July 6, 2004

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From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is
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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.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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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
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Well, good morning and welcome to The Dividing Line.
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My name is indeed James White. We are live this morning again on The Dividing Line, 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you would like to participate today.
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I'm actually looking for something online at the moment. Isn't that always a good thing to be doing?
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Right at the last second. But I've got I've got I've just been having network problems.
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I learned a lot about networks yesterday. I really did. And it still isn't quite right.
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Unfortunately, I really wish it was. But if anyone understands why activating
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WEP security protocols would would cause a access point to no longer be able to set
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IPs for the things connected to it, you just all give me a call. Let me know because nobody seems to know.
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So it's just there are a few things in life that get me going quite as much as as computer problems.
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And I'm not really exactly certain why that is, but I can guarantee you that it is that way.
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Anyway, I'll tell you, it's what can
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I say? It's sort of, shall we say, hitting the fan. I took the time to just mention in passing because of the fact that we have recommended to many people over the years that they get in contact with certain folks, that they utilize certain ministries.
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I took the time to mention on our blog the rather intriguing responses that I have gotten from certain individuals, specifically from the head of DiscerningReader .com.
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And I'll tell you, the emails are coming fast and furious. I found that file, by the way. It's sort of hard to multitask, but it is interesting.
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So we're getting lots of emails because a lot of folks go, what in the world is going on? Maybe, you know, with what's going on with with Rob Schlafer and, you know, he's got he's put a blog up and I'm unteachable and just a traditionalist and don't do exegesis and all that.
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It's amazing to me. The number of things I get accused of, either all
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I can do is exegesis or I don't do exegesis or, you know, you're the King James only folks say you're a crypto
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Roman Catholic and of course Roman Catholics laugh at that. And I guess it's always good to be taking fire from both sides.
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You know, if it's coming from both directions, that probably means you haven't quite gotten out to an extreme on either side yet.
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But obviously there is an issue in regards to what's going on within what used to be the reformed community.
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And a lot of people are asking questions about I just saw some emails come in from our guys that help answer emails for the for the ministry.
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And I can tell that people are asking questions, what's going on, folks coming into channel asking, you know, what's you know, what's going on with this stuff and and people are asking for the
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URL and channel. I don't know what the URL and channel is or the URL is. I looked it up this morning, but I don't know what it is and not that I'm going to advertise anyways.
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But anyhow, there's a lot of confusion and that's unfortunate because all the time that's spent on that kind of stuff is time that's not being spent dealing with meaningful issues in in Roman Catholic apologetics and things like that.
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But we can't avoid it. We can't avoid it simply because if the message, let's face it, the message that that I have in response to, well, any group, if I'm talking to a
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Mormon, if I'm talking to a Roman Catholic and I'm talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ, part of that gospel is the centrality of Christ, the perfection of Christ's work, the truth that I was dead in sin and was made alive by a sovereign act of God.
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And the fact that my standing before God is not a cooperative effort between myself and the
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Spirit of God. It's not that the Spirit of God is prompting me to do things that are going to in some way add to my standing before God, that my standing before God is going to be determined by how well
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I cooperated with the Spirit of God. As if that determines the foundation.
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Now, there's everything important about doing our duty, but the reason for it and the result of it is just so substantially different between men's religions and the religion of the
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New Testament. And I honestly believe that this issue is coming up now in the application of New Perspectivism.
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Oh, I do have that URL. I'm not sure why in the world I'm doing this, but I just happen to notice it's on the screen here. There it is for those of you in the in the chat channel.
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Rob Schlafer made some comments about me, some of which I didn't understand. You know, he's used some colorful metaphors of me, similar to Peter Ruckman.
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Peter Ruckman's colorful metaphors. If you've seen Star Trek, then you know what colorful metaphors are. And I think you did a little bit too much
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LDS. A couple of things
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I didn't understand in Rob's stuff here. First of all, looking at Rob, I didn't know
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Rob. OK, I mean, we had exchanged a couple of emails. There have been some discussions. They had been very helpful a while back in doing this program, which now all of a sudden, even though I'm doing it the same way,
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I've always done it. Now I'm a mean, terrible, horrible, nasty person. But anyway, I guess
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I did not know Rob because it looks like Rob's my age. I assumed Rob was younger.
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I don't know why, but it looks like we're about the same age.
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And that's fine. That's that's great. That's wonderful. A couple of things he says I don't understand.
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Tactics like tying Tom Wright in with the present controversy of the homosexual bishop in New England, presumably because they're both are
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Anglican, is just asinine, which means silly. I didn't know I had done that. I get, you know,
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Rob might want to think about the fact that I try to explain things to a fairly wide audience on this program.
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I don't assume things. And you know what? Not everybody is completely aware of the relationship of Episcopalians and Anglicans and the fact that I was trying to explain that N .T.
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Wright is very, very conservative for an Anglican. And how do we know that?
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Well, look at the Anglican Church. Look at what's going on in the Anglican Church. I mean, this isn't an argument.
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I wasn't making that as an argument against N .T. Wright. If anything, it was an argument for N .T.
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Wright. I've bent over backwards to be fair to the man. I have respect for many of the things that he's done.
