Response to Dave Hunt on Reformed Theology, Part 1 of 3

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Response to Dave Hunt on Reformed Theology, Part 2 of 3, Election

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Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. Whosoever will.
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But wait a minute. You can't have a will. Because if you have a will, then
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God's not sovereign. You understand? God has to be sovereign to the extent that you do not have a will.
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And Calvinists would say to you, Have you read Luther's Bondage of the Will? Well, I've read
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Luther's Bondage of the Will very carefully, and I don't understand how leading evangelicals can praise it. I don't find it either logical or biblical.
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I could drive a fleet of trucks through the holes. I'm sorry. In Lutheran, it's the bondage of the will.
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And so says Dave Hunt in a presentation given, as I understand it, in February of this year,
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Reformed Theology Reviewed in the Light of Scripture. And that will be the subject of the dividing line today.
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My name is James White, and we are going to begin a series that will include a response to Dave Hunt's attack upon Reformed Theology that was a part of this tape that is being distributed.
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It was sent to us. And, of course, we felt it was necessary to respond to it because of the fact that we,
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I think, had a little something to do with getting Mr. Hunt going down this particular road in the first place.
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I'm glad you're with us today. We are broadcasting live via the Internet here from sunny Arizona where it is currently 104 degrees, not overly bad for this time of year.
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Sometimes it'll be 114 at a time like this, but it's only 104, and so I'm awfully glad that it is that much cooler.
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Now, right off the bat, I suppose I should make mention of the fact that anyone who did not listen to the encounter between myself and Mr.
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Hunt on the subject of Reformed Theology might want to take the time to go to straightgate .com
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and listen to that discussion. It took place in August of last year.
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I was filling in for Marty Minto on his program on KPXQ, and we contacted
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Mr. Hunt in light of an article that he wrote in the May, as I recall it was, 2000
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Berean Call. We had the discussion.
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It was a very interesting discussion, and over the months that followed, we began to hear about Mr.
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Hunt doing more on this particular subject. Specifically, I had sent my book,
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The Potter's Freedom, up to Mr. Hunt prior to the program itself, and we started to hear about Mr.
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Hunt writing a book concerning the subject of Calvinism.
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In light of what Mr. Hunt had said in that particular discussion, in light of the fact that he had confessed his ignorance to the
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Reformers and really had not been able to provide any type of exegetical response to the key passages that teach
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God's sovereign grace and the salvation of his elect people, I found it very strange that only a matter literally of weeks after our encounter, this type of thing would be taking place.
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But in point of fact, we have confirmed that Mr. Hunt has written a book. A number of people have seen it.
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A number of people have spoken to Mr. Hunt about this subject, have exhorted him to be very careful, to not engage in a criticism of issues that he does not know about.
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And yet he has chosen to not only go to print, but now he is doing discussions, talks, and we will be looking at one of those talks today.
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Now, many people would say, well, why would you want to respond to Dave Hunt? Well, obviously,
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Dave Hunt has many followers. And sadly, many of his followers will accept whatever he says is gospel truth without looking at the actual issues themselves.
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But more importantly than that, Mr. Hunt is addressing the very heart of the gospel itself and sadly is denying the very truths that freed
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Europe from the bondage of the Roman system in the Reformation and those very truths that we emphasize so strongly in our ministry with Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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Now, many people would say, well, shouldn't we just give Mr. Hunt a pass?
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He's an elderly man now. He's written some good things in the past. His book, Seduction of Christianity, was used of God.
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It was a timely work. So shouldn't we just give him a pass on this?
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Well, that depends on where our priorities are. If we have the priorities of our society rather than the priorities of Scripture, then we'll be much more concerned about what people think about us than what
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God thinks of us and what we think of as truth. But the simple fact of the matter is, Mr. Hunt is engaging in an attack upon doctrines he does not understand.
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We will document that over and over again the course of the next hour and a half. His understanding of Reformed theology is non -existent.
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His understanding of church history is non -existent. He is not a theologian. He is not an exegete.
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He does not know any of the biblical languages and he himself says so. He is not, to my knowledge, under the authority of elders who can give him proper guidance in this particular situation.
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And that makes the situation dangerous. Very dangerous. Now, what is more dangerous even than that is the fact that it seems
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Mr. Hunt is now claiming to have become an expert in the subject of Reformed theology and that in a matter of weeks.
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In a matter of weeks. Last summer, Dave Hunt said that he knew nothing about the writings of the
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Reformers. And yet, in the May 2001 edition of the Berean Call, he claims to know more about the institutes of the
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Christian religion, the 90 % of all Calvinists. He claims to have his office filled with the works of Calvinists that have been marked up.
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And yet, again, recall that while we had our encounter in August of last year, by October, which is only a matter of weeks, a manuscript was already in existence on this subject.
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What kind of thinking can lead a person to believe that they could master, that they could master the entirety of Reformed theology in a matter of weeks?
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I've been studying it for decades and I don't understand all of it. I haven't quote -unquote arrived and yet Mr.
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Hunt seems to believe that he has. And I do not understand that in any way, shape, or form.
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Now, I've mentioned what he said. I think it would be good if I play for you the first question that I asked of Mr.
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Hunt back in August of last year. My concern primarily was the fact that Mr.
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Hunt's article attacks the truth of monergism, the fact that God alone saves and promotes the synergism that he shares in common with the
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Roman Catholic system, emphasizing the free will of man and the fact that grace alone cannot save.
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It is necessary but not sufficient. And so I asked Mr. Hunt about this and I want you to listen carefully.
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This is only August of last year. This is less than a year ago. How Mr. Hunt responded to my question.
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I think between the two of us, we probably have done more debates against Roman Catholics than any other two people put together, probably, certainly in the
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United States and maybe on the face of the planet right now, which is sort of a scary thing to think about. But I have debated, in fact, this past May, I debated
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Robert St. Genes, I'm sure you're familiar with Mr. St. Genes, and we debated justification by faith on Long Island.
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And one of the key issues that came out there, this is one of the main reasons I contacted you, one of the main reasons I wrote you the letter, and this is one of the first issues
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I think we need to discuss today on Straight Talk Live, is the issue of monergism versus synergism.
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That is, the idea that there is one force that brings about salvation over against a synergistic viewpoint which views it as a cooperation, a cooperative effort between two forces, man and God.
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And the reason I brought that up, Dave, as I mentioned in my letter, is that Mr. St. Genes, in representing the
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Roman Catholic perspective, very strongly attacked the Reformed emphasis upon the sovereignty of the grace of God.
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And I guess my first question is, in light of your article and the fact that your article very strongly presents the idea that you reject the concept of irresistible grace, and we'll get into reading some of the sections here, and I encourage you to read those sections you want to read, in light of that, you and I are responding to one of the key issues of the
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Reformation in a different way. And in essence, my first question to you would be, do you feel that the
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Reformers, Martin Luther and John Calvin, were in error in emphasizing the deadness of man and sin and the absolute necessity, not just necessity, but sufficiency of the grace of God to bring a person to salvation?
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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers. I have not had time to read them.
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There are truckloads, I guess, of their writings. And I like to just kind of pretend that we're back there in the days of the
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Apostles before all of these things were written. And I like to go to the Bible.
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So whether the Reformers said this or that, I don't know. I disagree with a lot of...
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Martin Luther, for example, when I read his 95 Theses on indulgences, and when
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I read the Augsburg Confession, it sounds to me like they were still pretty much Catholics.
