September 28, 2017 Show with Phil Johnson on “The Limits of Evangelical Unity”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister

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George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 28th day of September 2017 and it is my delight to have back on the program after just one day,

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Phil Johnson, Executive Director of Grace to You Ministries, the media ministry of John MacArthur.

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Phil has been one of my most frequently interviewed guests in the history of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio going back to 2005 and we just had him on Tuesday and we have him back on the program again, this time to discuss the limits of evangelical unity and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Phil Johnson.

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Thank you, Chris. It's good to be back. And in studio with me is Pastor Josh Miller, who is a visiting special guest co -host.

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Pastor Josh Miller pastors the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and it's great to have you on the program for the very first time,

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Pastor Josh. Well, Chris, it is an honor to be here. Thank you for inviting me. And since you are a first -time participant on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I'd like you to give an abbreviated testimony of how the

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Lord providentially drew you to himself and saved you, starting with the religious atmosphere, if any, of your youth, your childhood, how you were raised and what eventually led you to Christ, and then how you realized you had a call upon your life by God to become a pastor.

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All right, well, thank you for asking. It's my privilege to give honor to my Lord and Savior. I grew up in the home of a faithful pastor, a minister of the gospel in Hudson River Valley of New York.

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My dad was a pastor for 15 years, an independent Bible church there in New York.

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He also church planted in Maine for seven years. So I heard the gospel at a young age.

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I can recollect vividly that moment as a young child.

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I was six years old when I became aware of my sin and separation and need of a

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Savior. But I can say that there was a measure of taking for granted, in a sense, the preciousness of the gospel and that culture that was such a glorious privilege to be raised in.

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But it was later on and through the process of God's drawing me where I was able to see clearly the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ and the beauty of the gospel and coming to kind of a fuller understanding of salvation.

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And I often say that my testimony is Ephesians chapter two, that I was dead in my sins and I was following the course of this world, but God by His grace rescued me.

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I can't point to that moment, I would say, where I bowed the knee, but it was certainly through the gradual drawing and the continual hearing of the message of salvation and how

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God saved me. It's very often harder for a person raised in a

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Christian home, a real, vibrant, actual Christian home filled with regenerate people, it's very often harder for someone raised in that atmosphere to pinpoint a moment in time when they came to Christ because it's typically not an overtly picture that is black and white from darkness to light and so on.

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And it's to praise God for preserving the children of His elect who are also, in some cases such as yourself, the elect themselves, preserving them from having to go through some of the darker experiences in life.

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And being raised as a pastor's child, I did see kind of the dark side of the church, the backbiting.

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And I went to college with one objective in mind, and that was to not be a pastor.

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I wanted to pursue anything else besides being a minister of the gospel.

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I actually got involved in a lot of parachurch ministries, the detention home ministry, and it was almost, not a complete process of elimination, but that was certainly part of it, where you're trying to hold out hope and you're realizing it is the gospel and it is the instrument of the church that Jesus Christ uses to minister

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His gospel to the world. And I just kept coming back to the power and the significance of the local church.

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I had aspirations of being a lawyer and ridding the world of, you know, protecting those who can't defend themselves and ridding the world of injustice.

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And I remember the conversation I had with my dad in years of college, and he was just saying, if you want to change people for eternity, it will be through the gospel and it will be in and through the church that this happens.

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And nothing other than I could say, the movement of the Spirit through His word and through faithful men who were in my life discipling me, that I just had an increase of an affection and love for the church.

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So coming out of college, I was able to serve Christ through the church, and for me at that stage of my life, that meant seminary and being trained.

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And it was while in seminary that I actually met our guest today, Phil, and through his ministry there at Grace Community Church and the

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Grace Life Fellowship Group where he leads. And the Lord used men around me just to affirm my giftedness in teaching and preaching, and the

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Lord has just directed me now to pastor Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Bible Fellowship Church is a small denomination of about 60 churches.

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There's 10 church plants right now. The best way to describe that, probably for your listeners, is more of a

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Reformed Baptist group of churches. Coming out of an

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Anabaptist background or a Mennonite type of background originally. Yeah, that's right.

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So it was a Mennonite Brethren in Christ, and then the denomination in the 1950s accepted brand new articles of faith that were

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Calvinistic in their understanding of soteriology and really made an about face in their understanding of the application of salvation and the

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Holy Spirit being the only active agent in the application of salvation. And praise the

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Lord for that, and it's been my blessing and privilege to be ordained in the Bible Fellowship Church these last 10 years. Great. By the way, do you know

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Lyndon Unger? Yes. He goes by the nickname the Mennonite, but he's a

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Calvinist. And I know that he's familiar with Dr. MacArthur. But, well, it's interesting that Phil Johnson unconsciously was also the one that brought us together and one of the reasons that you're on the program today.

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And you are having a conference on September 30th featuring, oh, actually it's

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September 30th through the 1st of October, featuring our guest Phil Johnson at the

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Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg. Why don't you tell us about that? Yeah.

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So the conference is this weekend, Saturday, all day Saturday. Anybody who's in the area is welcome.

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It'll actually be from 1 o 'clock to 5 .30 Saturday afternoon. We are going to be doing something on Sunday as well.

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I would assume that people will be worshiping and fellowshipping at their own local bodies. But on Saturday, we are going to have kind of a

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Reformation celebration conference. The title of it is just Semper Reformanda, and that Reformation motto always being reformed.

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In some ways, that was selected somewhat with a negative reason. I just hear that phrase being used more and more

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Yeah, liberals actually borrow that or steal that phrase to justify the apostasy that they're going through.

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Yes, exactly. And so there was somewhat of a frustration behind choosing that, but understanding that as a body of believers, as a church, we are to be consistently and constantly being conformed to the

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Word of God and use the Word of God, even evaluate where we have deviated from the truth to repent and to return.

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So there is a sense where we are being reformed by the Word of God continually.

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And also just inviting Phil as he just has his finger on the pulse of what's out there and where the church is deviating from the truth and where we do need to repent, both as a warning to the people that will gather as well.

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Well, we'll be repeating this information later, but if you want to attend this conference, go to gracebfc, that's gracebfc for Bible Fellowship Church, gracebfc .com

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forward slash conference, and it gives you all the information that you need, and God willing, we'll repeat that.

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But Phil, why don't you tell us what exactly you'll be speaking on at this conference? You know,

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I have to look it up. I know that one of my subjects is what we're talking about today, unity. That's sort of the starting point.

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That's the message that's sort of been on my heart as I've prepared for this. You know, going from the theme

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Semper Reformanda and how that has been abused by those who will justify their apostasy by saying we are just continuing a reformation, we are valiantly defying the customs and traditions of men and pressing forward into where we believe

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God is leading us to ordain women and to ordain homosexuals. Tell us about your understanding of a right view of Semper Reformanda, because if you don't believe that we are continually reforming according to the

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Word of God, not according to your whims or to what makes you feel comfortable or to the ways of the world, depending upon what era of time you're living in or what geographical region you're living in, we ought to be always conforming ourselves to the

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Bible, to the Word of God. And at the same time, if you are coming up with something, if you are starting to develop a belief that has been scarcely mentioned, if perhaps not even mentioned at all in the record of church history, don't you have to be very cautious before you start moving forward embracing this novel idea as if it is

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God -breathed truth? Yeah, absolutely. And you know, people who think that the key to reformation is theological novelty don't understand the

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Reformation at all. None of the Protestant reformers believed that they were trying to redesign or reinvent the

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Gospel or come up with a new brand of Christianity. They were wanting to shed some of the worldliness and false doctrine and human tradition that had crept into the medieval church and get back to a more biblical form of Christianity.

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And you know, in Calvin's Institutes, in the very introduction, he made the comment that it was not their desire to depart from the historic convictions of devoted Christians, and that he said that he believed if all you had were the writings of the

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Church Fathers as a source, he could still support every doctrine he taught from the writings of the early

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Fathers better than Roman Catholicism could. And I think he's right about that, because the early

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Church Fathers knew nothing of doctrines like, you know, Purgatory and the Assumption of Mary and all of that.

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Yeah, I just was involved recently in a debate, it was a conversational debate, on the unbelievable radio program in the

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UK. I was invited by Justin Brierley onto his program to give my testimony as a special Reformation Day program, where he had me giving my testimony of conversion out of Catholicism into Reformed Protestantism, and he also had a

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British attorney who also leads a Roman Catholic apostolate in Great Britain.