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I just think what he's teaching on this is absolutely dangerous. So, you know,
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I don't even follow, you know, this type of stuff. But, you know, there's there's stuff in here that's very interesting.
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My contention all along is that we need to meet Wright's arguments and respond to them biblically. OK, biblically is misspelled, but that's all right.
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That's my concern, too. So why have I had my head handed to me on a platter for even suggesting that, for example, in 2
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Corinthians 5 .21, that's some place we need to go when I mentioned that? And of course, I've addressed 2
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Corinthians 5 .21 here on The Dividing Line. I even offered to give Rob the URL to The Dividing Line, where those of you who have listened to The Dividing Line for a long time know that I don't know when it was now.
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I was going to go look, but he didn't show interest in looking. I took the time.
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Some of you know that, you know, as we mentioned on the last program, the most popular of Wright's books as far as communicating his perspective to a
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Reformed audience or to just a layman's audience is called What St. Paul Really Said.
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And in there, he addresses 2 Corinthians 5 .21, and he says this is about the apostles.
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This is not just some disconnected piece of theology, which
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I completely disagree that the historic interpretation of it, and we do need to recognize it is the historic interpretation of it, views it in that way.
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I strongly disagree, but be that as it may. In there, he says, as I've demonstrated elsewhere, and doesn't even give a footnote, doesn't even give a reference.
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And so I found out where it was, found out where this discussion was, and utilized the chat channel, which is often a resource.
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I contacted one of the folks in the chat channel, and he tracked down the resource for me at the library.
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He lived near a seminary at the time, and actually now lives near another seminary, which also had the book, since I lost the first that he sent me.
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He sent me the article that Wright was making reference to, his fullest discussion of 2
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Corinthians 5 .21, and we took the time here on The Dividing Line to go over that. In fact, if someone's bored that's listening right now, and you'd like to go back and look at the archives, because I know this was before we lost contact with Straightgate, this was last year sometime.
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Someone would like to look at the archives and track down where we did the discussion of 2 Corinthians 5 .21 and T.
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Wright. I'd appreciate it. I'll let everybody know where it is. They can go look and listen for themselves. So I took the time to track down exactly what
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Wright said, and the context of what he said, and we discussed it on the program. And I did exactly what
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Rob says here. We need to meet Wright's arguments from on Biblica. I don't see that he's doing that.
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I don't see any evidence that there's even any willingness. In fact, when I made reference to Rob, to Dr.
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Duncan's article, extensive article, it's listed in the first archives that we have on the blog.
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It's a big, huge, long URL. I'm not even going to bother to try it. It's El Massivo. I had to do one of those tiny
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URL things. That's what I do, and make that available to everybody. But I just posted the big, huge version in the chat channel.
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It's the very bottom of the first archives section from the inception of the blog.
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You'll see the article, and I made reference to it. Well, Rob just dismissed it. I mean, this is what
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I don't get. If you want to give a biblical response, then why just automatically dismiss what
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Duncan has to say? It's just,
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I don't understand that part. And when I, like I said, when I made reference to it, he says, and I read the
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Duncan paper, and born and bred Presbyterian who could never look past his tradition.
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Oh, well, that's nice. So I guess if you're a born and bred
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Presbyterian, then you can't possibly have any insights into these things. January 11, 2003,
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James examines N .T. Wright's new perspective. Okay, maybe that was it.
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Maybe that was a year ago. More than a year ago. That's possible.
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I'm not sure. Y 'all can take a look at it, see if that's what it is. I don't know. But anyhow, just dismissed
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Duncan's article, and it's fascinating. In one of the footnotes, and this is just,
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I'm just sort of wandering around here, folks. Don't worry about me. There's so much to discuss.
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And who knows? In Duncan's article, he reproduces a footnote.
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Well, actually, it's an email that was sent to Wright. And of course, emails are emails, and we all get emails.
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And sometimes we respond to emails way too quickly. And I wouldn't want to be held accountable for everything that was ever said in an email, especially if it was a short email.
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If it's a real long email that demonstrates that I've been thinking about what was said, and so on and so forth, that's one thing.
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But still, it is fascinating, because as I was reading what
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St. Paul really said, I remember I was sitting in an airport at one point, and I kept stopping and going, man, am
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I just completely stupid? Which is a good possibility. But every time he talks about how we viewed the
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Jews, and how the Reformers viewed the Jews, I never viewed them that way.
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So did I completely miss Reform theology all along? Or is it
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Wright that has sort of missed on that subject? And in this article, let me give you the context of it.
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I'm just sort of jumping in here. So if you were to quote approvingly the answer to the Westminster Shorter Catechism's question 33 as your way of teaching, of Paul's teaching on justification, quote, justification is an act of God's free grace wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us and received by faith alone.
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And then ask NC Wright to comment, he may say something like this, quote, well, there are at least three problems with that particular answer.
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First of all, it doesn't understand what justification is. Justification has a forensic aspect, true, but it primarily has to do with how you know you're a member of God's people.