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So I'm not trying to align myself with the Reformers or with anybody else.
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I just go by what the Bible says, okay, as we all hope we do. Well, there you have it.
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In fact, I think we need to hear this particular section again. Well, first of all,
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James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers. I have not had time to read them.
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There are truckloads, I guess, of their writings. And I like to just kind of pretend that we're back there in the days of the
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Apostles before all of these things were written. There you go. Those are his own words.
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That is August of 2000. It is now June of 2001.
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Ten months later. And in fact, the material that we are going to be reviewing was recorded in February of 2001.
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So we're actually literally talking weeks later. We have the commentary that we're going to have.
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For example, the words you heard just a few minutes ago where Mr. Hunt asserted and said that he does not find the bondage of the will to be very good.
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He could drive a fleet of trucks through the holes in logic in bondage of the will.
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Now, I guess it's possible that Dave Hunt is a photo reader, that he can read material at 500, 1 ,000 times faster than I can and assimilate it far faster than I can.
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I suppose that's a possibility. But given what we're going to hear today,
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I do not believe that that is the actual reality because of what we are going to read from Mr.
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Hunt. Now, before we start listening to a few of the assertions that he makes,
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I think I need to point out that so far in our discussions, and I have sent a few letters to Mr.
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Hunt. In fact, I received a letter from his ministry asking if I would look over the manuscript of his book.
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I wrote back and said, I'd be glad to. However, I don't believe, Dave, that you have any right to write this book.
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I don't believe in your position to do it. I don't think you have the background to do so. He not only says in this tape, but I heard him say just a few weeks ago at a conference we were both speaking at in Indianapolis that he says,
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I know nothing about Greek. It might as well be Chinese. So he knows nothing about the original languages, has no theological background, and yet he's addressing a subject that is simply far beyond his capacity to address and as a result has sadly gone into some simply silly teachings that we'll look at later on.
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So far he has refused to see that he is presenting a theological position that is mainly traditional, not exegetical.
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His refusal to see his traditions is what is most dangerous about his new crusade against the doctrines of grace.
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He will simply quote a verse, he'll give you his Arminian traditional interpretation that is frequently not even semi -related to the original text, assume that that's the obvious meaning and therefore use that as an argument against the doctrines of grace.
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Now, in putting the material together for today's program, one of the big problems that I had to face, and this is something that everyone knows who has ever heard
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Dave Hunt speak, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just the way he is, Mr.
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Hunt has never finished any talk on the same subject with which he began. If he starts on the subject of Mary, he'll finish on a subject in the
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New Age, or if he starts in the New Age, he'll finish on a subject in Islam, or whatever.
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And he will cover a minimum of 5 to 50 subjects in between. He wanders all over the landscape, and he's done this in every single talk
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I've ever heard, and I've heard him speak a number of times. Now what happens is, this makes attempting to respond to him very, very difficult, because the topic's all over the road.
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And so what I'm going to try to do is, you know, I'm a Calvinist, not because of John Calvin, or because of Augustine, or anyone else, because the
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Scripture's plain and simple. And anyone who obtains this tape from the
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Berean Call will discover that the majority of this discussion was an ad hominem attack upon John Calvin and Augustine.
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And we're going to take some time to look at some of that later on, but I don't think that's the important thing, because I'm not a
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Calvinist because of John Calvin. I think it is important to point out that Mr.
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Hunt has given away the store. He calls Augustine the premier Roman Catholic, which is absolutely absurd.
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Augustine did not believe many of the things that define Roman Catholicism to this day. So to call him the premier
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Roman Catholic is just absolutely beyond my understanding. But many of the things that Dave said in this tape about church history were utterly beyond my understanding as well, and all
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I've ever done is taught the subject. But that's secondary to the actual issue of the biblical material.
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And so what I've tried to do is to go into the material, try to keep it pretty much related to where it originally appeared, but pull out the biblical argumentation, the theological argumentation, put all this stuff together, and see how that hopefully will work.
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But to start, I think it's important to recognize Dave's own view.
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One of the things that a lot of people noticed when he and I spoke together last year was that he would say things like, well, my
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God wouldn't do this. Maybe the Calvinist God would do that, etc.,
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etc. And that made a lot of people wonder, is he saying this is a different gospel?
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Is he identifying Calvinism as being cultic? Well, I want you to hear what he says here about the parallel that he draws between his change of position on Catholicism and then his study of Calvinism.
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Some meetings we would have a question and answer time, and some of the ex -Catholics would raise their hands and challenge me.
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You write about cults, you write about false religions, how come you don't mention the Catholic Church?
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And I would say, well, you know, I mean, Catholics, I mean, they believe in God, they believe Jesus died for their sins, and so forth.
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They have some, maybe some peculiar doctrines, but they're basically Christians.
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Well, I was speaking from ignorance. And when I studied what the Church, not what some ex -Catholic said, or what some theologian at Notre Dame says, but when
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I studied the documents of the Roman Catholic Church, what the highest authority says, the canons and decrees of the councils, the
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Council of Trent, for example, which contains more than 100 anathemas damning evangelicals to hell for not believing what they believe.
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When I studied the catechism, now there used to be various catechisms, now they have the universal catechism that came out of Rome with the
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Pope's endorsement and so forth, so they can't say, well, that's the Baltimore Catechism, or that's that, no, we've got one catechism.
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Now when I studied the canons and decrees of the councils, when I studied the
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Code of Canon Law, when I studied what the Catholic Church officially teaches,
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I was shocked. And as one result of that, I wrote a book called A Woman Rides the
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Beast. We also have a video, some of you may have read it or seen that. Well, I must confess the same thing has happened to me with Calvinism.
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When I began to research and really study, I've had to go through everything, because I can't say things that are not true.
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I can't speak from ignorance. I've had thorough discussions with some of them.
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I've read his institutes, I haven't highlighted. I've read the Bonnage of the Will by Martin Luther.
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I've read Augustine. I've gone back and very thoroughly researched, and I must say
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I was shocked. That's why I say it's déjà vu. It's all over again.
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I don't know about you, but it sounds to me like there is a very clear parallel being drawn there between discovering that Roman Catholicism is a false religion and resulting in his writing,
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A Woman Rides the Beast, etc., etc., and what we then have in this study of Calvinism.
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And I think if you then attach that with these words... Jay Adams, in his book
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Competent to Counsel, says this, The counsellor cannot say to the counsellee,
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Christ died for you, because you don't know whether he's one of the elect.
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Now, is that a different gospel? It seems to me that Paul preached the gospel to whosoever will.
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Well, that sounds to me, anyways, like Mr. Hunt is saying, that this is a different gospel.
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That, in point of fact, Calvinism is presenting a gospel other than that which is a gospel that can save.
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That Calvinism is presenting some sort of a perspective that would be heretical or cultic in its viewpoint.
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That's really the only way that I can understand that kind of a comment. Maybe you see it in a different way, but that does seem to be what's being said.
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Now, early on, Mr. Hunt gave a brief citation of a passage.
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And one of the things that has concerned me is I know he has The Potter's Freedom. I know he has
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The Five Points of Calvinism by Edwin Palmer. I know he has some of Arthur W. Pink's works.
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And since I know those books, I especially know The Potter's Freedom, then I don't have any way of cutting him slack, shall we say, for being ignorant of Reformed apologetics, of how we defend our position.
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And so if he presents stuff that does not, in any way, shape, or form, begin to even show the slightest familiarity with the best that we have to offer, let alone even the weakest we might have to offer, then
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I have a problem with that. You see, I've always believed that we should respond to the strongest of our opponents, not the weakest of our opponents.
