Steve Gregg vs. James White Debate: Part 3

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Steve Gregg vs. James White Debate: Part 4

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Our God of Bulwark never failing
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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.
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They're following men instead of the Word of God. Our helper he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing
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Hands standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out,
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He died for all those who were elected, were selected. For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe
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His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.
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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers.
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On earth is not his equal. I think
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I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.
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Did we in our own strength confide Our striving would be losing
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For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
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Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing
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Doomed before the womb, you ask who that may be Christ Jesus it is he,
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Lord sorrow of his name Read my book. From age to age the same, and he must win the battle.
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And now from our underground bunker hidden deep beneath Liberty University, where no one would think to look, safe from those moderate
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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are
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Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say his own eternal glory.
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And welcome to a Monday edition of Radio Free Geneva. We, of course, are continuing the debate begun last
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Thursday. We've done the first two parts, have three parts to go between myself and Steve Gregg.
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Steve Gregg has a radio program that will be beginning here in about 45 seconds.
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And that's why we have the longer intro and also because it's lots of fun.
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And that allows me to stretch and film. And today it looks like we're going back to the 12 -minute statements.
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And so that will be taking up our time today. And we will be continuing tomorrow and,
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Lord willing, on Wednesday. And then probably on Thursday, on the dividing line, we will be taking open phones and questions, comments, so on and so forth at that time.
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So today, again, on the dividing line, Radio Free Geneva, the continuation of the live debate between myself and Steve Gregg on the subject of God's freedom in salvation.
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If you were listening last week, it shouldn't surprise you. For five days in a row, which began
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Thursday last week and will end Wednesday this week, I have the privilege of discussing the subject of Calvinism with a well -known
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Christian apologist, Dr. James White, from Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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And we are debating the subject here for five days together, and that's going to continue today. And Dr.
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White, I welcome you to the program. Good to be with you. Thanks for joining us again. I'm going to turn this over to Paul Spurlock, who's our timekeeper, and then we'll get started here.
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Thank you, Steve. Thank you for joining us, listening audience. Today we have two proponents, one that being
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Calvinism, the other non -Calvinism or Arminianism. And that view is held by Steve Gregg, who is the host of your regular scheduled show,
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The Narrow Path. And to that end, he is the host of The Narrow Path radio broadcast, which is available via the
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Internet and on many radio stations. Steve is also the author of Revelation 4
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Views. He is a career Bible teacher. He founded the Great Commission School, was able to teach through the
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Bible every year. That perhaps helped him in the formation of the Narrow Path program. Steve is also a career
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Bible teacher with Youth with a Mission, or YWAM, teaching all over the world for their mission school.
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Steve is joined today by Dr. James White. Dr. James White is a frequent debater, debates
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Roman Catholics, later -day saints, most recently Muslim apologists. He is also the author of Debating Calvinism, in which he co -authored that book with David Hunt.
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He is also the author of The Potter's Freedom, another book relevant to this discussion today.
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He is also the elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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And he is professor at Golden Gate Theological Seminary, and director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, an apologetics -oriented ministry, which also serves,
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I suppose, as a sub -program of that ministry. The Dividing Line Radio Ministry, which is similar to the
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Narrow Path, it has call -ins and theological and apologetic discussions. So welcome, Dr. James White.
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Our format today will be 12 -minute segments for the presenters, two each, divided by brief breaks.
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And with that, Steve, you will have the first 12 minutes to make your positive presentation of your non -Calvinist view.
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Steve? All right. Thank you, Paul. And, you know, I've been advised to do a number of different things with this program.
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One is to take a block of time and give the positive case for my viewpoint, which
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I've not actually had opportunity to do yet, or at least haven't taken the opportunity prior to this. And the other is that I should interact more short bursts with James so that we talk back and forth more.
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I'm going to try to do both of those things in this program. In my first segment, I will try to give a brief positive case for the view that I'm espousing.
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And in my second 12 minutes, I would like to interact more with Dr. White, just conversationally.
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Now, when it comes to giving a positive case for a non -Calvinist view, well, by definition, non -Calvinist is a negative position.
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Basically, by saying I'm not a Calvinist, what I'm saying is that a person's default position, if they read the
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Bible and are not taught Calvinism, I believe that they will reach conclusions that are not very
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Calvinistic. And only when a Calvinist defender comes and points out and argues from certain proof texts that the
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Calvinist view is convincing, then that person is likely to become a Calvinist. Now, that may not be true of everybody, but it certainly is true of most people,
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I believe. It certainly was true of the early church. We know that the view that I'm taking was held by all the church fathers until Augustine.
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I don't even think Calvinists would care to dispute that. I think everyone knows enough church history to know that this is true. The church fathers did believe that men had the choice, freely, to choose to serve
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God or not, which is a non -Calvinist position. And they did not believe that God ordains all things that happen, again, a non -Calvinist position.
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Now, because the church fathers said that doesn't mean it's true. It only means that since it took 400 years for any
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Christians to come up with an alternative view, it's fair to call this a default view. In my opinion, if anyone reads the
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Bible without any instruction from outside, they will get several impressions. They'll get the impression that God created man, of course, that God has a reason to expect obedience from man, that God gave commands to man, and in commanding man to do what is right,
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God seems to have left some decisions to man, because that's what commands imply. Man frequently violates those commands, which means that God's will is not always done, because God expresses
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His will and His commands, and men disobey. God holds man responsible for those violations, and such responsibility implies that man had a choice to obey or not to obey.
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You don't have responsibility for things that are not in your power to do. Since God is angry and disappointed by man's choices,
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God must not have ordained them, or else God would seem to be a strange person who ordains that something should happen and then gets angry when it does.
