July 27, 2004

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The world 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, and good morning, welcome to The Dividing Line, live at 2 p .m.
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Eastern Daylight Time, for those of you out there. Here in the Mountain West, it is 11 a .m.
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still, before lunchtime anyways, it is the morning anyway. I got a, I'm going to miss this too,
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I'm really bummed. I got a advertisement, a nice glossy thing here, wow, some of these pictures are great, for a
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Path to Rome conference series, and the only international conference of famous converts to the
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Catholic Church, Phoenix, Arizona, guess when it is? November 5th, 6th, and 7th, 2004, yeah, same weekend that we are in Los Angeles for the debate, and that's a shame, unfortunately,
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I would love to attend this. I mean, if I was in Phoenix that weekend, I would be there, however,
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I'm, okay, I do know a couple of these people. I mean, Peter Kreef's going to be there, he says,
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Dutch Reformed Convert, oh, that's interesting, and Jewish convert is Dr.
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Bernard Nathanson, ex -abortion rights leader, but that's the last person I have any clue as to who these people are.
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And I loved the last one here, the Baptist convert, sorry,
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Baptist convert, Mr. David Ray M. Jeyes, Miles Jeyzu, that's the organization,
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Catholic missionary, former rapper, that was the
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Baptist convert, the former rapper, whoo, there you go, I, I, I, I don't know.
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I just look at this thing going, okay, it's a only international conference of converts to the
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Catholic Church, not really overly famous, but we're going to put that back in the envelope there, and hey, maybe someone here locally can go, can go see that.
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Oh, well, hey, we have a lot of fun around here. Some people find that tremendously annoying, because we're not supposed to have fun around here, but hey.
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Some of you know the blog has exploded of late, I, in fact, I really doubt even the famous person on the other side of the wall here has looked closely enough at the front page to, to know that I was actually playing last night, well,
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I wasn't really playing, but I did actually a very good job in, in adding two books to the bottom of the ad column, and I even put the graphics on the right website, and I did the right links, and, and it was, it was,
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I did a good job, I was very proud of myself, I did not crash the entire website, and we have, we have lots of, lots of neat stuff on the blog right now, and the article that's up right now, for those of you who,
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I just brought it up, and I just realized that the picture we have for the cruise, and folks, you've only got till August 8th, if you, if you've been putting it off,
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August 8th, man, we have, we have held over these really incredibly ridiculously low rates for a long, long time,
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August 8th is going to be it, you need to do it now, we've got so many neat folks who are going to be on this, on this trip, you, you really, like I said, you, you can't beat this with a stick, you can't go to any of those theme parks and things like that, and you get to be on a beautiful ship, and eat more food than is probably proper to do, and have lots of fellowship, and talk a lot of theology, and things like that, but I was just looking at the picture, and I just realized,
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I know what it is, it's a, it's a boat moving away from the ship that we're going to be on, but it actually looks a little bit like three torpedoes heading straight for it,
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I'm not really sure if that's, that's what we, anyway,
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I was just reading an article that in fact was sent to me about rogue waves out in the oceans, 90 foot waves out in the oceans that are much more common than people thought, and, and stuff like that, so, oh man, anyhow, the first article in the blog is an interesting expansion,
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London Baptist Confession, 1689, it was so funny this morning, I'm watching some of these people on the channel, and I'm sorry, you know, some of these folks on the channel, they're just not cut out for discussion in a chat channel, because they just, they can't follow context, and they don't look up URLs, and stuff just goes flying by folks, and so I see somebody asking, what does
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LBCF mean? Well, the very first sentence says, London Baptist Confession of Faith, and then somebody else says, when was it written?
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And it says, an interesting expansion, the LBCF 1689, and it's got it right after it each time, and I'm just sort of like, wow, man, um, it's sort of like some folks who watch movies, and you know, you get down to the movie, and then you ask them, so what happened there?
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And they have no idea, I guess they just think movies are meant to go, wow, look at all the stuff exploding, and things happening, and it's pretty.
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Anyway, just sitting there, reading along, going, cool, but for those of you who were following along, it is an interesting expansion, and Richard Brassellus dropped me a note, he's back from his vacation up in the cool pines, and he dropped me a note, and said that he believes
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Warfield addresses this issue, and that in point of fact, the expansion in the
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London Baptist Confession isn't so much an expansion there as it was, there were some dissenters in Westminster over the issue of the
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Act of Obedience of Christ. So, more interesting stuff, now I'm not done with this particular issue, this was actually, as I explained in it, a little thing that I stumbled across as I was writing the next section of my response to Seyfried's comments on justification, and his assertion that the idea of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to us as our soul standing before God is unbiblical, and we went beyond where we should, and so on and so forth.