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That's what we do with our ministry. But it does not seem that Mr. Hunt agrees.
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And of course, Mr. Hunt was involved with the Godmakers books and things like that, and there were problems there, too.
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So there is a history of not necessarily responding to the strongest that's out there. But that certainly is the case here as well.
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For example, here at the very beginning, we have something that sounds very familiar to anyone who listened to the original encounter that we had back in August of last year.
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Let's just begin by quoting a couple of verses from the Bible. Let's take the verse that I presume every
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Sunday school child knows, John 3, 16. At least, that was the first thing
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I learned, I think, as a boy in Sunday school. For God so loved the world.
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Let's stop there for a minute. If you're a Calvinist, it doesn't mean world.
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It means the elect. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten
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Son that whosoever... Is that what it says?
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It sounds like an ordinary person reading that and putting the ordinary meaning on words, you would think that would mean whosoever.
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But to a Calvinist, it means the elect. Just to start out and explain things.
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For example... John 3, 16. Well, of course, that's Dave's favorite verse.
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The problem is, if he had taken the time to look at the books that he says he has been studying so well and studying them so deeply, he would know there's a number of problems with his position.
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It would seem incumbent upon him to deal with the fact that the word world is used many different ways by John in his own gospel.
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In John 17, Jesus said, I do not pray for the world. So if we're going to take it the way Dave Hunt does, did
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Jesus not pray for everyone in his high priestly prayer? In fact, Jesus differentiated between those the
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Father had given him out of the world and the world in that prayer. Something that Mr. Hunt says the
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Bible never does, as we'll see later on. But not only that, he seemingly assumes that the word world in John 3, 16 is all -inclusive of every single individual.
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And yet, does he not then notice, because he makes no comment about this, that the passage says, whoever believes in him should not perish.
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Well, wait a minute. Why say that the love of God is for every single individual and then introduce a particularity?
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A particularity into the text where it's only the believing ones that receive this love.
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It's only the believing ones who will receive eternal life. There's a particularity in the text.
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But not only that, but Mr. Hunt, the word whosoever, if you, again, would understand the original text, as everyone knows,
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I think, who's looked into it, and this is all through the material that Mr. Hunt claims to have mastered now, you know that there is no term there that is translated, well, there's just a universality of this love.
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The text reads, so that all the believing ones, the whosoever is, whatever believing one it might be,
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Jew, Gentile, male, female, bond, slave, free, whatever, whoever believes would receive eternal life.
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And yet, Mr. Hunt reads into the text a concept that is nowhere to be found in the
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Greek text at all. As they see, the normal person just reading the words, well, what words,
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Mr. Hunt? The words that John wrote? Or your English translation 2 ,000 years later with an
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Arminian tradition standing behind it? You see, that's where we need to understand that Mr.
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Hunt may say, well, you know, I think it's just terrible what you Calvinists say, that you should have to learn to do exegesis and stuff to deal with this.
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You all think that only you can do this. This is a subject that down through the history of the church has always involved the examination of the biblical text with care.
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And there's nothing arrogant or wrong to say we need to examine the actual text themselves so we don't make silly errors.
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That's not being braggadocious. That's not being arrogant or prideful. That's showing proper respect for the text.
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And that's why I said to Mr. Hunt when I heard that he was writing a book, Dave, you shouldn't do this.
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You don't have the ability to do this in a way that's proper and pleasing to God.
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Oh, how dare you say that? No, I think God's truth deserves to be respected.
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I think God's truth deserves to be respected.
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What do you think? 866 -854 -6763. We'll continue listening to the comments of Dave Hunt.
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Reformed theology reviewed in the light of scripture or is it reformed theology tortured in the light of tradition?
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We'll be talking about it as we continue here on The Dividing Line. We'll be right back. And welcome back to Dividing Line.
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My name is James White and we are looking at the tape that was produced in February of 2001 offered by the
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Berean Call Ministry from Dave Hunt entitled Reformed Theology Reviewed in the
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Light of Scripture. And it is interesting to note that from Dave's perspective the primary error regarding Calvinism is this.
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I think an overemphasis upon God's sovereignty is at the foundation of Calvinism.
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Such an emphasis that God must be sovereign to the extent that he causes everything that happens.
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Even the moving of a finger, the typist errors, even sin, God has foreordained.
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God tells Adam and Eve don't eat of the tree, but God foreordained that they would.
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And he made them eat of the tree and then he punishes them for doing what he caused them to do.
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Therefore, sovereignty is taken to such an extent that God has to be the one who causes everything.
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Now, it is unfortunate, obviously, in light of the tremendous amount of work that has gone into the explication, the biblical exegesis of the doctrine of God down through the centuries, that Mr.
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Hunt has chosen to ignore the work of those who have come before him. Chosen to ignore the tremendous amount of information that is there regarding God's absolute decree.
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Mr. Hunt has no decree of God. Mr. Hunt, like all Arminians, in essence, has to leave the shape of the future to man, to the creation itself.
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While God has foreknowledge, he admits God has foreknowledge, but he only has foreknowledge because he exists outside the realm of time.
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The actual form of things that takes place in time itself is determined by the actions and the wills of man.
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And that type of theology, of course, is the very type of theology that I find greatly dishonoring to God and completely incapable of providing a meaningful interpretation of Isaiah, a meaningful interpretation of many of the statements of the psalmist.
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I'm not going to repeat everything that's in the Potter's Freedom or God's Sovereign Grace regarding the sovereignty of God and his decrees.
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Let's just say that so far I have not seen Mr. Hunt even attempt to address the passages that very clearly present
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God's utter sovereignty and his decrees. The only one that we'll get to today, he does make an attempt to deal with Ephesians 1 .11,
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but he doesn't deal with Acts 4 .28. He doesn't deal with how God makes all things work out to the good if that is not a part of his sovereign decree.
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It's just simply not a part of the presentation that Mr. Hunt makes. And so, therefore, it's very easy to mock the relationship between God's decree and Adam and Eve and to just simply pass over the assertions that are made in Scripture that it was
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God's decree that Jesus Christ was nailed upon the cross, that it was his predestination to cause this to happen, and yet men are held accountable for their sinful actions.
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He just doesn't deal with them. And that is why we have noted this before and I will make it known again.
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Mr. Hunt, we're going to send this tape up. Dave, we've had good conversations in the past.
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I think we'll have good ones in the future. But you are touching here the very heart of systematic theology, the very heart of apologetics.
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And Mr. Hunt, I challenge you to debate. I challenge you to debate me on this subject.
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I want to do a Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday evening debate. I want each session to be at least three hours long.
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That's a total of nine hours. And I want to debate these issues formally, in a moderated way, videotaped and audiotaped.
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I believe that if you were right, you would have absolutely positively no reason not to do this.
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That if you're right, that what I'm doing in promoting the Reformed faith, as you will say later on, you call it a libel on God's character.
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But, the simple fact of the matter is I do not believe that your position can withstand any type of cross -examination.
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And so far I have not seen you forced to deal with the biblical passages that have caused
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Reformed exegetes to believe what they believe. And so I challenge you, sir, to a debate on this subject,
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Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night. It would be a marathon, but it would be worthwhile to the
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Church, because the Church needs to hear this discussion. Most people know that I've challenged
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Norman Geisler to debate, but he won't. He has turned down offer after offer after offer to engage in this very same debate.