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He gave his reverse testimony of leaving Protestantism, and in his case it was

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Anglicanism, and entering into the Roman Catholic faith. And I did not know it was going to be a debate until we got in the midst of the discussions, and the heat began to rise a bit.

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But the Roman Catholic participant, as much as I thought he was a likable fellow, and might want to have lunch or dinner with him sometime, if I'm ever in the

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UK, or if he ever visits this country, I don't mean to speak ill of him at all, but his his criticisms of Protestantism were all the rote, already hashed out, repeated, often regurgitated lines that Roman Catholic apologists are accustomed to making.

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And the idea was given by him that Luther, if he was right in regard to justification, then

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Christianity did not begin on the planet Earth until the 16th century, because no one believed what

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Luther did prior to Luther in regard to justification. And I had to remind him that one of the reasons that the

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Reformers made such great headway, apart from obviously the grace of God in the invisible realm behind the scenes making these things occur, but the means by which

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God brought great revival during the Reformation is that the Reformers were using the arguments very often of the

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Church Fathers, the patristic evidence. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, in fact, you just go back to the debates between Augustine and Pelagius, and it would be hard to argue that Augustine's view of grace was closer to medieval

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Roman Catholicism than the Reformers were. In fact, and that's exactly how Calvin saw it.

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He saw what he was doing, and so did Luther, as a return to, you know,

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Augustinian doctrine as opposed to decades and, in fact, centuries of tradition that had been heaped on to Catholic teaching.

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Yeah, and this actually is very much involved in our discussion today. And to remind you, our main theme today is the limits of evangelical unity.

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And if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Phil Johnson, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. Please give us your first name at least, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

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USA, and only remain anonymous if it's about a personal and private matter over which you are asking. Perhaps you disagree with your own pastor on theology.

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Perhaps you're a member of a church or denomination or fellowship that you are considering leaving, or any other kind of a reason like that where it would be unwise, in your opinion, to identify yourself.

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We can understand that. You can remain anonymous. But if it's not about a personal and private issue, then please at least give us your first name, your city and state, and country of residence.

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This is a topic that I have dealt with on Iron Trump and Zion radio a number of times, but I don't think that it could be played out or overstated, especially when it's coming from the different perspectives of different guests.

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But first of all, what compelled you to originally write an article about this and want to discuss this?

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Why is this such a primary issue in your mind right now, the issue of unity and how evangelicals are to approach this subject, which is very touchy, sensitive, and controversial, because different branches of what has been identified as evangelicalism have very different approaches to this in our modern day?

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Yeah, well, it's practically one of the most difficult, in practical terms, one of the most difficult issues you face in a position of church leadership.

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Obviously, unity is very important. It was very important to Christ in his high priestly prayer in John 17.

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He prayed for unity at least five times. He prayed that they may all be one, as you,

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Father, are in me and I am in you. So he's praying for the kind of unity that exists within the

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Trinity, and that puts a very high value on unity. And then also,

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Scripture talks so much about, you know, love among the brethren. Love for the brethren is one of the signs that your salvation is genuine, that your faith is genuine.

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If you don't love the brethren, the Apostle John says, you know, you ought to examine yourself to see if you're really in the faith.

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And Jesus said that our love for one another is perhaps the most convincing apologetical argument that the world can see.

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When they see our love for one another, that's how they know the truth of Christ is true. So unity and love among the brethren, a very high premium on that, and you mustn't do anything to minimize that.

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And yet, Scripture is also full of commands. You know, for example, the

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Bible commands for those in the church who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you've learned,

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Scripture says, turn away from them. You've got Galatians 1, which pronounces in two successive verses, a double curse on anyone who would come with an alternative gospel.

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And the Apostle John says, if somebody comes to you in the name of Christ, but they're not affirming the doctrine of Christ, don't receive them into your house.

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Don't even give them a greeting, he says, because if you give them a greeting, you participate in their evil deeds.

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So you've got these two sets of commandments, one for us to seek unity with the brethren, and the other for us to separate from those who are not true brethren.

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And somewhere in the midst of that, you've got to make a decision, who is who, who do I seek unity with, and who do

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I separate from? And I fear that the general mood of the evangelical movement today is to do away with those commandments that say that we should discern what sound doctrine is and separate from those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you've learned, turn away from them.

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And that's why the ecumenical movement is so popular today, and there's so much pressure for a kind of organic and ecumenical and institutional unity, when in fact, that's how

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Christ was praying for it all, he was praying for spiritual unity, and he even said explicitly, it's a unity in the truth.

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So the reality is, you don't have the kind of unity Christ prayed for unless you have a shared commitment to the truth.

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And in an environment like we live in, you cannot have a shared commitment to the truth without some amount of fighting.

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You know, and then I say that people cringe, fighting. Yeah, Scripture compares what we're doing to spiritual warfare.

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And in 2 Corinthians 10, Paul says it's a question of tearing down these ideological strongholds of lies and false doctrine.

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There's a battle that must take place if we're ever going to achieve unity. So in other words, we're fighting for unity, which is not at all the perspective most people have when they talk about unity.

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They think that the way to achieve unity is to cease fighting. And you see a mirror of that even in the secular society right now, where there's so much emphasis on diversity and tolerance and all these postmodern values, and yet you look at the state of modern discourse, and it is as uncivil and angry as it's ever been.

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We're not achieving true unity by saying, let's just pretend we agree.

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If we don't come to actual agreement, we can't have true unity. And so the pursuit of unity requires us to deal with the truth, sometimes debate the truth, sometimes fight for the truth.

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And so it may not look like unity in the process, but that's the way you achieve unity.

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In fact, Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the very denomination of which he is a part involves people who united together over what they believe to be biblical truth, which involved them moving away from other brethren who had a different view on issues.

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Maybe you could even just touch on that a little bit. Yeah, I don't know if I'm the most qualified to speak on the history of our denomination, but certainly anytime you take a stand on the truth and you say, you know, this is the clear particularly with the application of redemption.

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I think we may have lost Phil. Are you there? Well, hopefully Phil will call back. I don't know what happened, but Phil, I heard a crashing noise and hopefully he'll be calling us back momentarily.

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But in the meantime, you can continue your thought. Yeah, but anytime you take a stand for the truth, you are going to have to be able to deny what is false and to turn away what is false and to be able, as you deepen your conviction, to be able to call.

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I know we don't like to use this word, but to call heresy heresy. And Phil mentioned

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John 17 and Christ's prayer for unity. Welcome back, Phil, by the way. I don't know what happened.

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Yeah, thanks. I don't know what happened there. I just lost you. But anyway. Yeah, but Phil mentioned there

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John 17 and Christ's prayer for unity. Not only is that a specific unity, the spiritual unity, but it's also for a specific people.

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There in John 17 and verse 11, and I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you,

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Holy Father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.

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So it's not only a specific kind of unity, but it's for a specific group of people. Like, who are the they and the them that Christ is praying for that they would experience that unity?

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And, you know, I don't know, we probably don't have time to preach a sermon here on John 17, but there are specific standards of unity that are given there in John 17.

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And if you're not a part of the they and the them, you're not the object of Christ's prayer. Well, if you wanted to go through some of those pinpoints, it's up to you.

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But we're approaching a break right now, and I would like to leave you with a thought, Phil, that you could respond to when we come back from the break.

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Don't you think it is very disingenuous in the 21st century, and not even as light a word perhaps as disingenuous, but an out -and -out fraud that many of those who identify themselves as liberal are not even really liberal, but they are actually leftist totalitarians, either in the religious or the secular realm.

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The liberals used to want just to have an equal say on the table of discussion, and they thought that everyone's voice was equally valid, or at least that everyone's voice, no matter what side of an issue you happened to be a representative of, your voice had an equal right to be a part of the discussion.

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And now you have liberals or self -identified liberals acting as leftist totalitarians who really do not want the voice of the conservative, the voice of those who have a historically genuine understanding of what the

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Bible actually teaches. They don't want you to even have a voice anymore. In every realm where the left gains more and more control, the more they want to just snuff out the opposing voices.

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So there's a danger of the liberals, the self -identified liberals who are actually leftists, seducing people with the understanding that they are more loving, patient, compassionate, and tolerant, when they are demonstrating very much that they have no tolerance at all for us.

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And perhaps you could respond to that when we come back from the break, Phil. All right, and if anybody would like to join us, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors, and we'll have more.

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We are now back to our discussion with Phil Johnson. He is the

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Executive Director of the Radio, Television, and Literary Ministry of John MacArthur.