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And I'm continuing the Galatians 5 thing, I haven't given up on that either, I just put a little bit more up on that yesterday, and from what
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I'm being told from the powers that be, the article on Phillips, Craig, and Dean, which
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I think is very important, that's why I have on it, you know, it's too important an issue to allow to scroll so quickly, because I mean, it was only on the front page for a day or day and a half or something.
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Just for those of you who are wondering, what happens fairly regularly, ever since the late 90s, when
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I wrote an article for the C .R .A. Journal, and in the C .R .A. Journal I just mentioned what Charisma Magazine had already mentioned, and that was that the three members of the contemporary
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Christian singing group called Phillips, Craig, and Dean, come from a oneness background, and I took the time at that time to look at the websites that were available, and of course, hey, websites have come a long way since 98, 99, that area around there, this was actually 1999, but I checked it out, and yes, each one of those websites, each one of those individuals had those connections there, and their fathers, and two of the three were the senior pastors, main pastors of their churches.
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Now, as this has come back up again, I've looked, and two of those three are now the senior pastors of those churches, and what happens is, these folks go out and they're starting a concert tour, and so what happens is, there are a few odd folks in each church who are actually concerned about things like apologetics and the doctrine of the
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Trinity, and they have just a little bit of a problem in being led in worship by someone who does not believe in the doctrine of the
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Trinity, and we've talked about this over the past number of years, it keeps coming up, you know, we've, for example, a couple of years ago, we talked with K -Love, the radio network that plays
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Christian music, and there was a note sent to them about this issue, and they came back and said, well, you know, we've been assured by Phillips Cregandine, they believe in the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we try to, you know, just have unity on the 90 percent that joins us together, and not worry about the 10 percent that doesn't, so in other words, the doctrine of the
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Trinity is in the 10 percent that doesn't define things, and that was a really sad thing, and so what we keep getting is people writing to us and saying, look,
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I took your documentation, I read the article in the CRI Journal, I looked at the article on your website,
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Eric Nielsen has an article on the website where he has gone through the issue of the
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Phillips Cregandine stuff very thoroughly, and I brought it up to the pastors of my church, or I am one of the pastors of my church, so I brought it up to the
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Phillips Cregandine folks, and they say you're wrong, they say you haven't contacted them, you haven't talked to them, and that they're not oneness, and that they believe in the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so you're wrong. Well, actually, then, I then produce the email from Randy Phillips, which, interestingly enough, in 1999,
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I just checked it out, and this is all in the article, I find that the exact wording that Randy Phillips used, responding for Phillips Cregandine at the
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Phillips Cregandine website, at their email address, responding for the group, used the exact same confession of faith that's found on his church's website, where he's now the senior pastor, and it is a modalistic confession of faith.
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It is not Trinitarian, it is modalistic. They use the term triune, but they use the term triune of manifestations, not of persons, and they talk about God manifesting himself both as Father and Son, and as Holy Spirit.
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That's modalism, folks. Now, maybe, sadly, the vast majority of evangelicals today don't know that and don't care.
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That's probably the case, but the fact of the matter is that's what's going on, and so when they say, oh, we believe in the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, well, the Jehovah's Witnesses believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's what they mean by that.
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The Mormons believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I mean, that's easy. That's never, ever been the point.
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So, anyway, Steve Camp got hold of me this week and told me what's going on on a mailing list that he's on of Christian broadcasters.
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It's come back up again because PC &D are going out on another concert tour, and the fact of the matter is, they have the backing of Moody Bible Institute, and I've spoken with someone.
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PC &D's coming to their church, and they contacted us and said, look, we went through our statement of faith with Randy Phillips, and he agreed with it, and so I directed them to Randy Phillips' own statement of faith, and they wrote back and said, well, yep, they don't fit, do they?
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Nope, they don't. Well, why would they not be clear about this? In fact, if I'm wrong, then why don't they just come out and say, we affirm unequivocally the
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Nicene and Athanasian creeds, and we anathematize, or reject, if they don't want to use old terminology, we reject utterly the teachings that teach that there is all forms of Unitarianism.
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All forms say there's only one divine person who only manifests himself as Father, we anathematize that, we reject that.
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Why won't they do that? And it's sad, but I honestly do not know if anyone has ever sat down with, like Randy Phillips, who knows the doctrine of the
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Trinity well enough to ask the right questions, because being satisfied with the response that we believe in the
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Father, Son, Holy Spirit, means you don't have any idea, any idea at all, what the issues historically were, or what they are today.
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And so we've put another article up, and it has, I don't know how many links in it, I mean, you can chase this thing all over the place, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, twelve links just in this one short little article, so you can go and you can look for yourself.