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Second, this definition imports an idea alien into the biblical text, the idea of imputation. Imputation is nowhere to be found in either the teaching of Paul, anywhere else in the
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New Testament, or indeed anywhere in the first century context in the New Testament. Third, it misplaces the subject of justification by putting it in the category of soteriology, the doctrine of salvation, whereas justification really ought to be back in the ethical section of the
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Shorter Catechism under the rubric of ecclesiology, end quote. Now, that's Duncan representing
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Wright, and I believe Duncan is right in representing Wright. If you've read what
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St. Paul really said, that is accurate. I mean, I honestly think anybody who says otherwise just isn't playing fairly here.
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That is what Wright says. And Duncan's comment is, that is how comprehensive of the rejection of a traditional understanding of justification you would get.
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And then there's a footnote, and I found this footnote to be fascinating. It's footnote number seven. It's a huge footnote in this article, if you're tracking this thing down the net, which if you're listening on the net, it's easily done.
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Let me read you, let me read this long, lengthy footnote. This is my attempt to provide an answer to a specific question from Wright's perspective that Wright himself has not answered succinctly.
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And that is, by the way, a problem. Breaking in here to the reading. You can get all sorts of different answers from N .T.
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Wright. We mentioned this last time there. You know, I got an email after the last program.
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Well, no, you just don't understand Wright. You know, that's what everybody says. But I can read just as well as anybody else can.
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And if there are so many different responses that come from so many different perspectives, that even someone who has at least, you know,
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I have taught for a while, you know, I may not be the smartest guy on the planet, but I've written a few books, done a few things.
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If I can't figure it out, then we can maybe come to the conclusion that possibly a couple of things have happened.
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Maybe there's been evolution in his thought that results in contradictions between previous statements and current statements.
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Or maybe there's something more going on. Maybe there's some, you know, it's sort of like when we ask questions of Eastern Orthodox folks.
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You know, you get a lot of different answers because we're asking the wrong questions. You know, I'll be willing to say maybe we're asking the wrong questions of them.
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But, you know, he's addressing the issues of the Westminster Confession of Faith. So I suppose it's fair to utilize that context.
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But anyways, I continue with the quote. My condensation of his view is based on his explicit assertions about the nature of justification.
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For instance, here is an email exchange between Wright and a Westminster seminary student who is sympathetic to his position.
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I withhold names to protect the not so innocent. It is in the form of a two -question answer dialogue with Wright.
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The student is asking and Wright is answering. Question. So here's what the student is asking and to write. Your exposition of justification per Paul in the covenant makes much sense given your understanding of justification in the theology of Paul.
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What room is there for the historic definitions of justification as set forth in Westminster Confession and Catechisms?
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Answer. Here's Wright's answer. I don't have the Westminster Confession and Catechisms to hand despite sitting here in Westminster.
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But I think I know what you mean. Now, let me just stop there. I don't know. I find it rather odd that the man who's now the
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Bishop of Durham and so on and so forth would not have easily at hand those materials.
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I do. And I'm Reformed Baptist. And of course, there's some that would say I'm not Reformed at all. I just,
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I don't know. It seems odd to me. But I continue on. Quote. The historic definitions of justification assumed that the word justification, shortened hereafter to JN, means the event or process whereby someone becomes a
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Christian. Listen to that again. Let me, let me just, here's, you know, he says,
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I don't have the Westminster Confession around. So, so my understanding off the top of my head, the historic definition of justification is it means the event or process whereby someone becomes a
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Christian. Is that how you define justification? I hope you define it a little bit more specifically than that and make some clarifications there.
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In other words, and I'm going back to the quote here. In other words, it appears as a synonym for conversion or near equivalent.
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I don't believe that is, that is actually how Paul uses it. When Paul talks about justification, he is referring to God's declaration that someone is within the forgiven covenant family.
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A declaration that we made on the last day, according to the whole life lived, Romans 2, 1 through 16, which future declaration is anticipated in the present on the basis of faith alone, 321 through 31.
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I stopped the quote there for a moment and just ask you, you tracking with this? You hearing this?
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If you're used to dealing in Roman Catholic apologetics and they're like, oh, you're making a genetic fallacy.
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I'm just trying to help people understand this. I'm not making a genetic fallacy.
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But if you're used to dealing with Roman Catholic apologists, you've heard
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Romans 2, 1 through 16 were used in exactly that way. Exactly that way.
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I continue the quote. But when the question is raised, how does someone get into this family? The question the
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Westminster Confession and Catechism is asking, as with much Reformation thought, the answer must, of course, be that it's
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God's action through Christ and the Spirit to which the human being concerned simply responds in faith.
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Indeed, according to Paul, Ephesians 2, 8 to 10, the faith itself is a gift of God. Well, there's, boy, there's, that's why some people go, you know, there's times
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I like what he says. And there's times I don't like what he says. Yes. And there's, there's a time where you just sort of just sort of chuckled because you can't help but hearing
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Dave Hunt exploding up in Oregon at that particular point. I continue the quote. A mind -boggling idea, but he is quite consistent.
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So the emphasis on grace and faith is exactly right, granted the question they were intending to ask.
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Much more to say about this, but no space here. Sorry. Okay, then the student responds. Thank you.
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What I have in mind in particular is the Reformed definition of justification as an act of God's free grace whereby a sinner is pardoned of all his sin and accepted as righteous in God's sight, only for the righteousness of Christ, imputed to him and received by faith alone.
