:29

Just as Christians agree you can be initially saved, you know, my opponent disagrees with lots of people about how we are saved, but that still means, you know, that doesn't...

02:09:40

Just because there's a disagreement doesn't mean people aren't saved. So, there is disagreement. The Catholic perspective would talk about receiving

02:09:46

God's grace in the sacrament of confession. But if you're not Catholic, most Protestants would say, who hold to the view

02:09:53

I'm defending tonight, would say that you have to be like David. You have to repent of your sin.

02:09:59

And I think that the gospel clearly teaches that, that James 5 .16 says, we must confess our sins.

02:10:05

If all the sins are forgiven, you don't have to do anything, why does Jesus say that every day we have to pray,

02:10:10

Father, forgive us for our trespasses? Dr. White? Well, here's the issue.

02:10:20

Could I ask one thing? There was one phrase in the question that I did not quite catch clearly, and if you could stop it,

02:10:29

I didn't want to misrepresent it. If you lose your salvation, what do you need to do to get it back?

02:10:36

Okay. So, when it comes to a Roman Catholic answering that question, and if I could have my whole time,

02:10:43

I was just asking for it. That only gave me 10 seconds after asking that question. I'm sorry, there's a Presbyterian at the...

02:10:52

The concept of sacramental forgiveness, the concept of a priest, the concept of penances, the concept of receiving forgiveness and receiving the grace of justification, etc.,

02:11:03

etc., all this goes against that very text that we looked at in Romans Chapter 8 that specifically makes the statement, those who are justified are also glorified.

02:11:14

That's a chain. In Roman Catholicism, you can be justified without being glorified. Roman Catholicism breaks the golden chain of redemption in Romans Chapter 8.

02:11:22

That's a didactic text once again. Dr. White, the next question is for you. Please respond to the point that Mr.

02:11:29

Horn made, that as Christians, we cannot know the future and thus have assurance of our salvation.

02:11:35

This debate is not about the level of assurance of salvation we have. This debate is about whether we have a

02:11:42

Savior who can actually save and therefore give us a meaningful ground of assurance to begin with. Because I can tell you one thing,

02:11:48

I don't need to know the future to know that if my salvation is dependent upon my cooperation and my performance,

02:11:55

I am doomed. I will not make it. I will not forgive perfectly enough.

02:12:00

I will fail, I will falter, and I will be lost. If I do not have a shepherd that can keep his sheep, knows who his sheep are, and is not dependent upon his sheep choosing to remain in his flock, then

02:12:15

I am going to be lost. And so the debate, we could have a debate on assurance, I suppose, because that would lead us into discussing sacramentalism and all the developments over history of that.

02:12:26

But this is specifically about whether the salvation that I have in Jesus Christ is based upon what he does or upon a synergistic cooperation and therefore can be lost.

02:12:37

I agree that... And the point of my presentation is there equally, whether it's conditional or unconditional, we have the same level of assurance that if you believe in eternal security, then you can't ever really know you are a true

02:12:53

Christian. But I would say this to follow what Augustine says. No, he who stands, stands by God's will.

02:12:59

He who falls, falls of his own will. That under my opponent's view, if you commit a grave sin in the future, that would just prove you're not a true

02:13:06

Christian in the first place, which is pretty analog to saying that you've lost your salvation. So the question of assurance afflicts both parties equally.

02:13:14

Mr. Horne, the next question is for you. You believe one can be saved and disinherited.

02:13:21

Do you also believe this is foreordained by God, such as, Jacob, I loved, Esau, I hated?

02:13:28

Could you repeat the question? Sure. You believe one can be saved and disinherited.

02:13:35

Do you also believe this is foreordained by God, such as, Jacob, I loved,

02:13:41

Esau, I hated? The question of how God predestines us, there's no doubt that God predestines our salvation.

02:13:52

So the Bible speaks clearly about us being predestined. The paragraph 600 of the Catechism talks about it.

02:13:58

How God predestines us, why he predestines us, the question of...

02:14:04

This is divided Catholics, Thomists, and Molinists about whether it's conditional based on God's foreknowledge of what someone will do or whether God will choose to give efficacious grace to some or others.

02:14:15

That is an open question of how God predestines. And it's a separate side issue that God can predestine people to initial or final salvation, that ultimately, if people are saved, it doesn't surprise

02:14:28

God. But we must be careful, predestined does not mean God ordains,

02:14:33

God sends people to heaven and sends people to hell. What it means is

02:14:38

God knows what will happen and sovereignly incorporates that into his plan of salvation. And part of that plan is he knows those who will accept his grace and then later reject it to their own peril.