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Thus, the judgment of God is just in condemning man and gracious in forgiving man. Now, those are the impressions,
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I believe. Those are very basic impressions that people, I think, would get when they read the Bible. They see commands of God, they see judgments from God, they see
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God holding men responsible, we see God get angry. You read enough of that, and this is not just a few proof texts.
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This is hundreds of texts. There's hundreds of commands in the Bible. There's hundreds of times for God to denounce the sinners.
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And so I'm not saying that that proves Arminianism. What I'm saying is that it gives a default impression that God is not ordaining everything, and that man is making some choices of his own that God does not even approve of, necessarily.
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Now, coming from that, unless someone is told otherwise, they will get the impression that God does not ordain all things that happen, and that man has free will.
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And those are the positions I espoused at the beginning and referred to as the default position. Now, obviously, many
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Calvinists might argue that that is not the default position, and that they read the Bible and just got a Calvinist worldview, and the doctrines of grace, according to Reformed theology, just the first time they read through the
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Bible. And I won't call them liars, but I haven't known very many people who got that impression reading the Bible. The Calvinists I have met have become
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Calvinists as a result of being trained to be Calvinists. And so the question then is, if there is a default position that people generally get, and which the whole church got for 400 years before anyone else came up with an alternative, it seems to me that Calvinism is the novel view that has to prove itself to be true.
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And therefore, the case for Calvinism has got to be stronger in terms of specific exegesis,
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I think, of individual texts than the case for a view that is simply taking the drift of the whole of Scripture and does exegete proof texts as well.
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There are proof texts for the non -Calvinist view that will come up, too. But I just want to give you a quick survey of what
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I would call a positive case for biblical sovereignty. Now, first of all, that is biblical sovereignty not including meticulous providence.
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And if you don't know those terms, meticulous providence means that God meticulously controls everything by His sovereign decrees.
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I believe in the sovereignty of God as all Christians do. And actually, Dr. White misspoke in the first debate.
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He said that this is a debate about God's freedom. This is not a debate about God's freedom. If it is, we can close down the microphones right now.
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I believe in God's freedom, and all Christians believe in God's freedom. This is a question not about whether God is free.
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It's a question about how God exercises His freedom and what is He free to do. The Calvinists believe that God is only free to control everything.
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The non -Calvinists believe that God is free to do that if He wants to. He's also free to not do that if He doesn't want to.
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Because the Arminian believes that God is really free. God can really sovereignly make any decision
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He wants to make. And if He wanted to make a world that had free choice in it that was uncontrolled by Him, that's one of His prerogatives.
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Because as the sovereign God, He has all the prerogatives. My first point is that in saying that God is sovereign in the
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Bible, the word sovereign is not used in the Bible. But we get this from the fact that God is compared with other sovereign entities that we know.
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For example, kings. The Bible often says that God is a king. This is a quote from James White in his book,
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The Potter's Freedom. On page 41, he says, I believe one of the reasons modern men struggle with some of the plain biblical truths of old is because so few of us any longer have a king.
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Royal power and authority was fundamental when the scriptures were written, and often the power of God to properly rule over His creation is likened to the power of a king to rule over His realm.
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Since most of us do not bow to a king, we see little reason why we should bow to God." Well, non -Calvinists agree 100 % with Dr.
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White on this. I agree. One of the biggest problems of modern free men is they don't know what it means to have a king.
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And they do, if they're not Christians at least, they do see little reason why they should bow to God. However, we're not debating that point.
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We're not debating whether there's a God and whether God is a king or not. But what Dr. White points out is that in the
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Bible, and this is Dr. White's words, the power of God to properly rule over creation is likened to the power of a king to rule over His realm.
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And that's exactly what the non -Calvinist agrees with, that the power of an earthly king is the image the
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Bible uses to describe God's sovereign rule. Now, earthly kings do not micromanage every thought and every decision of every person in their realm.
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They make laws. They keep order. They make sure that their plans are carried out when there's something important enough for them to carry out.
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But they do allow their subjects to marry who they want to marry, get up in the morning when they want to get up in the morning, eat what they want to eat.
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In other words, a king does not have to control every decision or every action of his subjects in order to be sovereign.
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Kings don't do that generally. And the Bible does not indicate, to my mind, that God does that either.
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He is a king, however, and He is sovereign. And He can do whatever He wants. And when He has a purpose, He fulfills that purpose.
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Dr. White spent his first presentation last Thursday quoting a lot of verses about God, about fulfilling
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His purposes, and no one can stop Him. There's not a Christian who disagrees with that. There's not a non -Calvinist who disagrees with that.
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What we're discussing is not whether God has the freedom or the power to do what He wants. What we're asking is, what does the
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Bible tell us about how God exercises His freedom and His sovereignty? And that's a different question. And that is not really debated here.
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We are also told, though, that in addition to God being like a king, He is like a father. This is what Jesus taught us particularly.
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And He is a father who can be disappointed by His children. In Isaiah 1 -2, He says,
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Well, okay, He's like a father.
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Fathers raise children. Fathers have sovereign authority over their children. But sometimes the children revolt.
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God has done the same thing in His life. Jesus used the parable of the prodigal son partly to demonstrate what the fatherhood of God is like.
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And the father in that parable was in charge of his family. But he allowed his son to make a choice to go away.
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And he allowed his son to make the choice to come back later, too. The father did not ordain all the choices the son made.
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But that did not make the father any less sovereign over his household. Sovereignty does not suggest meticulous providence.
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It only suggests absolute authority, which means the right to make decisions. Now, God has left some decisions to man.