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Now, of course, you can see that that's the Westminster definition. Excuse me.
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So as I read you, there is room for this precise definition under the bigger heading of Paul's position that justification involves ones being received into the covenant family, the family of Abraham.
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As you say, a commentary upon where one is and not how one gets there. I look for this clarification as I try to understand why in the world so many
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Reformed men are so overwrought about what you are saying or what they think you are saying or not saying.
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It appears they think you are abandoning, denying or wrongly modifying the historic formulations. To the life of me,
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I cannot see the warrant for their concerns. Should I? And then he responds again and T. Wright responds again.
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Still a huge question. Let me try it again. I, too, am somewhat puzzled by the storm in Reformed circles.
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I haven't published a major book in this area, after all. I guess that means he doesn't view what
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St. Paul really said is a major book. He would consider Resurrection, Son of God, or the New Testament, the people of God, Jesus and the victory of God.
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Those are major books because they're all big enough to be considered lethal weapons if you swing at somebody. Nor do
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I agree with Ed Sanders all down the line. The new perspective on Paul is a very mixed bag of people and I'm quite sure he's not the only one.
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He's quite different from some of them. The imputed righteousness thing is a problem because though I know exactly what job that is doing within Reformed thought,
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I simply don't find it in Paul. 2 Corinthians 5 .21 simply doesn't mean that.
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See the relevant section of my book, What St. Paul Really Said. Let me stop right there. That's exactly what I was addressing earlier.
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So he directs people to that. But when you go there, even he then there says, well,
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I actually addressed this someplace else and you have to go and you have to find this this festschrift of articles written for Hays and that's where you find his argumentation, which is what we dealt with in dividing line 18 months ago now.
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Back there somewhere. So I continue back with the quotation here. Nor does 1
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Corinthians 1 .30 and following. The trouble is that I take every syllable of Paul, of what Paul said very, very seriously.
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Whereas the Reformed confessions were making their best shot while not always being on top of the exegesis.
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A huge claim, I know, but I am prepared, though not here, obviously, to back it up. I claim the high ground.
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My aim is to be faithful to what St. Paul actually said as opposed to what any and every tradition, whether Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, Charismatic or whatever tells me he said.
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I continue to find Paul totally stimulating, exciting and fascinating, which is more than I can say for any creed or confessional formula.
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That's the end of the quote. Then Dr. Duncan comments. Wright's utter theological confusion here is apparent to anyone conversant with the historical, theological, exegetical context of Reformed teaching on justification.
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Furthermore, he seems oblivious to the fundamental incompatibility of his views with that of historic
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Protestantism and or the consequences thereof. And I cannot agree more firmly with what
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Dr. Duncan is saying in response to that. I mean, if those responses are at all indicative of Wright's position, and I see nothing there that is not exactly in line with what
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St. Paul really said, then there is a huge difference here.
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There is a huge departure that seemingly Wright himself may not be fully cognizant of.
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He certainly does not strike me as being an expert in Reformed theology historically, because every time, let's face it, when you constantly summarize the view of the
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Reformers of the Jews as the Jews being ancient Pelagians pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, when you use the same illustration over and over again, and it's not an apt illustration, then what's the problem?
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I mean, does that not indicate that there's an issue here, that there's a problem?
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And does that not indicate that maybe this person does not have all that much of an in -depth understanding of what the situation really is?
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So anyway, going back to Rob Schlafer, I look, just real quickly, just a couple of things.
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Some of the things he says here, it's about exegesis. He laughs at the exegesis that I offered in The God Who Justifies.
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I would just again recommend that individuals take the time to look at what
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I said and to listen to my examination of Wright.
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I'd ask Rob Schlafer, how many of NC Wright's critics do you know that would take the time before commenting on what he said in 2
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Corinthians 521 to actually track down those resources? All Rob Schlafer did, and I mean, as soon as I told him
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I disagree with Wright, boom, there was no transition period. There was no, oh, why do you disagree or anything?
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It was immediately insults, personal insults, off -color language, just,
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I mean, it reminds me a little bit, did any of you see The Last Samurai?
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And if you got the DVD version of it, you can look at the deleted scenes.
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And there was this one deleted scene where one of the samurai, the number two guy, the one that Tom Cruise is always fighting with and finally draws with him and they become honorable friends and so on.
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He's walking through Tokyo and these two guys start mocking him and then one of them makes a mistake of touching him with his cane and in one move, he just whoosh, and decapitates the guy, just one shot, just whoosh, and it's over with.
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That's sort of the speed at which Rob Schlafer went from being, you know,
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I went, that's the speed at which I went from being recommended author to ignoramus who can't learn anything.
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That's the speed at which we went there. It was just shocking. And what's really shocking to me anyway, and this is where it becomes important and then
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I'm gonna go ahead and open the phone lines and I don't know, we're bothered with a break today because I'm doing all right.
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Here's where I was really left amazed. And again, notice something folks, I did not say anything about this when it happened.
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I mean, I was thinking about it, but I didn't say anything about it. I didn't start talking about, you know, how, you know, you should do this about discerning reader or anything.