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And the powers that be on the other side of the wall tell me that he's getting all sorts of emails from various sundry folks, and you know, some of them are your standard, oh, white's a
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Calvinist, you can't believe anything he says. And then you've got folks saying, well, yeah, looks like you've crossed your
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T's and dotted your I's, but we still don't like it. So, hey folks, it's real simple, simple matter here, obvious matter, and that is what's most important to you, your musical styles and tastes, or the honor of the undivided
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Trinity. Put in that particular format, it should be easy to answer, but the fact of the matter is, let's face it, it really isn't that simple for most folks.
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I got a real kick out of one of them that I saw that basically the guy's response was, after going to the websites and verifying that that's exactly what those websites say, and that that's oneness, he still said, well,
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I don't believe anything I read on the web. So, I'm going to email those people individually and make sure that that's actually what they believe.
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Cool. Well, so, that would be like going to our Statement of Faith and then sending me an email saying,
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I know this is what it says at your ministry's website as to your Statement of Faith and that, in fact, you wrote it, but is that really what you believe?
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Yep. Okay, well, what can I say? This whole thing could be so easily cleared up, and yet years go by, and well, you know.
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Anyhow, so, lots of neat stuff on the blog. Make sure to hit the material on the issue of the nature of the imputed righteousness of Christ.
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Did anyone think 10 years ago that this would be what we'd be arguing about today? I certainly didn't.
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I certainly didn't. But every generation is called to contend for the faith.
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Well, anyway, I have a clip I wanted to play for you. Yes, we have a sound clip.
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That means we have to turn up the computer eventually here. Just a few,
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I hope that doesn't start ringing. Oh, good, it didn't. I look over. I've got those really cool bright blue lights on my phone, you know.
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Most people find it very annoying, and whenever I see them going, that always happens before it rings, but it doesn't always ring when that happens.
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I'm not sure what that means, but they were all lit up, and so I was wondering. Anyhow, sometime, let's see, today is
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Tuesday, so this would have been what? The 21st. When was the 21st?
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Oh, I hate when another menu comes up on top of the, there it is. Okay, this is last Wednesday. I, honestly,
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I've been traveling a lot, and just busier than a one -armed paper hanger, whatever that's supposed to mean, and so I just haven't been listening to the radio much at all.
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Besides that, most of the discussion is about what's going on in Boston, and I just, I can't possibly handle that at all, and especially since that guy with the initials
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MM is all over the place, and there are a few people who actually make me physically ill like that particular person, and that's not
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Michael Medved either. I'd like Michael Medved, but there's someone else who has the same initials.
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Anyhow, oh, see, there's the Westminster Assembly and its work page 149 following.
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Well, I'll have to look that up, but it's on the other side of my bookshelf there, and I can't get to it right now, and I said
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I'm going to be playing a clip. Anyways, last Wednesday, I finally turned the, oh, not in Warfield?
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Mitchell. Okay, Mitchell's the Westminster Assembly, pages 149 and following. Well, thank you very much, sir.
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Not in Warfield. All right, well, anyhow, we'll take a look at that, and I don't even know where that one is, if it's in my library or not, so anyhow, those of you going, what is he talking about?
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Well, I'm reading the channel, and some of you don't go on channel, but some of you have and didn't survive it.
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Anyway, I haven't been listening to the radio, and so I turned it on, and the very first thing, it was during the
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Bible Answering Broadcast, so I turn it on, and as soon as I turn it on, let's take our next caller, and here's the caller, and the caller is asking about limited atonement, and so I'm like, oh, well, this will be interesting, and so I took the time to, well,
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I didn't really stop doing anything, really, but I listened in, and the first,
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I don't know, two and a half, three minutes, it might have even been longer than that,
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I don't remember now, absolutely nothing new. Libertarianism, if you don't have libertarian free will, there can't be any love.
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Chatty Cathy dolls, you know, the standard misrepresentations of compatibilism, and all that stuff, and absolutely positively nothing new.
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Same terminology, the only thing we didn't hear at that point in time was Sonny and Cher, and that was probably good, because that would have caused me to possibly cast things across the room and do other things that I probably shouldn't do at particular points in time, but anyway,
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I was listening in, and as we got toward the end of the call, however, the caller himself tried as best he could to keep coming back to particular issues, and he never really did get his questions answered.
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That was very, very clear in what was going on, but what really caught my attention was the caller brought up John 644, and everybody will remember that last
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December, I did the same thing, and we didn't get a whole lot of response at that particular time either, but what was said, and the means of John 644, how it was dealt with, that's what caused me to fire up ye old recording device, and so let's listen in.
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I just sort of jump into the call here, because like I said, the first part of the call was just the standard stuff that we've gone over a million times before, we've given full answers to it, and so on and so forth, but let's listen in.