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The Bible teaches us that. In Deuteronomy 30 -19, Of course, everyone knows
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Joshua 24 -15. But as for me, in my house, we will serve the
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Lord. Joshua tells people to choose who they will serve. In Isaiah 66, verses 3 and 4, God says,
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Now, in this passage, we see sovereignty very much as a king or a father.
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He calls. He makes orders. But people don't always obey. The people choose what they will do.
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But he chooses what will happen to them. And there's this distinction made. He says, In other words,
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God did not choose that they would sin. But he does choose what will happen to them because they're sin. That's, of course, what kings do.
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That's their prerogative. In Luke 7 -30, it says, The purpose of God there is the will of God.
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And God had a will for them. But they rejected God's will for them. So says the
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Scripture. And so we see that God has left some choices to man. And he does not ordain everything that happens.
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He does ordain what he wants to ordain. And he controls everything that he wants to control. The question we have here is,
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Does the Bible anywhere say that God controls everything, including every human choice? If it does, it certainly is counterintuitive.
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But it may be true. But I would think the proof that he does rests upon the person who claims that to prove.
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Because it's not at all obvious when you read the Scripture. God seems to be disappointed with man's choices. And, by the way,
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I have a much longer list of here. But I see my time is up. So I'm going to yield the floor to Dr.
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White. Thank you, Steve. And now, Dr. White, you're free with the next 12 minutes to present or do with as you wish.
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Dr. White? Thank you very much. I would begin just briefly responding by saying,
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I do not, of course, accept the assertion that somehow a synergistic position is a default position for whatever reasons were listed.
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I would say that synergism is more default because of the fact that people generally will assert the free will of man over the free will of God.
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And that certainly is a common element of human religion, if we want to call that the default position.
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But I would say a default position is that which is defined by the word of God. I would dispute the assertion that Augustine was the first person in church history to believe in these things.
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Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians has a number of references to the elect, Diognetius likewise. So that was not the issue of the early church.
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Certainly people like Justin Martyr, who were far more influenced by Greek philosophy than they were by the Pauline Corpus, would definitely emphasize the free will of man.
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But that's a Greek philosophical position, not a biblical one. Last year, when
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I listened to Steve Gregg's 13 1⁄2 hours of MP3s and did a number of programs responding to them, because we kept having people write to us and say this is the person you need to be responding to,
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I raised a number of issues. And there were two particular issues that I want to try to get to today, or at least start trying to get to today, that should,
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I think, lead to some of the interaction. And that is two issues where I made a very clear assertion that Mr.
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Gregg was guilty of engaging in eisegesis, reading into the text a meaning that is not substantiated by the form of the text itself.
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And those two were on Romans 9 and Acts 13, verse 48.
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There is an almost 50 -minute presentation I did on Romans 9 on the main page of our website.
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Anybody can go and listen to Steve's MP3s and listen to the response if they want an even fuller discussion.
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But I don't think any quote -unquote debate would be a real debate if we did not get to these particular texts and bring them into the discussion.
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I also want to get to 1 Timothy 2, 4, 2 Peter 3, 9, and Matthew 23, 37, as the time will allow over the course of today and tomorrow.
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But first and foremost, I want to go to Romans 9, and maybe we can take a look at some of the specifics of that text, and hopefully that will be useful to us today.
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I have to do so very quickly, not nearly as in -depth as I would like, but that's the nature of debates. I begin by asserting this is the continuation of the preceding material from Romans 8, the golden chain of redemption, the fact that no one can bring a charge against God's elect, having made this great announcement of the victory in Jesus Christ.
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Paul then turns to the primary apologetic issue that he had to deal with, and that was people were saying,
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Paul, if what you're saying is true, if Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, then why aren't the Jewish people as a whole embracing him?
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Why, in fact, are your primary enemies the Jews themselves? And so he enumerates, beginning in chapter 9, his desire for the salvation of his fellow
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Jews. He enumerates the great blessings that were theirs, even including the deity of Christ in Romans 9, 5.
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And then I believe we have the section of Romans 9, that all those who try to turn this into just merely a discussion of national honor and blessing, and so on and so forth, try to turn this into a discussion of nations, they cannot explain this text, and they cannot allow it to continue on through the context.
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And that is these words. But it is not as though the word of God has failed, verse 6 of chapter 9, for they are not all
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Israel who are descended from Israel. Now, that statement cannot be made about nations.
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You cannot talk about nations not being Israel who are descended from Israel. We're not talking about different Israels or things like this.
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We are talking about individuals. We are talking about people. We are explaining why it is that there are descendants of Israel who do not embrace the faith of Abraham, even to that day, and now we're not embracing
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Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. He continues on. Nor are they all children, because they are
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Abraham's descendants, but through Isaac your descendants will be named. So what Paul is doing here is he's explaining that the fact that the
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Jewish people continue to reject as a whole, certainly he was one of the exceptions to this, but continue to reject as a whole the
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Messiahship of Jesus, is not inconsistent with Jewish history itself. He is going to draw numerous examples from the history that the
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Jewish people would have to agree to, of people, Jewish and non -Jewish, who were hardened or received mercy, and it was all due to the freedom of God.
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And I would submit to anyone, if you're going to say, well, you know, some of these quotes are from minor prophets. They're about nations, not about individuals.
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Tell me where that change takes place. If you're going to say, well, this is all about nations. By the time you get down to verse 20 or so, you're clearly talking about individuals.
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Where did the change take place? Why can't we walk through this entire text and see it as a whole?
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Let's try to walk through it and emphasize what it says. That is, it is not the children of the flesh or the children of God, but the children of the promise are regarded as descendants.