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I didn't do that. And in fact, if Rob Schlafer had not bothered to respond to last
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Thursday's program and send me an email that was, that simply quoted from my blog and then had one line, um,
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James, you're a blank. I wouldn't have, I never would have said anything about it.
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So if, you know, if he wants to complain about my having exposed his particular way of dealing with issues, well, you know, then you might want to come from a different direction there,
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Rob. But what I don't understand is this. I'm one of those strange folks that happens to think that theology and doctrine are directly related to everyday life.
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And in fact, I'm one of those folks that believes that what
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I believe about the gospel, if it doesn't impact every day, if it doesn't speak to how
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I deal with all of life, then I'm really not believing in the proper way.
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That, that all of this is just, you know, it's like studying history or medicine or all the stuff
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I learned about wireless networking and everything else yesterday. It's stuff that's just going to go away when you die.
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It has no eternal meaning to it. And I'm just odd that way. And so, you see, when
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I say that I believe in the imputed righteousness of Christ, when
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I look at Legitimae and I look at its usage and I look at the exegesis of Romans 8 and I see how all of this is revealed to me and I see, you know what?
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My peace with God, the shalom that I have with God, the
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Irenae that is mine, Romans 5, 1, therefore having been justified, not therefore looking forward to some future situation where I hope
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I will be found worthy, Romans 2, to be justified, but having been justified by faith,
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I have peace with God. That's not just some doctrinal, traditional, creedal statement that I want to go to war over because I like to argue about traditions.
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That's not why I believe that. That's not how I function. And I thought, silly me,
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I thought that when other people said, you know what? I love
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Reformed theology. I'm passionate about Reformed theology. Silly me. I thought that meant they believe the same thing.
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In fact, I've gotten into a lot of problems recently because I thought that when people honestly said to me, you know what?
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I love Reformed theology. I love the doctrines of grace. I love the fact that I'm saved perfectly through the work of another that I have no grounds of boasting.
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I thought that when people said that, that it actually meant something, that it reflected something real, not something that was just transitory.
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Something that, well, you know, right now that sounds cool to me, but hey, you know, two weeks from now, I might believe something different.
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See, I don't understand that. I don't understand, A, those people who hold to a theological position, but it does not have any impact upon them or it doesn't, there's no passion there.
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And hence they can just, oh, there's a new belief over there. I'll go grab that and I'll just leave this stuff
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I used to believe behind. I'm just going to run over there and get that, and then I'm going to run over there. I don't understand that. That says to me, they never really did believe what they were saying they believed.
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I mean, how many times have people asked me, what about, what about Jerry Matitix and Scott Hahn?
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They were Reformed once, you know, and now they believe something else. And do you think they ever really, really did believe?
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And I go, no, no, I don't. I don't understand how a person can say my whole life is based upon an alien righteousness, the righteousness of another.
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And then at any time later on go, well, you know what? No, I can understand that eschatology.
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You know, I can understand, you know, look at R .C. Sproul. How many eschatological positions has R .C. held and gone in print in defense of,
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I think all three of the major ones at some point or another. I can understand that. That's that's not definitional of my very relationship to God.
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But this is different. The gospel is is different.
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And so you see, what really blew me away about Rob Schlafer's emails is
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I don't understand how you can say I'm I'm passionate about the fact that I stand before God and my peace with him, that that very foundation.
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It's all about somebody else. It's all about the righteousness of Christ. It's not me.
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It's not what I've done or will do. It is this imputed righteousness of Christ.
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I stand clothed in that seamless garment. I don't understand how you can say that and then go read
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N .T. Wright and go, whoa, wow, cool. I'm going to believe something else now.
36:35
You know, I just don't understand that. I just don't follow it.
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And I don't understand the folks who can say that and say, hey, you know. It's like changing, changing shirts, changing shoes.
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I don't understand that. And I never will. And so, yeah, it does leave me just shaking my head and going, wow,
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I just, how does that happen? What's what's the process that somebody goes through to where now
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I'm sitting here reading the blog here and it says, you know, the same paragraph that I started before.
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My contention all along is that we need to meet Wright's arguments and respond to them biblically. There is much to learn from Tom and other
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New Testament scholars today. Well, who's going to argue with that? James wants to create a ridiculous asinine, either or.
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It's Tom Wright or me. Now that's, by the way, that is absurd. OK, I've never made myself the standard.
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Never think of myself as a standard in any way, shape or form. That's that's just a gross red herring, another misrepresentation.
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It's NPP or the Reformation. Well, that's true. There's no question about that.
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I mean, unless you want to just completely redefine the
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Reformation, there's plenty of folks willing to do that. Then, yeah, the two are not not compatible.
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That is a false choice. We can have both. And no, I'm sorry, Rob, you may think you can, but it doesn't work that way.
38:08
Then notice this phrase. There are aspects of Reformed theology that just don't stand up to scripture. Well, then don't call yourself
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Reformed, OK? Come up with a new word, please. Thank you. There are aspects of NPP that just don't stand up to scripture.
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I'd like to know what they are. That'd be interesting. We embrace neither wholesale, but simply follow the
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Bible as best we can. And of course, you heard you heard N .T. Wright in the quotation that I gave likewise making the same argument.
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And that's one of the things that's causing some people some confusion, is they know where I stand on solo scriptura.
