Tim Staples on Purgatory

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. And good morning and afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line, important programming announcement.

It's on the blog, but I'll remind you yet once again that on Thursday, this coming

Thursday, I will have a special guest on the program and no, it is not Harold Camping.

I'd like to be able to say yes, Harold Camping's called me up, he has repented, he has seen the light, especially in light of Turretin Fan's wonderful articles demonstrating that his entire biblical chronology is made out of straw.

But no, it will not be Harold Camping. I don't expect to hear that from Mr.

Camping, but hey, what can I say? I'm sitting here watching three guys scoping out my bike out there.

It's sort of distracting me just a little bit. They're all going, hey, it's a great ride.

As soon as someone gets on it, I'm going to go, hey, that's my ride, get off of it. Thank you very much. You don't play with a man's motorcycle.

But anyway, this Thursday, the two old, fine, they're going to listen to that.

They listen to these programs, you know? Anyway, it's going to be edited out of the final version it gets posted on, all right.

Anyway, this Thursday, Daniel B. Wallace, professor of New Testament, Dallas Theological Seminary, head of the

Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, Greek grammarian extraordinaire, and all those other things will be joining us.

Dan and I met the first time in 1995 on the set of the John Ankerberg Show when we did the eight -part series on King James Onlyism.

And we have been in contact ever since then and met a couple times since then.

And he has graciously agreed to be on the program this Thursday. So you might want to, in fact, that's what we're going to do with those books,

Rich, is we'll do this on Thursday. We've got original copies of the King James Only Controversy signed, two of them.

And we'll probably get them, we'll figure out a way to get those to callers on Thursday who call in.

That's, yeah, that's the end of existence, yes, it's... The last two in all of existence. Yes, yeah, 32 pages shorter than the current one.

But anyways. But hey, you know, the thing about that one is I typeset that book.

I mean, when you have an original copy of the King James Only Controversy, you've got something that the author not only wrote, he also typeset the whole thing.

So I think Dan just went out there to say, hey, they're looking at you. I think maybe he was listening and he's pointing up at the camera.

That's right. There you go. Stay away from my motorcycle. Anyway, Dan's going to be with us.

And if you're all wise, you're going to be getting in a little early because the fact of the matter is

I've got lots of questions. I have lots of things I want to talk to Dan about. I want to talk about his work with the

Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts and the work that they're doing, the manuscripts they're discovering in various libraries and things like that, the need for all of that.

But hey, Dan is a professor of New Testament. He knows a lot about Greek grammar. Dan and I do not agree on everything.

But every time I read something that Dan Wallace says I disagree with him on, I have to think about why he said it.

And that is one thing that I really love about Dan Wallace. So that'll be on Thursday. I hope we have lots of folks listening live on Thursday evening when we have

Dan Wallace as our guest. Now I have a bunch of stuff I want to get to, so I'm going to hold off calls toward the end of the program.

If we even get to them at all, it depends on how long this takes me to do. But I mentioned in the last program that I was recording some material from Catholic Answers.

Specifically, I was putting the CD recording on Purgatory and Indulgences by Tim Staples.

I was putting it on my iPod, and I just happened to notice as it was burning it into iTunes so I could put it onto my iPod, my name in one of the track sections.

Well since then, I started listening to it. Unfortunately, because the track names are all weird, it mixed them up.

And so I'm actually going to have to listen to this on a CD player. Talk about going old school here.

But I'm actually going to have to listen to it on a CD player because it's just messing up the track names, and so it's bouncing back and forth between different topics, and that didn't make any sense.

So I actually haven't had a chance to even finish listening to it because of that, because I need to listen on a

CD player. But I did put together about a five -minute clip here, and I want to begin by looking at what

I actually was discussing. Evidently, the folks at Catholic Answers won't debate me, but they will talk about me in their presentations and things like that, which is fine, just as long as people understand that there is a standing challenge to all of the major folks at Catholic Answers to engage in debate,

Jimmy Akin, Carl Keating, and of course, Tim Staples, and Mr. Staples keeps telling me, oh,

I'd love to debate you. I just can't, and I can't tell you why. It's like, okay, well, whatever.

So here's the section in the Roman Catholic Controversy. I was discussing the issue of the treasury of merit and indulgences, and here's what

I said. In concluding his review of the Medieval Doctrine of Indulgences, this starts on page 25, Dr. Philip Schaff wrote,

The traffic in ecclesiastical places and the forgiveness of sins constitutes the very last scene of medieval church history.

On the eve of the Reformation, we have the spectacle of the Pope solemnly renewing the claim to have rule over both spheres, civil and ecclesiastical, and to hold in his hand the salvation of all mankind, yea, and actually supporting the extravagant luxuries of his worldly court with monies drawn from the trade in sacred things.

How deep -seated the pernicious principle had become was made manifest in the bull which Leo issues,

November 9th, 1518, a full year after the nailing of the theses in the church door at Wittenberg, in which all were threatened with excommunication who failed to preach and believe that the

Pope had the right to grant indulgences. No Roman Catholic doctrine more clearly illustrates the difference between the biblical and the

Roman teachings on salvation than the Doctrine of Indulgences. While in our previous discussion we have focused primarily on justification, here we touch on a topic that provides us with another angle from which to view the

Roman Catholic concept of salvation. The view is, to say the least, striking. Those who believe the Roman Catholic Church is saying the same thing but in different words must deal honestly with the issue of indulgences and their continued affirmation by the

Roman Catholic Church. A common misconception is that the practice of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church ended centuries ago.