02:14:49

Dr. White? The problem is the idea that God would predestine temporary

02:14:55

Christians, that he would predestine individuals to be united, I guess, temporarily with Christ.

02:15:01

I can't even see how these categories work because to be in Christ, his death becomes your death, his resurrection, your resurrection.

02:15:09

It becomes the intention of the son to save these individuals and yet then it becomes the intention not to actually save them because a further gift of perseverance isn't given.

02:15:20

These just are concepts that are unknown in the New Testament. Question for Dr. White, how do you interpret 1

02:15:27

Timothy 4 .1? How can a man, quote, depart from the faith, end quote, that he'd never had?

02:15:39

Well, the problem there is that in 1 Timothy, 1 and 2 Timothy, the term faith there is used of the doctrine, the body of doctrine and teaching.

02:15:50

It's not talking about the individual expression of belief in those things by an individual. So, now, the

02:15:55

Spirit expressly says, in later times, some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, et cetera, et cetera.

02:16:02

So, this is talking about individuals who will embrace false teaching. It's not talking about, well, they had a true faith in Jesus and then they stopped having that true faith or something along those lines.

02:16:14

The concept here is a warning against false teachers and false teachings. So, the faith, same with Jude.

02:16:22

He says, the ones for all delivered to the saints, faith. That's a body of doctrine. That's a body of teaching that has been delivered to the saints once for all.

02:16:32

Okay. I'll actually agree with my opponent, surprise, surprise, that 1

02:16:37

Timothy 4 .1 doesn't necessarily prove that a person became regenerate and then lost their salvation.

02:16:45

These could be people who were never Christian who fell away from the practice of the faith. But throughout the letters of Timothy, Paul is very clear.

02:16:51

People will fall away, true believers and false believers. Because in 2 Timothy 2 .12, he says, of true believers, if we deny him,

02:16:59

Jesus, he will deny us. Jesus doesn't deny false believers. He denied true believers who later reject him.

02:17:06

Mr. Horn, the next question is for you. What is your opponent's strongest argument for perseverance of the saints?

02:17:15

I think my opponent's strongest argument is probably going to be the passages that he cited.

02:17:21

He didn't have very many biblical passages to cite. I think mostly he just had a few and the most, you know, probably from a few verses in the

02:17:30

Gospel of John that talk about God's role in bringing us to salvation, not necessarily remaining there. I see how people could read those few verses and mistake those to believe in eternal security in John, just as how someone could mistakenly read

02:17:45

John 14 .28, the Father is greater than I, and reject the deity of Christ. So with some of these passages that can be mistaken, just like with John 14 .28,

02:17:54

we have to weigh them against the tremendous passages that affirm the deity of Christ for John 14 .28,

02:18:00

and all the passages I showed that clearly not descriptively, but prescriptively warn of a genuine danger for real

02:18:07

Christians to fall away and look at the whole Council of Revelation and not just use our theology to dismiss that big

02:18:15

Council of Revelation and cling to a misinterpretation of a few verses. Dr. White? I think everyone here can see the massive difference between misreading

02:18:23

John 14 .28, which the verse itself teaches the deity of Christ, and the eisegesis that Mr.

02:18:29

Horn is engaged in this evening in John chapter 6, breaking the flow of the argument up and saying, well,

02:18:35

I just don't see that. I don't see that. Well, there's no way that you can follow Jesus' argument all the way from John 6 .36

02:18:40

to 6 .45 and not see it because it's the only way it makes any sense. So there's a huge difference in that.

02:18:48

I think it's that illustration sort of backfires at that point. Dr. White, the last question, how do you determine if Scripture is prescriptive or descriptive?

02:19:00

Consistency. The whole issue this evening is we have all of these texts, many texts that I presented, that clearly in their context present

02:19:09

Jesus saying, I will not lose any of my people. I sovereignly choose my people.

02:19:15

The Father sovereignly chooses His people. I know my sheep. By the way, sheep do not choose their own shepherd. Shepherds choose the sheep.

02:19:22

And so I'm not going to lose any of them. I give them eternal life. Well, it doesn't necessarily say that they won't jump out of His hand as if this has something to do with the exegesis of the text.

02:19:32

You take these clear texts that are didactic in form, and then you look at these other texts that are going, well, this might mean this.