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In fact, I just love it. I walk into my office right before the program and what is sitting on my on my desk.
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But the galley proves for scripture alone. The book coming out in October. Here's the galley. See, it's
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I'm trying to do the. There we go. The the
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Rush Limbaugh thing here. There's the galley proves. I have to have him back by next week. And of course, I'm traveling to Golden Gate to teach next week.
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So much for getting any sleep. Everybody knows where I stand on that. Everybody knows that for years and years and years,
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I've defended the the perspicuity of scripture, the sufficiency of scripture. And now they hear these folks who are obviously taking shots at me.
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They're taking shots at at reformed theologians who likewise have been defending solo scriptura for a long time.
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And they call themselves reformed or at least did once call themselves reformed or seem to have been in that group.
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And they're saying they are the practitioners of solo scriptura.
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They say they are the ones. Who believe in exegesis, you know,
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Rob said that to me in a number of those emails. You know, I'm just repeating what what Hodge said. You're not doing exegesis.
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Well, I would invite folks to take a look at the documents from the cells and find out if that's the case.
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Listen to our review of N .T. Wright's English 521, a couple of the passages. But anyway, so people are finding it to be confusing.
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Why in the world is it that way? Now you get some idea of sort of what's going on and where we're going from here.
40:24
I mean, you know what? As far as I can tell, we're saying the same things, talking about the same issues that we were 10, 15 years ago.
40:37
It's just that, unfortunately, the spectrum of people that we are now addressing.
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Who hold to various errors has increased and now includes people who used to, we thought, stand next to us.
40:51
I can't think I can't even begin to name the number of people. People I've known personally, people who've been involved in this ministry.
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Who are now completely opposed to what we're about, what we're doing.
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But we're not the ones who changed. Yeah, you're a crusty traditionalist. Wow, never thought
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I'd ever be accused of being a crusty traditionalist. But that's what we're accused of very commonly now.
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Well, if you'd like to talk to the crusty traditionalist, 877 -753 -3341.
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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. We've got about 17 minutes or so, 16 minutes left in the program.
41:35
So we have not, I don't think we have had a single phone call on the dividing line since, when would that have been?
41:45
About the second week of June, maybe? Yeah, probably about the second week of June because that's when
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I headed back for Long Island and we didn't do the dividing line three times and now everyone's forgotten the number.
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877 -753 -3341. While the phone lines melt down with all the callers calling in.
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As I mentioned, here's scripture alone and let's see how many,
42:15
I hadn't even looked at this yet. Now you find out how many pages it's going to be. That's fairly short. I expected it was going to, wow.
42:22
They really squished it down. I only see 218. Now, of course, this does not include, well, that's odd.
42:30
Desired page count 224. First galley count 218 plus six pages for index.
42:36
Let me do some quick math. Some minor formatting changes have yet to be done to the dialog sections.
42:44
Yeah, I imagine so. For those of you who are interested in such things, 424 ,571 characters.
42:51
That includes spaces. So I was shooting for 224 pages and we squished into 218.
42:58
I think it formatted out. See, I write in typeset format.
43:03
That's very odd. It's very unusual. It's just the way I do it. I do not write.
43:09
I don't write longhand, obviously. I actually type and I do not type double -spaced. I write in the same.
43:17
I know what Bethany House's editorial guidelines are. They're typesetting guidelines. And the reason
43:23
I did that, by the way, some people have asked why, is I helped, well,
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I learned to typeset working on the first six books that we did with Crown Publications. And then when I did the King James Only Controversy, a lot of folks don't know this, but I typeset the
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King James Only Controversy. That book, as it exists today, and I'm certainly hoping someday there might be another, actually, this year is its 10th anniversary.
43:49
It's been out that long now. It's, well, actually, I'll take that back.
43:54
I wrote it in 94. It came out in 95. It was delayed for a few months because Gail Riplinger threatened to sue us.
44:00
So we had to go over the fine -tooth comb. But when it came out, or when we were writing it, the decision was made, there was too much foreign language, specifically
44:10
Greek and Hebrew, biblical languages in it, for it to be typeset back there. And so the editing would be done back there, but then they'd send all the changes to me.
44:20
And it came out of, they bought me a time, it was a, was it 1 ,000 or 1 ,500 DPI?
44:25
I forget what it was. It was a printer that I printed it all out and I typeset it myself.
44:31
So obviously I knew what the format was, and I've just stuck with it.
44:39
That's what I write in. And so when they give me a page count and you only have a, and this is a lot of my most vocal opponents have obviously never written books themselves because they just love to, well, that book's only 225 pages long, da -da -da -da -da.
44:58
Well, you know, publishers, and especially like when you're writing articles, like for the CRI journal, you have a specific number of words, 4 ,800 generally for the
45:07
CRI journal, for a major article. And that's all the space you've got. So you've got to learn to be succinct.
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You've got to learn to pick your subjects. And I was given 224 pages and I wanted to obviously have room for a full scripture index in the book.
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And so, you know, at least when I type, when I write it in typeset format, I know where I am as far as number of pages and stuff go.
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And so as I'm finishing up chapters, I'm adding them all up and so on and so forth. Okay, enough about that.