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What is that promise, by the way? Does that promise not include the new covenant and salvation itself? This is not merely national blessing.
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For this is the word of promise. This time will come and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but there was Rebecca also, when she conceived twins by one man, our father
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Isaac. For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad.
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Please notice they, individuals, had not done anything good or bad. Yes, they both become fathers of nations, but this is not talking about they're becoming fathers of nations.
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It says, for though they had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to his choice would stand, not because of works, not works of nations, but works of individuals, but because of him who calls, notice his choice, his calling, versus doing good or bad, and because of works.
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There's a contrast. It was said to her, the older will serve the younger, just as it is written, Jacob I love, but Esau I hated.
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Now, here's a very, very quick point to throw out. If your interpretation of this text turns
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Paul's argument on its head, then you need to take your argument up with the apostle, not with me.
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If you're arguing the way that the people opposing the apostle Paul argued, that is indication that you've got the wrong position, if you're at least seeking to follow after the apostolic example.
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What then shall we say? There is no injustice with God, is there? Notice again, the apostle brings up objections to his own position.
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May it never be, for he says to Moses, and here I point out once again, the
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Greek language has verbs we don't have in English. I will mercy whom I mercy, and I will compassion whom
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I compassion. These are active verbs. These are things that God does, and he revealed this in Exodus 33 to Moses, and the apostolic interpretation of this text that is given by the apostle
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Paul, verse 16 says, so then it does not depend on the man, not the nation, the man who wills, men have wills, or the man who runs, that is active, does things.
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Again, these are easily understood words, but on God who mercies.
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So I don't know how much clearer it can be, so it does not depend on the willing of man, or the actions of man, but on the mercy of God.
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That's his interpretation of the words of God to Moses in verse 15. Then in verse 17, for the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose
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I raised you up, that was written to an individual, to demonstrate my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.
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God had a purpose at a particular point in time, and he wanted to accomplish that purpose at a particular point in time.
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He did not wait until someone evil enough, or someone rebellious enough comes along.
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He did not want to do it in one century, he had to do it three centuries later, because he kept waiting until someone would fit into his plan. No, he raised
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Pharaoh up for a particular purpose, that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth. That was God's purpose, and that's what he accomplished.
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The apostolic interpretation of those words in verse 18 of chapter 9 is, so then, he mercies whom he desires, and he hardens whom he desires, and they are placed in direct parallel to one another.
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They are both active verbs, he mercies, and he hardens, and the determination is whom he desires.
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Those are the words of scripture themselves. Then, please notice, in verse 19, you will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will?
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Now, Mr. Gregg has a very unusual reading of this, but I think if we just look at the text and follow the line of argumentation here, it is very easy to understand.
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We've already seen, up in verse 14, that the apostle introduces an objection. What was the objection being raised?
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What would the natural objection to verse 18 be? Well, it's the very one that's raised by most people who don't like Calvinism.
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It's the very ones who raise this objection, they say, well, why does he still find fault for who resists his will?
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If the very word will is in the preceding, he desires to do this, whom he desires he hardens, whom he desires he mercies, how then can
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God judge? Which, because if it's God's will that's being accomplished, he'd have no basis upon which to judge, which, of course, is the very common
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Arminian objection. But, it's the objection that the apostle raises to his own position.
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And I would submit that if you find yourself in the position of the objector to the apostle, you might realize that that means you're on the wrong end of this particular discussion.
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The response from Paul is, on the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? In fact, it's
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O man is the very first in the Greek. O man, who are you, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, why did you make me like this, will it?
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And I would love to be able to expand upon the fact that that is a very full answer. It takes us back to a recognition of our creatureliness, the fact that we are the pot, we are the clay, and God is the one who fashions us and we have no right to put him in the dock, so to speak, and demand of him an answer.
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And the answer then is, you are a man, and you cannot answer back to God, who is the creator.
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You cannot say to him, why did you make me like this, and why? Verse 21, does not the potter have the right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use?
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The potter has that right over the clay. The clay cannot say, you must make me to be an honorable, a beautiful china vessel, or something like that.
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The clay has no right to do this. God has the right as the potter to use the clay as he wishes.
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Please notice, then, that the apostolic Paul's own interpretation of his own words here, though he's clearly drawing from Old Testament parallels, is, what if God, although willing to demonstrate his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, and he did so to make known the riches of his glory upon vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory?
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And there are some who will say, oh, well, they prepared themselves, so on and so forth. What is the direct parallel here? The direct parallel is between those vessels for honorable use and those vessels for common use coming from the one lump in the hand of the potter to those who are being, they experience
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God's wrath, he makes his power known, he brings judgment upon them, he endures them with much patience, but they are vessels of wrath, and the contrast to them is what?
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Vessels of mercy, which he prepared beforehand for glory. And so here, what are these words, mercy and wrath, judgment, all of these are salvation words.
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They're not just, well, we're talking about nations here and God deals with one nation one way and another nation another way.
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He's talking about individuals, he's talking about salvation. This has been God's freedom all along. We'll continue with that in the next section.
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Thank you, Dr. White. Before we move on to the second set of 12 -minute sections for the presenters, let me just encourage our listeners to visit both
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Steve's and Dr. White's websites. Steve's is, of course, thenarrowpath .com.
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Dr. White's is alphaandomegaministries .org, that's A -O -M -I -N .org.
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At both websites, it's easy to locate and access the MP3 files of all five days' worth of this debate once they're all completed, but you can actually access last
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Thursday and Friday's now. You'll also be able to discover hundreds of terrific resources, so be sure to check out those websites.
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And now, Steve, your second 12 -minute section. Well, I would like to interact with Dr.