Let's look briefly at what modern -day Rome says about this subject. I quote from Indulgentiarum Doctrina, the Apostolic Constitution on the

Revision of Indulgences, a post -Vatican II document dated January 1st, 1967. This document is referenced no less than seven times and quoted six times in the chapters on the topic in the

New Catechism, demonstrating that this doctrine remains in force in the most modern expositions of Roman Catholic teaching.

We first note that Indulgentiarum Doctrina insists the belief in purgatory and the expiation of sins therein, the concept of penitential expiation, and the belief in the thesaurus meritorum, the treasury of merit, have always been in the

Church. From these beliefs it is said the concept of indulgences is derived. Listen carefully to some quotations from this document.

The concept of sin that underlies the doctrine of indulgences is important. And I quoted from Indulgentiarum Doctrina.

I will read these. We're now on page 187 because this is where Staples quotes from. Sins must be expiated.

This may be done on this earth through the sorrows, miseries, and trials of this life, and above all through death. Otherwise, the expiation must be made in the next life through fire and torments or purifying punishments.

The reasons for their imposition are that our souls need to be purified. Purgatory then enters the discussion in these words.

The doctrine of purgatory clearly demonstrates that even when the guilt of sin has been taken away, punishment for it or the consequences of it may remain to be expiated or cleansed.

They often are. In fact, in purgatory, the souls of those who died in the charity of God and truly repentant but who had not made satisfaction with adequate penance for their sins and omissions are cleansed after death with punishments designed to purge away their debt.

This refers us once again to the concept of satisfatio, the suffering of atonement, which we noted above. The document goes on to refer to the saints who have carried their crosses to make expiation for their own sins and the sins of others.

Then it goes on from there. Actually, I just realized. Where is the discussion of satisfatio?

That was in the section on purgatory. All right. Here's 184, 185.

I apologize for reading all that, though it's relevant as well. I quoted from Ludwig Ott. And now

Ludwig Ott's book is entitled Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma. And I quoted from Ludwig Ott in the following words.

The remission of the venial sins, which are not yet remitted, occurs, as it does in this life, by an act of contrition, deriving from charity and performed with the help of grace.

This act of contrition, which is presumably awakened immediately after entry into the purifying fire, does not, however, affect the abrogation or the diminution of the punishment for sins, since in the other world there is no longer any possibility of merit.

The temporal punishments for sins are atoned for in the purifying fire by the so -called suffering of atonement, satisfatio, that is, by the willing bearing of the expiatory punishments imposed by God.

Let me read that again. This isn't me speaking. This isn't my definition. This is Ludwig Ott. Now, Ludwig Ott is a well -respected theologian.

He has a position significantly more respected than someone like Tim Staples, who was one of the foremost, one of the foremost

Catholic theologians in the world. Then it was Catholic apology. He kept getting demoted. Remember, they kept toning that one down.

Someone got a little bit over -anxious there. But Ludwig Ott, his writings are obviously significantly more on the scholarly level and binding level in that sense than Tim Staples.

Let me read it again. The temporal punishments for sins are atoned for in the purifying fire by the so -called suffering of atonement, satisfatio, that is, by the willing bearing of the expiatory punishments imposed by God.

That's satisfatio. Let me give you the exact page number for that if you want to look it up. Page 485, right -hand page toward the top under object of the purification if you want to look it up in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, published by Tan by Dr.

Ludwig Ott. Now, my commentary on that was, what is the suffering of atonement?

Is not Christ's suffering sufficient for those who are his? Suppose I undergo the suffering of atonement in purgatory and thereby atone for the temporal punishments of my sins.

Will I not then upon entering into the presence of God stand before him clothed in the righteousness of Christ and my own righteousness which

I worked out through my own sufferings? How can my glory and honor be solely given to Christ when in fact at least some of my righteousness comes about through my own suffering?

The argument is often made that Romans says that all opportunities of receiving merit and expiating sin come from the grace of God and the merit of Christ.

But I have never found any Roman Catholic source that indicates that the suffering of atonement, that is, sadaspatio, in purgatory is at all related to the work or merit of Christ.

It is not Christ's merit that is being applied to me when I suffer in purgatory. This is a means of expiation totally outside the work of Christ at the cross.

And, seemingly, if a person does not willingly bear the expiatory punishments imposed by God in purgatory, that person will never enter into heaven.

Once again, we see why the reformers insisted on all those solas. They recognized that while Rome would often insist on the truth about how people are made right with God, they would also just as quickly compromise that truth by adding some human tradition or invention, thus destroying the purity of the gospel.

So what is my point? I think my point is very clear. If there is a willful bearing of punishment in purgatory that atones for the temporal punishment of sin, then in what logical or rational way can we say that that is in any way the application of the merit of Christ?

That was my point. My point, I even said in that same paragraph, Roman Catholics always say that it's only by God's grace that we even have all these opportunities, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I know that. Anybody but a full -blown Pelagian will say, well, you know, if it weren't for God's grace, then we wouldn't have these opportunities to suffer in purgatory to remove the temporal punishment of our sins.

My point was, from the biblical perspective, when I stand before God, I need a perfect righteousness.

And if I must atone for sin to remove legal impediments to my entry into heaven, why am

I not going straight into the presence of God after death? Because there are still temporal punishments for sin upon my soul.