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We are discussing the limits of evangelical unity. In the studio with me is Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a church that is hosting a conference with Phil Johnson this

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Saturday. Phil, if you could pick up where we left off, I asked you for your response to my comments that liberalism is very sneaky and cunning because it comes under the guise of being the more compassionate, forgiving, patient, and loving element of the professed body of Christ, and I stress or emphasize the word professed, and when they get a foothold, they really very often and most often show their own intolerance and reveal that they are actually leftist totalitarians and not merely just liberals wanting an equal say.

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Yeah, I mean, to me that's an obvious truth, and it's true. What's true in the political realm is also true in the spiritual realm in that sense, and just to illustrate, you can look back over the history of American politics in my lifetime, going all the way back into the 1960s, and those who talk the most about love and peace and unity are the ones who are most prone to foment widespread violence.

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You look back into the 1960s at every riot or incident of widespread violence in America, and it's the political left, the ones who are talking about peace and love and coexistence and all of that, that generally are the perpetrators of the violence.

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There are obviously incidents isolated incidents usually of small groups of right -wingers who cause trouble here and there, but when you have like city -wide riots like we had with the

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Democratic National Convention in 1967, I think it was, or 68 in Chicago, all the way up to today, the most recent incident that's made a lot of widespread news coverage was at Berkeley last month when

36:39

Ben Shapiro was going to speak at Berkeley, which is supposedly the starting place of the free speech movement.

36:47

The liberals wanted to shut him down, and they actually resorted to threats of violence in order to do that.

36:54

So you see that phenomenon a lot. You can't assume that because someone talks about unity and peace and non -violence that that's really what he's interested in.

37:05

It's true in the tolerance and diversity and points of view and all that.

37:14

They tend to be the least tolerant of all. I discovered that pretty early when I started blogging and discovered that if you want to get a forceful negative feedback, the easiest way to do it is just to post a conservative point of view, you know, appeal to the authority of Scripture rather than how someone feels about something, and you're going to get pushback.

37:38

Let me clarify one thing, too. When I said, you know, that some fighting is necessary to achieve and maintain genuine unity,

37:46

I'm not talking there about physical altercation. I'm talking about, you know, fighting for the truth, taking a stand, and being steadfast in the defense of some true doctrine, and in the process doing what

38:02

Paul described in 2 Corinthians 10, verse 5, where he talked about tearing down the strongholds of wrong ideologies, because as Paul portrays it there, those wrong worldviews, wrong ideologies are like prisons in which people are kept in bondage, and it's our calling as Christians to tear down those strongholds.

38:24

And so it doesn't look like unity when you're tearing down someone's stronghold, but in fact, that's the pathway to true unity, to liberate people from wrong ideas, and we all agree on the truth.

38:40

That's when true unity will be achieved. Now when, I don't know if I just say,

38:47

I don't know if I repeat this every time I discuss this issue of unity, ecumenism, and things related to it, but it is a issue or a text that comes up so often when

39:01

I am discussing this with people who take a position further to the left than my own, that see that our arms of fellowship should be much broader than mine would be.

39:16

They typically will bring up Luke, the Gospel of Luke, and that would be chapter 9, and let's see, we would start with, let's see,

39:34

Luke chapter 9, and I know it's near the 50th verse, let's see, oh here it is, an argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest.

39:51

Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him.

39:57

Then he said to them, whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me, for it is the one who is least among you who is also the greatest.

40:11

Master, said John, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he is not one of us.

40:20

And Jesus said, do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.

40:26

I have people bring that up to me, and they are saying, look, unless you are talking about a group of people that is vehemently opposed to your church or what you're saying, and they're trying to stamp you out or whatever, you should just be tolerant of them and welcome them into the family of God and not be so nitpicking and fussy as you are,

40:52

Chris Orenson. How do you respond to people using that text? Well, the key is, whoever is not against me, if someone is teaching a doctrine that corrupts the core of the gospel, then he is against me.

41:11

Jesus also said, whoever is not for me is against me. So he said both things.

41:18

Whoever is not for you is against you, and whoever is not against you is for you. And what he was saying, basically, is you're either with him or you're against him.

41:25

It's more than just the person saying, well, I'm not against you, and I am for you.

41:31

It's more than them just saying that or having an ecumenical mushy -gushy love -fest attitude.

41:39

Right. Just to take this text in context, what the disciples were complaining about is that someone was doing miracles, casting out demons in Jesus' name, and they said, because he does not follow along with us.

41:54

In other words, he's not part of our group. And Jesus was saying, look, the fact that somebody's not part of your group is not sufficient reason to reject him if he's not against me.

42:06

That is, if he is performing miracles in my name and teaching the truth and all that, then you have no reason to oppose him just because he's not part of your group.

42:16

That's a valid and important principle that all of us need to abide by, just because somebody's not part of our group doesn't automatically make him an enemy.

42:26

Yeah, and the content of what that person believes is very crucial in this context, though. Everything hinges on that.

42:32

Everything hinges on that. And that's all very clear in the words Jesus uses there.

42:38

If he's not against you, he's for you. If he's teaching a different doctrine, then he is against you, and there's plenty of scriptures that make that clear, not the least of which is the

42:49

Apostle Paul in Galatians 1, where he goes after the Judaizers because they were wanting to put works before justification in their ordo salutis.

42:59

It was a tweak to the gospel that the typical champion of unity today would say is kind of insignificant, it's not a big deal, but Paul said, look, it's a different gospel, and because it's a different gospel, let them be anathema, let them be accursed.

43:18

Well, this brings up the other topic, Phil, of the other rut, the other extreme is sectarianism, and keep dividing, keep isolating because of your standards of truth and your convictions to the point that you're left alone.

43:34

So how do you, where's the balance of protecting yourself against that attitude of sectarianism and keep dividing?

43:44

Yeah, well, you know, if you find that all you're doing is being a contrarian and constantly, that's all you ever do, nothing edifying, but you're constantly just a critic of other people's views, then maybe you ought to step back and take a hard look at it.

43:59

But the truth is, in the evangelical environment today, I just don't think sectarianism is the biggest threat.

44:09

I don't see people wantonly causing divisions where no divisions should be caused.

44:16

The great push today is for a kind of organic unity where we don't even agree on the basics.

44:22

You know, that's what all the efforts to unite Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism, that's what's behind all of that.

44:30

We don't agree on the central point of the gospel. Is a sinner justified by grace through faith alone, or are works necessary?

44:40

If you don't agree on that, it's a different gospel. Those are two different ways of salvation. And to say, well, we ought to just set that aside and get along with one another, is ultimately to say, look, truth doesn't matter.

44:53

If the core truth of the gospel doesn't matter, then it's hard to think of anything that really does.

45:01

I agree with you as far as percentage -wise, but I have come across a number of people that would be very sectarian in a scary kind of way.

45:10

Well, that's true. And they tend to be noisy on the internet. But honestly, I don't think that's a large percentage of Evangelicals.

45:18

In fact, it would have been my criticism of the Fundamentalist movement that flourished in the middle part of the 20th century.

45:25

But because that movement was so sectarian and so divisive, and so they put such a premium on separation as a virtue, when they ran out of real heretics to separate from, they began to separate from one another.

45:41

And that movement today really has very little influence or clout. There aren't that many people left who identify themselves with the

45:49

Fundamentalist movement. There are some out there. Oh, yeah. I know a church that broke fellowship with another church because during a softball game, the men on the opposing team, some of them wore shorts on a hot summer day, and they were disfellowshipped.

46:06

Yeah, Chris, and what I have found with that is when people are unaware or are theologically unaware of the core truths that unify us in Christ, everything can become a threat.

46:24

Because they're so unstable on what is the central truth of the gospel, everything becomes a threat, even if it's a threat to your little culture, your little niche.

46:34

You see it as a slippery slope, and everything becomes something to divide over when you're not willing to stand for the truth.

46:42

That's exactly right. And that's what Jesus was addressing in Luke 9 there, where he says, if they're not against me, they're with me.

46:51

By the way, it's Luke 11, 23, where he says the exact opposite. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters.

47:02

So both things are true, and the fact that Jesus would say both of those things illustrates in my mind how narrow the line is we have to tightrope, that we have to walk here.

47:12

There are dangers on both sides, no questions about that. But it seems to me the greater danger today, the more prevalent danger today, is the tendency of people to want to set aside all of our disagreements and all of the important doctrines because they think somehow that peace and unity, even if it's an artificial peace and unity, is better than having a debate over doctrine.