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Well, Mr. Hunt, if you are going to present this kind of material, if you're going to go around saying that Reformed theology offers a libel to the character of God, I challenge you, sir, to debate the issue.
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Let's do it. Let's arrange it. I know of at least two different cities, people in two different cities right now that want to host it.
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Actually make that three. Maybe we can do it in all three. That would be fine too.
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It doesn't matter to me. Let's do the debate. Let's talk about what you are claiming in this particular tape and in the book that you have written on this subject.
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Now, we continue on. Mr. Hunt gave a review of the various points of Calvinism, and the very fact that these reviews, the various outlines that he gives are in error shows that there is a major problem in his understanding.
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Let's listen. T -U -L -I -P. T, total depravity. By total depravity, you would agree that people are depraved.
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But they mean unable to believe the gospel. Therefore, because they're unable to believe the gospel, they must be regenerated before they get saved.
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Now, that's I think a strange doctrine because I thought that regeneration, Jesus is talking about it to Nicodemus, is he not?
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And you are born again by believing the gospel that Christ died for your sins upon the cross.
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The Calvinist says, no, man is totally depraved, which means he is unable to believe the gospel, unwilling and unable.
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Therefore, he must be regenerated, he must be given new life before he can believe the gospel, before he can have faith.
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Now, those of you who have heard the encounter that we had last summer knows that Mr. Hunt finds this very, very strange.
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And yet, in that encounter, he was unable to respond to the passages that I presented that clearly showed regeneration as being something that takes place prior to faith, that faith is a gift of God.
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He did not respond to the information in the Potter's Freedom that documents the fact that man is incapable, because of his total depravity and spiritual death, of doing anything that is pleasing to God, Romans chapter 8, verses 7 -8.
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I have not heard any response to that either. And it's interesting to note that in the next section of the presentation of the various five points of Calvinism, Mr.
36:20
Hunt, in discussing unconditional election, basically goes back to attacking total depravity, which should tell us something about the fact that obviously he does not believe that man is truly dead in sin.
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In fact, he's going to make that very clear in this next section. And he does not understand the theocentricity of the
36:39
Reformed perspective. His tradition is so anthropocentric, so focused upon the man in his response, that he does not understand the focus of Reformed theology.
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Listen to what he says here. For you, unconditional election, you have nothing to do with your salvation.
36:58
Now they take it to an extreme. For example, they say, well, if you could believe, then that's a work.
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No, that's not a work. The Bible distinguishes between faith and works, does it not? How about Romans chapter 4, verse 5?
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Now to him that worketh not but believeth. Isn't that distinguishing works from faith?
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Or how about by grace do you say through faith, not of yourselves, not of works. It's by faith, not of works.
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But the Calvinist says, oh no, if you could even believe, you cannot do anything. You cannot even believe, but God sovereignly determines certain ones that he will regenerate so that they can believe the gospel.
37:42
So that's unconditional election. It's not dependent upon anyone's faith. I thought it said by grace are you saved through faith.
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Paul said to the Philippian jailer, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
37:57
Ah, but you are dead in trespasses and in sins. How can a dead person believe?
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You see, God has to do it all. Just as Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, Lazarus couldn't do anything.
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Wait a minute, you don't equate spiritual death with physical death. If you want to do that, a physically dead person can't rebel.
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They can't disbelieve either, right? So you can't equate spiritual death with physical death.
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Furthermore, does it not say of us as believers, Romans 6, you are dead to sin.
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Is that not true? Does that mean you couldn't sin? Well, then the person who is dead to God, it doesn't mean that he can't return to God either.
38:40
Okay. Well again, Mr. Hunt claims to have all of these books at his disposal.
38:51
Claims to have read them. Claims to understand them. And yet all of the
38:58
Reformed people in the audience are going, he has no idea what he's talking about.
39:05
How can you have these books available to you that discuss these things that would give you an understanding of what the position is, and yet so badly misrepresent it?
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When we talk about a man being dead in sin, we are talking about the fact that man, as the fallen son of Adam, is without that divine life that is a part of what we are supposed to be when we're in union with God.
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And that as a result, that individual is in rebellion against God, cannot do what is pleasing to God, Romans 8, 7 -8.
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That the will of that person is enslaved to sin, as Jesus taught.
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He who commits sin is a slave to sin. And as a result, the deadness refers to incapacity.
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An inability to do what is good, not an inability to do what is wrong, Mr. Hunt. And so, there is, again, this has all been explained in the material that Mr.
40:10
Hunt claims to have mastered. I think that's what we know most, is that there is this
40:17
I've read all this stuff, and it's all wrong, and here's why, and yet those of us who know we have read all this stuff, and not just since August of last year, and in fact, some of the stuff we wrote, know that either
40:32
Mr. Hunt didn't read it, or he didn't understand when he read it. One of the two.
40:40
But it is interesting that instead of dealing with unconditional election, what's the normal response to unconditional election?
40:47
Well, it's to assert that God foresees our faith, and that that becomes the condition for his electing us, so on and so forth.
40:56
He doesn't even make that point. Go that direction. I don't get the feeling that he is aware that that is the direction that most
41:04
Armenians go with that. But, as we will see a little bit later on, Mr. Hunt actually goes into some very unusual beliefs in his presentation here that go far beyond what most
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Armenians do. Now, I'd like to start taking some of your phone calls at the top of the hour.
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I'd like to have about half hour worth of your interaction with what you've heard so far. So, if you'd like to be calling in now, 866 -854 -6763.
41:36
866 -854 -6763 is the number, and we can discuss some of the things you've heard up to the top of the hour if you'd like to participate on the dividing line today.
41:46
Now, of course, after unconditional election, what comes next? The terrible, horrible
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L. And he does bring this up a number of times. But here is one of the first statements, and listen to how this is placed.
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You can't help but hear the sinister sound in the background. Listen to this.
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Total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement. That's shocking to many people.
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Christ did not die for everyone. We have to come back and talk about that when we talk about God's love. Because if Christ died for everybody, then some of his blood was wasted.
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And if people could reject the gospel, then they're in charge, and God is not. We want to come back and talk about that.
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Well, he never really did get back to talking about that, but this part especially. Limited atonement.
42:38
That's shocking to many people. That's shocking to many people. Hey, that's shocking to Dave Hunt. Let's be honest. Dave Hunt finds limited atonement absolutely reprehensible.
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And yet, as we pointed out last year, what he presents in its place is the idea that, well, if God's truly to be loving, then he has to love everybody the exact same way.
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And Christ has to die for everybody the exact same way. And the result of all that is real simple.
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That if God's to be loving, then Jesus has to fail as the substitute for everybody who goes to hell.
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Or God isn't loving. The idea that Christ could actually accomplish accomplish the salvation of those for whom he dies.
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Well, that would make God unloving. No, it doesn't make God unloving in any way, shape, or form.
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But obviously the presentation... Limited atonement. That's shocking to many people. That's shocking to many people.
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Well, you know, now that I've understood what the issues are, I find the other much more shocking.
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That Jesus Christ's death could actually fail to redeem those for whom it's made.
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That God would punish twice. Punish the sins in Christ of John Brown.
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John Brown's sins are atoned for by Christ. Christ suffers in the place of John Brown. And yet then, because of the almighty will of John Brown, he himself will be punished a second time.
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Those same sins punished once in Christ and then punished a second time for eternity in John Brown. That somehow is in some way, shape, or form better?
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Is that what we're being told? Well, I certainly don't believe that and I hope you do not believe that either.