02:19:40

Or it's actually talking about something in the Christian life, but it could possibly be applied to this. And in each one of them,

02:19:46

I've given you a properly descriptive understanding. He who endures to the end shall be saved. Why?

02:19:52

Because the faith that saves is the gift of the Holy Spirit of God and will endure. So you simply allow that which is clear to determine that which is not.

02:20:01

Mr. Horne? How do you know if a warning in Scripture describes what the elect will do, whether prescribing, you know, giving them saying, hey, if you do this, you will be saved.

02:20:18

If you do this, you will lose your salvation. How does my opponent know? Well, he knows because his theology does not allow any of the clear common sense on -the -face reading verses, no matter how much they sound like genuine warnings that you could fall away.

02:20:33

Because my opponent's theology has to be true first, the Bible has to fit it. Our theology should come from the

02:20:40

Bible, not the Bible from our theology. We will now move into our closing statements.

02:20:47

Dr. White has 10 minutes, and then followed by Mr. Horne for his final 10 minutes.

02:20:53

And then I will close. And then Pastor Bice will be coming up for a few comments.

02:21:00

Before I give my thanks to everyone, while the words are still echoing in the hall,

02:21:06

I want you to hear that someone who denies Sola Scriptura and demands that you read

02:21:13

Scripture in the light of the teachings of the Bishop of Rome just said, we need to get our theology from the Bible. Someone who will tell you that Mary is bodily assumed into heaven, we need to get our theology from the

02:21:24

Bible. I'm sorry, that went just a little bit beyond where I could let it pass by and not make a few references to that.

02:21:33

I do want to thank Trent Horne for being here this evening, John Sorensen for their coming and making this a very lively and interesting exchange.

02:21:40

I want to thank you for being here this evening, late this evening. Good way to kick off the conference this weekend as well.

02:21:46

There's so many things to be discussing because we have so little time in a debate like this. I want to especially thank

02:21:52

Rich Pierce, Mike and his crew, Josh and the church.

02:21:58

It takes a lot of work to put these things together, folks. So, say thanks to the people behind the scenes that actually make something like this possible.

02:22:14

We have heard Jesus speak these words in our conversation this evening.

02:22:20

No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

02:22:27

Now, a number of different texts, John 6 .37, John chapter 10, Romans 8, where there is no one who can bring a word of condemnation.

02:22:35

Not a word has been said about that this evening. Have you noticed that? There has to be someone that can bring a word of condemnation for anyone to be lost, but nothing's been said about that text, that there is none that can do so.

02:22:47

And yet, we've heard these verses, these clear, compelling verses, and I believe it's because Mr.

02:22:53

Horne has the theology provided by the Magisterium of the Roman Church that he's fitting the Bible to.

02:22:59

Okay? So, we both make the accusation against the other. So, let's use John 6 .44 as a test case because I could not believe what

02:23:08

Mr. Horne said about John 6 .44. He says, I don't see anything in here. It says, and I will raise him up on the last day.

02:23:14

I don't see anything here about an irresistible grace or anything like that. Let's look at it again.

02:23:21

No one is able to come to me. Do you really believe that? I don't think Rome really believes that.

02:23:27

Rome says, well, you need prevenient grace. There's no such thing as prevenient grace in the Bible. There's no such thing as a grace that just sort of brings you to a position of having an ability.

02:23:36

Grace saves. That's the real redeeming grace of, for example,

02:23:41

Titus Chapter 2. No one is able to come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.

02:23:54

It says, altan, cago anastaso, altan.

02:24:00

It's the same hymn. If you're drawn by the Father to the Son, the

02:24:05

Son raises you up on the last day. There is no distinction here.

02:24:12

When someone says, well, I just don't see it. Well, you need to see it because it's right there in front of you.

02:24:18

When the Father draws someone to the Son, the Son will raise him up on the last day.

02:24:23

What's being raised up on the last day in Scripture? It's being given eternal life. You want eternal security? There it is.

02:24:29

The Father draws you to the Son. That's the giving of the Father to the Son of verse 37. I will raise him up on the last day.

02:24:37

How do you get raised up on the last day? Well, we heard, amazingly inserted into this text, well, if you keep this grace, if you obey this grace, if you...

02:24:50

I forget what the exact word was. Hold on a second. Sorry, Mr. Cameraman. If you remain in that grace, and so you see what happens when you have synergism?

02:25:03

See what happens when you... And Mr. Horne has said, well, you know, you're in a minority. Yeah, I know that.