47:38

Right, and that's the way that you're going to have a greater number of wolves in sheep's clothing rising up in your midst in your own congregation is because of that kind of...

47:48

Right, because that's exactly the idea. Let's just throw open the door to the sheepfold and let everybody who says he loves

47:54

Jesus come in, which in effect is to say, as long as they're dressed in sheep's clothing, let's let them in the sheepfold.

48:03

And that's exactly what Jesus said not to do. Okay, we have a question from someone who has been a co -host and a guest on this program,

48:11

Charlie Liebert, who is the founder of 6daycreation .com in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

48:18

He has two questions that are related to the same issue. First of all,

48:24

I don't know if you've ever heard this quote by Ronald Reagan or if you remember it, but he says, comment on Reagan's comment that if racism comes to the

48:33

U .S., it will come from liberalism. Do you see any truth in that that you want to respond to, or perhaps you disagree with it?

48:43

No, I absolutely agree with it. I think you can see the fulfillment of Reagan's prophecy in the headlines today.

48:51

This is probably going to stir some negative pushback from some of your listeners, but there's nothing more racist than Black Lives Matter movement.

49:03

I agree. And it's astonishing that people can't readily see that to assume all or even the majority of white people are acting with racist motives on nearly everything they say or do is in fact racism.

49:26

And there is a notion out there that is prevalent amongst leaders who would call themselves leaders in the

49:38

African American community, self -appointed leaders, who have perpetuated this lie, outlandish lie, that you cannot be yourself guilty of racism if you are a member of a persecuted and oppressed minority.

49:53

And it's interesting that they use that kind of twisted logic to defend their own racism and bigotry, especially if you call yourself a

50:03

Christian and you're from that background. And there are quite a number of people who are from a church background, a

50:11

Baptist or Pentecostal or other type of Protestant church background.

50:19

It flies in the face of the scriptures when you have the apostle

50:25

Paul, a Jew, rebuking Peter, another Jew, for his anti -Gentile racism and the racism that the

50:34

Judaizers had against Gentiles, when if anyone had a so -called right to be opposed to somebody for their race, the

50:44

Jews were persecuted by Gentiles ever since they were a people. And yet, Paul does not view that kind of racism against the

50:52

Gentiles, against the oppressors, as a valid thing. He views it as a wicked and monstrous thing and rebukes

51:00

Peter to his face in the sight of all. Yeah, that's a good point,

51:05

Chris. I mean, we live in a day and age, and I don't know if this is a cliche or not, but where argumentation by victimization, or through victimization or via victimization, if you can declare yourself a greater victim than your opponent in the argument, you win.

51:24

And so you have to continue. And it also excuses any type of misbehavior or racism that you implement upon others.

51:33

Yeah. Now, of course, there is some naivete with Ronald Reagan's statement. In fact, I remember when Ronald Reagan said in one of his debates,

51:40

I want to bring America back to a day when there was no racism, when there was before there was a black problem.

51:47

And then he said, I mean, the fact that he said that, that if racism comes to the

51:54

United States, it will become it will come from liberalism. Well, it was already here, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to be that blind to the sin of white racists in this country, because it's an unquestionable blight against our history, that that indeed was a wicked ideology in our nation.

52:16

But the second part that the second question that Charlie says is, can a true political liberal be a follower or follower of Jesus Christ?

52:27

And I guess he's assuming, and that political liberal remains a political liberal?

52:33

And that's an interesting question. Because political liberalism isn't the same from generation to generation.

52:40

And in fact, if you were born in my era, you've seen the transmogrification of liberalism over three decades time where when when

52:51

John F. Kennedy was elected president, he was considered a liberal, he called himself a liberal, he was a liberal in the classic sense.

53:00

But if he were alive today, with all the policies that he stood for, he'd be considered a right winger. So as the political landscape changes, what's considered right and left is different.

53:12

Charles Spurgeon was a liberal, he was a classic political liberal. He always voted for the liberal candidate and involving big government, that side of it.

53:22

Yeah, and at times, at times, he, he actually defended political liberalism.

53:28

But the political liberalism in his time, was trying to overthrow some institutional travesties, like the workhouses where they would take orphaned children and, and make them work, you know, everything you read in Dickens' novels was real life in Spurgeon's time.

53:48

And it was a, it was a kind of political liberalism led by the evangelicals of that time, that did stuff like they, you know, overthrew and outlawed slavery and workhouses and all these other sort of institutional injustices.

54:08

But what's considered an injustice today is something totally different.

54:13

You know, an injustice today means a woman who can't get a free abortion. There's no way a Christian can support that.

54:19

Right, let's go right up where you left off there. That's a very important, vital point. We have to go to a break though.

54:25

If anybody would like to join us on the air, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. There are still few of you waiting to have your questions asked and answered, and we'll get to you as soon as we can.

54:36

But again, that's chrisarnsen at gmail .com. And please always give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence, unless you are asking about a personal and private matter, and then we will allow you to remain anonymous.

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01:01:57

Welcome back, and before we return to our discussion with Phil Johnson today, I just have some important events to promote that are being conducted by some folks supporting

01:02:07

Iron Sherpins Iron Radio. First of all, I'll go straight to the event that Phil Johnson is participating in this weekend.

01:02:13

We have Phil Johnson, as we mentioned earlier, speaking at the Semper Reformanda Conference at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, pastored by my co -host today,

01:02:24

Pastor Josh Miller, and that will be this Saturday, September 30th, and he will also be speaking there on Sunday, October 1st, if you can take a vacation day from the church where you're normally attending, perhaps with the blessing of your pastors.

01:02:43

That will be Saturday the 30th through Sunday, October 1st at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

01:02:50

For more details on specific times, go to gracebfc .com

01:02:56

slash conference. That's gracebfc, for Bible Fellowship Church, dot com, gracebfc .com

01:03:05

forward slash conference, and you'll have all the information that you need. And then that same weekend, this weekend, the event that I will be at, it's one of those frustrating things when two events are taking place at the same time, and I want to be at both of them, but I had already made plans to be out on Long Island, New York, to be at the

01:03:24

Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island, where they're having a celebration of the 500th anniversary of the

01:03:30

Gospel of the Reformation, featuring my dear friend Dr. Tony Costa, who is on the faculty at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

01:03:38

He is their professor of apologetics and Islam, and Phil Johnson, if you don't already know

01:03:43

Dr. Tony Costa, you really must get to know him. He is a brilliant brother and a humble servant of Christ, but he will be speaking there also

01:03:52

Friday, 29th of September, and Saturdays, 30th of September. And if you'd like to register for this conference, it's absolutely free.

01:04:03

Go to wotchurch .com, W -O -T, which stands for Word of Truth Church, dot com, wotchurch .com,

01:04:12

or you can call the Word of Truth Church in Farmingville, Long Island at 631 -806 -0614, 631 -806 -0614.

01:04:22

In fact, one of the speakers, providentially, is Pastor Chris Pandolfi, who was a very close friend of my co -host's father, and who my co -host remembers fondly as a child.

01:04:34

So I'm looking forward to spending time with Chris Pandolfi, who's a friend of mine going back many, many years as well.

01:04:43

If you would like to also hear Dr. Tony Costa the very next day,

01:04:48

Sunday, October 1st at 11 a .m. at the Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York, you can go to hopereformedli .net

01:04:57

to find out more information, hopereformedli, for Long Island, dot net, hopereformedli .net, or call 631 -696 -5711, 631 -696 -5711.

01:05:08

Then, coming up in November from the 17th through the 18th, the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals is having their annual

01:05:14

Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology at the Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Quaker Town, Pennsylvania.

01:05:21

And I happen to know that, God willing, I will be there with an exhibitor's booth for Iron Shepherd's Iron Radio, and speakers include

01:05:28

Kent Hughes, Peter Jones, Tom Nettles, Dennis Cahill, and Scott Oliphant. If you would like to register for that conference, go to alliancenet .org,

01:05:37

click on Events, and then click on Quaker Town Conference on Reformed Theology.

01:05:42

And then in January, another event where our guest, Phil Johnson, will be speaking is the

01:05:48

G3 Conference. I was so delighted to find out that although Phil was not a part of the initial roster, that eventually he became a part of the roster and makes me even more excited to be there.