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Well, he continues on. Irresistible grace. That means
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God makes you believe because you wouldn't believe otherwise.
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Well, can you... Can a man be made willing against his will? What's the old saying that says a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still?
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Did God give us a will so that we could love? Must it not come from the heart?
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You can't even receive a gift without choice? We want to come back and talk about that with relation to sovereignty then.
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Well, unfortunately, Dave, even though he does say, well, Calvin did say we have a will and he said that it's just perverted and it's enslaved.
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A bunch of times, though, he says, well, you have to have a will to do that. He does the exact same thing Norman Geisler did in Chosen but Free.
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In essence saying, well, Calvinists say we have no will. Instead of recognizing that what we believe is that the will of man is enslaved to sin until he is born again.
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And so you have this, well, he forces you to believe totally, again, once you don't believe in total depravity, once you don't believe man's really dead in sin that certainly irresistible grace makes no sense.
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But when we allow the scriptures teaching which specifically asserts man's deadness in sin and his incapacity.
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Remember last year, if you've listened to that before, Mr. Hunt had no response for John 6, 37 -44.
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He ran from it as fast as you could run from something. He had no response then.
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He continues to have no response today. Man's incapacity, once you understand that then irresistible grace simply means resurrection power.
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Resurrection power. It's irresistible because man is dead in sin. It's not rape.
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It's not a Chatty Cathy doll. It's not any of those types of things at all. It is simply resurrection.
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And should we not rejoice in that? Since we are undeserving, since we are the ones who are rightly under the wrath of God, should we not rejoice that God in His grace takes that rebel sinner while I'm still in the act of spitting in his face and he takes out that heart of stone and he gives me a heart of flesh?
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What does Mr. Hunt do? Does he quote the Bible? No, he quotes an old saying.
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An old saying that he, that individual who is forced against his will remains unconvinced still and all the rest of it.
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That's not exactly Romans 8, is it? No, it isn't
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Romans 8. And there's a reason for that because Romans 8 doesn't teach that kind of thing.
47:52
Well, he continues on and again I would invite you to get online 866 -854 -6763 866 -854 -6763 if you'd like to join us today and to discuss some of the things that you have heard in regards to Mr.
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Hunt's presentation. We can at least, between now and the top of the hour, round out the five points, shall we say.
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And interestingly enough, Mr. Hunt is right about this one. He looks at the final point, the
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P, and this is what he says. P, perseverance of the saints. Well, you would think that we would agree on that.
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I'm sorry. They have a different reason for believing once saved, always saved, and that is not that you believe in Christ, but that you are one of the elect.
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Did you catch that? Their reason is not that you believe in Christ, but you're one of the elect. Well, Mr. Hunt, the elect believe in Christ.
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The elect believe in Christ. That is part and parcel of the work of God in their hearts.
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So you continue to believe in Christ because it's the work of God within His elect people.
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The reason for eternal security, the only reason to believe in the perseverance of the saints, the only reason to believe in the perfection of salvation is that it's the work of God.
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If it's based upon the work of man, well, what is your basis, Mr. Hunt, in believing in the perseverance of the saints?
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If you chose to get into it, why can't you just choose to get out of it? I really look forward to getting the opportunity.
49:36
If Mr. Hunt is willing to debate and, you know, Dave's done a lot of debates.
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Dave doesn't back down. If Dave really believes this, then I think Dave will do the debate. Why do you believe that you had the freedom to get into this thing?
49:53
You had the freedom to get into salvation. Why don't you have the freedom to get out?
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If that free will is so definitional of what it means to be a human being, you know,
50:10
Mr. Hunt does the same thing. He talks about the, you know, we're not puppets, you know, we're not just robots.
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Got to have this free will thing. God doesn't have to have free will to be God, but we have to have autonomous will.
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Well, if that's the case, then let me ask you. Let me ask you really clearly. Why? Why can't
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I get out? Why can't I get out of, once I've said I want to join up, why can't
50:40
I get out? Well, I've never heard an answer to that.
50:47
If it makes you human to have that free will as an unregenerate person, then how come you can't have it after you're regenerated?
50:55
I don't understand it, but hopefully we'll get an opportunity of finding out when
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Mr. Hunt and I can talk about these things. 866 -854 -6763.
51:08
Here's one more. We've still got a few minutes before the top of the hour. We're going to have to throw some water on those phone lines over there.
51:17
They're just steaming up. Actually, there's a debate going on in the chat channel. I think people are paying more attention to that than anything else actually at the moment.
51:26
But anyways, that's another issue altogether. Earlier on, I said that this really does come down to an issue of claiming that Calvinism is a different gospel.
51:41
One of the things that Mr. Hunt does say is that he does believe that the fundamental issues of Calvinism create a libel against the character of God.
51:54
And here's exactly how he said it. Our topic in the second hour is Sovereignty, Mercy, and Love.
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And the subtitle is In Defense of God's Character because I believe it is a libel on the character of God to suggest that he does not love everyone enough to want everyone to be saved and that Christ did not die for everyone.
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Well, there you have it. From Dave's perspective, from Dave's perspective, it is a libel on the character of God.
52:31
A libel on the character of God. Let me play it again. Because I believe it is a libel on the character of God to suggest that he does not love everyone enough to want everyone to be saved and that Christ did not die for everyone.
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So, if you believe in any particularity in the love of God, if God has an elect people to whom he shows his love in a special way in Jesus Christ, then you're libeling
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God's character, according to Dave Hunt. And if you believe that Jesus Christ's work of atonement was perfect in behalf of his people, that he actually saved by his death, he didn't just make salvation a theoretical possibility, but he actually saved, that he obtained eternal redemption, that he perfects those for whom he dies, if you believe those things.
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And according to Dave Hunt, you're bringing a libel against the very character of God. We need to keep those types of things in mind.
53:43
866 -854 -6763 866 -854 -6763
53:50
It's time for us to be taking our break and for those people who are just waiting to get in, now's your time, just you might sneak in if you call 866 -854 -6763.
54:02
We'll be right back. Is the Mormon my brother?
54:08
Bethany House Publishers presents James White's book Is the Mormon My Brother? In television campaigns, parachurch events, and clergy fellowships all across the
54:17
United States, Mormons are presenting themselves as mainstream Christians. Is it unloving or backward to say they aren't real
54:24
Christians? In contrast to Christian monotheism, the belief in one God, Mormonism teaches that God was once a man who lived on another planet and was exalted to the status of God, and that Mormon men can also become gods upon death and resurrection.
54:39
In his book Is the Mormon My Brother? James White demonstrates how this fact alone means Mormons and Christians are irreconcilably at odds at faith's most basic level.
54:49
Is the Mormon My Brother? is now available from Alpha and Omega Ministries Book Ministry. You can order Is the
54:55
Mormon My Brother? from our website at www .aomin .org.
55:01
The Conference on Rome. Over 13 hours examining major doctrines and issues that separate Roman Catholicism from Biblical Christianity, featuring the leading
55:09
Protestant apologists on Roman America today. Listen to Dr. Eric Svensson's presentation, Rome Has Spoken, The Matter Is Debatable.
55:17
When the Roman Catholic apologists insist that the principle of sola scriptura has resulted in over 25 ,000 denominations, we should in turn insist that the principle of scripture plus an infallible interpreter has resulted in an even greater number of religious cults.
55:32
Pastor Rob Zins addresses the evangelical romance with Rome. There was not a Roman Catholic church in the first five centuries.
