June 17, 2004

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602. Or toll free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Church Polity and the New Book on Five Views

So what you're telling me is the publisher is working on finding a book that the publisher already published, and in fact someone in channel already purchased from somebody else, but they can't find it for us to order.

Is that, is that, oh hello everybody, I'm doing my Rush Limbaugh impersonation there. He often comes on talking to those voices in his head, and that's what I was doing too.

Yeah, but the voices in his head don't talk back.

Actually, if you're not in your car and you're like listening really carefully and you're in a quiet place, you can sort of hear him through the headphones because he's got those, you know, he doesn't hear well.

And same thing with Barry Young here locally. So sometimes you can hear them, but they don't have the sonorous tones that you are famous for. And that may someday cause there to be a whole following of you and things like that.

Anyway, so we, hi everybody. Those of you who have seen the blog know that we've been blindsided. There is a book out that I've been talking about every little while. And every, well not every little while, I've mentioned it two or three times on the program.

Perspectives on Church Governance, Government. Actually, Five Views on Church Polity. And my copy, well my two copies, didn't get a lot of author's copies this time. I normally try to get enough that I can sort of hand them out and give them to folks.

The church, stuff like that, got two copies and one of them got trashed. So I've only got one copy. But it's out and one person who will remain nameless because he's wonky, already purchased his copy from someplace other than Alpha and Omega Ministries.

And that's very disappointing to us and started the day off on the wrong foot and all the rest of that stuff. But you know, that's just, this person is wonky, but I won't mention his name. And that's just how he is.

So anyway, they are already out there. We are trying to get hold of it as quickly as is humanly possible so that we can put a nice little link up there just under the, under or above somewhere, the cruise information on the website.

And that way you can order it. And you know, I realize this is not exactly the most scintillating topic on the planet. I recognize that books about Mormon temple ceremonies and conspiracies and prophecy and all that kind of stuff would sell a whole lot more.

There's no question about that. But there isn't really a lot of, this is a fairly unique book. There's not a lot of stuff out there where you have interaction and defense of various views. And let's face it, for most folks, you do church the way you do church because it's the way you do church.

I mean, there's not a whole lot more to it. There are very few people I've met who go to a church and embrace its church government because they became convicted through biblical study that this is what you should do.

And so they left where they were and went someplace else. There are some folks, I suppose. But let's face it, for most folks, it's just, well, you know, okay, so maybe our church doesn't really do it the way that I see in scripture, but it's close enough.

And we sort of interpret this this way. You don't get a whole lot of debates. You don't get a whole lot of strong feeling about things like that. But I have noticed, the one group that's not the case is when I've raised issues like this with people who are in ministry themselves, especially young pastors in seminary context.

And I've thrown out some of the stuff that, you know, certainly would give a challenge to your standard young Southern Baptist, in essence. And they go, oh, I had never really thought about that before.

And boy, that really explains a lot about the struggles I'm having in the church right now. And, you know, I mean, let's face it, in a lot of Baptist churches, you have deacons who function as elders.

And they become deacons based upon the requirements for a deacon in scripture. But then when they function as an elder, they can't function as an elder because they don't have the qualifications of an elder because they are actually deacons.

And the result can be very, very bad. And so, you know, it's important. And then, of course, amongst Reformed folks, and we know that, according to certain people, we shouldn't even use that term unless you, you know, hold certain very, very narrow beliefs.

But amongst the broad Reformed camp, whatever is left of that these days anyways, you have the difference between a Presbyterian form. You have some Reformed Anglicans. You have, you know, variations on the Presbyterian form.

And so you have a hierarchy there. And that's different than the position that I would hold in regards to a plurality of elders within the local church. And so the one reason you might want to grab this book especially is because the Presbyterian position is represented by a well-known Presbyterian scholar who has written a new systematic theology of the Christian faith, Dr. Robert Raymond.

He is very well-known, undoubtedly the most well-known of the writers, I'll admit. Sorry, all respects to everybody else. Dr. Raymond is the only person that I knew in the group when the names arrived and who was to be involved and so on and so forth.