01:06:00

January 18th through the 20th in Atlanta, Georgia, the G3 Conference, standing for Grace, Gospel, and Glory, is on the theme,

01:06:10

Knowing God, a Biblical Understanding of Discipleship. The 17th of January will be exclusively a

01:06:16

Spanish -speaking edition of the conference. From the 18th through the 20th will be an English -speaking edition, and that features, in addition to Phil Johnson, Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, Keith Getty, H .B.

01:06:28

Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, James White, Tom Askell, Anthony Metheny, and Michael Kruger, David Miller, Paul Tripp, Todd Friel, Derek Thomas, Martha Peace, and Justin Peters.

01:06:37

If you'd like to register for the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

01:06:43

and God willing, I will be there again with an Iron Sherpens Iron exhibitors booth, so I look forward to seeing many of you in my audience in Atlanta, Georgia.

01:06:52

Please always remember, if you register for any of these events or even just contact the organizations running them for more information, always mention that you heard about those events from Chris Arnzen on Iron Sherpens Iron Radio.

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01:08:35

Well, we are back to our discussion now with Phil Johnson. The theme is the limits of evangelical unity and going back to Charlie Liebert's question from six day creation dot com.

01:08:48

Can a true political liberal, somebody who actually abides by the the main tenets of political liberalism, can that person be a genuine follower of Christ?

01:09:02

Well, it's hard. I mean, given given the things that have become the sort of iconic beliefs of contemporary

01:09:09

American liberalism, it's hard for me to see how an evangelical could, a true evangelical who's committed to the gospel and who loves

01:09:17

Christ, could support a leftist political agenda.

01:09:23

Because there's so many moral issues that are spoken to directly by scripture that liberals in America tend to, or it's not that they tend to, it's that they have made these things key parts of the democratic platform.

01:09:43

Abortion and same -sex marriage and and all kinds of other moral anomalies that we just cannot support and affirm scripture at the same time.

01:09:54

Now that the typical argumentation I have heard from professing evangelicals, and I'm even speaking of people who are theologically conservative,

01:10:06

I even know of one brother who is a black brother in Christ.

01:10:12

I believe he is a born -again believer who is even as so conservative that he doesn't believe in the ordination of women.

01:10:21

But year or every election cycle he's always rallying for the liberal democrat running for office because in his mind the the liberals in politics are much more genuinely reflective of the compassion for the underdog that reflects that that heart of Christ, the heart of Christ who had such compassion on the poor and the leper and so on.

01:10:52

And he views that as the true politician that is imitating

01:10:58

Christ and he will say I may be personally pro -life but the republicans never do anything about it so I'm not going to waste my time voting for a republican who's going to give lip service to christians about the pro -life movement and against homosexuality and so therefore

01:11:15

I'm just voting with the guy that I know is going to help put food on the dinner tables of the poor and downtrodden.

01:11:23

So how do you respond to those kind of people? Well politically I think he's wrong about whether the leftist agenda actually helps poor people or not.

01:11:32

I know, I agree with you. Let me say this, I understand his perspective and I don't think he's entirely wrong.

01:11:39

I should also say I don't think American political conservatives, the republican party, would be

01:11:46

I suppose the embodiment of the biggest conservative political organization.

01:11:52

They're certainly not offering the solution to the ills of our culture and it's true that they typically don't do anything given the opportunity.

01:12:01

I don't know that the republican party or political conservatives who talk a lot about it,

01:12:06

Newt Gingrich and people like that, whose private lives are often as immoral as the liberalism they profess to despise,

01:12:14

I don't think the solution lies in politics and so I'm not a huge advocate for either of the two

01:12:22

American political parties and I don't think the solution to what ails our society is going to be found in legislation alone or anything like that.

01:12:33

I think a lot of evangelicals waste their energy and resources by lobbying for political issues when in fact they do a whole lot more good if they just get out there and proclaim the gospel and that's where our unity lies anyway.

01:12:51

But at the same time I think that it's one of those conundrums where I have said to this individual, how can you believe, even if I would grant you that you're correct that the conservatives are not as compassionate towards the poor as you would like them to be, even if I grant you that, but the wholesale slaughter of unborn children, the infanticide that is going on in the world, isn't that more an obvious and overt wickedness because on the one hand the conservative issue in regard to the poor and the downtrodden, you don't have very many openly conservative people saying that they are against providing for the poor, they think that their solutions are more wise in providing for the poor, they just disagree on the methodology, whereas you have these pro -abortionists like Hillary Clinton not batting an eye during her debates with Donald Trump saying that she believes that a baby in the womb, no matter how fully formed it is in the ninth month, should be able to be legally exterminated.

01:14:10

It's mind -boggling how a Christian could vote for a woman like that, or anyone like that.

01:14:18

Well, I agree with you on that, but you know, just to be fair, looking at the other side, they look at some of the obvious moral defects in the

01:14:28

Republican candidate and say, how is this any better, really? And it's kind of hard to make the argument that, yeah, as a

01:14:35

Christian I can, with a clean conscience, vote for a man who does and says some of the things that he does and says.

01:14:42

Again, that's why I think it's wrong for Christians to think that what we really need is a political solution, because none of the politicians, or very few of the politicians that are currently active in American political life even profess faith in Christ.

01:14:58

The American political system itself is broken, and that's becoming more and more obvious every day,

01:15:05

I think. And I'm not that worried about the future of liberalism, because I think they're currently on a race to see how badly they can discredit themselves.

01:15:17

Yeah, it kind of brings us back to kind of the topic we started with, Phil. But, you know,

01:15:23

I think the American church lost its way, partially because it became infatuated with political power, and undermined the power of being united on the truth of the gospel.

01:15:33

Yeah, that's right. And when we became infatuated with the appearance of moral change, and that we can vote or approve more moral change, as opposed to the

01:15:44

Ephesians 2, which Chris brought up before, type of unity, that we are one in Christ, that that wall of division has been torn down.

01:15:52

Now, I'm not going to celebrate the discord and the evil that is perpetrated and promoted all over our newscasts, but this is an opportunity for the church to put forth the beauty and the unifying power that is the true gospel of our

01:16:10

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and to love our neighbor with that. Anyways.

01:16:18

Yeah, in fact, I would say, and I'm glad you brought it back to that, because I think the bigger problem for the church today, the most pressing issue for true evangelicals, those of us who believe the gospel as it is presented in Scripture, the bigger issue, the more pressing need for us is to regain our unity around the gospel, and make that the message we proclaim to the world.

01:16:43

If you ask the typical American secularist today, what is an evangelical?

01:16:49

He'll give you a political definition. He sees evangelicalism as a political force.

01:16:56

But like he's saying, our real clout lies in our unity in Christ and the power of the gospel, and we have to get back to proclaiming that.

01:17:07

Yeah, the political involvement of a great portion of modern -day conservatives has surpassed the boundaries of appropriateness when they have opened up the door for the first time in history to an ecumenism that only used to take place amongst liberals.

01:17:31

You have conservatives who are adopting as Christian brothers Roman Catholics and Mormons because they believe they are on the same side of moral and social issues.

01:17:42

Yeah, the evangelical movement has become a kind of monstrosity like that, where pretty much anything goes.

01:17:48

So the first step towards unity is teaching people again that our real unity is in Christ, and the anchor that holds us all together is the truth of Christ.

01:17:59

And those who abandon the truth of Christ are the real threat to unity, not the people who want to defend the truth.

01:18:05

Because I think the overwhelming attitude among evangelicals is that if you want to debate doctrine and defend your particular convictions, then you are the one who's breaching the unity of the church, when in fact it's the other way around.

01:18:24

It's the people introducing all kinds of novel ideas and strange doctrines and different gospels.

01:18:32

Scripture very clearly says that's the threat to unity, and those who really do trust

01:18:38

Christ have a duty to defend the faith. Yes, many conservatives have adopted their own new version of the social gospel.

01:18:47

It's just a conservative -leaning one than a liberal -leaning one. And we have

01:18:52

Joe in Slovenia who has a question. As one living and ministering cross -culturally among a people group that is less than one -tenth of one percent born again, in a context where the churches that make up the miniscule evangelical presence span the whole embarrassing spectrum of evangelicalism, unity and cooperation is a big topic.

01:19:17

It is very difficult to find common ground and appropriate avenues for cooperation among self -identified evangelicals who embody the most egregious errors of modern evangelicalism.

01:19:31

This year's celebration of the 500th anniversary of the start of the Reformation has been very helpful as a platform and catalyst for challenging individuals and churches to move back to historical, scriptural orthodoxy.