45:40
A little insight into these things. Let's take our phone calls now real quick. And let's talk with Adam in Akron, Ohio.
45:47
Hi, Adam. Hello, how are you doing, Dr. White? Doing all right, how are you? I'm doing all right. I had a question. I saw your book with Dave Hunt on debating
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Calvinism. And I was wondering, I was reading through it and I got to chapter eight and I really didn't see the point of that chapter.
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The one that says Calvin and Augustine to Jonas sink the ship. Well, you've got to realize
46:10
I have absolutely no control over what Dave Hunt writes. That's his first major presentation and he believes very firmly that there is a historical connection between Calvin and Augustine.
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He believes Augustine is the first Roman Catholic and therefore it is his extended attempt and it works very well for his fans.
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It's his extended attempt to poison the well and to hopefully keep people from considering what
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Calvinism has to say biblically by saying, well, they can't be right because they're actually connected to the
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Roman Catholic Church. So he gets 3 ,000 words to demonstrate that he has no means of being fair to historical figures.
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And I have 2 ,000 words to try to, in essence, point that out. But in all the chapters where you go first you get the majority of the words and so each of us got seven chapters like that.
47:10
Sorry to interrupt you, but what's he do with the Essenes or the Qumran community then? What do you mean?
47:17
For instance, in John Piper's doctoral dissertation, I don't have it in front of me, he cites several passages from the
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Dead Sea Scrolls in which Calvinistic belief and thought is strongly presented, for instance, like from the
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Hemp Scroll about how a man's way is not of himself nor is the person able to determine his step and that the wicked he created for the time of the slaughter.
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And what does he do with that? I doubt he's even aware of it. I don't think he's ever read
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Piper's book. He sort of mocks it at one point in his own writings talking about how much
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Greek and Hebrew it had in it. Well, seriously, he does. I mean, he finds that kind of scholarship to be reprehensible and sort of elitist.
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That's his terminology is elitism. But be that as it may, I would imagine his response at that point would be to say, see, there's always been apostasy.
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That's not really relevant to my fact that to my assertion that that Augustine was a crypto Roman Catholic. And therefore, since Calvin had quoted him, therefore, we can pretty much dismiss dismiss him on that basis.
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So, I mean, you're not you cannot expect a really fair evaluation on the part of Dave of a historical source like that.
48:40
It's just that's just not what his his emphasis is. That's I remember years and years and years ago talking 1991 here.
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I sent Dave a set of tapes where I debated gerrymatitics on the papacy.
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And his only response was to say, I don't really get into the historical stuff. I just stick with the
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Bible. And so I really think he's been fairly, fairly consistent at that point.
49:08
I just thought that he would say that he's going to address the historical stuff and then go off and attack Augustine and Calvin that way.
49:15
Well, I unfortunately, now they didn't. I don't know if they appeared in the book, but I think at one point we had written introductions.
49:25
Yeah, at one point we had written introductions and he went off on that in the introduction for the entire the entire section.
49:30
It was all trying to cram a tremendous amount of historical quotes into one particular passage.
49:39
It just didn't make much sense. So anyway, I can't explain 100 percent why he did that, but it'd probably be best to address that question to him since that was his his opening statement.
49:50
Oh, OK, I understand. Certainly understand that. One more quick question. Do you have time? Are you running real quick?
49:56
Because Tom in Florida wants to ask what's OK. I heard your debate with on veneration of faith and images with Patrick Madrid.
50:05
And I guess I don't want to harp on the Dead Sea Scrolls, but there are some passages in Deuteronomy to talk about stoning and the punishment of those who would commit idolatry that are repeated in ancient
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Jewish writings. And one of Patrick Madrid's main arguments was, well, we can't you know, this was just for the
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Jews because they were so early Jews that they were still in so into idolatry. Right. It just it didn't really seem to make any sense considering that these were passed down through Jewish history to first century
50:33
Jews. Oh, I agree 1000 percent. I found that argument to be extremely lacking in substance because he then repeated it later on.
50:44
We looked into the I think it was in Toledo. It was in Spain. There was a there was a statement in regards to the issue of veneration of images.
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And he said, well, they were having problems with idolatry as if as if every generation does not have problems with idolatry.
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It's absolutely amazing that the application of that kind of thinking to the prohibitions against homosexuality and and the murder of children and everything else would cause no end of difficulties for Mr.
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Madrid's position. But you only have so much time in a debate to get to all the points you'd like to get to. So I agree with you.
51:16
Thanks a lot for the call. No problem. Thank you for taking it. All right. God bless. Bye bye. Let's quick run over to Tom.
51:22
And oh, wait a minute, Tom. Hold on just one second. I just want to announce for everyone big if I had the sound up,
51:30
I'd play the 20th century thing. But he of the genitive of the
51:35
Ten Commandments or whatever his name is, just came in the channel. Let us know that the Reformed Baptist Theological Review volume one issue two is at the printer.
51:44
And that means that the article that I have mentioned on our blog where I'm addressing the issue of the new covenants, a two part article should be shipping fairly soon if you have not had the opportunity of getting that subscribe, getting your subscription and you need to get to it fairly quickly.
52:04
It's www .rbtr .org. And I would recommend you do that. And let's quick run down to Tom.