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White. I hope I will have time after I answer him about Romans 9. I will say that I've heard
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Dr. White and other Calvinists deal with what they think the Arminian view of Romans 9 is, and it's clear that they have apparently not processed the line of argument, which is surprising to me because Dr.
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White is otherwise a fairly careful scholar. Even when he dealt with my treatment of Romans 9 on his webcast,
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I was surprised that he did not understand the argument because his criticisms were not relevant to the argument.
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I would say that if I don't say enough here now, which of course I won't in 12 minutes' time, that anyone who wishes to can go to my website and download my lectures on Calvinism or my verse -by -verse lectures on Romans even more so because I, of course, focus more on the flow of thought there than here.
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I'll just say very briefly, Dr. White thinks that Arminians feel that Paul is only talking about nations here, and he made it very clear that's what he thinks.
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That is not what any Arminian I know thinks, but that's because I think the
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Calvinists have heard that we do believe that Jacob and Esau represent the nations of Jacob and Esau, but apparently they make the mistake of thinking therefore we think the whole thing is about nations.
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No, the whole thing is about God's plan for Israel and God's fulfillment of his promises to Israel. I agree with Dr.
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White that it springs from chapter 8 where it says that no one shall separate God's elect from him.
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And yet the question is raised then, well, why then is most of Israel separated from him? Aren't they the elect?
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And so Paul describes what God means by Israel.
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There are promises made to Israel. In fact, there's statements in the Old Testament that says all Israel shall be saved. And Paul has that in mind, but he wants to explain why this hasn't happened, at least not the way people thought it would, especially the way the
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Jews thought it would. Because Paul's theology teaches that most of Israel is not saved. And so he explains in verse 6, not all are
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Israel who are of Israel. And what that means, of course, is that not everyone who's born from the
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Jewish race is the Israel that the promises apply to. There are promises made to Israel, but not everyone who's
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Jewish is that Israel. The promises belong to a segment of Israel. And that segment, of course, as Paul has developed in the earlier part of his epistle, is those who believe, those who are justified by faith, those who have come to Christ, who are in Christ.
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Okay, so there's a portion of Israel that is in Christ, that is a portion of the Jewish race, and there's a portion that are not.
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These are like two vessels made from one lump of clay. In the Old Testament, Israel, in Jeremiah 18 and elsewhere, was likened to a lump of clay in God the potter.
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And what Paul argues here is that God has done just that. He's taken one lump of clay, which is the nation of Israel. He's divided it into two vessels.
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That is, one vessel is the believing portion of Israel, and the other is the unbelieving portion of Israel.
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The believing portion are for honorable purposes and for glory. The unbelieving are for wrath and for dishonorable purposes.
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Now, that's his argument. Now, how he develops it is he talks about the fact that most Jews think that if they're just descended from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then they are
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Israel, and whatever privileges are promised to Israel should be theirs. Paul says, no, Abraham had two sons.
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He's got Isaac and Ishmael, but only one of them was chosen. God said,
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In Ishmael your seed shall be called. Likewise, Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau, and only one of them was chosen.
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Jacob was chosen over Esau. God said, Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated, and so forth. And he said, the older shall serve the younger.
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And so what he's pointing out here is that even in the earliest days of the Jewish race, there were people who were descended from Abraham who were not the true
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Israel. There were people who were descended from Isaac who were not the true Israel. And he's pointing that out by giving these historic examples.
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And, of course, his argument today is, and he gets to it further in chapter 11, he says, even now today there's a remnant within Israel who have received the grace of God, who are the elect.
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Now, of course, the use of the word elect should not immediately imply Calvinist definitions of that word.
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Dr. White mentioned that there were church fathers before Augustine who used the word elect, and therefore they were
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Calvinist, he says. No, Arminians all use the word elect also. We have to talk about the meaning of that word before we decide whether it's an
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Arminian or a Calvinist interpretation. But that's another story. The point is here that Paul is acknowledging and explaining that not everyone who's
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Jewish by blood is the Israel that the promises are made to, but rather that's a segment within them, one vessel of the two.
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The one lump of clay, Israel, has been divided into two vessels, and they are defined by their faith or their unbelief.
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Now, he's not saying that Ishmael was rejected and Isaac was chosen because of Isaac's faith, and he certainly is not saying that Jacob was chosen over Esau because of his faith.
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But he's not talking about the salvation of those men. If he is, he certainly has hidden it well. There's no suggestion here that Ishmael was lost and went to hell, or that Isaac went to heaven.
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They might have, but Paul doesn't discuss it, nor does the scripture anywhere else discuss it. For all we know, Ishmael might have been saved, but that's not an issue here.
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What is being chosen here is which son will carry on the birthright that is made to Abraham, that through his seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.
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That's the birthright of the family of Abraham. Likewise, that decision was made in the next generation.
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God chose Jacob and not Esau to be the progenitor of the race that would carry that birthright.
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Now, yes, we are talking about nations here, and it's very clear that it is, because Paul quotes two Old Testament verses. He quotes
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Genesis, where God says to Rebekah, You have two nations in your womb, and the older shall serve the younger.
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Now, notice there's nothing there about anyone going to heaven or hell. For Esau to serve Jacob is not anything to do with his eternal life or Jacob's eternal life.
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We're talking about their earthly careers here, that Jacob would be the one who carries on the birthright. Esau would not.
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That's simply what was decided, and it's making Paul's point, that not everyone within the family of Israel is going to have the birthright.
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Not everyone is going to be the elect. Not everyone is going to be the Israel of God. So he points out that Jacob was chosen to carry on that family privilege, and Esau was not.