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Which is the freedom to act or to act otherwise. Those are two entirely different views. They are acceptable within the
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Pale of Orthodoxy, and therein lies a great debate that's been carried on within the
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Christian Church. I know that like in John 644, Jesus says that no man uniform negative can come unto me except the
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Father which hath sent me drawn. So doesn't that place man without God taking the sovereign initiative?
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Does that not place man at complete inability? Yes and no.
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I think that you have to always read texts within their intended context, as opposed to having a predisposition that you already are reading the text in.
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In other words, I think this is the problem people have when they read various passages of Scripture.
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Romans chapter 9 for example. Now notice something here. The man asks an excellent question.
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What does John 644 mean? And the response that I'm hearing is, well, yes and no.
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We can't read texts with presuppositions. And what happens when you read a text with presupposition?
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What happens when you are not listening to the text, but you instead are bringing your conclusion to the text?
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Well, that's called eisegesis. Reading into the text that which is not there.
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So what's going to be said here given the viewpoint being taken is,
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Reformed people, that's me, and we've heard this before. We've heard it very plainly stated even within a week after the debate.
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I'm reading, I am eisegesing John 644. Now I've yet to hear why or how that is, but the assertion is
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Reformed people, when you're dealing with John 6, you're not reading it in the proper context. Now then notice instead of dealing with John 6, we've gone off to Romans 9.
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If you remember the debate again back in December, there was an attempt, it was a failed attempt, but there was an attempt to get
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George Bryson to deal with Romans 9 and say, well, actually the background's about nations, it's not about this type of stuff.
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And to try to make that argument, he didn't do what he was supposed to do at that point, and it didn't work real well.
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But immediately going to Romans 9, rather than dealing with John 6, but he will come back to it.
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Classic case in point. If you read it with the predisposition that you just mentioned, well, you are going to come up with a particular theological construct.
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However, if you say, you know what, I'm not going to read this with a preconception, which by the way would include reading the
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Bible with the preconception of libertarianism, as if it is an absolute necessity, which is what
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Norman Geisler does. I'm just going to read this and interpret this in the essence in which it's intended, or in the sense in which it's intended.
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In other words, I'm going to exegete the passage. So reformed people are not exegeting the passage, but libertarianists are.
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Which is to say, I'm going to read this in the way in which Paul meant this. And Paul is very clearly assuming that I know something, that I have a background, as in the case of John, which you just mentioned.
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But Paul here is saying, you know, there's a background here, and I'm assuming that background. So when I say something,
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I'm assuming you're already familiar with the passages that I'm quoting. And if you're familiar with the passages that I'm quoting, you already understand the qualifications.
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In other words, there is this overarching understanding, which doesn't normally get expressed.
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I mean, if you want to see it, if you want to see the background of this, go read Lenski, Forster and Marston, read the
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Standard, either the primary influences here, and it's an odd mixture of Lutheranism and Arminianism.
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But go read those sources, and you're going to know what this alleged background is. Now, of course,
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I would turn around and say, actually, the opposite is the case here. Look at what
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John Piper says, you know, and then you have that kind of a discussion going on.
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But that's the assertion that's being made. So God does not do anything capriciously. He creates vessels for noble purposes, because they respond in obedience, and ignoble purposes, because they respond or reject in disobedience.
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Now, do you notice what happened with the glowing example of eisegesis that was just offered there?
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There you have a... Did you hear what Romans 9 was just turned into?
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Instead of the potter creating the pots, and the nature of the pots, now you have the potter creating pots in response to what the pots do.
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So the action of the pots determines the nature of the potter, the nature of the action of the potter, let's put it that way.
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Completely backwards from the argument, but when you have to have libertarianism, there you have the reversal.
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So there's a context here. Please don't read this with a preconception. Only read this within the context of the sense in which
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I've intended it. The interpretation lies in something you should already be familiar with, and that is in the
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Old Testament. So I'm thinking that sometimes we make the mistake of reading passages like this, or the one you just mentioned, without understanding the entire context.
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No question about it, one of the two of us is. But if you're going to make that assertion, then you have to back it up.
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And when I have asked to have this backed up, I don't get a survivable response.
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I mean, I'm not saying that some people can't offer a response, but it's not a response that can survive cross -examination.
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That's the problem. And I think in doing that, we simply are imposing a paradigm on Scripture instead of reading
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Scripture for all it's worth, and the importance in reading John chapter 6, or any other passage. Now, listen to this again.
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This struck me as odd because I know that this can happen because I don't hear the guy anymore.
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And listen to this. Doesn't this sound like this has been edited? Now you may go, wait a minute, this has got to be live.
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No, it doesn't have to be live. Especially if it's a second hour, and frequently Wednesday is.
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What is, what airs is not what was actually there.