I just honestly didn't know anybody else. But I did know Robert Raymond. And our interaction, it's not extensive. When reading someone else's chapter, for example, you only have one response, one 2 ,500-word response maximum.

And so on some of the other presentations, I think one of them I only managed to scrape together about 600 words because I just didn't feel there was that much to say in response to it. It just didn't strike me as being compelling enough.

But Dr. Raymond's response, Dr. Raymond's chapter, I used 2 ,498 out of 2 ,500 words. So I went all the way to the max with that. So you'll be able to see at least somewhat of an interchange, somewhat of an exchange, between myself and Dr. Raymond in regards to the Reformed Baptist versus the Presbyterian view of church polity.

And at least wherever you end up coming down on that, you'll have some idea of where some of the argumentation is. One of the presentations has, like, was it 155? I mean, just one chapter. I mean, no, it's more than that.

Good night. Here we go. That's right, 318 footnotes to one of the presentations. Talk about massive documentation, far more than I did. I actually thought that the point was to, you know, communicate with a lay audience.

So there are some differences in the means of presentation. But I think it would be worth getting, and we obviously will be carrying it, Lord willing, once the publisher discovers that they have published it.

Yes. We called this morning. We called the number that was given in the letter that came with my books. If you'd like to buy more books, here's the number to call. So we called that number. We've never heard of that book.

Is it new? It's like, oh. All righty, that's really good. So anyway, keep looking at the website. I head out of town tomorrow. I'm back on Long Island, Lord willing, by tomorrow evening. And so that will result in a slowdown in blog posting and things like that.

But keep an eye on the right-hand column. We call it the ad column. They're on the website where you currently can buy the Great Debate 9. You can learn about the cruise. And don't forget, for you procrastinators, and I know you're out there, there's somebody sitting there right now who has said, you know what, I'm going.

I want to see the debate. I want to hear the conference. I want to go on the cruise. I'm going. And you have yet to click on the link. You have yet to get in touch with Michael Fallon. You're putting it off.

And today is the 17th of June, and you've gone, eh, you know, what can I say? The low rates, the early bird rates have been extended to the end of June. And so I'll just take care of it. I've got plenty of time.

And there's somebody sitting out there. I'm going to talk to you.

You're going to email me. You're coming to channel. I want to go, but I can't go because I wait until July 4th. The rates were up.

And you're just going to be whining. And I'm going to go, so you were just working 48 hours a day through June 30th, and you just couldn't do it, right? And so just don't put it off. Get it done now. And so on and so forth.

You can also get a book there we haven't mentioned for a long, long time called Debating Calvinism, Five Points, Two Views. I'm just sort of going down the thing here. The Lord of Glory, excellent. The Bible works, six.

The Greg Stafford debate. Did Mary have other children? Oh, that was fun. And so on and so forth. So take a look at the ad column. Sometimes that just disappears from your thinking. I think we ought to change the color of the background of the ad column.

I almost did it myself, but I decided not to because it would have taken too long. But I think we ought to make it match, there we go, with the rest. It's just too yellow. I know it's the same color as the Alpha Omega Ministries, but I think it should be one of the other colors, one of the lighter blue colors.

Anyhow, that's another here and another there. 877 -753 -3341. Just as I was, well, I leave tomorrow, and so you know what happens? I get all the edits for the Sola Scriptura book last night. So all the stuff where the editor is saying, what's the reference to this?

Could we put this in? And I'm trying to get everything ready to leave tomorrow and trying to do that. And so I'm just like really massively stressed out because, you know, I'm going to be up until the crack of dawn just trying to get ready to leave, and then you're all tired when you travel.

So I'm not a happy camper about that. And it's just how it always works. There's never a convenient time, I guess. But that's just sort of how it has happened today. And so trying to get that done. At least I'm now seeing some movement on that.

It's been a little bit of a concern to me because it's supposed to be out in a not too long period of time before it comes out, and it's supposed to be in October. And who knows? Maybe it'll be a little early, too.