01:19:45

Your efforts are making a difference. As a plea to those of you who have the microphones and positions of influence through publishing, please keep this going for years to come.

01:19:57

Could you please not let the focus of the Reformation die after the end of this month and year?

01:20:03

Could you, God willing, push long and hard on Reformation themes every year, at least through 2063, the 500th anniversary of the close of the

01:20:15

Council of Trent? For example, next year, could you focus on the 500th anniversary of the conversion of Martin Luther, among other developments?

01:20:24

Every year after that could focus on the highlights that happened in the Reformation during that year 500 years ago.

01:20:32

We definitely need Semper Reformanda to be more than a slogan, and you can and do play a huge part to that end.

01:20:42

Thank you, and please seriously consider my plea and suggestion. What do you think of Joe in Slovenia's plea?

01:20:49

You know, I absolutely agree with him. There you go, Joe. Well, thank you very much for participating as always in the show,

01:20:58

Joe, and keep spreading the word about Iron Sharpens Iron Radio in Slovenia and beyond.

01:21:04

And we have Tony in Rock Hill, South Carolina, who says,

01:21:12

Chris, I have not seen a candidate in 20 years that I could vote for as a matter of conscience, but I voted in every election based on which candidate would best protect my religious freedom, enabling me to speak for Christ freely.

01:21:26

I believe this is where so -called Christian mess up every election cycle.

01:21:37

I think she meant so -called Christians mess up every election cycle.

01:21:42

I stopped looking for a candidate that mirrors my beliefs. There are none. I look for the one that will best protect my rights to believe the

01:21:51

Bible. And I assume she may be insinuating libertarians, because libertarians, although sometimes they annoy conservatives because they want to preserve the freedoms of everyone in the public square, including the leftists, they would be less threatening to even the conservatives out there because they believe in such a small government.

01:22:14

So what is your reaction to what said? Well, no,

01:22:20

I understand the perspective. I voted in every election as well. I can't always vote for, and I would agree with her.

01:22:28

There hasn't ever been a candidate that I voted for who mirrors my beliefs perfectly.

01:22:34

So you vote for the best one and hope for the best. And sometimes it doesn't work out that well.

01:22:40

My first presidential election that I voted in was a Richard Nixon, and he turned out to be a criminal.

01:22:51

But he said I'm not a crook, and he turned out to be one. That really seriously taught me early on that you can't put your faith in men and politics, and Scripture's full of that truth.

01:23:07

So when I vote, I've never thought that perhaps my vote might do something to further the advancement of Christ's kingdom.

01:23:16

I don't think Christ's kingdom is ever going to be advanced through earthly politics.

01:23:24

We have long to put our hope in that. We have Ronald in Eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, who wants to know, do you fence your pulpit at Grace Community Church to such a degree that even if you would believe in lockstep agreement with a speaker that might benefit your congregation, you might prohibit him from speaking from your pulpit because of some secondary or tertiary issue?

01:23:52

And if there are such issues, could you mention them? Yeah, not because of any secondary or tertiary issues.

01:24:01

Our normal requirement is if you're going to teach on a regular basis from Grace Church, you do have to agree with our doctrinal statement.

01:24:10

You can't teach anything that would contradict with our doctrinal statement. Well, as far as a visiting...

01:24:17

Yeah, right. I was just going to say, we have had visiting speakers who disagree with us on some fairly important things.

01:24:24

Baptism, for example. We're Baptistic, and yet R .C. Sproul, who's a Presbyterian, has spoken from our pulpit.

01:24:32

He wouldn't... I mean, we would trust because of our friendship with him and all of that. He wouldn't come in here and teach what he knows we disagree with.

01:24:42

So even he would follow, I think voluntarily, the sort of unstated rule that you don't get up in somebody's pulpit and teach something that's contrary to that church's doctrinal statement.

01:24:54

And if what's in their doctrinal statement is something that, on a primary doctrine, they depart from the truth, you wouldn't want to preach there anyway.

01:25:06

And vice versa, if you had a speaker who doesn't affirm the gospel, you wouldn't invite him to stand in your pulpit and teach your people either.

01:25:16

But when it comes to secondary and tertiary issues, it depends on the circumstances, and no, we don't have that sort of strict rule that you have to agree with us lockstep on everything in order to be a guest speaker in our church.

01:25:29

Well, right there you have an example of someone that Grace Community Church has invited to speak, specifically

01:25:35

R .C. Sproul. It's more than just baptism. He's not a dispensationalist, so that area would be not a litmus test, obviously.

01:25:45

He's a covenant theologian, and he's also not pre -millennial or pre -tribulational, so those are other areas.

01:25:56

By the way, when you talk about Christian unity, I think one of the real impediments to unity is that immature

01:26:03

Christians and sometimes seminary students love to argue about the secondary and tertiary things, and they care about those things more than they care about the primary issues, you know?

01:26:14

I always sort of recoil when I meet some, you know, Christian, and maybe a

01:26:19

Christian who should know better, a pastor, church leader, and the first thing he wants to know is my view on eschatology, because he wants to argue that point.

01:26:29

That always rubs me the wrong way, because it suggests, here's a guy who likes the conflict more than he likes the truth.

01:26:36

But if he's questioning me on my commitment to the Gospel, I'm happy to answer him, and I'm happy to have as extensive a discussion as he wants to, because that's one of those core issues that you have to have settled if you're going to have true unity.

01:26:53

But you can have unity, you can have a knitting of two hearts if your only disagreements are on those secondary and tertiary issues.

01:27:03

Not that they're unimportant, not that you should, you know, stifle your view on those things, but you can embrace someone as a true brother in Christ and genuinely love him in Christ, as long as you believe the

01:27:17

Gospel. And I think that you have an example of how a church, including my own, where I'm a member,

01:27:27

Grace Baptist Church of Carlisle, which is a Reformed Baptist Church, a confessional Reformed Baptist Church adhering to the 1689

01:27:34

London Baptist Confession, a part or a member of the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America.

01:27:41

We love many, many, many Presbyterian pastors and evangelists and authors out there, and we would jump on every opportunity to have someone like Sinclair Ferguson preach for us.

01:27:56

But if Sinclair Ferguson was never baptized by immersion as a believer, he could not be a member of our church.

01:28:05

And it's evidence that this has nothing to do with bigotry, nastiness, lack of love.

01:28:12

It's just because we're trying to preserve what we believe is an important biblical truth, while at the same time, whenever we have a liberty, making use of the gifts of someone like a

01:28:22

Sinclair Ferguson. Yeah, in fact, I wrote an article on this very issue, and it's published, I think, is it, Josh, the current issue of One Voice, BFC's magazine?

01:28:30

Yes, that's right. Yep, Why So Many Denominations, I think you titled it. Yeah, the title of the article is

01:28:35

Why So Many Denominations, and I'm making the argument that denominational lines, denominational boundaries are not necessarily an impediment to unity.

01:28:46

I mean, I went to an interdenominational Bible college, I went to Moody Bible Institute, where I sat in classrooms side by side with Presbyterians, Methodists, you know, but all evangelicals, all people, in other words, who were committed to the same idea of the gospel, the biblical doctrine of salvation.

01:29:08

Yeah, in fact, there's something I'd like to add to that after we come back from our final break. This is a much shorter break.

01:29:13

If anybody would like to join us on the air, now is the time to do it, because we're running out of time. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:29:20

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01:29:26

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01:36:02

Phillips. We are now back to our final segment of today's interview with Phil Johnson on the limits of evangelical unity.

01:36:08

In studio with me is my co -host, Pastor Josh Miller of Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

01:36:15

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. What I wanted to say before the break,

01:36:22

Phil, is that the Church of Rome, they will very frequently use as a weapon that they think demolishes the whole idea of Protestantism, the whole idea of sola scriptura, is that you have a doctrine that they will say is not even biblical sola scriptura as your blueprint.

01:36:46

It is a blueprint for anarchy. And the proof of this is that you have, they will say, 20 ,000, 30 ,000 denominations.

01:36:54

Therefore, it's a proof that this doesn't work. But those of us who are Bible -believing Christians, those of us who believe in the inerrancy of the

01:37:01

Word of God, who believe in the gospel of the scriptures, even in and outside of Reformed theology, we don't believe in essence, in the heart of the matter.

01:37:12

We do not believe that these are thousands of different churches. We are really, those of us who share the same gospel, in one church.

01:37:23

And that although since we are finite, fallible, and sinful human beings, we are going to differ on matters of doctrine and practice until we are in heaven.