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I mean, I remember once doing a program when I had to do it by going down to a radio station here in Phoenix to do it.
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It was one time of Bible Answer Man that I was in the studio. And there was an entire call in the program when
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I did it, that when it aired the next day, because it was second hour, was not there. And during the debate, there was a call, didn't get aired because it was after the first hour.
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First hour, if you can get in when it's live, first hour, and you know it's live, then it's going to be there. But second, third hours, things like that, you can remove calls, and all they do is just adjust the timing and take an extra call to fill that time later on.
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And listen to this, and see if this doesn't sound like the conversation went beyond this, but it didn't get on the air.
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On Scripture, instead of reading Scripture for all it's worth. And the importance in reading
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John chapter 6, or any other passage, would be that you need to read it within its intended context.
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And that passage has everything to do with belief, not determinism. Same thing is true, of course, in Romans chapter 9.
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But here's what I would do. For you, I would simply say, what's really important is that you get some of the good materials that we have available.
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We recommend materials on both sides. Now, I think there was a cut there.
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I think the call continued on, and that that was added in later. Personally, I could be wrong, but it certainly sounds like it.
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But notice what is, nothing is ever said about John 6, other than this statement.
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On Scripture, instead of reading Scripture for all it's worth. And the importance in reading John chapter 6, or any other passage, would be that you need to read it within its intended context.
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And that passage has everything to do with belief, not determinism. That passage has everything to do with belief, not determinism.
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And yet, John 6, 37 -44, is in response to Jesus' saying to these men, these men who have followed
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Him across the lake. They have been called those who were seeking Him.
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At the end of John 6, they're going to walk away. And in John 6, 35 -36,
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Jesus says, you have seen me, and yet you are not believing.
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You are not believing. So the context, the immediate context, is what?
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It is unbelief in the face of the incarnate Son of God.
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And what Jesus does in verses 37 -45, is explain why.
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Is explain why. So, that's the immediate context.
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And what's going on here, is the assertions being made, is that there is a larger context going back to John 5.
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Even though there is a clear distinction, there's a clear cut, there's a clear transition from 5 -6.
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Despite all of that, what is being said is that this overriding context trumps the immediate context.
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Even if it makes the immediate context unintelligible, the overriding context trumps it.
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And what is the overriding context? What's the only reason for the overriding context? Libertarian freedom.
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Libertarian freedom. And folks, I, you know, I was trying to talk with somebody in channel there.
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I don't think coming in channel. Young guy, 18 years old. And he's admitted.
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He has admitted that he has been studying theology for 90 days.
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Three months. And unfortunately, this young man does not show any interest in actually learning anything, only doing what 18 -year -olds do, and that is demonstrate that they are infallible and omniscient.
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And that no one who's been studying theology for decades could possibly know as much as they know after three months of study.
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And this fellow holds to libertarianism. Whoever he's talked to, whoever's, you know, introduced him to Christian theology, they obviously hold to libertarian free will.
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And so, it has been extremely frustrating to try to talk to this individual.
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In fact, I was scrolling back in the log last night, somewhere around 2 a .m. in the morning, he pops in the channel, quotes a couple of the standard passages, like John 1232, comments, well, it's all clear now and then leaves.
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Drive -by proof texting. And, you know, you ask, and exactly what have you read on the other side?
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You know, what have you examined on this side? Nothing. But we are infallible. Libertarianism, and I said this to him, you know,
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I would think that your first concern would be that God have libertarian free will.
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I would think your first concern would be that God be free, not that his creatures have control over him.
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But that's not the case, libertarianism. And I've said it many times before, libertarian free will, which is a denial of the
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Bible's teaching concerning the nature of sin and man's enslavement thereto, that's all it is.
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Libertarian free will is the glue of human religion.
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It is what holds all of man's religions together. It is the necessary element that allows man to control
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God. All of man's religions hold that same concept together.
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They have to, because without it, you can't have religious systems whereby you do things that control the power of God.
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And so I do not have a whole lot of patience for people who are so self -contradictory that they will talk about the grace of God, and they will talk about the sovereignty of God, and then they'll talk about libertarian free will.
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That is a person who has not honored God enough to actually think through what they're saying.
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And I don't have a whole lot of respect for it. I really don't. There are certain priorities we're supposed to have, folks.
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We're supposed to have certain priorities, and honoring God's truth doesn't seem to be at the top of a lot of people's priorities list today.
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There are people who mock me for even talking about God's truth. Oh, he just thinks he's just easy, all he wants to know is
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God's truth. No, I don't. I don't believe that. But I do believe that a
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Christian better honor God's truth. A Christian had better be concerned about God's truth.
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Is Christianity truly a matter of mere opinion? Is that all it is?
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How do you know you have eternal life? How do you know that when you wake up in the morning, you are not going to face the wrath of God?