Maybe it could be late September. I don't know. But we'll probably have a little more lead on that one and probably be taking pre-orders and things like that because that's an important bump. But trying to get all that stuff taken care of.

And so we're inviting you to participate in the program today. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. And I got a couple emails. That's what I was saying. I knew there was something I was saying before that.

Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. You're going to have a five-hour flight to New York. You can knock it out then. Knock what out then? The edits? That's the problem, Mr. Centurion bookstore owner type person, is that to do the edits, you have to have your library.

And the library doesn't go on the plane real well. It sort of sits on these shelves here in my office, and that's what makes it very difficult to do that. See, there's the problem. Let's see. Oh, I closed my inbox.

Why'd I do that? I had just gotten a note, and we're talking 3 .55 p .m., and it starts at 4. So right before the program. And I think what is being said here, I'm going to interpret, hopefully going to interpret this correctly, is that the folks at the Reformed Baptist Theological Review are going to be posting a portion of my article on the New Covenant.

I have a two-part article coming out in the Reformed Baptist Theological Review. The first 11 ,000 words is exegesis. The last 9 ,000, interaction. Two parts and two different portions. And the July issue of the RBTR comes out, well, in July.

And then in the January edition, it's going to be split into two. And I think this is saying that there's going to be a portion of that article posted on the RBTR website. If that is the case, then I will very quickly, as soon as I see it, link to it on the blog, so that I can again encourage you to subscribe to the Reformed Baptist Theological Review at www .rbtr .org.

And so you can keep up with that. I think that this article is one of the more important, especially these days, articles that I've written of late. So keep an eye open for that. And then we got an email from France.

Yes, from France. It's crossed the wide open seas faster than man had ever crossed them before. And interestingly enough, we have readers outside the United States. And the current blog war battle over the issue of St. Francis de Sales, Francois in French, has really generated a lot of response from our readers.

And that's why I've taken it as far as I have. That's why I've pursued it as far as I have. The reason I've done so is because I've had a number of people say, you know what? Up until this particular exchange, where I've got a concrete person, I've got an individual who, this is a guy who knowingly knew what he was doing.

This isn't some guy acting in ignorance. This is some guy who knows what Reformed theology is. He knows what the gospel is according to the Reformation. He knows about justification. He knows about predestination.

He gets released from being troubled about predestination while bowing in front of a statue of Mary. Hello! You know, that, I don't know. It's hard to even express. Just like, you know, that might mean something.

So anyway, here's a guy who hates the gospel. He is an enemy of the faith. He seeks to destroy the gospel. He seeks to bring people into bondage. He specifically attacks the truth of God. And so to see this man described as a father in the faith, he is our father in the faith.

He's a part of our heritage. To hear a description of how a Reformed Baptist like I cannot appreciate the heroism of Francis de Sales. Well, you know what? No, I can't. It's sort of like being an American and being asked to appreciate the heroism of the 9 -11 hijackers.

I think that's a direct parallel. I mean, a perfect parallel. Well, I do not appreciate the heroism of the 9 -11 hijackers. They hated America and they gave their lives attacking America. And so I don't appreciate the heroism, if you want to use that term, of Francis de Sales either.

Because he was attacking something even more important than a nation. He was attacking the gospel of Jesus Christ and bringing people into bondage. Well, we got an email from France. And it said, James might be interested to know that during the 19th century, so this would be the 1800s, the Societe Saint-Francois de Sales, the Saint Francis de Sales Society in English, was the Catholic organization in charge of converting French Protestants to Romanism.

Okay, someone's telling me it's DeSalle. Okay, that's nice. That's like Sault Ste. Marie. That's fine. Was the Catholic organization in charge of converting French Protestants to Romanism. For this, everything was used, including bribing poor Reformed families, or having the Catholic landlords trying to pressure their Protestant farmers to convert.

Now, the history in France of persecution of Reformed people is very long. You read the beginning of the Institutes, you know. He continues on by saying, I've had the opportunity to study extensively the history of this group.

My mother's family has old Huguenot roots. No need to say I was shocked to see a so-called Reformed guy quoting and endorsing him. That's a sad patronage it just shows, and he goes on from there. So that's a very, very interesting viewpoint there as well.

Of course, someone might say, yeah, well, he didn't live then, so you can't exactly hold him accountable for what his followers did long after that. But I understand that, I suppose. But it has helped a lot of folks to see the difference between defining Christianity based upon the Gospel, the message of what God has done in Jesus Christ, not just the Lordship of Christ.

And you know, that's the big thing now, too, thanks to N .T. Wright and to the followers of N .T. Wright. The Gospel is the proclamation of the Lordship of Christ. Well, that's partly true. It's partly true.

It's not entirely true, but it's partly true. And what we're seeing is so many people who glom onto that and go, ah, you know what? We've missed it all this time. We've missed it because we've been focused on this stuff about individual forgiveness and all the rest of that stuff.

And so we've missed the boat, and what we do is we proclaim the Lordship of Christ. And it's like, okay, and so all this stuff about the cross and all this stuff about justification and forgiveness and redemption.

Oh, yeah, we get to that, too, but you need to keep everything in order here. I don't see exactly how this movement is going to stay cohesive or coherent, either one. I really don't. What do you say to people?

What do you proclaim to people? What's the message? How do you excite anybody about things like that? I don't know. I don't know. Anyhow, yeah, I've never figured out how to do that, though. You just grab them by their baptism, and I've not figured out how that works, and who can figure out how it works?

I don't know. I agree. It sounds like it might hurt. The first time I heard that was the first thought I had. I was climbing Squaw Peak, which is now Paestua Peak, and I heard somebody from Auburn Avenue say, grab them by their baptism.

And I'm just like, I was trying to figure out exactly how do you do that, and what does that involve, and can you be arrested for it? Those were the thoughts that immediately crossed my mind. Anyway, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number, and that is the phone number that, as I scroll back here, Craig up in that wonderfully independent little state up in the northeastern portion of the United States is called, called New Hampshire.

At least I'm assuming that's what NH means. Hi, Craig. Hi, how are you doing? Is that where you are? Yes, I am. What is the thing there? Is it a spring or something? You got to get out? You got to go up this trail?

Live free and die? Oh, man, I was very, very, very young, and I just remember my parents were all excited about driving through New Hampshire, and we had to stop and go up this trail and look at this spring or something coming out of a mountain.

I forget what it was all. It seems like a long time ago now. Anyhow, I've been there, and it's much different than it is here, where it's currently 103 degrees with 12 humidity. It's not 103 in New Hampshire, is it?

No, not at all.

Okay. What can we do for you, Craig? I was wondering if you had any plans in the near future to write your own systematic theology? You've probably been asked that like a million times.

I have been asked that a million times, and my response to everyone who asks is you have to be smart to write a systematic theology, and I ain't, so that is just so far beyond me. The problem is what I might be able to write if I had enough time would be something that would be sort of like an apologetic theology, but a systematic theology, there are just so many areas.

In fact, today it's sort of sad. There is so much material out there that I don't think anyone can master all of it or can even begin to do so, but there are certain areas that I just know I'm really, really, really, really, really weak in, and I would feel badly even portraying it as a systematic theology, but an apologetic theology would be focused upon those elements of faith that are most often under attack.

That would be something that would be a little bit more down my alley, but to be honest with you, the sad thing is a number of my books that I've written for Bethany House have gone out of print recently, and the reason is Bethany was purchased by Baker.

Baker doesn't keep a real active back list like Bethany did. I mean, you could write for Bethany House back in the 70s and 80s, and what she wrote for them would be in print for 20 years because as long as it was moving at all, they'd keep it in print, and it was perfect for books that had sort of a niche audience.

They were needed, but they weren't real big sellers. Baker's changed all that, so both my youth books, What's the Dude's the Door, What's the Mutant Microscope, they're gone. All the Mormonism books are gone, and so I don't know what the future holds.

I have two more contracts to fulfill with Bethany House, and then after that, I really don't know. We'll see. I mean, I have some areas I want to address, I think need to be addressed, but there's only a certain number of areas where I feel like I can add something that is worthwhile, and there's all sorts of other areas where I know there's people who know a thousand times more than I do, and I just don't know why they won't address it in such a way that regular old folks can understand what in the world the debate's about.

Yeah. How about like, you know, like...

Well, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by a discussion of it. I mean, the Potter's Freedom is fairly lengthy, and I can see why someone would look at debating Calvinism and go, yeah, well, I could have gotten through with half of that book.

But I do have a little book called God's Sovereign Grace. I'm not sure if you've seen that, which presents the five points. And so I've actually written three books now, if you include Drawn by the Father, four books specifically on that subject.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Just one of the last questions, if I could ask. Sure. As a Calvinist, one of the things that I find difficult arguing with Armenians about is what they usually say is if total depravity, you know, if man is unable to respond to the gospel without the aid of the Holy Spirit, then why does Christ speak in parables?

Well, actually, the Lord himself gave the explanation for that, and it's not... You know, it's funny. Someone was asking this morning, well, why... If total depravity is true, then why does the Bible contain all these phrases like, so that they might believe, or so that you might do this, you might do that?

And I said, well, how is the regenerate person, once he's regenerate, supposed to know what he's supposed to do, unless the Bible tells him what to do? And the problem that a lot of people have is they try to take the eternal decree of God and they try to bring it into a temporal context and create contradictions that shouldn't be created in the first place.

In other words, well, if it's true, this overarching principle, then you wouldn't have God instructing us in this way. Or in your question, well, if men can't respond anyway, then there's no reason to use a parable, because everybody's just going to sit there and look at him anyhow.

Actually, Jesus is communicating a number of things to the disciples. For example, you have the issue of his messiahship, which he specifically tries to keep quiet, because of the fact of all the misunderstandings of who the messiah is supposed to be and things like that.

And then you have the use of parables, specifically in the teaching of Christ, and he explains it's because these things are to be given to you. Not that, well, if I just teach openly, then everyone's going to believe me.

There's no indication, for example, that Jesus was teaching in parables in John 6 to the 5 ,000, and yet they, wow, something just happened. And yet, uh-oh, something's going wrong here. I'm not doing anything, honestly.

And yet they do not hear, and they do not respond. And in fact, Jesus speaks clearly to them in the synagogue Capernaum in John 6, and when he does so, their response is to reject what he has to say. And when Jesus explains why they're going to reject what he has to say, he grounds it in the fact that, like in John 8, they don't belong to God.

So it just doesn't follow that, well, he had to do that lest they repent or something like that. That was part of judgment. I mean, when it is explained in John chapter 12 about God's judgment upon the people of Israel, it's given a context in regards to judgment and so on and so forth.

So I don't see that that follows at all.

Can I just ask one last question?

Real quick, we'll take a break right after we're done with that one.

Since you deal with book publishers all the time, have you heard of any rumors of people possibly translating Calvin's facsimile of Job? I can't find a copy of that anywhere as far as it being written in modern English.

I haven't the foggiest idea. The publishers that I tend to deal with probably wouldn't be doing that kind of thing. I haven't seen that myself, so I wouldn't have any knowledge of that. Sorry. Okay, thanks a lot.

All right, God bless. You too. Okay. 877 -753 -3341. Going to take our bottom of the hour break and then come back with Gary in Texas and your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341. We'll be right back.

Man is such a rarity today. Many stars, strong and true, quickly fall away.

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This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.

The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.

Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26-GRACE.

If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org, where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

Now the pilgrim's progress is not an easy way. It's a journey to the sun.

Editing Scripture References and Bible Software

And welcome back to the Dividing Line. I've got two edits done during the break. I'm sitting here going, okay, all right, well, why would that be confusing? Oh, okay, well, here's the reference, you know.

And the NIV here says Aramaic. Well, it's right there in Acts 9. Have you got to look these things up? You know, it takes a long time to do editing stuff. It really does, you know. In fact, I'm just going to go here and see search versions.

I'm using BibleWorks 6 .0. This is not BibleWorks 4 .0. It's BibleWorks 6 .0, which, amazingly enough, is available through Alpha and Omega Ministries. And you, too, could be using BibleWorks and Aramaic.

And wow, look how fast that is. Did you see how fast that was? Did everyone out there see how very fast that was?

It went by so fast, I never saw anything.

You know, they used to even tell you how long it took. It took 0 .09 seconds. It tells me that down at the bottom of the screen. Isn't that impressive? Yes, okay. Well, Acts 26 .14 and Acts 22 .2, those are the references, Acts 22 .2 and 26 .14.

Some of you are going, what are you talking about? I'm just trying to help the folks out back at Bethany House get this thing right. That's what I'm trying to do here. Oh, only one more to do after this.

I will be able to pack my clothes. I'm not going to be homeless while I'm in New York. It's going to be great. All right, 877 -753 -3341. Let's go down to Texas and talk with Gary. Hi, Gary. Hey, Dr. White.

How are you doing? I'm doing all right. How's everything there? Oh, it's just fine. I'm a little bit on the busy side, you know. We've got some fresh cattle in. We've got to get them all rounded up and into the corral before the night comes.

So, you know, it's a busy time here. You know what I mean?

Well, you know what they say about Texas, don't you?

I've heard a lot of things about Texas.

It's as much a state of mind as it is a state of the union. There you go. Anyhow, what can we do for you? Well, first of all, before we get to the meat of everything, I wanted to ask you about your straight gate.

It hasn't been updated since April 15th. Well, first of all, it ain't ours. That's the problem.

That's not our website. We have lost all contact with straightgate .com. I've mentioned this on the dividing line and on my blog. We are currently archiving recent programs through the very same source by which you're listening to this, and that is our good friend Pete up in Nova Scotia.

Okay. And there will not be any more updating at Straight Gate because we can't get hold of anybody, and we can't post anything there and can't do anything about it. So we will put recent programs, somehow make room so people can listen to that, and then they'll be available as we update the MP3 archive for purchase for a whopping $1.

So that's the best we're going to be able to do.

Okay. All righty? What I was really calling about, Dr. Wild, I've been busy the past couple of months studying preterism. I was wondering if you had a chance to look at it and see what your viewpoints are, or see if you were supportive of it.

Well, it depends on what you call preterism, of course. That term has lots of meanings, so what do you mean by it?

Well, just the viewpoints of how to approach the Bible, you know, studying it in the Hebrew and studying it, you know, that Revelations was actually fulfilled in 70 A .D.

Well, if you're talking about the historic meaning of the word, and that is that there are elements of New Testament prophecy that are fulfilled in A .D. 70, then almost every eschatological viewpoint accepts that and functions upon that, except for probably dispensational premillennialism.

If you mean by preterism what would be called pantalism or hyperpreterism, which says that all future prophecy was fulfilled in A .D. 70, that the eternal state was brought into existence in A .D. 70, the resurrection took place in A .D. 70, that Christ returned in A .D. 70, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, then that is rank heresy, and it is a tremendously troubling belief that is being promoted.

In fact, there was a book that just came out, and I'm going to try to turn things around here. I can't find it right now, unfortunately. As a book just came out, Keith Matheson edited it, and I unfortunately can't get my microphone to turn far enough to where I can see where it went over here, but it's supposed to be right behind me.

Let's see if this is it. No, that's not it. Did you ever have a chance to read the book, The Parousia, by Dale Russell?

No, I'm familiar with it, and it's one of the key texts that the hyper-Preterists use and try to promote their system in. It's referred to frequently by the authors in the new Keith Matheson work and dealt with in there, and so that's what I would direct folks to at the moment.

It was interesting. I got a note from the Preterists, not the Preterist Archive, but one of the leading Preterists, and they were, I don't know how I got on their e-mail list, but they were asking their supporters to buy the new Matheson book from them and then help them to respond to it, and I forwarded that note off to Keith, and I said, you know, when your opponents are selling your book so as to ask their supporters to help them to respond to it, that normally means you did a fairly decent job, and so that's what is going on at the moment.