Now, the eternal guilt has been removed of the mortal sins, and the guilt of those lesser venial sins has been removed, but the punishments have not yet been expiated.

And so what I was saying in the text was, where is the Roman Catholic source that says that sadaspatio is actually the application of the merits of Christ to me?

Now, it might be there someplace. I mean, Rome has written a lot of stuff, but I haven't found it.

Now, I'm going to be criticized for having said that in this next clip I'm going to play for you.

I'm going to play the whole context. It's over five minutes long, so you're going to get to hear the whole thing. And here's

Tim Staples explaining how I'm just so clueless. I don't know what's going on. You know, if that's true, if I am so constantly misrepresenting

Rome, why don't they debate me more often? I would think that that would give them this wonderful opportunity of just demonstrating.

If they've won all the ones we've done before, as they seem to claim, then let's... I don't understand it. It doesn't make much sense to me, but hey, you know,

I'm just a simple person, I guess. So here's what Tim Staples has to say. Now that I've read the context, you know what

I'm talking about. I'm talking about satis passio. I'm specifically talking about the suffering of the soul in purgatory.

Obviously, this is just the people that are going to be going to heaven. It is the suffering of atonement that removes the temporal punishments of sin.

So let's see what Tim has to say. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries holds to this misconception.

Let me quote to you from him in his book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, on page 185.

He says, quote, The argument is often made that Rome insists that all opportunities of receiving merit and expiating sin come from the grace of God and the merit of Christ.

But I have never found any Roman Catholic source that indicates that the suffering of atonement in purgatory is at all related to the work or merit of Christ.

It is not Christ's merit that's being applied to me when I suffer in purgatory. This is a means of expiation totally outside of the work of Christ at the cross.

Close quote. Now, obviously, to my Catholic listeners, this allegation is manifestly false.

In fact, I argue if Mr. White truly has never found any Roman Catholic source on this matter,

I can only conclude that, number one, he didn't look very hard, and number two, he simply does not understand the nature of the sufferings of purgatory.

These sufferings are never taught by the church to be totally outside of the work of Christ at the cross.

In fact, they are specifically ordered toward the Christian calling to make satisfaction for his sins in Christ.

These sufferings are part and parcel of the discipline of our loving Lord and Savior. I refer again to the text of Hebrews 12, verses 10 -14, and I quote,

Our earthly fathers disciplined us for a short time and at their pleasure, but He disciplines us for our good that we may share

His holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. Later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Strive for peace with all men and for the holiness without which no one will see the

Lord. Remember, in purgatory one atones for the temporal consequences of sin, right?

And there is much for which we must atone. We sometimes forget that by our sin we impede the glory of God from being manifest in the world as it should.

That wrong must be made right. Moreover, we upset the moral order that God has established, as well as scar our very souls, causing defects of habit or a tendency to sin that endures even after the sins committed are forgiven.

All of this disorder must be rectified either through our prayers, sufferings and sacrifices offered in Christ in this life, and or through the sufferings of purgatory in the next life.

Yet, through all of this, the ultimate end of purgatory for the believer in Christ is his final sanctification.

As the catechism I quoted before in paragraph 1030 said, quote, all who die in God's grace and friendship but still imperfectly purified are indeed assured of their eternal salvation, but after death they undergo purification so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven, close quote.

Now the Council of Trent defined much of what we believe about purgatory and indulgences.

When the Council discussed and then defined what Catholics believe about the Christian responsibility to make satisfaction for or to atone for sins, the

Council was very clear, in spite of Mr. White's claim, that the satisfaction we make for sins is only accomplished in and through Christ.

In fact, in session 14 of the Council of Trent titled, On the Sacraments of Penance and the

Last Anointing, November 25, 1551, and by the way, part of this session and this section here is quoted in the

Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1460, under the heading of satisfaction.

So this is very important. Now the Council of Trent declared, and I quote, Moreover, while by making satisfaction we suffer for our sins, we become like Christ, who made satisfaction for our sins, and from whom is all our sufficiency.

And we also have a most sure pledge, thereby, that if we suffer with him, we shall also be glorified with him.

For this satisfaction which we offer in payment for our sins is not so much ours, that it is not also done through Christ Jesus.

For we can do nothing of ourselves as of ourselves. With his cooperation we can do everything in him who strengthens us.

Thus, we have nothing of which to boast, but all our boasting is in Christ in whom we live, in whom we merit, in whom we make satisfaction.

Folks, the Council Fathers go on to make abundantly clear that this satisfaction that we are called to make as temporal punishment due for sins includes not only the prayers and sacrifices we make in this life, but also the, quote, temporal afflictions imposed by God, which would include the afflictions of purgatory traditionally understood to be imposed by God for our purification.

Okay, you fell asleep in there. I told you, five minutes and 20 seconds, that's how long it was.

So there you go. So what is his response? Where did we hear a citation that says that the merit of Christ wrought upon the cross is being imputed to us as we suffer in purgatory?

Well, we didn't hear that. What we heard was exactly what I had said. That is, well, Roman Catholics say, well, that the opportunity to do this is done in Christ.

Where is the statement from the Roman Catholic hierarchy? And of course, you know, when you ask questions like this, they get to choose what's authoritative and what isn't.

You know, well, that's not infallible. That is infallible. And every person you talk to has a different list of what is and what is infallible and all the rest of that stuff.

But where is the statement that says that satis passio produces a righteousness that is not due to my suffering?

It's not due to my atonement. And that's what satis passio is all about, suffering of atonement.