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Without God's truth, you don't know. You don't know.
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So many people in the church today are so deeply, so deeply influenced by the modern world and the modern way of thinking, post -modernism, and it's it's ooey -gooey view of truth that they no longer think in a biblical fashion.
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So anyway, when I hear people absolutely running from the context of a passage, running from the grammar, running from the syntax, running from the argument, turning the author's intention upside down, all in the name of libertarianism, a theology that clearly, unarguably is contradictory to the
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Bible's teaching concerning the enslavement of man to sin, I get a little riled about it.
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Especially when the same folks will use proper means of hermeneutics and exegesis on other subjects, on other issues, as long as it doesn't touch upon the sacred cow of libertarianism.
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And of course, those of you who know something about theology know libertarianism is the lifeblood of open theism.
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It is the lifeblood. I mean, the open theists have a really good point.
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They really do. They have seen the inconsistency of historic
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Arminianism. Historic Arminians have affirmed that God has exhaustive knowledge of future events.
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And they have recognized that that doesn't work. If God has exhaustive knowledge of future events, there can be no libertarian free will.
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Because if God knows that Cyrus is going to let the people go, Cyrus is going to let the people go. The definition of libertarianism is the ability to act or not act, to do
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X or not X at any given time. But Cyrus is going to let the people go. Peter is going to deny
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Christ. Prophecy exists. And so the open theists recognize, you know what, we can't have that.
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We cannot have a God who has exhaustive knowledge of what free creatures are going to do. So we're going to deny him that knowledge.
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Now, the result is pure paganism. There's no question about that. But they have seen the inconsistency.
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They have seen that that system doesn't work. And this young 18 -year -old theologian who's been coming in a channel when faced with those things says, well, it's a mystery.
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It's a paradox. It's this. It's that. I'm just not going to deal with what it actually says. And I've been very upfront with him and said, you know what, that kind of thinking simply does not bode well, in my opinion, concerning where that young man is.
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But you know what? I'll keep trying to talk to him. It gets very frustrating and sometimes downright distractive.
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But you try, you know. You try. So we'll keep doing it.
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Anyway, 877 -753 -3341. We've got 20 minutes of program left. 877 -753 -3341.
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Possibly you have some questions about the Phillips, Craig, and Dean situation, or the issue of libertarianism, or the issue of the active and passive obedience of Christ.
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I saw a note scroll by in the channel that question 70 of the
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Westminster, I think it was shorter catechism, seems to speak about active obedience.
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I'm certain that that is the intention. I was just simply pointing out that the
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London Baptist Confession uses the actual terminology. And that is being identified by some as a reformed sacred cow and things like that.
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I think the quotation from Samuel Waldron on the blog today says it all.
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And I discussed this, in fact, in my Sunday school lesson,
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Sunday morning, which you can listen to. I don't know if I mentioned this, but larger catechism.
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Thank you very much. Larger, not shorter. Hey, it scrolls by, man. I can't sit here and just read everything that's being talked about.
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And those Sunday school lessons are posted online at www .prbc
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.org. The Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church, prbc .org. We're just one of many PRBCs.
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There are many other PRBCs. In fact, there's a PRBC in Southern California that wishes today,
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I'm sure, that they had gotten on the net before we did. But we have www .prbc
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.org. And you can go there and listen to the Sunday school lessons.
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And you sort of have to click around to get there. But you can listen to Sunday school lessons. And I talked about this Sunday morning in regards to this concept of the righteousness of Christ.
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And one of the points that I made at that particular point in time is
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I'm concerned about the way in which this debate is being formed.
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And what I mean by that is what's being argued. For example, we see this in Seaford.
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And I see this in the various articles that are appearing on the web, various groups for various reasons, their own particular bent on things, have a reason to not deal with the idea of the imputed righteousness of Christ.
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And especially the act of obedience aspect. The problem is the way it's being stated is that we somehow are making an addition that scripture knows nothing about.
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I would like to suggest that we think about it another way. And that is, I think that dividing the
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God man and the incarnation so that the first 33 years of life are not relevant to our salvation outside of merely preparing a spotless lamb.
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So that only the sacrificial act itself at the end, that's it. You know, Jesus could have just simply appeared full grown, you know, just beamed in, die on the cross and was resurrected and that would have been enough.
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Is a tremendous problem. When we speak of the righteousness of Christ, does
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Christ's righteousness include his perfect life?
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Yes or no? That's really the question. Because to say that the act of obedience of Christ is irrelevant is to say, well, the life of Christ and his perfect obedience to the
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Father is a completely separate issue than the righteousness that is imputed to us because of his death.
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I see that as a division of the righteousness of Christ. And I ask why?
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Isn't there something here about being united with Christ? Being in him?