55:40
There was to be sure a Catholic church, but this is the universal designation of the body of Christ.
55:46
It is not Romanism. Pastor David King, the impact of Romans 117 on Martin Luther.
55:52
How is one himself to have that righteousness which God requires, yea demands, and which is utterly indispensable to salvation?
56:05
It is by faith, and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we lay hold of the
56:12
Lord Jesus by faith alone. And Dr. James White examines the veneration of saints and images.
56:19
Do you think if such a person were brought before Moses, having just been caught bowing down before a statue and lighting candles and rocking back and forth in prayer, do you think
56:30
Moses would have accepted the excuse, I wasn't giving Latria, Moses, I was only giving
56:36
Julia. Other topics addressed in this tape series, is there something about Mary, scripture sufficiency, the
56:41
Roman versus Protestant view, canonizing the Apocrypha, an assault on scripture, Rome's sacraments, an assault on Christ's gospel, and purgatory, an assault on Christ's perfect atonement.
56:52
Look for this tape series and many others at aomin .org, that's a -o -m -i -n -dot -o -r -g, the conference on Rome.
57:04
And welcome back to Dividing Line, my name is James White and we have folks online now to discuss
57:10
Dave Hunt's, well, 2001 tape, Reformed Theology, examined or reviewed,
57:18
I actually don't have the tape in front of me, in the light of scripture. But before we take those calls,
57:24
I would like to provide you with one last example from this tape, specifically in regards to the issue of Dave Hunt and his use of exegesis.
57:40
And specifically we're going to be looking here at Ephesians chapter 1, verse 11.
57:46
Well, you know what, actually I'm going to, I'm going to reverse that. I'm going to look back here at my list of stuff that I put together here and I would,
57:56
I'd like to go with a different example of this. It's one that some of you who have listened to the tape are familiar with.
58:04
I'll leave Ephesians 1, 11 for later. But how do we deal with scripture?
58:10
And especially how do we deal with scripture as it comes into this particular passage? Here is, here is an example of Dave Hunt dealing with a scriptural passage that is relevant to the subject of predestination election.
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And remember, Dave Hunt says, I don't know anything about Greek. Listen to what he does here.
58:31
Even if you could find some verses, there are some difficult verses. For example,
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Acts 13, 48. Premier verse for the Communists. And when the
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Gentiles, Acts 13, 48. When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the
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Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. Whoa, that sounds like how are you going to get around that one?
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Well, this comes out of the Latin Vulgate. But Greek words, and I know nothing about Greek.
59:06
Greek words have, look it up in your concordance. You'll find a number of possible meanings, right?
59:13
Possible uses for many Greek words. And for this one there are many uses.
59:19
Ordained is one possible interpretation. But another place in the
59:24
Bible is translated addicted themselves to. They addicted themselves to the ministry of the gospel.
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There are different words that can be used. Now which one would we use here? Looking at the context, go back to verse 46.
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Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you.
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But seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the
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Gentiles. There were Jews when they heard the word, they rejected it.
01:00:01
It wasn't something that they wanted. And then he goes to the Gentiles.
01:00:07
And verse 48 says, then as many of the Gentiles and the proper reading would really be who were disposed.
01:00:14
Who in contrast to the Jews considered themselves, they don't want this but the
01:00:20
Gentiles who said we want this, they believed. And I think the context makes it fairly clear but anyway we'll have to move on.
01:00:33
Well, Acts 13, 48 As many as were ordained to eternal life believed,
01:00:41
King James Version. As many as were ordained to eternal life believed, American Standard Version 1901.
01:00:47
As many as had been appointed to eternal life believed, New King James Version 1982. And all who were appointed for eternal life believed,
01:00:55
New International Version 1984. And as many as had been destined for eternal life became believers,
01:01:00
New Revised Aaron Version 1989. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed, New American Standard Bible Update 1995.
01:01:08
And all who were appointed to eternal life became believers, New Living Translation 1996. And all who have been appointed for eternal life believed,
01:01:15
New English Translation 1998. I don't know of any English translations that render the passage the way that Mr.
01:01:28
Hunt renders that particular passage. Who were disposed?
01:01:35
Is that what he said? You know, when you have to come up with a translation that no English translation in the world has ever come up with, might that mean something?
01:01:47
Greek words have, look it up in your concordance. Oh, look it up in your concordance.
01:01:52
Is that how we do translations? Greek words. And I know nothing about Greek. I know nothing about Greek.
01:01:59
I know nothing about Greek. That's Dave Hunt saying that. And I know nothing about Greek. Except we can somehow come up with a translation of the passage that is not found in any other
01:02:12
English translation whatsoever and not in any of the English translations that Mr. Hunt himself uses.
01:02:21
You're saying, well, you shouldn't pick on him about this. My friends, I sent him the
01:02:29
Potter's Freedom. I wrote him a letter. And in the
01:02:35
Potter's Freedom, beginning on page 186, is a discussion of Acts chapter 13, verses 46 through 48.
01:02:44
All those translations I gave you are listed on page 187, 188.
01:02:51
I provided other examples of this particular word in its grammatical form in the book of Acts.
01:03:00
And of course, that's what's relevant. You don't go to a concordance when you don't know what the grammatical form is or how the particular author is using it.
01:03:07
That's called eisegesis, not exegesis. And I provide him with that information. For example,
01:03:12
Acts 22 .10. I also provided Acts 28 .23.
01:03:27
I provided footnotes. In other words, you see, my friends, there's no reason for Mr.
01:03:32
Hunt not to know what the Greek term is, what it means, how it's used by Luke, the author of Acts, and what its real meaning is outside of Mr.
01:03:44
Hunt's traditions. And I don't think that anyone, no matter what good they've done in the past, should be allowed to come up with an alternate translation no one's ever seen before just because you don't like what a passage says.
01:04:00
And I'll be looking forward to asking Mr. Hunt why he does that when we get together and debate.
01:04:10
866 -854 -6763. Let's talk with Clayton down in Louisiana.
01:04:18
I'm sorry, Louisiana. I was just down in New Orleans, so I'm trying to remember how everybody talked down there. Louisiana, where I can guarantee you the relative humidity is a minimum of three times what the relative humidity is here.
01:04:33
In fact, let me look here. Oh, no, no. Where the relative humidity is a minimum of four times what the relative humidity is here.
01:04:41
Right, Clayton? Yeah, hello. I don't have
01:04:47
Clayton in Louisiana. Do I have Mark in Tampa?
01:04:54
Do I have Pierre in Centerville? Do I have anyone? Is there anyone on the other side of the wall?
01:05:01
We're working on it. Okay, well, that's where someone puts your fingers together and you're stretching out a piece of bubble gum.
01:05:11
Talk and say nothing until we figure out what... Oh, I heard a noise.
01:05:19
But I don't have anybody. Well, y 'all let me know when you figure out where everybody went.
01:05:27
And I'll continue on. Let me see here what I've got.
01:05:34
Hello. Hello. Who's that? This is Clayton. Hey, Clayton. How you doing, man? I'm doing fine.
01:05:39
I had like tons of dead space. Sorry. That's okay. We didn't know where you went. But the genius engineering staff has found you and has put that little stream of electrons together so that we can talk to each other.
01:05:55
There you go. Well, I wanted to just give a testimony as to the power of actually expositorily going through the
01:06:05
Word of God and what it does to understand the Reformed faith. My church thought that Calvinism was a theological disease.