Who is suffering here? Is it Christ or me? Is it Christ's suffering that atones for these sins?

Or is it my suffering that atones for these sins? That's the question.

If I can't enter into the presence of God without these temporal punishments being atoned for, who atoned for them?

Well, it's not Christ. Isn't that what Ludwig got set? So that's what

I wanted to hear. That was the context. And that's not what we got. Now, like I said, as I started listening to these presentations,

I discovered that I'm all through. So I've got to listen to all of it so that I can respond to all that.

But remember, I have invited Tim Staples to be on this program to discuss 1

Corinthians 3. Because the biblical texts for purgatory are few and far between.

Now, if you listen to Tim, he's, oh, it's just so biblical. There's just so much evidence. By the way, Hebrews chapter 12, of course, has nothing to do with purgatory.

The disciplining of God's children is not the same as the sufferings of purgatory and temporal punishments for sins.

The guilt of which has been sacramentally removed by a priest, since there are none of those in the

New Testament. And this disciplining of us is not. Notice it says it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

It does not give us righteousness. This is a grave abuse of what

Hebrews chapter 12 is talking about. A book that has emphasized that. How are we perfected?

Are we perfected by the work of Christ? A sacramental priesthood? The merits of Mary and the saints and the thesaurus meritorium and satis passio and purgatory?

No, we are perfected by the one sacrifice of Christ. Hebrews chapter 10.

So I have invited Mr. Staples. He should be back from his two week vacation. He said he was going on should be back by now to join us on the program and to talk about especially first Corinthians chapter three, because first Corinthians chapter three has nothing to do in any way, shape or form with the doctrine of purgatory.

So there you have that particular presentation and a response to it.

There's more to look at now. Transitioning quickly. I hold in my hands hazardous materials.

Greek and Hebrew study dangers. The voice of strangers. The men behind the smoke screen burning

Bibles word by word. I guess you couldn't come up with just titles.

These are all good. I'll throw them on there by G .A. Ripplinger. Yes, ladies and gentlemen,

Gail Ripplinger has killed more trees again. By producing a huge book that is just simply

I'm sorry you read this and you just go, wow, I hope she doesn't hurt herself.

I hope there's someone who takes care of her because it's just rattling. And, you know, there's sometimes you read and you go, she has spent so much time.

But she can look into any kind of resource and only see what she wants to see.

She can't see the rational connections that the rest of us make. The genetic fallacy is on every page.

If there's someone who has any bit of theological difference with her, then everything they say and everything they write and everything they do is suspect and wrong and evil and satanic.

That's why you can have six small slits and think the Titanic. You can see that every little word is connected to every other little word.

And it's just like, whoa, it's Harold camping in a female body. Oh, it's scary. It's true. It's exactly what it is.

It's the same kind of utter irrationality, pure subjectivism. The laws of logic have no meaning here at all.

It's just it's just wild. And I mentioned to you, but I learned something. I learned something from from Gail Ripplinger.

Of course, it was from one of Gail Ripplinger's mistakes. I got it. And I learned something from Gail Ripplinger.

Page 207 of attacking one of my father's

Greek professors. My dad went to Moody Bible Institute in the early 1950s and studied under Dr.

Kenneth Wiest. And my dad had said many times that Kenneth Wiest sent more men to the mission field than anybody else.

Why? Because there were two tracks of study at Moody Bible Institute. The one track was the missions track and the other was the pastoral track.

And in the missions track, you did not have to study Greek. And in the past track, you did. And so Kenneth Wiest sent many, many people to the mission field because he was,

I guess, exceptionally challenging in class. If you did not come to class prepared, he did not mind back in the early 1950s absolutely embarrassing you in front of the entire class.

So I happened to note that his name was included in all the terrible, horrible people that you must avoid.

They are evil because they talk about Greek and things like that. And so I started reading.

And let me read. This is page 507, which isn't even quite halfway through the book. Calvinism, gospel for the select elect.

I wonder if, if, if Kanner got some of his stuff from Ripplinger. That would be an interesting connection. Wiest promises readers that his book offers a far more intelligent understanding of the gospel than they could obtain from the translation they are using.

Wiest Volume 1, Mark Preface. The charge that his words are far more intelligent than those in the

Holy Bible hisses like the serpent's subtle offer to make one wise,

Genesis 3 .6. The ghost of John Calvin, which hounds the true church today, walks through walls via much of the standard printed material used unwisely by many who are not

Calvinists. Wiest's book are one such specter. His full -blown

Calvinism haunts his definitions of predestinate, choose, and foreknowledge.

He says that divine election refers, therefore, to the act of God in which he chooses out certain from among mankind for salvation.

Sorry, it's so hard to read that kind of thing. He refuses to see predestination as based on foreknowledge, saying,

These words, when used of God in the New Testament, signify more than merely the fact of knowing something beforehand.

He says it involves determining the destiny of someone. Wiest parrots

Calvin's fatalistic doctrine of irresistible grace, saying, Now we have a quote. Here's the quote.

It is true that according to the A .V., the doctrines of salvation were delivered to us, and we, by the grace of God, believe them.

However, that is not what Paul said in his Greek. The verb delivered is second -person plural.

The Greek text reads, the form of doctrine into which you were delivered. Now, I stopped for just a moment because for some reason,

I don't know why, and I just noticed a couple of typos in what I was reading right there.

No reference was provided to what text we were talking about.