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Well, if we have his righteousness, what is the nature of that righteousness? Is it only seen in the cross?
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Is that the only place it's seen? Or is in his obedience to the Father, leading him to the cross and that sacrifice?
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Is that not a part of his righteousness? I've expanded upon that a little bit in the Sunday School Lesson, www .prbc
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.org. You can catch that there. Well, we've got a phone call.
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So let's go ahead and take our phone caller, singular at the moment anyway, as far as I can tell. And we go off to, isn't it called the
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Granite State, New Hampshire, Craig? Is that called the Granite State? Yes, it is. There you go. See, it's the
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Granite State. Hi, Craig. How are you? Good. How are you doing? Doing all right. Good. I was listening to that clip that you were playing about the potter and the clay and how people deal with that text.
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And I was reading a book the other day, a commentary by William Barclay. I don't know if you're familiar with him.
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Yes, I did. Yeah. And I was absolutely amazed at the response that he wrote. I just want to read it real quick.
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It's on page 132, his commentary on Romans. He says, as far as the potter and the clay, it says, it is a bad analogy.
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One great New Testament commentator has said that this is one of the few passages which we wish
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Paul had not written. There's a difference between human being and lump of clay. A human being is a person.
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A lump of clay is a thing. Maybe you can do what you like with a thing, but you cannot do what you like with a person. He goes on to say, clay does not desire to answer back, does not desire to question, cannot think and feel, cannot be bewildered or tortured.
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If someone has inexplicably suffered some tremendous sorrow, it will not help much to tell him he has no right to complain.
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And he just kind of goes on with that. And, you know, I just, I was amazed that the audacity of accusing
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Paul of using a bad analogy. Well, welcome to the world of modern liberal theology.
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Really? Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I know exactly what you're feeling, because when
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I went to seminary, I had the same feeling over and over again. Eventually, I got used to it.
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I'll be honest with you in the sense that it that doesn't surprise me at all.
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I mean, I had to read a few textbooks by Barclay, and that's he was one of the primary people where I learned to to sift through that kind of literature.
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And I learned a lot of good things from Barclay in the sense that because the fact that his theology stinks so bad, he doesn't spend necessarily a whole lot of time talking about it.
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And so what liberals like him tend to do is they tend to be pretty good with background facts and research issues and things like that.
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And you can glean a lot of good stuff from Barclay in regards to background issues, things like that, as long as you don't then throw the book across the room when he then tries to make an application of that.
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And the application almost always goes back to the fact that he doesn't have a meaningful theology of scripture.
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And there you see it. There you have the exact type of thing that Barry Lynn did in our debate on homosexuality.
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When I asked her about the Book of Galatians and Paul's statement that there were people who were obviously outside the realm of the gospel and they were to be accursed, and his response was, well, obviously,
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Paul was over the top at that point. So that was an error. Well, here you have
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Barclay and these folks. We're not accustomed necessarily in the
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United States within our confines of hearing people saying, man, I wish Paul hadn't said that.
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He really blew it. What a bad illustration. How wrong could you get? We're not accustomed to that.
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You've got to realize most of our European friends are very accustomed to hearing that, because that is the essence of modern liberal theology and theological writing.
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Yeah, it seems to have a really low view on what scripture is, about being
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God -breathed. Well, you see, he would understand that in the sense that most of the time when
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Paul is writing, he's writing on an elevated plane.
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That's what inspiration means, seriously, to these folks. It is human literature.
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And so immediately you have to ask the question, well, then why should we care about what it says? And the response of the particular individual that you're reading in a liberal perspective always has to end up exalting some form of tradition or the church to answer the question as to why we should even care about what this collection of books says.
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Yeah, it's amazing, because I'm Reformed myself. I was born again about 10 years ago, and he was the book that I started reading.
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And I'm just amazed at that type of commentary, because now when I go and look at buying any commentary sets, the first thing
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I'll do is look up Romans 8 and 9 or John 6, and I want to see how they deal with it, because then
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I know exactly how they're going to deal with all the other texts. Pretty much so, yeah. And people always ask me about commentaries, you know, what commentary is good.
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It is always based upon the author. I mean, so many of these commentary sets have different authors involved, and you can have one really good commentary sitting right next to one really bad commentary, all in the same set.
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So you just can't assume those type of things. But even then, most of the commentaries, the majority of the commentaries that I have in my library,
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I'm not a big commentary guy, I like exegetical stuff better, but the majority of them in my library are way to the left of where I am.
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And so whenever I go to them, I have to, in essence, put on the discernment glasses and go, okay, when it's a fact, and it's not just a fact where it's a disputable issue, but this is a fact of history, okay,
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I'm going to find that to be very useful. But then when I get to the conclusions, and you have to learn to be able to differentiate between what is a fact and what is a conclusion, that's when you go, ah, well, okay, there goes the fellow from Germany off into the
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NaNa land, the ether world of theology, as he comes up with his conclusions that have nothing to do with what the text is actually saying.