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Likewise, where it says, Esau I have hated, Jacob I have loved, that's quoting from Malachi. You can look at the context of Malachi 1, it's clearly talking about the nation of Jacob and the nation of Esau.
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These men were long dead before Malachi made this point, but he's talking about how God had wasted Edom's, that's
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Esau's descendants, mountains and so forth, had judged Edom. That's his hatred of Esau.
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So we're not talking about the individual salvation of two men here. We're simply talking about how God has historically, throughout the history of Israel, divided
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Israel into a chosen for privilege and one not chosen for privilege.
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The question of what privilege is in view has got to be taken case by case, but of course by the time Christ came, that privilege included eternal life.
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And so even now, there are two vessels. There are those Jews who follow
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Christ, and there are those who do not. And just as there have always been some Jews that were part of the
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Israel of God and some that were not, so is it now. And it just so happens that the Jews who believe in Christ have, in addition to the
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Abrahamic birthright of being the ones through whom the nations will be blessed, they also have the privilege of personal eternal life themselves, which is of course something that appears to be introduced by Christ.
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It's a privilege of his disciples. So, you know, there is not anything really here to suggest that Jacob, I have loved
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Esau, I have hated, is talking about God hating an individual, and the woman decided to send him to hell. I would challenge
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Dr. White, since he doesn't like eisegesis, and would like to read from the text what's there, to show me where in the text it says anything about Jacob or Esau having any particular eternal destiny, either in the
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Old Testament or in this passage. I find nothing stated about it. I believe Paul's talking about what he says he's talking about.
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That's the easiest way to take Paul. He's quoting Genesis, he's quoting Malachi, and he's talking about the same thing that they're talking about.
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Why would he quote them to make his point if he was not making the same point? So I don't agree with Dr.
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White's argument. You see, his argument doesn't really touch my argument very much, because he didn't seem to understand what my argument was.
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And I don't think he or Dr. Sproul, who I've also read, try to answer this, I don't think he really understands what the non -Calvinists are saying, because they keep misrepresenting it.
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The truth is, I do believe that when Paul says, who are you,
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O man, to reply against God, I think probably the way that Dr.
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White thinks I take it, Paul anticipates that there is an objector going to say, why does
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God still find fault for who has resisted His will? Now, there's two questions here.
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Why does God find fault? And it's based on the question, who has resisted His will? The idea being, the objector thinks that if no one can resist
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God's will, then God can't find fault. The Calvinist agrees with that objector, and says, well, true, no one does resist
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God's will, but God still does find fault, because God can, even though no one resists His will. I believe what
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Paul is saying is, the objector is misunderstanding. Paul has not said anything about no one resisting
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God's will. People do resist God's will in many cases. I mean,
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Paul's friend Luke said in Luke 7, verse 30, that the scribes and Pharisees rejected the will of God for themselves by not being baptized by John.
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And we read all over the place in the Scripture, people not doing what God tells them to do. If God's will is not what
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He commands them to do, but He has a secret will that He hasn't let anyone on about, then His revealed will is somewhat deceptive.
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He makes people think He wants something, but He really has something else in mind. Now, God's sovereign, He can do that if He wants to, but I believe the
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Bible teaches that God isn't deceptive, and I believe that He has basically revealed what He wants us to do.
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And people do resist God's will all the time. I believe what Paul's saying is that this objector is not making a flaw in logic by suggesting that, you know, if no one can resist
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God's will, then God can't find fault. That is the objector's suggestion. But his logic is not bad.
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His premise is bad. His premise is that no one resists God's will. That's a bad premise. People resist
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God's will all the time, and therefore God can't find fault. And I think Paul points it out. He says, well, who are you, old man?
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You're resisting God. He doesn't use that word. He says, you're replying against God. It seems like if you're replying against God, you're in resistance to Him.
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It's like Stephen said to the Sanhedrin, you always resist the Holy Spirit. I believe that people resist
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God all the time. And I know Dr. White, I shouldn't have put it that way, because I know Dr. White's answer to that. Of course, people resist
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God. They just don't resist His sovereign decrees. And, of course, that would be something I'd like to see established in Scripture.
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Before I could accept that, I'd like to actually find a Scripture that says that God has sovereign decrees, such as the
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Calvinist talks about. It would be nice to see something like that before we're asked to believe in such things. Well, okay, now
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I've occupied my whole time with Romans 9. I really wanted to interact with Dr. White about something else. But, boy, the time does go by fast.
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And Dr. White has another 12 -minute segment. I want to say that he is going to bring up Acts 13 -48.
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He's told us that. I will not have an answer for it on this show, because this is my last segment before we're done with the show.
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So I will answer his remarks about Acts 13 -48 and other things on tomorrow's broadcast.
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At this point, I will just turn it back over to Dr. White, or to you, Paul, to turn it over to Dr. White. All right, thank you,
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Steve. You have the award so far for finishing the closest to the allotted amount of time. That was 11 minutes, 58 seconds.
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So, Dr. White, there's your challenge. It's now your turn, sir, to respond with your next 12 minutes. Well, thank you very much.
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I would like to immediately go back to the text when it is still hopefully fresh in people's hearing.
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I guess one of my problems with saying, well, you just don't understand what Arminians are saying, there's all sorts of different Arminian perspectives.
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And, of course, I have debated a number of different Arminians on this subject, including in writing. And so many of them do seek specifically to make this nothing but a discussion of national blessing in Romans 9.
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I would just simply say, if the statement is being made, none of this has to do with heaven or hell.
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And if the term hell has to appear in any reference that has to do with salvation, then there are almost no references to salvation in all of Scripture.