She will take Wiest to task, but doesn't bother to tell anybody what the text is. If you want to look it up, it's

Romans 617. Romans 617. So she continues on page 508.

The KJB says, that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

His Wiest translation changes it to Calvinism's, the type of teaching into which you were handed over.

Wiest hammers his Calvinism into the ground in his study of Ephesians. His translation says, having previously marked us out with the result that he placed us as adult sons through the intermediate agency of Jesus Christ for himself.

And then she goes on and on and on because anything that she thinks smacks of Calvinism is obviously evil.

Now, the fact is that I wish I had included Romans 617 in the

King James I controversy. Because it is an excellent example of an error in the King James.

The King James is wrong here. Now, she doesn't bother to look into that, explain why the

Greek says what it says. Because remember, for Gail Riplinger, all that's irrelevant. What the Greek says is irrelevant. The King James is it.

It's the final standard. It's all there is. Here is what the

King James says. But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.

Now, the problem is, and there's no textual variant here. I've checked the Byzantine text, the

TR. It's not a textual variant. We have a verb, paridotheta.

Now, paridotheta is an aorist passive second person plural.

Notice it is a plural. And so it's a passive plural.

Now, teaching is singular. The plural is found in the verb you obeyed from the heart.

So it was the form of teaching to which you were delivered. It's not talking about the deliverance of the doctrine.

That would be a singular. It's in the plural, to which you were delivered. In other words, God, by his grace, has brought us to his truth.

We didn't stumble upon it. We didn't come upon it. He delivered us to his truth.

Oh, but that sounds like Calvinism. That can't be true. And so here you have Ripplinger, ignorant of the languages, couldn't parse a verb if it walked up and slapped her in the face.

But Kenneth Wiest is an evil man that must be delivered from, you need to be delivered from the hiss of the

Calvinist. Remember her, you know, the hiss of the serpent and the five points and all.

You got to laugh because, you know, some of this stuff, this, what, $35, $40 for 11, almost 1100 pages of utter foolishness.

And yet it's going to be sold in the foyers of independent fundamental Baptist churches all over the place.

And this woman is going to be given a platform to speak in those contexts.

And I've never figured that out. I thought these guys were independent fundamentalist Baptists. And when

I was in that movement as a kid, I remember sitting in one church once. And I don't know why

I remember this, but the entire sermon was on how women should never wear pantsuits.

That's what the whole sermon was about. So the idea that a woman who is a divorced woman would be allowed into a pulpit of a church to lecture men about where the

Bible came from. I don't even begin to get that. I don't know if she wears pantsuits or not.

I'm going to have to look at that. Now, we don't have time for that today, actually. Sorry.

I still got stuff to do here. So it does leave me absolutely positively befuddled as to how that kind of stuff happens.

But anyway, so there you have Romans 617. Look at the other translations. Look at the ESV. But thanks be to God that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed.

To which you were committed, to which you were delivered is the best translation of that text.

All your modern translations have that. The King James does not simply because, well, the

King James is in error at that particular point in time. And notice the new

King James. Yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. Now, I don't know.

I was going to ask Turretinfan. And he's probably listening, so if he is listening. I was going to ask Turretinfan to look at the

Vulgate and see if maybe that's where it came from. Because there's got to be some reason why they missed that.

And the King James translators did rely a lot on the Latin. Maybe that's where it came from.

I don't know. But there you've got it, Romans 617. Now, so we've covered

Roman Catholicism and Purgatory. We've covered King James -onlyism, the proper translation of an heiress -passive second -person plural verb in Romans 617.

And we've got a phone call. And then I'm going to try to get to Shabir Ali before we get done. We love eclectic programs.

So let's talk with Harold real quick. Hi, Harold. Hey, Dr. Wyatt. How are you? Doing good. I was just calling you about your exegesis of 1

Timothy 2, 1 through 7. It seems to me to be a little bit strange, honestly.

I am a Calvinist, so I do believe in the eternal decree of God and electing a peculiar people unto himself.

But particularly, can I just walk through it very quickly? I don't want to take up too much time.

Sure. Let's sort of provide my own sort of how I'm seeing it.

I'm reading from the ESV. First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, and then for all four kings and all who are in high positions.

It seems to me that you would take that as sort of a positive to describe the nature of what he means by all people are all men.

Whereas it seems that he's arguing from the greater to the smaller. Well, if we should give thanks for all people, well, then certainly all kings and all who are in high positions should be included in that.

That seems to me the flow of the logic, if that holds true throughout, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our

Savior. And it seems to me he's now about to explain why it would be good that they should give thanks for all people, including all kings and all who are in high positions, for there is one who desires all people to be saved, because God does desire all people to be saved, and to come to knowledge of the truth.

Four, the explanation of that would be that there is one God. There's not a tribal god of this little region over here in Galatia or in Cappadocia or whatever.

There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men. I would take that as mankind.

There can't be more than one mediator, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all.

Now, ransom for all, I wouldn't take necessarily to mean every individual.

You could take that as, I think the ESV Study Bible takes it as potentially a reference of Paul, that Christ's sacrifice could certainly ransom all people.

It has that merit. Of course, it would be limited by God selecting grace in that sense, graciously so, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

And he goes on to say, well, for this I was appointed a preacher and apostle, I'm telling the truth, and I am not lying.

I'm a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. What would be your initial responses to that?