02:25:08

So was the Apostle Paul when he wrote to the churches of Galatia. Faith that destroys the capacity of man to boast will always be in the minority because man wants to control his salvation.

02:25:24

That's always the way it'll be. So, it was said, if you remain in that grace, so what happens is with two words right between Alton and Cago, we insert the entire sacramental system of the

02:25:39

Roman Catholic Church. Unknown to Jesus or anyone at that time, you insert that entire sacramental system.

02:25:47

That is not deriving your theology from the Bible. That is making the

02:25:53

Bible fit your theology. And there's the clearest example of it. And I know that he gets 10 minutes afterwards, but I am absolutely confident that no one can walk through verse 44 and come up with that understanding.

02:26:07

The clear statement of the text is if you're drawn by the Father, you're raised up by the

02:26:14

Son. That's the elect, that's the work of God, and that's eternal security in its proper understanding because it's

02:26:22

God who is the one who will cause you to persevere. And that's what makes sense in Romans chapter 8.

02:26:28

That's why there is none that can bring any word of condemnation. And we got off onto a bunch of other things, but the real question this evening, again, for all of us, has to be kept very, very clear.

02:26:40

Is Jesus able to do what the Father asks him to do?

02:26:46

The Father in John chapter 6 says, of all that I give you, you lose none of it.

02:26:55

And what we've heard is, well, but you see, you're given because God foresees things. And even the one use of foreknown in John 8, we've demonstrated nowhere in the

02:27:03

Bible is it used that way. When God does this action of foreknowing, it's never, oh, I'm going to look down the corridors of time and see the actions of people.

02:27:10

That's not what God does when he foreknows. Foreknow is an active verb, not passively taking in knowledge what other people do.

02:27:19

And so the question that we have to have this evening answered is, can Jesus fail to do what the

02:27:25

Father assigns him to do? Because the only reason I believe in the perseverance of the saints, the only reason that I want to be able to forgive those who have trespassed against me is not because I believe that my acting in forgiveness is going to allow

02:27:44

Jesus to save me, but that the very fact that I desire to forgive from my heart is because he has saved me.

02:27:55

That's the difference between descriptive and prescriptive. That's the difference between man -centered religion and God -centered biblical teaching.

02:28:07

I am thankful that Mr. Horne this evening has not said, well, hey, if you believe in this doctrine that is being presented this evening, that's going to encourage you to sin.

02:28:16

I'm thankful that he has not made that statement because that is a very often an argument that is made.

02:28:22

Because the reality is, if you understand what I have been saying tonight, to believe what

02:28:27

I believe absolutely destroys any basis of arrogance, boasting against others.

02:28:37

God's electing grace is not based upon anything I do. It is not based upon him looking and seeing that I'm going to love him or continue to love him or be somehow better than anyone else.

02:28:47

There is one five -letter word that is going to separate those who bow in love before the throne for eternity and those who in the very presence of hell express their hatred toward God for eternity, and it's the five -letter word grace.

02:29:05

I am not better than anyone else, but I confess to you this evening, my friends, if my salvation was dependent upon me working something up within myself to add to what

02:29:18

Christ has done for me, I would be lost. You know what my hope is this evening? I have one who has entered in, entered into the holy place.

02:29:30

Hebrews chapter 6 says we have this hope, this firm assurance, this anchor for the soul because Jesus as our forerunner has entered into the holy place.

02:29:42

And remember what John saw? Remember when he saw Jesus? Not when Jesus was giving him the letters to the seven churches, but remember when he saw him in the presence of the

02:29:51

Father in heaven? What did he see? The Lamb standing as if slain.

02:29:58

He's standing, he's alive, but as if slain. The Lamb, the sacrifice, the completed work.

02:30:04

That is the entirety of my hope. I have nothing else beside that.

02:30:10

I cannot say, oh, it's so good that Jesus does 99%, but then I needed to do this, and then

02:30:16

I've got the treasury of merit, and I've got the merit that I get from this saint and that saint.

02:30:22

No, only a perfect righteousness is going to avail before that throne.

02:30:30

And that perfect righteousness is mine not because God foresaw that I'd be worthy of it, not because he foresaw that I would be faithful, but because he foresaw that I was a wretch and I needed a savior who could deliver me from the very pits of hell.

02:30:47

I was dead in trespasses and sins. There is none who seeks after God.