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Yeah. Hey, thanks a lot. Hey, thanks for calling in. God bless. Take care. Bye -bye. All right, bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341, that is something you've, it is just simply a survival mechanism that you're going to need to develop in what's called evangelicalism today, and that is there are good books out there, there are mediocre books, there are a lot of bad books.
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And sometimes the only way you can get some of the resources that you need is to get some books that are not quite as conservative or theologically sound as you would like, but then you just simply have to exercise discernment in the examination of what's being said.
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And liberals can be really, really good scholars in the sense of, and this is where people get really confused about scholarship, in the sense of digging up facts, understanding background, providing the foundation.
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But you see, especially when we talk about God's truth, when we talk about God's truth, an individual has to have more than just simply background facts.
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An individual needs to have an honoring, an attitude that honors
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God and his word. And so, unfortunately, a lot of folks just assume, well, as long as somebody's a scholar, and that means his conclusions will, of necessity, be sound.
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Well, that's not the case. All that's supposed to mean is that you are able to do the kind of, the kind of research that would give you sufficient basis for making sound conclusions, but that does not guarantee in any way, shape, or form that the thought process that you're going to apply those facts actually leads to anything that's meaningful.
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In fact, let's be very honest, any form of scholarship that exalts the creature man at the cost of the sovereignty of God and the honor of God is going to result in muddled conclusions, untruthfulness, and so on and so forth.
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But that raises all sorts of issues about how we do scholarship amongst Christians and so on and so forth, which is a whole other issue that we won't get into at the moment, especially since we only have a few moments left in the program.
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Someone on the channel, I'm not sure if this is a serious request, is asking about what
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John 644 means. Can someone call in and ask for an explanation of John 644? What, what, what is, you know, what's, what's difficult about John 644?
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We've discussed it many, many times before, discussed it, debated it, so on and so forth.
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No one can come to me unless the Father sent me, draws him, and I'll raise him up on the last day. No one has the ability to come to Christ unless a certain condition is met, and that condition is that the
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Father who sent the Son draws that person to Christ.
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That drawing is described in verse 45 as hearing and learning, but the important thing, and this is what mankind's religion cannot allow in its system, is the fact that the one who is drawn is also the one who's raised up on the last day.
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You can always deter, you can always detect when someone has a, a tradition that they are trying to smuggle into scripture, whether they know it or not, whether they're doing it purposefully or not.
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When they insert a wall between the phrase,
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Father who sent me draws him, full stop, new book, new nation, put this thing on another planet, and I will raise him up on the last day.
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It's the same sentence, and the word him has the same subject.
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The one who is drawn by the Father is raised up by the Son, and so to understand
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John 644, you go back and you let Jesus define his own terms. 637, all that the
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Father gives me will come to me. Why? Because they're gonna be drawn by the Father, and the one who comes to me
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I will never cast out. That means they're gonna get eternal life, be raised up on the last day. That's what John 644 says. This passage is so consistent that you will over and over again find people who, who come up with some wild -eyed way around one verse, and then you can see that they're in error because by comparing that verse now with the verse that came before, the verse that comes after, that verse now makes no sense.
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It has been completely ripped out of the text and turned into something that that has no connection whatsoever with what
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Jesus was saying, and when you make the author of a text completely self -contradictory, when you destroy his own argument, when you destroy the flow of his argument, the flow of his presentation, when you don't allow him to define terms, then obviously you're no longer engaging in exegesis, you're engaging in eisegesis, you're reading something into the text that was not there to begin with, and that is extremely important, and in fact, that just reminded me before the music comes up, check the links on the blog.
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It's my understanding that the next edition of the Reformed Baptist Theological Review should be shipping very soon, and that contains the first part of a two -part article that I've written on the subject of the
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New Covenant, and that is an exegetical presentation, especially the first portion that appears in this particular issue, is exegetical in its thrust from Hebrews chapter 8 and Hebrews chapter 10, specifically in regards to Jeremiah chapter 31 and its use by New Testament writers and its interpretation thereby, and you can obtain
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Reformed Baptist Theological Review at www .rbtr .org, and you can see a portion, a segment, a section of that article there online as well, give you an idea of the kind of writing, kind of material that is to be found there, so it's www .rbtr
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.org. Thanks for listening to Dividing Line today. We will be back with you, Lord willing,
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Thursday evening, 7 p .m. Eastern Daylight Time, 4 p .m.
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here in the Mountain West, as long as we have electricity and a monsoon storm does not blow us away here in Phoenix.