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Tom, how are you doing? Fine, James. How are you doing today? Doing all right. That's why I just want to first say I just want to thank you for just all your ministry and your books have been tremendous support for me.
52:20
And I'm a pastor here in Florida. Well, great. And I was just going to comment on the fact and ask you one question on the fact you had mentioned earlier that how people have just departed that once seemed to or claimed that they held his view and how they can just walk away from it.
52:36
But I'm facing the same situation. I'm actually a Southern Baptist pastor here and even have a family member who's a pastor.
52:44
We both graduated from Moody Bible Institute and we would talk for years about the fact of our love for Spurgeon and our love for the truths of Calvinism.
52:57
And just recently, there has just been such a surge, it seems, on this side of the country. Because that's only one
53:04
I'm familiar with, of course. But dealing in the Southern Baptist Convention, especially, of just an all outright hatred and attack for the
53:14
Reformed theology. I have a friend that's in Jacksonville that's trying to plant a church there and was rejected by the association on the grounds of the fact that he held
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Reformed theology. And they're all using Geisler's book. And I've encouraged them.
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And this is the thing about it. One, I wanted to ask you about have you seen this? Have you had any connection with the Southern Baptist Convention?
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What's going on there and the opposition? And secondly, have you found it to be true that many of the people that reject it are unwilling to read the opposition?
53:49
For instance, myself, I went out and bought What Love Is This. Wanted to read it. It was a very difficult read.
53:55
Not just because of the issues of the poor exegetical work and everything else, but it's just a very tedious reading.
54:04
But do you find that same thing that they're unwilling? I've offered them to read Potter's Freedom. They don't want to read that. They just want to read
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Geisler's book. Yeah. Unfortunately, it's endemic. It is very much a one -way road, a one -way ticket on that subject.
54:19
You'll find significantly more openness to hearing what the other side is saying and biblically interacting with it.
54:26
It's a traditional thing, especially in many of those Southern Baptist churches where it's like, look, I'm not getting into that because that's a church splitter.
54:35
That's a divider. We all want to be together here. Let's just put that aside. I mean,
54:41
I've actually responded here on the program to Adrian Rogers. I almost got around to it and never did.
54:49
But last semester, I was teaching Systematic Theology II for Golden Gate in Phoenix. So I was teaching for Southern Baptist Seminary on Systematic Theology, and I gave to my students the
54:59
URLs to the New Orleans Seminary chapels where Paige Patterson just shredded
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Calvinism, just attacked Calvinism openly and very strongly.
55:12
I gave them the URLs. I said, if you want to hear where someone else is saying the exact opposite of what
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I'm saying, here it is. I don't have any problem with doing that, because I know that if we were to actually dialogue or debate on the subject,
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I know what the result would be, not because of who I am, but just because I know these questions and I know that once you start examining them on a biblical basis, there's no way of coming up with any meaningful answer.
55:39
I would love to see some of these major individuals engage in debates where they would engage these subjects and debate these subjects openly, but it's not going to happen.
55:51
You and I both know it's not going to happen, and I would love to see it as a part of something down there in Florida.
55:57
I've got Michael Fallon down there in Florida. He arranges stuff for us down there, and he knows that I would be open to that if we could find someone who could really fairly represent the other side within Baptist life or something like that.
56:13
I'd love to engage those issues, and I've proven that I can do that in a fair manner that is not just a slash -and -burn type thing.
56:22
It would be very biblical. It would be very focused upon the biblical text. Love to do that kind of thing, but there is no desire to do that because, honestly, the other side does not believe.
56:32
They do not reject Reformed theology because they believe they've seen it refuted biblically.
56:39
They reject Reformed theology because they believe that it comes from a foreign worldview and background, and they just see it as being, quote -unquote, bad for the church, and that's been my experience on many, many times.
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In fact, I'll be addressing some things relevant to that at the Founders Conference regional meeting in,
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I think it's the Dallas -Fort Worth area, I think in September, September, October, somewhere I'm going to be down there speaking to the
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Founders guys again. Well, doctrine is naturally divisive anyway. The moment that you say you believe in Jesus Christ and what you believe about him, you've drawn a line.
57:20
You've become divisive. But you see, you're defining doctrine in a non -traditional way.
57:25
Traditional doctrines are friendly and soft and warm and fluffy. Well, the opposition that we get here is in regards to the fact that we just want to focus on the important things, and the important thing is evangelism.
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And to me, if we're talking about the Gospel, which is what Reformed theology is at the very heart of Reformed theology, is what is the
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Gospel, then should we not have something that is relatively close, if you will, to what the
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Bible says about the Gospel if we're going to do evangelism? Well, you know, we're preaching to the crowd, aren't we?
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But I fully understand exactly where you're coming from. It has been my experience. You're not alone in that.
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There are many people listening right now who are shaking their heads up and down, going, yep, yep, yep, been there, done that, got the t -shirt.
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But I encourage you, Tom, stay faithful. And the Lord's going to bless that in an eternal way.
58:19
I appreciate your call today. Appreciate Adam's call as well. Appreciate you listening to The Dividing Line. We'll be back again
58:24
Thursday afternoon at 7 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time.