01:06:16
Everything Hunt's saying is everything we believed and what we were taught. But we actually went through the book of Romans from chapter 1, and we were told by several pastors not even to go through Romans 9 because it would cause too much trouble.
01:06:31
But we did it anyway. And by the time we reached chapter 10, the whole church was Reformed. And not because Calvin said it, not because Luther said it, not because Hunt said it, but because the
01:06:41
Word of God says it. And so I would just, anyone out there that's struggling with this is where the reason
01:06:47
I wanted to call anyone that's hearing this for the first time and thinking, these Calvinists, I would just ask them to systematically, obviously getting your materials would be great, but to go through this themselves and let the
01:07:00
Word of God teach them. And what it's done for our church is it's made us have a total increase for our love of God.
01:07:08
You know, before we thought, hey, we're just one of the people who got it, meaning we got it, right? But when we realized that the
01:07:15
Lord opened our hearts so that we could believe, as He did for Lydia in Acts 16, to understand that is to fall on your face before the almighty power of God and to appreciate and to love and adore and worship
01:07:27
Him like something we've never done before in our entire Christian life. And to know that and to see that, and it also creates tremendous compassion.
01:07:37
It's sort of a crazy idea that if you believe a Calvinist doctrine of election that you will say, hey, what's the point?
01:07:43
We're not going to do anything and walk around and be cold to people. But I've never grieved more for the loss of my entire life.
01:07:50
In fact, I find myself when I'm in traffic around the city of New Orleans, I'll start to weep just looking at everyone and thinking to myself about their eternal destiny.
01:07:59
So it's a misnomer and it's a total falsehood that anyone that would believe in election becomes cold and callous.
01:08:07
I think it's made us more sensitive to God's grace. Well, one thing's for certain, the only ministry that's in Salt Lake City at each general conference is a
01:08:16
Reformed one, not an Arminian one. And I think that history demonstrates that to be the case, that it is an untrue assertion that that causes a destruction of a desire to see the lost saved.
01:08:31
But at the same time, I want to emphasize, you're exactly right in saying we need to go through the Word of God.
01:08:36
And that's one of the things that's really, really bothering me. Really, really bothering me concerning what
01:08:44
I'm hearing from Dave Hunt is that it is not dealing with an exegetical presentation of the subject.
01:08:51
It is simply giving you bits and pieces. Later on next week we'll play a section where he says, the
01:08:57
Bible says that Christ came to save sinners. And for the Calvinists, that's just to save the elect.
01:09:03
And I say, no. Not only are all the elect sinners, but we're the only ones who really believe that passage because it says to save, not simply make their salvation possible.
01:09:15
And yet people don't see that because they've heard it in the same context over and over and over again.
01:09:21
And so it's an amazing thing. Well, thank you very much, sir, for your input on the program today. Okay. All right.
01:09:27
God bless you. Bye bye. 866 -854 -6763. Let me just mention someone is saying, and we'll get to this, but I just want to go ahead and address this since this is something we can do.
01:09:41
One of the passages, of course, that Calvinists refer to a lot and has been referred to in our chat channel recently is
01:09:47
John 644. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.
01:09:53
This particular passage is, I think, one of the most, just tremendously clear passages in all the
01:09:59
Bible concerning this particular subject. And the specific words is being addressed in the channel.
01:10:10
And one of the participants is saying, well, this just simply means to, when it says that the person is drawn, means they're just simply attracted.
01:10:21
I would like to point out that the one who is drawn by the Father, and that's the same term that is used of Peter drawing the nets up onto the shore.
01:10:31
I don't think he was attracting the nets up onto the shore. But that very same term it says, unless the
01:10:37
Father who sent me draws him, the very same him is the one who is raised up by the
01:10:44
Son on the last day. And so I would ask George in the chat room if he is listening.
01:10:50
If this is a mere attraction, if this is not an effectual drawing to the Son, then how is it that the one who is drawn to the
01:10:59
Son is also the one who is raised up on the last day and receives eternal life, if it's not actually the one who is effectively brought to the
01:11:07
Son. If this is the very same one, of course, discussed in John 6, 37 and following, where it specifically indicates to us that the
01:11:15
Father gives a people unto His Son. I just thought I'd mention that in the passing.
01:11:21
Let's go ahead and talk to Mark out in Tampa, Florida. Mark, are you there? I am here. How are you doing, Dan? Oh, goody.
01:11:26
How are you doing, sir? I'm doing great. I am so sick of hearing this. It's an affront on the character of God that He doesn't love everyone enough to save everyone.
01:11:36
This gets so old. And the real problem with the argument is the Armenian has the same problem. Oh yes,
01:11:42
I know. The God of Armenians, He makes people, He knows they're not going to believe Him, and He makes them anyway.
01:11:48
And the real irony of the fact, at least as far as I can see it, is that the Armenian God doesn't love anyone enough to save anyone.
01:11:55
Yeah, it's amazing to me. I want to be able to ask Mr. Hunt, who continuously says, oh, you know, how dare
01:12:02
God consign billions to hell for their sins? Well, wait a minute. When he started getting into it, he basically presented the idea that, well,
01:12:11
God created the universe, but the actual events in time are not determined by God.
01:12:17
God has perfect knowledge of them only because He exists outside of time. Well, I want to ask him, well, if you believe that God has perfect foreknowledge of future events, can they be different than what they are?
01:12:29
And I don't get the feeling that he's ever been asked that question. Secondly, are you saying that God created a universe in which
01:12:36
He did not, when He created it, did He know what the outcome was going to be? And how did
01:12:41
He know what the outcome was going to be? Is that not a decree? Or did He just simply know that, oh, hey, you know, if I create this way, it'll turn out alright, so I'll go ahead and do it that way.
01:12:50
Or if He does create knowing that at the end there are going to be billions in hell, which Dave Hunt does believe, how then does that result in anything different, as you yourself pointed out, than what
01:13:02
He's accusing the Calvinist God of being so terrible and horrible about? Other than this, and that is the Calvinist God brings purpose and result out of all of that, and the
01:13:11
Arminian God doesn't. Right, he just sits back and watches it run. He watches it run, and these terrible, horrible things happen, and what does he do?
01:13:17
He sits there and goes, oh, man, that's a bummer, I didn't see that coming. Or if he does see it coming, why did he bring it into existence if it's so terrible and horrible, instead of recognizing that the consistent scriptural teaching is that when
01:13:31
God creates and He decrees that everything is purposeful, that even that which we don't see the purpose for has a purpose, it has a meaning, and man, can
01:13:43
I really get into preaching on that one, because when you start talking about counseling those people who are going through difficulties and who have lost a loved one and all the rest of this stuff, my goodness, if there is no purpose, then let's go eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.
01:13:58
See how much he harps about the sovereignty of God then. No kidding, no kidding, yeah. Again, I really hope that Dave will pick up the challenge, because the key issue of meaningful debate, and certainly in the debates we've done recently, this has become more and more a central aspect, cross -examination, the conversation going back and forth between the two sides, that is absolutely vital.
01:14:24
So, thank you very much, Mark. Well, can you find some place that would host it?
01:14:31
That's the important part, is that we have folks in Indianapolis who have already said that they would host it.
01:14:37
We have a church in San Diego that said that they will as well, and the important thing is setting up a good video setup, audio setup, and making it available to everybody.
01:14:48
That's the important thing. God bless you, Mark. Thank you for calling. 866 -854 -6763.
01:14:57
Let me just mention again, just in passing, there is someone in the chat channel saying that the primary meaning for Helcuso, John 644, is a tract.