02:30:54

And instead, though I deserved his wrath in its fullest,

02:31:00

I received his grace in its beauty. That is why

02:31:05

I'm the blessed man. And I hope and pray that's why you are the blessed man this evening as well.

02:31:11

The blessed man, the blessed woman, followers of Jesus Christ, thank you very much for your attention this evening.

02:31:16

Thank you, Dr. James White. We now have 10 minutes closing statements from Mr.

02:31:23

Trent Horn. All right. There was once a man who was suffering from Cotard's delusion.

02:31:46

It's a rare mental illness that involves a person thinking he's dead. A doctor met with the man and tried to explain to him, he's not dead.

02:31:53

He says, you can see and hear me, you're not dead. And the man said, well, I don't know. I mean, you know, I'm sure I'm dead. Maybe I'm a zombie or a ghost.

02:32:00

Finally, the doctor had an idea. After showing him several textbooks, the young man agreed with the doctor that dead men don't bleed.

02:32:08

So the doctor took his scalpel and pricked the man's palm and a trickle of blood came forth.

02:32:14

So what do you think, asked the doctor. The young man replied, I think dead men really do bleed after all.

02:32:22

The lesson of this story is that if we are firmly committed to a certain idea, then it's easy to dismiss any evidence that contradicts our assumptions.

02:32:32

I believe that a fair review of tonight's debate will show that this is what my opponent has done.

02:32:38

At the very end, what is the evidence we heard for eternal security? Well, John 644 has to mean this.

02:32:45

And this other passage in Romans has to mean this. And a lot of wonderful lofty rhetoric about God's grace and about salvation.

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And grace is wonderful. God is wonderful. But what makes it wonderful is that it's biblical and that it's true.

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And I think my opponent throughout this debate has tried to make this. So here's the Catholic imposing his man -made religion to obscure the fact that his view is the minority, not just minority, but unhistorical.

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Think about this. Who can read John 644 and not see this? People like Irenaeus, Augustine, Chrysostom, Aquinas.

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People like Luther, Wesley, all the other great thinkers before that. If you think about it, if suddenly this amazing truth is in Scripture and it was just unknown for 1 ,500 years, it's kind of strange that suddenly now we discover it.

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Or maybe this teaching is of the same quality as someone who read the Bible in 1815 and thought that the

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Jews migrated to North America. Maybe the reason that it's so late is because it's not a part of the apostolic deposit of faith.

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Who can bring condemnation? He says, not Jesus, except when 1

02:34:00

Timothy 2, 11 through 13 says, if we deny him, he denies us. Well, that's just descriptive.

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How do you know? Because it has to be, because my theology guarantees it has to be. Anything that's contrary, it has to be.

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Can Jesus fail? This has brought up a light that Jesus will never fail, never fail to do the

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Father's will. That Jesus will carry out his own will, won't he? That the Father and the Son, their wills, they won't fail.

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What do God want? If God wants to save you, God wants to save Christians, nothing can get away with that.

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What God wants, he gets. Does God want us to sin?

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Does he want Christians to ever commit adultery even once? Does he want Christians to gossip?

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Does he want Christians to fail to give to the poor? God doesn't want that, but it still happens.

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That wasn't rebutted tonight. So even if Jesus says, my will is to do the will of the

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Father, to lose none that were given to me, even still in John 17, 12, we see one can be lost.

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How do we know that believers can be lost? How do we know that? Well, we just read Scripture.

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We just read the Bible and the warnings it gives. If salvation can't be lost, these warnings are nonsensical because the warnings can't keep someone reprobate or damned to hell out of hell, and the warnings aren't necessary to get someone to heaven because you don't need warnings, right?

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You don't need anything but grace. He says that his theology is about a five -letter word, grace, that grace determines who ends up in heaven or hell.

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Man has nothing to do with it. You know what that leads to? Rather, it's another three -letter G word that determines who ends up in heaven and hell,

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God, because if man has nothing to do with any of this, then God creates man and he sends a group to hell and another to heaven.

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Well, they're unmerciful, they're evil and wicked. Who made them that way? Did the pot make himself?

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Rather, God loves everyone. God desires all people to be saved.

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And I presented passages to that effect, and they weren't addressed. And that is important. The limited atonement is not an extraneous issue because if God will, you know,

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Jesus will always do the Father's will. And if God desires everyone to be saved, well, then won't everyone be saved?

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Well, no, but just the fact that not everyone is saved, just the fact that there would be people who never become believers does not show that Jesus failed to do the

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Father's will. It also doesn't follow that people became believers, and as Jesus said in Luke 8 .13,

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fell away, doesn't contradict the Father's will either in that regard. Absolutely right.