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Notice what Paul says, that he has great sorrow and unceasing grief in his heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen, according to the flesh.
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What's he talking about here? Is he only talking about the continuation of a national line? Or is he talking about the very reason why he evangelizes the
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Jews and calls them to faith in Christ? Of course this is about salvation. Of course this is about God's freedom in the subject of salvation.
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It is what follows through all the way through the entire text. So to say that this is just simply who's going to continue on the name or something like that, obviously does not take into consideration terminology such as not doing anything good or bad because of him who calls, not because of works.
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What are these words in Pauline theology if they do not in fact have to do with the very issue of salvation itself?
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And so when we get to the key text and he's talking about Moses, I will have mercy on whom
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I will have mercy, compassion on whom he has compassion. How does this have to do with the continuation of a national line of blessing?
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Why does Paul then say it does not depend on the man who wills, the man who runs, but on God who has mercy? Is this mercy only in regards to the continuation of the line of one
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Israel versus another Israel? And what does Pharaoh have to do with any of this? Why bring
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Pharaoh in at this point? It would make no sense if that was the thrust, but the thrust is not that.
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The thrust, of course, is explaining. They are not all descendants of Israel who call themselves
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Israel. This issue of God's freedom has been the case all along. God has had the freedom to go to the
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Gentiles, which is going to be what's going to continue on as we go through Romans chapter 9. He's had that freedom all along.
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And then we get to verse 20. I really think this is a good example of the eisegetical characteristic of this kind of argumentation.
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Because you will say to them, why does he still find fault for who resists his will? I believe that Steve just said, well, see, that's where the objector goes wrong.
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People resist his will all the time. This comes right after verse 18 that says,
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So then, he mercies whom he wishes. He hardens whom he wishes.
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This is the very essence of the argumentation, and these are the words that come beforehand. And so the question then becomes, what is this all about?
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What is going on here? This is the Greek term thelo. Whom he wishes, he mercies.
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Whom he wishes, he hardens. You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who resists his will?
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And all of a sudden we insert into this text someplace, oh, well, oh man, don't you get it?
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People resist his will all the time. Is that what follows through beginning of verse 20?
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Do we go to these other texts where people resisted God's intention for them? Do we go to a discussion of the wills of God and secret and revealed and the law revealing the perfect will of God?
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And then the decrees of God, and we can go back to Genesis 15, Genesis 45, and Acts 4, and all the places we've already been to point out these purposes and decrees of God.
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Is that what Paul does? No. He says, well, what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this?
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So the interpretation that says, well, you know, the objector just got it wrong, does not even answer to what
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Paul's response thereafter actually is. And so I think, again, if, you know, we say if we just read the text, you know, some
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Calvinist didn't come along and cram Calvinism into my mind. I remember very clearly having a debate with an atheist many, many years ago.
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And here is an atheist, never been a Christian. He says, it's so obvious when you read the Bible. It clearly says
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God's in charge of all things. He's sovereign over all things, and everything happens according to his will. And it's very obvious, very clear.
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Here is an atheist, had no problem recognizing the default position is, if you just read the Bible, what it says, very clear.
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And he found it very odd. In fact, it was sad. He found it very odd that I would actually defend that. He had encountered so many
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Christians. He says, I just can't believe all these Christians. They try to read all this free will stuff into the Bible, and I seem to believe the
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Bible more than they do. And so he found it very strange that I then came from a reform perspective and defended those very things that I didn't think anybody these days would defend.
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So, again, what I said was, I think that it's very clear that both sides believe the other side has an overriding agenda or hermeneutic or tradition, whatever else it might be.
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Obviously, from my perspective, it is the Arminian who is inserting into his theology a concept of libertarian free will that is simply unbiblical.
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It is contradicted by Scripture. The fact that God calls for us to be obedient, that he uses means to accomplish his will, is not an argument against those biblical texts which we saw that teach that man is the slave of sin.
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As Jesus said, he who commits sin is the slave of sin. The Son must set you free.
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You cannot just simply choose to be free. The Son must set you free. And so it is in that context, then, that I turn to Acts 13, 48, because this is not a text that is trying to didactically teach anything about the sovereignty of God and salvation.
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What it does reflect, though, is the fact that Luke, just in passing, recognizes why it is that some people believe and other people do not.
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And it's not because there are some people who are better than other people. It's not because some people dispose themselves to eternal life or anything of the like.
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The reason that you can sow the seed and some of the seed produces a hundredfold and some of the seed is eaten by the birds, you look at that ground and why is the ground the way that it is?
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Why is it that we can preach the gospel today? And why is it that you might live right next door to an atheist?
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Both of you have heard the gospel. You believe, he does not believe. Is it because you're better? Because you've disposed yourself?
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Because you're more spiritually sensitive? If you find the answer in yourself, I am saying to you that is an unbiblical answer.
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The answer that is given by Scripture is that God is the one behind that. God is the one who must show mercy.
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God is the one who must redeem the person, must free them from their slavery, must change them from being
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God -haters into God -lovers. And so Acts 13, 48 simply says when the Gentiles heard this, and this of course is the situation in the synagogue, the
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Jews have been brought to jealousy to the proclamation of the gospel, there are God -fearers there, people who are attracted to monotheism, but they had not gone through all the conversion rituals of Judaism.
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When the Gentiles heard this, that is Paul saying we are now taking the message to the Gentiles, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the
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Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. Now, I see in those words, in Luke's understanding, the fact that those who had been appointed to eternal life believed.
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That is, it was their appointment to eternal life that resulted in their faith. The fact that the Bible teaches that faith is a gift of God.