01:37:35

And therefore, denominationalism, as you were hinting at earlier, is really not that bad of a thing, as long as you don't become sectarian and hateful and bigoted about your differences.

01:37:46

But this is not equivalent to there being thousands of churches in reality, since aren't we all who share the same gospel and share the same

01:37:57

Christ in one true church? Yeah, you know, the

01:38:03

Catholic idea of unity, it goes back to organic and institutional unity.

01:38:09

If you look at the Catholic Church today, I mean, just look at the two most recent popes, both still alive, disagree on almost every point of theology and policy.

01:38:20

They're totally different. There's very little agreement within the Roman Catholic Church. You have everything from rank liberalism to strict conservatism, the sort of Catholics who think, you know, if they don't go back to the

01:38:34

Latin mass, they're not really being faithful to Catholic principles. So there's no more actual agreement within the

01:38:42

Catholic Church. The only kind of unity that they have that they think is so important is this organic unity where everyone kisses the feet of the pope.

01:38:50

But that's not true unity. It's not spiritual unity. It's fraudulent. It's fraudulent when they claim to be a monolith.

01:38:57

It's ridiculous. And the existence of multiple denominations simply, particularly if you just narrow it down to the denominations that agree on the gospel, the heirs of the

01:39:11

Protestant Reformation, because all the Reformers, they had their disagreements about various things, but they all agreed on justification by faith.

01:39:18

They all agreed on the principles of sola fide and sola scriptura. And if you take those denominations that are soundly committed to sola fide and sola scriptura, there's far more spiritual unity among the members of those denominations than there are in the millions of Roman Catholics and the various things that they believe and teach.

01:39:42

So the existence of denominations is not proof that we lack the sort of unity that Christ prayed for, spiritual unity.

01:39:49

You could look at, for example, the chapters two and three of the book of Revelation where Christ writes to these churches, and they're disparate fellowships.

01:39:59

They aren't all the same. They have different problems. They have different issues. They're threatened by different heresies.

01:40:06

Some of them are really messed up. But among them all, those who still hold to the truth and believe the gospel, they are the ones whom

01:40:17

Christ is concerned to maintain unity for. Some of those churches were so close to total apostasy that Christ threatened to remove their candlestick, meaning they would no longer be a true church.

01:40:30

They might be an existing organization and claim to be a church and claim the name

01:40:35

Christian, but the fact that Christ himself would disfellowship them shows that unity is not just about overlooking all of our differences and greeting everyone with a big group kumbaya hug.

01:40:49

That's not what unity is. Unity is agreement about the truth. And before I go to any more listeners,

01:40:55

Pastor Josh, I know you wanted to go back to Ephesians about some specific issues. No, I think we did cover that very well,

01:41:02

Chris. Thanks for bringing that up with just Ephesians 2, and I appreciate you going to this direction trying to answer this question of, you know, are denominations just something we have to deal with?

01:41:12

Is there something positive about denominations? But it is true, as we unify on the gospel, we fulfill

01:41:21

Christ's prayer in John 17. I appreciate your words, Phil, on that.

01:41:26

Well, we have Jeff in Clinton Township, Michigan, who is basically asking about co -belligerence.

01:41:34

Any thoughts on pro -life fundraising events that include atheists and Roman Catholics to evangelicals and Mormons, the goal being to raise money to prevent abortions no matter what the personal belief of the donor is?

01:41:46

Isn't a baby's life worth saving? A baby's life is worth saving, but is that the right strategy?

01:41:54

I'm not a big fan of co -belligerence in the way it's often advocated, and was advocated by Charles Colson and even to some degree before him,

01:42:07

Francis Schaeffer. I think I'm a bit more of a separatist than either of them would be.

01:42:13

I think you lose something when, in the eyes of the world, you are partnering with Mormons and Roman Catholics, and particularly in an effort that has clear spiritual and moral overtones.

01:42:27

I'm willing to combat abortion and, in fact, have picketed the local abortion clinic here, but—and the

01:42:38

Catholics do, too. We stand on separate corners. Well, that reminds me of a mutual friend of ours,

01:42:46

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries. He was actively involved years ago in a specific pro -life organization, and he resigned from involvement because they prohibited him from evangelizing

01:43:03

Roman Catholics. And he was involved in events where you would have Roman Catholics right nearby you or next to you praying the rosary and other things in public, and how could he, in good conscience, give the public appearance that he was in solidarity with that kind of activity?

01:43:22

That is, I think, the danger of co -belligerence. Once you partner on any level with, say,

01:43:29

Roman Catholicism, you have to stifle those issues that we disagree on, and since that entails the heart of the

01:43:37

Gospel, it means you can't keep a union like that together. You can't keep your co -belligerency together without saying, okay, we're not going to evangelize one another.

01:43:48

If you do that, then the co -belligerency is going to fall apart. You're going to end up picketing the same abortion clinic on different corners, just like we do, because we aren't going to agree, no, that we're not going to give these

01:44:02

Roman Catholics the Gospel. If they want to come to the abortion clinic when we're there, they're going to hear us preaching the

01:44:09

Gospel, and if they don't want to hear that, they'll have to do what they do, and that is go to the corner down the street.

01:44:16

We have Rose in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Hello, Brother Phil and Brother Josh. She doesn't say hello to me.

01:44:22

That's weird. Brother Phil, excuse my ignorance on this, but you keep using the phrase organic unity.

01:44:33

Will you please explain what that means? Well, that means not eating vegetables with pesticides and serving them with free -range chickens, right?

01:44:43

No, I'm sorry. I mean, you know, institutional unity, where the union that we have involves an earthly organization as opposed to a common commitment to truth.

01:44:56

That is exactly what the Roman Catholic Church is. It's a massive hierarchy and organization that holds everything together, not because everybody in that organization shares a common commitment to core truth, but because that's just how it's organized.

01:45:13

It's, you know, I don't know how to say it other than organic. It's organic as opposed to spiritual.

01:45:20

Right. Or organizational unity, maybe, as opposed to spiritual.

01:45:25

Yeah, you can say it like that. Yeah. And physical, ecclesiastical, official unity, like the

01:45:32

Roman Catholic Church is a big umbrella that has all kinds of religions masquerading as Roman Catholics underneath that umbrella.

01:45:40

People who are never disciplined, they're never silenced, they're never excommunicated, even when they hold highly esteemed offices and seminaries, nothing happens to them.

01:45:53

So there's this facade that they are this monolith. And they will say, well, we know that we don't go beyond anything that is ex cathedra, that is proclaimed as dogma, ex cathedra or ex cathedra, however you want to pronounce it.

01:46:09

But the fact of the matter is, the Pope is only in very limited circumstances ever in the history of the

01:46:16

Roman Catholic Church ever defined things as dogma. And the last dogma was defined in 1950.

01:46:23

So I mean, it's kind of absurd to think that that somehow is a safe arbiter of, you know, keeping you within biblical soundness or faithfulness to God.

01:46:37

In fact, I'd love to organize a debate with a Roman Catholic, a conservative Roman Catholic on the theme, is

01:46:44

Pope Francis a safe shepherd? I would love to see if anybody is willing to debate on that issue.

01:46:52

Yeah, and to clarify for the listener who asked that question, my objection to organic or organizational unity is that what it amounts to is merely a facade.

01:47:02

It's the appearance of unity, and a structured kind of unity that brings together people who really don't have any spiritual unity at all.

01:47:13

Right. And we have RJ in White Plains, New York, who wants to know, what is the area of non -cessationism where you draw the line for church membership?

01:47:40

There is a wide spectrum of those who would be non -cessationists or continuationists, ranging from those who just believe theoretically it is a possible gift to those who practice it openly.

01:47:52

Do you have any line within that spectrum that you embrace as acceptable within your church membership?

01:47:59

Yeah, I mean, I can only speak for our church, our local fellowship. We would accept into membership non -cessationists, people who believe that Scripture doesn't give you reason to believe that the spiritual gifts have ceased.

01:48:14

I'm sure there are non -cessationists in our church. They can't teach that view because it contradicts what's actually spelled out in our doctrinal statement.

01:48:23

And of course, they can't publicly practice any sort of display of supposed spiritual gifts.

01:48:32

So in other words, if you were to visit somebody in their home and they were sitting around the dinner table while they were saying grace, someone in the family was speaking in tongues, you would not view that as like a defense against your church's guidelines for membership?