I mean, I'm familiar with what your exegesis says, and I think it's about the same, roughly, as the

Reformation Study Bible. I don't look at study Bibles very often. But, well,

I hear what you're saying, I just don't see any reason to insert a foreign meaning into the way that people thought back then, this idea of individual universalism or individuality, as if when it says all people, that they would have understood that as meaning every single individual who has ever lived on the face of the earth or is living on the face of the earth or anything like that.

It seems to me that in 1 Timothy you have a very clear presentation of different kinds and types of people.

As you noted, you have kings and all those who are in high positions. You later on have a discussion of how men are to behave, how women are to behave, a discussion of widows, slaves.

What are these? These are kinds of people. And in all those contexts, no one has any difficulty understanding what that is.

It seems very clear to me that the reason that verse 2 begins, for kings and all who are in high places, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, obviously has to do with the fact that they have a lot of control as to whether we are going to live a peaceful and quiet life, and that the

Christians need to be reminded that they need to pray for those individuals because they were the source of most of the persecution that they would experience, and that prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings are to be made for all people in that context.

I don't think that that means that they were to open up the Ephesian phone book and start with the alphas and work through to the omegas.

This is a command to pray for all people and to give certain intercessions and thanksgivings.

When it talks about the fact that who desires all people to be saved, I see it in the exact same way.

And to come to knowledge of the truth, if someone wants to say, well, there is in God, outside of His decree, there is clearly in God's command, that God commands all men everywhere to repent.

So there is expressed in the will of God the fact that all men everywhere are to repent.

But if we are talking about specifically here the work of God in Christ, which we are, because as soon as you raise the issue of there is one mediator between God and men, the man

Christ Jesus, even the phrase the man Christ Jesus is talking about the Incarnation. Mediatorship brings up all of the categories of sacrifice and atonement and everything else.

It's all right there. And the issue is, does the apostle Paul present to us, and would

Timothy have understood Paul to be presenting to us, a concept of Christ being mediator between God and all men?

The only way that I can logically see that a person could view it in that way is if you have a view of universal substitutionary atonement, where Christ substitutionarily takes the place of all men.

And I don't see any way once you have that you can avoid universalism itself. Well, would you see it as a possible understanding to say that, well,

Christ is the only one who is able to be a mediator between God and men without saying necessarily that he does, in fact, mediate for every individual.

What's a mediator who doesn't mediate? The only one who could be a mediator, the only go -between, there's only one way to God, and it seems to me that he's sort of saying you don't have, part of his meaning here is that you don't necessarily have,

I mean, it's possible to say that this region over here has got their little way to God and this other region over here has got their way.

Well, again, the problem is verse 6 specifically talks about him giving himself as a ransom for all.

We're not talking about hypotheticals here. We're talking about the fact that he has given himself, and that is a purposeful giving.

It is a testimony given at the proper time, a testimony to what? I just don't see the hypothetical.

These are statements of fact. There is one God is a factual statement. There is one mediator between God and men is a factual statement.

The man Christ Jesus is an incarnational factual statement. He gave himself as a ransom for all is a factual statement.

These aren't hypotheticals. These have to be allowed to have the meaning that the Apostle Paul himself defines for these things.

And that's why I raise the question whenever anyone wants to expand this audience out and remove the specificity of the work of mediation, well, then what does

Christ mediate for those that he does not actually end up saving? And you end up having to read stuff into the text.

I'm just simply trying to allow the text to define for itself. And if you start by saying, well, you're straining at the beginning, well,

I would say you're straining pretty bad in 5 and 6. So which is more clearly defined in Paul's teaching?

What mediation is, what sacrifice is, what substitution is? And is it really a strain in a book that's specifically addressing groups of people to say that in the ancient world they did not think as Western individualists think and therefore would not have read these words in that individualistic passage, in that individualist way?

So that's how I would respond to the charge of it being strained. Well, toward the beginning

I would certainly, where it says that he would like them to pray for all people, I certainly wouldn't take that to be that every individual in the world, but perhaps outside of further reading, perhaps, it could be a reference to the people that they would have been familiar with and all those people that they would have been around.

And that would include praying for kings and those who are in positions of authority. So, yes, that they are to pray for them.

That, however, limits, as soon as you put a limitation on this, then the application of verses 4 and 5 in a universal aspect collapses.

And even you didn't keep a universal application there. You went to a hypothetical perspective.

So I just raise those issues and say, well, if you want to make the mediatorship of Christ a hypothetical thing, well, he's the only mediator because he's the only one that there is, and if you're in him then he mediates for you, but I don't see any reason to go there.

I think as soon as Paul says to Timothy, he talks about Christ as a mediator, Timothy understands what

Paul taught about the issue of mediation, high priest, things like that. I mean, I don't know that Paul wrote

Hebrews, but the writer of the Hebrews is clearly reflecting a Pauline apologetic to the

Hebrews. And once you look at that context, what mediation is and what it results in is real clear, and it's not merely a hypothetical.

But I appreciate that, Harold. I need to get to this other stuff. Thank you very much for the call today.

That made it even more eclectic. And so let's see if we can sneak some of this in here. I was listening to a debate that took place

June 9th, Cape Town, South Africa, Shabir Ali and Dave Seacom. And I was listening to the stuff that Shabir was coming up with, and he's come up with a couple of new things.

I wanted to respond to a number of his statements. Maybe we can get him in here before the end of the program if I talk really, really fast.

Let's listen. This is on the subject of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Unfortunately, Shabir's own position on that did not get examined in this debate, which is a shame.

But let's listen to some of the things he said about the Scriptures. As shown in the Gospels, there is usually some question about the identity of the person who appears.

For example, Matthew's Gospel has it that when Jesus finally appeared to his disciples on a certain mountain in Galilee, they saw him and they worshipped him, but they doubted.

One translation reads, but some doubted. But it seems that the more likely reading, as given in the

New American Bible in Matthew 28, verse 17, is they doubted. Okay, let's look at that.

Matthew 28, 17. Whenever you hear somebody going to the

New American Bible, be warned. NAB is probably one of the worst

English translations in existence. The Roman Catholic Church produced it. Roman Catholic apologists hate it, but they're stuck with it.

And it is a horrific translation. It just couldn't get much worse than the

New American Bible. But, ESV, and when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted.

King James, when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. New American Standard, when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some were doubtful.

New King James, when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. And so you have a consistency in these particular translations.

But, when you have the NAB, it says, when they saw him, they worshipped, comma, but they doubted.

So, there is no distinction made in the New American Bible. And then, I think

I cut it off too early. I apologize for that. He then also mentioned another of the spectacular, stellar translations, the

Living Bible. Which, of course, isn't a translation. It is a paraphrase.

Well, so, there is a minor textual variant between the NA27 and the

Byzantine text at this point. The term auto is in, they worshipped him. And so, the

Byzantine might be a little bit stronger toward that rendering. But, the fact is, you have at the end, literally it says, and seeing him, they worshipped.

And then it says, hoy de edistasan. And when you have the day with a article before the noun here, in the sense of, in this particular context, not a noun, but a verb, but it's functioning, you've got this hoy, but they, and then a verb.

And the verb, of course, is matching the article. In that situation, you've got to decide, how are you going to identify those who are performing the action of the verb?

Who are these, who's the hoy? Who's the article referring to here? And normally, with the day, that is creating a subgroup.

There is another group that's being referred to here, but it's a subgroup. Sort of like a part of genitive, but without using the exact same construction.

And so, the reason that the vast majority of translations render this, this way, is that you have, and seeing him, they worshipped.

But, day, then you have hoy edistasan. There is a group that doubted.

And that's why they say, some doubted. You don't have to go with the New American Bible there at all.

It's rather unusual. But, I'm taking way too much time not to get these done, if I don't hurry up.

When Jesus appeared to his disciples, or two of his disciples, on the road to Emmaus, as they were walking along on the country road,

Jesus joined them. And he was walking along with them, and he engaged them in conversation. They must have walked some miles, until eventually it came to nightfall.

And these disciples stopped, perhaps at their place of residence. And Jesus joined them to break bread with them.

And when he broke bread, that is when they recognized him. So, it seems that from the manner in which he broke bread, they could tell that this was

Jesus. But, immediately he vanished. And then they started saying to each other, didn't our hearts burn when he spoke to us on the country road?

So, it would seem as though a certain gut feeling, or a heartburn, convinced them that the man they saw was

Jesus. A heartburn convinced them that the man they saw was

Jesus. Because our hearts were burning, that's why it must have been Jesus. Now, we all know why the text says that their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

It is very clear in the text that there is an external force acting upon them to keep them from recognizing

Jesus for the purpose of having this conversation. And when the bread is broken, their eyes are opened.

It's not some burning in the bosom, or something like that. So, later in the debate, someone in the audience asks a question.

And Shabir, at least at that point, tries to explain that part.

It says, but their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. Now, that's Luke's explanation for the fact that they couldn't recognize him.

Somehow, he's saying their eyes were prevented from recognizing him. So, it's not that his physical appearance had changed.

It's just that something is wrong with the eyes of these onlookers. But that's just precise in my point.

There is the fact that they didn't recognize him, and now there's an explanation for why they couldn't. I feel that the proper explanation here that is consistent throughout the narrative is that Jesus appeared to them, but they could not recognize him except by some circumstantial sort of evidence.

Maybe the way he broke bread, maybe the way he said, Mary, or maybe... So, in other words, you're simply saying, well,

Luke's just making that up. Upon what basis? It's part and parcel of his entire assertion that he was recognizable, and they had to be miraculously kept from recognizing him.

And so, he turns it on its head. It's the same way that he comes up with one person who survived a partial crucifixion as the foundation for saying, well, that must have been what happened to Jesus.

When you've got 99 .9999999 % of everybody who was ever crucified died, especially all of them who ever received the death blow died.

And yet, you can go to the one, and that's how it comes up.

Very quickly, continuing on here. I'm trying to get them all in. John's Gospel tells us in Chapter 21 that Jesus appeared to his disciples on the shore of the

Lake of Tiberias. And when he appears to them, they sat there and had breakfast with him.

And none of them dared to ask him who he was because they were sure it was

Jesus. Now, think about the wording of John's Gospel here. Why would you say something like that?

You met with somebody you knew. Why would even the thought occur, should I ask him who he was?

But I won't because I'm sure that this is the right person. Now, unfortunately, the proper answer to this question

I never heard given during the course of this debate. Why would anyone, why would any of these believing

Jewish people be surprised at the resurrection? Because of what the

Jews believed about the resurrection. The resurrection. Remember in John 11 when

Jesus comes to raise Lazarus and he says, do you believe that your brother will live again?

What's the response? Oh, I believe he will live in the last day because the resurrection is something that happens at the end of time.

Jewish believers are not going to be looking for that happening at this particular point in time.

I am not going to get to everything, but give me just a couple minutes because I really want to get these in because it's not going to make much sense to try to.