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The only way that we can get to heaven is grace. But my opponent has not shown tonight that we can't cooperate with grace.

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I showed in Matthew 23 .37, Jesus wanted to gather Jerusalem together, but they would not, their children.

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Did Jesus fail? No, they failed. God gives grace, but we're also free.

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My opponent has talked a lot about, well, it's just God -centered and biblical. His view is,

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I guess I would say, very God -centered, but it's not biblical. The Bible talks about how we can receive God.

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It talks about how we continue to come to God, how we believe, the obedience of faith, and it warns that those who commit apostasy, those who trample the

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Son of God underfoot, that if they do so, that they will profane the blood of the covenant by which they were sanctified.

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My opponent had to go to the incredible length tonight that when a passage in Hebrews 10 .28 -29 clearly says there'll be a worse punishment than physical death for a believer who profanes the blood of the covenant, he has to say, well,

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Christ's blood sanctifies himself, even though in Hebrews, Christ's blood always sanctifies the believer.

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Jesus is the sanctifier in Hebrews 2 .11, not the sanctified. And even when other

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Reformed theologians, I present to him, there are other... I didn't get a chance to read this, so that's not fair to bring up, but you can look at how other people look at this passage and it's clearly reading a theology into a text because if there is even one verse in Scripture that says someone who is a true believer falls from grace, fell away, as Jesus said, will be denied by God, then my opponent's view is false.

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He didn't even address all of the arguments, all the different verses I gave. He simply said, well, we know my theology is correct, so these verses can't simply mean that.

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But that theology is what we're debating tonight. At least the crucial part of it, the perseverance of the saints, and he has not proven that from John 6, 44.

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Yes, I agree. Whoever...no one can come to the Son unless they're drawn by the

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Father. So if you...I don't go to Jesus and say, hey, I really want to believe in Jesus. The Father draws me to Jesus.

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If I am coming to Jesus, I'm being drawn. Does that verse say everyone who is drawn will always come?

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They will never come for a time and then leave? It doesn't say that. It just says everyone who is drawn comes to the

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Father. Those who come, as my opponent even wrote in his own book, Drawn by the Father, the glorious promises are those for whom they continuously and truly believe.

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So this verse can be explained, and it's not it could mean this, it just simply means this.

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Anything more is simply reading into the text that we are saved by grace, but receiving grace is nothing to boast about.

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If I get an inheritance from my great -uncle for a million dollars, and I get the paper, and I sign, you know,

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I have to sign it at the probate court, I'm not going to run around and say, I'm a millionaire, I'm a millionaire, look at me, look how good

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I am. People would say, you're crazy. You did nothing to earn that, you just accepted it.

02:40:05

So the fact that my opponent has denied we can accept grace, even if someone can accept it, he hasn't proven we can't reject it later.

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That doesn't take away from the truth that we are saved by God's grace, and there is no room for boasting. So here's just some good advice when it comes from scripture.

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This is, my opponent wrote these words in his other book, Scripture Alone. If the overall discourse is ignored, an improper interpretation of individual texts can be offered.

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This is one of the most oft -missed elements of correct exegesis, normally due to the presence of traditions in the reader's thinking.

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My opponent wrote that in Scripture Alone. Ironically, he succumbed to what he warns others against. He's read a 16th century doctrine of eternal security into 1st century texts that don't teach it.

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Rather, we should follow what the Bible teaches. Revelations 14 .12 says, here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.

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He said, it's terrible for you, you're a synergist to say you have to remain in Christ. Well, I guess Jesus was a synergist in John 15 .6

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when he says, if you don't remain in me, you will be cast aside and burned. So, there you go.

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Rather, let us follow what Hebrews 3 .12 -14 says. Take care, brethren, lest there be any of you in evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living

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God, but exhort one another every day as long as it's called today. Don't be hardened of your deceitfulness of sin.

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We must hold our first confidence firm to the end. Let us take care. Let us exhort one another.

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Let us do all these things the Word of God commands us to do and offer that up for the glory of our great

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hornan. And if I could ask that you stay in your seats just for a moment.

02:41:55

I think that this last few hours begs that we probably schedule another debate soon.

02:42:03

I hope you would agree. Well, let's first just take time if we can, please, to thank both of these two gentlemen for the time and the effort that they've put into this debate, a worthy time.