01:15:07
That's not what Bauer, Donker, Arndt, and Gingrich say. That's not what BibleWorks says. Just simply listing a word as a possible meaning.
01:15:15
And this is one of the things that Dave Hunt did that was an error. Just because a lexical source lists a meaning for a word does not mean that that word can bear that meaning in a particular context.
01:15:26
I would like to challenge George in the chat channel to answer the question I asked before, and that is everyone who's drawn by the
01:15:34
Father to the Son is raised up on the last day. If that drawn is not effective and efficient, please explain how that works.
01:15:40
I'd like to see how that is answered. We continue on with our phone calls in the last 10 minutes of the program today.
01:15:47
We talk to Pierre in Centerville, Virginia. Hello, Pierre. Hello. How are you doing?
01:15:52
Thank you for taking my call. I'm calling to just say that normally
01:16:00
I don't agree with Dave Hunt, but in this instance I would have to say that I agree with essentially almost everything he said.
01:16:08
I would imagine so, yes. I think he has fairly eloquently outlined the argument, which is in fact scriptural rather than philosophical, which
01:16:22
I believe is the position really that you end up taking. I guess
01:16:28
I was a little disturbed by the position that you seem to take, that Dave Hunt is somehow not qualified to defend the position simply because he is, in your view, not sufficiently educated to deal with the topic as if the topic has to be dealt with only from a theological or that you have to be a philosopher or a theologian to discuss these things.
01:16:56
Actually, you need to be a biblical exegete because that is the foundation of the system. That's the issue that we're dealing with is what does the scripture teach concerning the issue of God's freedom and his perfection and saving?
01:17:08
And since Mr. Hunt does engage in biblical exegesis, that is the interpretation of biblical passages, commentary upon the meanings, the original languages, etc.,
01:17:17
etc., yes, to make comments in those areas would require that you do the requisite work to be able to substantiate the assertions that you're making.
01:17:27
When you take the place of a teacher as he has done in his books and in his ministry, when you take that position, then the scriptures say that you're going to be held accountable.
01:17:38
And I would say that the history of the Church demonstrates that those who have engaged this subject have done so on the basis of what
01:17:47
John wrote or what Paul wrote or what is found in the Gospels of Matthew or whatever, and that they did so on the basis of the languages that were used to make the mistakes that Mr.
01:18:00
Hunt has already made by assuming, for example, in John 3 .16, the word whosoever is actually in the
01:18:06
Greek text and that it has a certain meaning. That's where a tremendous amount of confusion comes in when we don't do the work that's necessary to really rightly divide the word of truth, to rightly handle the word of truth.
01:18:17
You know, I have before me a comparative study Bible which has four different translations all by Greek scholars, and they all use that word whosoever.
01:18:27
I would have to conclude that the majority of Greek opinion is that the word whosoever is in there, perhaps not in quite so many words, but certainly the intent of the writer is that it is a open invitation whosoever.
01:18:44
Actually, the intent of the writer – I've got something strange going on in the headsets here – the intent of the writer is to say that whoever believes the actual
01:18:52
Greek text itself is very expressive and is very clear, and there is no quote -unquote
01:18:58
Greek scholar that would dispute this. Specifically, it says, in order that every and then hapistuon.
01:19:05
And see, what happens is when you use pas, pas, pas, upon with a substantival participle in this way, the only way that the
01:19:14
English can attempt to express that is to refer to the entirety of a group.
01:19:21
So, whoever believes, it doesn't matter whether you're male or female, Jew or Gentile, whoever the believing one is, that one will not perish but have eternal life.
01:19:33
It is the tradition of Mr. Hunt to insert into that construction the idea of, well,
01:19:43
God has not determined to whom he's going to give the gift of faith. It is a universal thing.
01:19:49
There is nothing in the text that makes that assertion. I would say that that's really not the case at all.
01:19:56
I think even using your language, you still have an open invitation that whoever chooses to believe is going to be saved, will have eternal life.
01:20:07
So, Pierre, you don't understand what hinah pas hapistuon means, do you? Well, I understood what you've explained.
01:20:16
Okay. So, I just explained to you that the construction is referring that pas hapistuon means everyone believing.
01:20:25
Yes. Can you give me any basis for saying that in reality
01:20:30
I'm lying to you? No. I'm just saying that even using your language, you're still whoever believes, whoever chooses to believe.
01:20:42
Yes, everyone who believes, who chooses to believe. Now, where are you getting who chooses to believe? Could you show me where that comes from in the text?
01:20:53
The word chooses is not in there, obviously. So, where is that coming from?
01:20:58
Especially in light of the fact that John himself records Jesus saying that no one can choose to believe in Jesus outside the enabling of the
01:21:09
Father, John 6 .65. John where? John 6 .65. Okay.
01:21:16
Jesus was saying to them, this is why I told you no one can come to me unless the
01:21:21
Father has enabled him, or the numeric standard says has granted him, unless it is granted to him from the
01:21:27
Father. That's the repetition of John 6 .44, which, by the way, was what we were talking about in the chat room as well.
01:21:33
So, in light of that inability of man, no man is able to come to me, John 6 .44.
01:21:39
Why do you insert into John 3 .16 this capacity, this ability, when there's nothing in the original text that refers to it?
01:21:49
Because there are many other scriptures which clearly infer that.
01:21:55
For instance, you were talking about John 65, which I've just read here. Again, you have the presupposition that the
01:22:03
Father doesn't give the ability except to a few. I would submit to you that the
01:22:08
Father gives the ability to everyone, but not everyone chooses to take that ability which was given him and accepts to Jesus Christ, but rather they choose to walk away from him.
01:22:21
That's why there are so many, the passage in, I think it's Matthew chapter 21 or 20, where it says, you know, many are called, but few are chosen.
01:22:31
Well, there you have the same problem that we just discovered the fellow in the chat channel is actually a Jehovah's Witness.
01:22:38
You have the same problem that he has and that is he cannot answer John 6 .44 which says, no one could come to me unless the
01:22:44
Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up at the last day. The one who was drawn by the
01:22:50
Father to the Son is the one that the Son raises up in eternal life in the last day. So all those who are drawn are given eternal life.
01:22:59
They are saved. Again, to be drawn means to be attracted to. They find something that is to their liking in that.
01:23:08
And how do you know it means to be attracted to? Well, that's what it means to be drawn, it means to be attracted.
01:23:13
You know, the moth drawn. Did you know it's the very same word that's used of Peter bringing the nets up onto the shore?
01:23:21
Did Peter attract the nets onto the shore, sir? No. So he drew them up onto the shore.
01:23:27
The word drawn has to be interpreted within the context. Yes. It's quite clear that the fish, you know, were not attracted but were pulled in because of the nets.
01:23:40
In this case here, it's a totally different situation. Actually, the context is very similar because Jesus is here explaining the unbelief of the
01:23:47
Jews. He's explaining why they will not come to him. And so the context is directly parallel and that actually makes a very strong point that the
01:24:01
Jews were grumbling about him and this is his response to that. Well, thank you very much, Pierre, for your call today.
01:24:07
And I'm sorry, Johnny, we weren't able to get to you but we're going to be continuing this next week here on The Dividing Line.
01:24:13
So I hope you will all join us at that time. It will be an interesting discussion because there's much more that we will be able to discuss at that time concerning the teachings of Dave Hunt on the subject of Calvinism.
01:24:28
And Dave, brother, I hope you'll take my challenge. We'll get together. We'll debate this. We'll do it upright.