I have to beg? I don't think so. Okay, real quickly here. There was a darkness on the land from 12 o 'clock till 3 o 'clock.

Now, it was narrated in the Gospels that Jesus was crucified at about 9 o 'clock that morning, at least in the synoptic narratives, the first three

Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke. John gives us a different time here, but we will pass over that point for the moment.

Now, of course, I'm sure that Shabir knows that the reason for the alleged discrepancy between the synoptics and John is because John is using a different time of day.

He's using the Roman rather than the Jewish when you allow that to happen, which, by the way, fits perfectly with Shabir's own theory as to the dating of these things.

John would obviously be more appropriately using the Roman one because he's writing to a

Roman audience. But if you allow that to happen, then they fit perfectly. But he just loves to throw those little things out there.

Now, this one was really interesting. Let's check this out. And when he asked the centurion, the centurion confirmed, and this is when

Pilate gave permission for the body to be released. It is important to notice that the centurion who gave this confirmation was by this time already a believer in Jesus.

Remember the darkness that David spoke about for three hours? That darkness must have made many people rethink what's happening here.

It looks like the cosmos is weeping. Now, where does he get this idea? He's assuming that the centurion that Pilate asks about in Mark is the same centurion that is at the cross.

It might be, but the scriptures never tell us that. There is more than one centurion in Jerusalem.

There would be one that would be in charge of crucifixion. It sounds like the one that Pilate asks is the one that attends to him.

And he's going to go and then inquire to these things. So we don't—they try to dismiss the centurion's testimony as to the fact that Jesus is dead by saying, well, you know, he was a disciple.

What do you mean he was a disciple? What did he say? There's two in the Gospels. We're told, surely this man had no guilt.

He recognizes that. And he says this man was—and some translations say the Son of God. There is no article.

There could have been an article. He's a pagan. He recognizes there's something special about this man.

But the idea that he's a disciple from that is really stretching things massively.

But this is what they have to do to try to undercut his testimony. Well, he's a disciple, and so he's going to lie about Jesus.

So to be a disciple of Jesus is to be a liar is basically what is being said there. Here's—almost got all through him.

Here's another very interesting— There was a huge earthquake, such a big one, that it split the earth to such a distance that the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Jesus was supposed to have been crucified at Calvary, outside of Jerusalem, and the temple is inside the city.

So that earthquake caused such a massive shaking that the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

Where does the text say that the earthquake did that? It says the veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom and that then the earthquake.

It doesn't say the earthquake did that. It's an amazing reading. I'd never heard of that before.

But he repeated it more than once. It's such a terrible earthquake that it tore— Well, I suppose if you wanted to read that in there, but the narration of the tearing of the veil is before the earthquake.

That comes afterwards. So that was really weird. But then this one was—this was really interesting.

Again, I'd never heard this one before. It is at this point that many people apparently became repentant.

They said, sure, and expressed his belief in Jesus. According to Luke's gospel, he said, surely this man is innocent.

According to Mark's gospel, he said, surely this man is the son of God. The Jewish opponents of Jesus, who were there at the scene, beat their breasts and they went away leaving the scene.

And beating the breasts in the Bible is a sign of repentance. So it looks like they are asking, what have we done?

So it's come to a point where— Did you catch that? Beating the breast is a sign of repentance.

And so you've got a—somehow, without the preaching of the gospel, the centurion has become a disciple and he's repented.

I remember reading about repentance, right. And then the people beat upon their breasts.

And that means repentance. Where does that mean, repentance? To beat upon the breast is a universal sign of mourning in the

Bible. And mourning in that culture, not repentance. It's mourning. Now you might attach it in some place with repentance, but there's nothing, absolutely nothing in the text that says, oh, they've repented and they've believed.

What are we talking about here? You're reading into the text in a massive way.

One last one and then we'll wrap up. Matthew says that when the earth was split, even the rocks were split.

And the bodies of the saints became alive.

And after Jesus' resurrection, they came out of their tombs and they went into the city and appeared to many people.

Now this massive dawning of the dead, the resurrection of such a large number of people back from the dead, would be such a phenomenon that you would expect that everybody would make mention of it.

The dawn of the dead. Where does he get this massive number from?

I just don't understand how often this text is abused. I guess because they get away with it.

I don't know. But could I just point a simple thing out about Matthew's recording?

And Matthew's the only one that mentions it. About saints coming out of the graves and going in Jerusalem, where they were seen by many.

The only way that they could know that those were resurrected saints is if they had known them before.

Unless God put big signs on them and said, Hi, I'm a resurrected saint or something like that. So we're talking about a limited number of people and they had to have been people who had recently died so that people would recognize them.

Where is this? Oh, there are massive... There were 10 ,000 zombies walking into Jerusalem and it would have been recorded in all the videotapes.

I mean, that's what they're doing. It is amazing. And you just know that the only people that are being impressed by that are people who don't know anything about the

New Testament. And sadly, a lot of Christians who don't know those backgrounds might be impressed by it as well.

But I caught those. I wanted to get them in. And so I rushed really quickly. But another example of why it is very, very important to read the text carefully.

Thursday on The Dividing Line, Dr. Daniel B. Wallace, Dallas Theological Seminary. His book on Greek Grammar Beyond the

Basics. His work in the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts. And we'll be taking your phone calls as well.

So hope you're looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to it. We'll see you on Thursday. God bless. ♪ The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

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