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Paul can say the Philippians, Philippians 1, 29, that they were appointed to believe, that this was something that they were appointed to as a gift from God's hand.
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The fact that these biblical texts are there, it doesn't surprise me then to hear
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Luke saying, and as many as have been appointed to eternal life believed. But Mr. Gregg's position, the Synergist's position cannot allow that to stand, because that would make the appointment of God prior to and determinative of human faith.
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And the central point of this affirmation is that it is man who makes this decision, and God can only help,
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He can extend grace, He can do things like that. But fundamentally, it comes down to man. And here's one of my grave concerns in this issue.
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If we look at English translations produced by teams of scholars from a wide variety of backgrounds, we find consistency in what is rendered here.
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The New American Standard, as many as have been appointed to eternal life believed. ESV, as many as were appointed to eternal life believed. This is found throughout the entire range of translations produced by teams of scholars.
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The New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses says that they were disposed to eternal life believed.
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And I find an individual here, an individual there, who might try to come up with this idea that there was a self -action here.
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But what really concerns me, what concerns me the most, is that at this point we can really get into the text.
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And when we do so, a book that Mr. Gregg has referenced a number of times, Robert Shank's Elect in the
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Sun. And I think that pretty much his presentation, both in the MP3s and in the written materials that he's directed me to, comes pretty much from Elect in the
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Sun, beginning at page 183 in the edition that I have. One of the things that really concerns me is that if you're going to overthrow all of these translations, say all of them have missed it, that there is a better translation than these.
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And in fact, to quote Mr. Gregg, he says, of course there is no need to settle for this present translation.
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Another possible translation would be, quote, as many as were disposed to eternal life believed, end quote. This would not speak of God's eternal degree, but of the predisposition, however arrived at, of the individuals who believed on this occasion.
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Now, you then go through a number of verses where you have tetagmenoi.
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And that is the Greek term that is found here. And, well, you can go over here to 1 Corinthians 16, 15, the household of Stavonis have devoted themselves, the ministry of the saints.
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And so, as many as had devoted themselves to eternal life believed. The problem is, there's a reason why all these
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English translations are consistent. And that is the Greek language doesn't exist as simply strings of words put together.
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Tetagmenoi appears as a paraphrastic construction. What really shocked me is that when
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I read Elect in the Sun by Schenck, in all the pages of his discussion, he never once even mentions that tetagmenoi is in a paraphrastic construction here.
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And that determines the meaning. A paraphrastic construction is not just one word. You have to look at both of them together.
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And this becomes what's called a pluperfect translation. That means you would actually have to understand that these
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Gentiles, before ever hearing the gospel presented to them, had disposed themselves to be ready for eternal life.
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And that's why they believed. And that that's what Luke is actually presenting here. And you could never find anywhere in Luke or anywhere else in the
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New Testament where that kind of paraphrastic construction bears that kind of a meaning to insert into this text.
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And so that's what concerns me. I mean, certainly, thankfully, Steve Gregg did not do, in following Robert Schenck, what
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Dave Hunt did, in trying wildly to defend all these amazing statements that he made about Acts 13, 48, even to the point of positing a
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Hebrew original of Acts 13 that no one's ever seen. And yet when scholars did see what no one has ever seen, it actually meant that they disposed themselves.
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But it is the lengths to which people will go in these types of situations to defend this concept of the libertarian will of man that is of great concern to me.
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The text is actually very, very clear, and I'd like to have some interaction next time around on that subject. Thank you,
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Dr. White. And I believe I made 12 minutes on the spot there, did I not, Steve? Excellent, you win.
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Before I turn it back to Steve to close out the show, I just want to remind the listeners, some of whom perhaps have just joined us today, that you can listen to the preceding debates that began last
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Thursday. They are in MP3 format files at both of the presenters' respective websites.
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Steve Gregg's is TheNarrowPath .com, and Dr. White's is AlphaAndOmegaMinistries .org,
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and that's A -O -M -I -N .org. And you'd want to click on the webcast show,
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The Dividing Line, to listen to those. The Dividing Line, by the way, is every Tuesday at 11 a .m.
56:25
and 4 p .m. Thursday. Both of those are Mountain Standard Time. And I'm going to let Steve close us out and tell us the times for his show,
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The Narrow Path. Steve? Well, of course, my show is on every day at the same time it's on right now, which is from 2 to 3 in the afternoon
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Pacific Time. And I do want to thank James White again for really,
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I think, gracing us with his mercying us with his presence here.
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And I don't mean that sarcastically. James White is a very busy man and a very prominent man. And for him to take the time to be on a small -potatoes show like this is really a very kind thing for him to do.
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And I'm sure he does it because he's interested in our listeners knowing the truth, and that's, of course, exactly my interest as well.
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And we'll continue to explore the truth in the next couple of programs together. And we will interact more.
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I know we've been saying that, but we will do that more next time. Anyway, you've been listening to The Narrow Path. Okay. And, yes,
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I'm sure there will be, starting with the next program, more interaction, though I still personally need to get to the key
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Arminian texts, the ones that are, I think, really central. So, Matthew 23 -37, 2
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Peter 3 -9, and 1 Timothy 2 -4. And that will be what I'll try to get to right off the bat, and then maybe we can get to more going back and forth.
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But I'm certain that Mr. Gregg will want to have a response in Acts 13 -48, and maybe then the interaction can begin because I really want to press that particular issue upon him.
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So, Lord willing, tomorrow at 2 p .m. not our regular morning time, but 2 p .m. in the afternoon, continuing on with the five -part debate with Steve Gregg here on The Dividing Line.
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Thanks for listening. We will see you tomorrow. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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