01:48:50

You would not discipline or anything like that if somebody were to do those things in the privacy of their own home?

01:48:56

Yeah, not for what they do in the privacy of their own home, unless they're trying to proselytize people to that point of view, people in the church.

01:49:04

Now, there are those, there's a disagreement on, like for instance, tongues. Even amongst charismatics, there's a disagreement.

01:49:12

Some would say, this is not new revelation. It's just a private prayer language.

01:49:18

I'm not adding new truth to the Bible. This is something that I don't even understand what

01:49:23

I'm saying. I'm just communicating to God and it gives me peace, knowing that the angels are speaking through me or whatever their way of defining that is.

01:49:33

But then there are those who will actually say, no, this is revelation, and they do sometimes have people in their congregation who interpret those utterances and so on.

01:49:44

So what do you think about the person who believes it is actual new revelation? Well, that's more problematic than simply believing that, you know, the gifts have not ceased.

01:49:57

To think that God is giving you privately new revelation, that's probably going to cause some problems.

01:50:03

Although, again, I don't know that we give anybody a sort of... make that a doctrinal test as a prerequisite to church membership.

01:50:12

You know, I'm trying to make the point that what we teach and what we require of people before they join the church are not exactly the same, because we'll often accept people into membership in the church as long as they agree not to disrupt the unity and fellowship in the church, the unity of what we teach and the fellowship among people in the church.

01:50:34

As long as they're not a disruption, we're happy to have them in the church and hope to teach them to think better than maybe they do.

01:50:43

Now would you ever welcome a non -cessationist or a continuationist or continuous, however you want to pronounce it, like D .A.

01:50:51

Carson into the pulpit there at Grace Community Church? I don't know that he's ever spoken from the pulpit, but I know he's spoken at the

01:50:58

Master's Seminary, and they don't have a different standard there, so if the occasion arose,

01:51:04

I don't think Carson would be excluded from... we've had other non -cessationists speak from our pulpit, so no, that wouldn't be enough to cause us to exclude him from the pulpit.

01:51:15

And I'd like each of you, perhaps we'll start with Pastor Josh, just to summarize what you most want to leave our listeners with before the program is over, and then

01:51:25

I'll have Phil, you conclude with a summary of what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today.

01:51:31

Yeah, I would love to send people to the Word, and I come back to John 17 where it began.

01:51:38

If you want to understand what the basis of true Christian unity is, that is unity in Christ, to study that beautiful high priestly prayer of Christ and what his desire was, and those marks of true unity,

01:51:53

I guess I couldn't leave any... I have a greater desire than to leave people with a passion for God's truth, and I come back to Christ and his prayer of unity in John 17.

01:52:04

Thanks, Pastor Josh, and Phil, if you could summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today regarding this topic.

01:52:11

Yeah, I would say remember that Christ's prayer for unity is itself one of the truths that we affirm, the preeminence of the importance of unity, and so I would just encourage people to pursue unity and defend the truth with equal zeal, because you can't really separate the two.

01:52:30

You're going to have people, if you do that, you'll have people who will try to tell you that your defense of the truth is a sin against unity, or there will even be a few these days who will tell you that your emphasis on unity is somehow automatically a threat to the truth.

01:52:47

Neither of those is true. Truth and unity are equally important in the mind of Christ and the body of Christ, and the

01:52:57

Church should pursue both. Yeah. Well, we have enough time for another listener question, and that is

01:53:06

John in Augusta, Maine wants to know, what are the basic elements of what every person needs to believe for you to consider him a brother?

01:53:18

I would start with the doctrine of justification by faith. He needs to understand that the ground on which any redeemed sinner stands before God is a righteousness that doesn't inherently belong to him.

01:53:33

It's not based in any way on his works or his own goodness, because he really doesn't have any goodness that would commend him to God.

01:53:42

So the only ground on which we can have a right standing before God is through Christ. His righteousness is imputed to those who believe, and it's his perfect righteousness which clothes us like a robe.

01:53:57

That's what gives us the ground to stand before God without fear of condemnation and judgment, having been justified by faith.

01:54:04

Scripture says we have peace with God, and that's really the heart of gospel truth.

01:54:12

And it points us to Christ. The way his righteousness is imputed to us, the instrument through which we are justified is faith.

01:54:21

Embrace Christ by faith and trust him alone as the righteousness you need to stand before God, and that's the faith the

01:54:30

Scripture commends as saving faith. That's what you need to believe. Everything else comes after that.

01:54:36

You know, the deity of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, all of that is so closely tied to that doctrine that I think you can't possibly believe in justification by faith properly and deny any of the other core truths of Scripture, including the deity of Christ or the doctrine of the

01:54:52

Trinity or the humanity of Christ, even. Those are all cardinal doctrines, but they all point back to the principle of justification by faith.

01:55:03

How that's the case would take too long to explain, but trust me, that's true, and that's why

01:55:09

I think justification by faith is the doctrine that anchors true orthodoxy.

01:55:15

In Luther's words, it's the principle by which, it's the article of faith by which the

01:55:21

Church stands or falls. Right, you cannot have a sound doctrine of justification if you do not have a sound understanding of Christ being fully

01:55:32

God and fully man who died as a sacrifice in the substitute of his people. That's right.

01:55:38

And so everything falls apart. In fact, I was interviewing apologist David Wood recently when we were paying tribute to the late

01:55:46

Nabil Qureshi, a former Muslim who became a Christian who just passed on to eternity very recently, just a couple of weeks ago after a bout with stomach cancer.

01:55:59

When David in college was evangelizing Nabil, when Nabil was still a Muslim, Nabil finally came to a point where he so wanted to receive the forgiveness of Christ, to believe that Christ's payment on Calvary for his sin was applicable to him, that he could benefit from that and consider himself among the redeemed without going to the next step that is more overtly considered wicked in the mind of a

01:56:35

Muslim, considered the sin of shirk to believe that Jesus is God. And he asked

01:56:41

David, can I accept the sacrifice of Christ as one made for me without believing he is

01:56:48

God? And David said, no, you can't. That's not the gospel. You have not arrived yet.

01:56:53

You are not truly a disciple of Christ yet. And then thanks be to God, Nabil eventually, not long after that, did come to truly embrace

01:57:01

Christ as his Lord, God, Savior and King, as well as his death on Calvary as his substitute.

01:57:08

But it is so true that you can't cut those primary things out of the equation, any of those elements.

01:57:14

Right. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners once again have the information for the conference that you'll be speaking at this

01:57:22

Saturday, September 30th. It's going to be held at Grace Bible Fellowship Church of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where our co -host

01:57:32

Josh Miller is the pastor. And if you want more details in regard to directions to specific times and so on, you can go to gracebfc .com,

01:57:46

gracebfc for biblefellowshipchurch .com forward slash conference.

01:57:51

And you'll have all the information that you need to get there and what time you need to be there and so on.

01:57:58

And Phil will also be there Sunday, October 1st as well, for any of the folks that want to stay longer, correct?

01:58:04

That's right. You're welcome. And come enjoy a little visible presentation of the unity in the gospel.

01:58:11

Do you have any other contact information that you care to give? No, just the website that you gave is sufficient. You'll have all that they need there.

01:58:17

And of course, don't forget that Phil is also speaking at the G3 conference this January from the 18th through the 20th in Atlanta, Georgia.

01:58:25

And I will be there, God willing, with an iron, sharp, and desiring exhibitors booth. And that website is g3conference .com,

01:58:32

g3conference .com. And of course, the Grace To You website, the ministry of world -renowned

01:58:40

Bible teacher John MacArthur, where Phil serves as executive director, that website is gty .org,

01:58:48

standing for grace to you, gty .org. And do you,

01:58:53

Phil, have any other contact information that you care to share? No, that's sufficient. Great.

01:58:58

Well, I want to thank you so much, Phil, for not only being my guest today, but always being such an approachable person, a brother in Christ who, in spite of a very lofty position you have at one of the world's most important Christian ministries, you have been so accessible to me at times in the past, even within a 10 minutes of advance notice,

01:59:20

I can remember, especially in the old days of New York. I want to really thank you from the bottom of my heart for being such a faithful friend.

01:59:27

My privilege, Chris. And I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially all of you who took the time to write in questions.

01:59:35

And I look forward to receiving your questions next week on Iron, Sharp, and Desiring Radio. I'm leaving tomorrow to head back to New York for the

01:59:42

Word of Truth conference, and don't forget that website is wotchurch .com. But I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater