September 13, 2011

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. And welcome to the Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning.
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I was looking just yesterday at the lineup for the National Apologetics Conference at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, coming up in October.
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It seems they're going to Skip Heitzik's church and then off to the Vatican of the non -denominational denomination, the
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Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, and Norm Geisler and Ergen Kanner speaking at both of those major events.
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And so really need to talk, you know, we never did see Carla that day. We need to talk to Carla about putting together that shirt.
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And, you know, what about Hadith 2425? That's what needs to be right there, right there on the front and something along the lines of answer to this to be found in Arabic in Sweden or something like that.
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Something along those lines would be very good. I still like the banner over the balcony idea. Yeah, that's good. Like in football games, you know,
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Hadith 2425. Yeah, I think that, yeah, maybe that's all we need to do is just Hadith 2425. When Ralph met me at the airport, he had a sign that said
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Hadith 2425. Problem is he had it upside down. It's like, oh, that's good. He was holding it upside down.
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They looked at it, oh. At the airport, no less. Yeah, yeah. And then he was, the real scary part would have been if it was on my way out because I flew on 9 -11.
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So I flew in. That's right. Here we go. That's it. And do
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I know him? Nope. Never met him before in my life. At least on the way in, I could have said that. And see you later,
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Ralph. Nice knowing you. It would have been great.
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No, actually, you'd be far safer with a sign saying Hadith 2425 than John 316 anymore. You'd probably get arrested for John 316.
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But Hadith 2425, hey, no worries. Which is sort of sad.
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Hey, I'm going to have to sue Al Mohler. Yep, I'm going to have to sue Al Mohler. The last two days on the briefing, over and over again, you know what he said?
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Theology matters. That's a copyright, that is a plain and clear copyright violation, isn't it?
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I mean, what we need to do is we need to send him a Theology Matters t -shirt. Requesting a trademark lawyer as soon as possible.
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Yes, paging trademark lawyer, paging trademark lawyer. Yeah, the last two days he kept saying, see,
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Theology Matters. It's like, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, that's mine, man. What are you doing? Yeah, so we'll need to send
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Dr. Mohler a Theology Matters t -shirt and that will be good.
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Because he didn't ask me permission, but that's okay, because he's the smartest living Southern Baptist. So the smartest living
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Southern Baptist who absolutely Mohler -ized someone that we all know and love so deeply.
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At the last Southern Baptist Convention. Oh, that was so much fun to watch.
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You know, that camera kept going back to that poor guy at the microphone. Oh, that was too good.
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Anyway, I did want to start off the program today by playing a single question from last
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Saturday's unbelievable radio broadcast, which involved questions being asked of William Lane Craig by Justin Brierley concerning his upcoming
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UK tour. Justin is one of the main people bringing him in. So every time
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I criticize William Lane Craig, I am stomping squarely on Justin's toes, but hopefully
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Justin will still like me. Despite all of that, be that as it may, I listened to the whole program and I was hoping for some good in -depth questions about,
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Dr. Craig, you emphasize arguing for the greater probability of existence of a
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God. How do you get from the greater probability of the existence of a
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God to the Christian God and to go after his gradualism, his idea of, well, you know, first you take an atheist and make him a little less of an atheist and then maybe we can make him a deist and then we can make him a theist or at least a probabilistic theist.
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And then we try to push him toward a higher percentage theist. And then, well, what's the bridge from a higher percentage theist to an actual
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Christian? You know, where's that at? It seems a lot of people rejoice in any one of those preceding movements, none of which bring eternal life.
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And if anybody stays there the rest of their lives, they will not have eternal life. And there's this gradualism and I just don't
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I don't see the apostles doing it that way. That's not the way. But there was one, just one question.
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The last question of the day was somewhat similar.
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So we're going to listen to the whole question and answer and then I will respond to it.
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So let's listen to the last question offered to William Lane Craig.
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As we wrap up today's program, just sneak in one more question, a bit more of a general one on this occasion.
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Stephen Bean got in touch and said, Bill, do you believe there's any difference between your methods and the
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Apostle Paul's methods of evangelism? Well, I think there is a difference.
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I think the Apostle Paul had the advantage of signs and wonders, which
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I unfortunately don't have. And I mean that seriously. Paul would write to his churches and say, weren't the signs of a true apostle performed among you?
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And some, like the late John Wimber, have called us to perform power evangelism, as he called it, that we ought to be doing signs and wonders as we evangelize or share the gospel.
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And for better or worse, God just hasn't gifted me in that way. So that difference certainly exists.
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But having said that, there's a great deal of commonality between the way I do evangelism and what the
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Apostle Paul did. Paul wrote in his second letter to the church in Corinth, Greece, the following words.
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He said, we destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, taking every thought captive to obey
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Christ. And when I read those words, I thought, what a striking description of what I'm about as well, trying to interact with the arguments that are offered by secularism against the truth of Christian theism and taking every thought captive to obedience to Christ.
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And so when the Apostle Paul would go into a city, he would enter a Jewish synagogue, and he would argue with the people there from the scriptures that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised
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Messiah. And when dealing with Gentile audiences, Paul would appeal to the evidence of nature, to cosmology, in effect, the witness of nature, to an eternal and powerful creator of the world.
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And he would appeal to the conscience of God's moral law written on the hearts of all people, a sort of moral argument, if you will.
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So I find in Paul also this great appeal to the intellect and to evidence in support of Christian theism.
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And to move beyond mere theism, Paul would cite the witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus as testimony that it is through Jesus of Nazareth that God has especially revealed himself.
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And he said it is by raising him from the dead that God has shown he has appointed this man as the one by whom he will judge the world.
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And Paul would rent the Hall of Tyrannus, for example, and hold daily lectures there and invite anyone to come and interact with him on these issues.
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And so I resonate very much with the methods of Paul insofar as he appealed to the power of argument and evidence in support of the truth of the
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Christian gospel that he proclaimed. It's been great having you on with us, Bill. You speak of renting halls that Paul did.
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So there's the one question right at the end that was relevant to what
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I would have wanted to say or would say to William Lane Craig if we were to address what sounds like an arcane issue, and that is apologetic methodology.
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But it's not. It is a fundamental issue. It is derived directly from our theology.
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And I would like to suggest that while I understand
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Dr. Craig's claims that he just made there, I very, very strongly disagree that he is utilizing the
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Apostle Paul's methodology because I have no reason to believe and have never been given any reason to think that the
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Apostle Paul in the School of Tyrannus, had he dealt with a philosopher of a naturalistic bent, would have argued the way that William Lane Craig argues.
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I do not see any reason to think that Paul would have granted to that philosopher the autonomy that William Lane Craig grants to the human mind and the human soul.
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I do not see any evidence that the Apostle Paul would have allowed his God to, in essence, be put in the dock and cross -examined in the way that that form of apologetic methodology that he represents allows.
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And I certainly, as we look at 2 Corinthians chapter 10, would question the application that is made at that point.
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There, the Apostle Paul says, now this is specifically, you know,
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I realize that there are, you know, sort of overarching applications, but this is specifically in regards to Paul's authority amongst the
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Corinthians themselves. But he says, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
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The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey
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Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Now, notice the end of the sentence makes it very clear this is actually a church discipline issue, first and foremost.
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So I'm not really sure that this is the best. And I've heard people on both sides make a much wider application.
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So let's go with a much wider application. And that is that there is in apologetics a destroying of arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.
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Not a fundamental difference in approaching that task, in taking every thought captive in obedience to Christ.
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Is there not every difference between approaching that task thinking that it is our duty to give more information that we just, the people we're talking to don't have enough information.
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If they just had the right information, if it was just presented in the right way, if it was presented more compellingly, if it was, if it was presented with a constant smile upon one's face, then we would have people falling over themselves in making commitments to Christ.
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Is that, is that how, is that how Paul viewed people? Is that his anthropology?
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No, this is the same apostle who made it very plain that mankind is suppressing the knowledge of God.
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They know God exists and yet they suppress that knowledge and they twist the creator -creation distinction.
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They twist that relationship into idolatrous forms. And so Paul is not functioning on the idea that, well, we just need to, you know, move somebody a little bit closer, give them a little more information.
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He's functioning on the basis that a thought that is not captive in obedience to Christ is an evil thought.
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Now, think about what we played last week. I don't think I have the, I don't have the sound clip queued up.
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Remember the very end of the debate that we played last week when
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William Lane Craig is debating an atheist, and not a good atheist, Dr. Silverman was his name, and he had not presented much of a, of a case.
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But we got to the very last question that was asked. You remember what Dr. Craig's response was?
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Well, Dr. Silverman should just become a Christian who doesn't believe in inerrancy.
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Remember that? So it's a, well, Dr. Silverman should get a little closer and then a little closer.
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And instead of challenging Silverman's creatureliness and the rebellion of his thought process outside of obedience to Christ, it's, well,
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Dr. Silverman should become a little bit more obedient to Christ. Maybe just, just a little bit of obedience.
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And then we can try to get a little bit more obedience. And then, then just, just a little bit more beyond that.
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I don't see that that is a fulfillment of destroying arguments.
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And in fact, I would argue that if as an evidentialist, you do not challenge the unbeliever on his claim of autonomy, you do not challenge the unbeliever on his claim to a neutral moral ground, which of course is impossible in a
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Christian theistic universe, in a probabilistic theistic universe, maybe there is a, a moral neutral ground, but in a
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Christian theistic universe, there's no such thing as neutral ground anywhere. And so if, if William Lane Craig is actually not in any way, shape or form challenging the ground upon which the unbeliever stands, then how can he claim to be destroying arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God?
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How can he claim to be taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ when he's saying, actually, every thought should be captive to the obedience of each individual person.
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And that's okay, as long as you, you know, look toward the greater probability of the existence of a
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God. I just don't think that that's what's going on. And I don't think that when we work through 1
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Corinthians chapter one, that tremendous text, that we see the
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William Lane Craig arena of apologetic presentation.
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I just, there's a really good example of Paul in apologetic mode. And do we see him doing what
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Craig and those who follow him are doing? Is that the methodology? I don't believe that it is.
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And so that was as close as we got to the vital discussion of whether this is an apologetic methodology that is thoroughly biblical.
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The problem is, I think a lot of people who support that kind of perspective are not overly concerned about whether it is thoroughly biblical.
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It's much more of a pragmatic thing. And that pragmatic in the sense that, well, hey,
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I've seen it work. And therefore, if I've seen it work, then
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God must like it. And it must be honoring to God if I've seen it work.
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So if God uses imperfect means, then we shouldn't really worry too much about it.
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We shouldn't look to his word to see if he gives us guidance on this. Pragmatically, it's worked in the past.
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And so let's stick with it. That in essence is what we end up seeing. And I know
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I'm an old stick in the mud. And I know it's another reason why
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I don't get many invitations than their big conferences. You know, it's just wild -eyed fanatics like Todd Friel, you know, and Wretched Radio and Phil Johnson and, you know, just a small number of people that will even be found on the same stage with yours truly.
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All because of why? Well, there's many reasons. I just happen to embody them all in one person.
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Some people have one part of it and some people have the other part of it. I just put it all in one person and that way, don't have to worry about it.
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So, yes, I really enjoy getting out and getting a chance to be at places like Psalm 119 this weekend.
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And interestingly enough, addressed 1 Peter 3. In fact, I think the handheld video that was taken of my sermon on 1
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Peter 3 is going to be posted somewhere on the web. I'm not sure where, but it'll be posted somewhere on the web soon.
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And I will. Yeah, well, actually, Ralph said he held it fairly steady. But can you imagine holding it?
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Because when he told me that, I'm sitting there going, oh, man, that would hurt. I don't know that I'd want to do that for the whole sermon.
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But yeah, well, I'll try to link to that once it's posted. Or if, oh,
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Lane's going to be putting it up. So it'll be on Lane's website. Lane has absolutely no reason to boast about how many more video views he has than I do, because I keep letting him post all my stuff anyway.
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So he cannot in any way, shape or form boast about that.
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Because what would he have if it weren't for me and Paul Washer and a few other people? You know, give him stuff, you know?
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I mean, come on. We might have some video of him dunking or something, but I'm really not certain that he can still do that in his advanced age.
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Well, when he was younger, he had the vertical of a credit card. Now he's got the vertical of a carbon slip.
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I'll hear that one. Anyways, that's just how we find out if Lane's still listening, because I don't see him in channel much.
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And, you know, what can I say? All right, let's get back to our reviews.
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We've got two that are ongoing right now. I've sort of left time for, you know, throwing a third one in.
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We've been doing three for so long. We finished the Fernandez -Comas debate.
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I forgot over the weekend, I was a little busy to drop Dr. Fernandez a line, but I will try to remember to do that and see if I can reestablish communication there.
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But we finished that up. Obviously, I continue listening to things while writing and want to have time on the program to, you know, bring those things in and keep up with current events, things that are developing and happening.
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But we also, of course, are looking forward to the time period where we will be debating both
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Abdullah Kunda and Roger Perkins down in Australia. I think
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I have less than a month before I face that airline trip.
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That's a big one. I remember the last one very, very, very clearly.
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I can still see, I was on one of those A380s, you know, who knows? May have been the one that had the engine failure later on, who knows?
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But I was on one of the A380s. And it just didn't feel like you were flying.
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It just didn't. There's just no movement. It's just too big. And it's just sort of like you get into a room and you sit in there for 15 hours and you get out and you're on the other side of the planet.
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And it's just that odd. It just did not feel like flying, except that you were sitting forever in a very small space in a can.
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And the other guy puts his seat back, you know, you could, oh yeah, it's right there.
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You could comb his hair for him. It's just really, really bad.
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But anyways, let's press on. Let's go back to the Roger Perkins debate. I just realized that for some reason this only has one channel selected.
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There we go. Now we have two channels selected. One channel doesn't sound as good. Anyways, let's continue on with Roger Perkins versus Mr.
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Reeves. We are still in Roger's opening statement. I think the last time, if I recall correctly, I got 34 seconds done before I wandered off and started talking about Christology and stuff like that.
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And I got a lot of people to Psalm 119 conference were saying, yes, you've got to do the Christology thing and do the class.
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And so I just need to find out if I can find online.
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I'll try to remember to look today, but I've got another big project I've got to try to take care of today. But I wonder if Boyce's Abstract of Systematic Theology is in PDF anywhere online.
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And if it was, is the Christology section solid enough to use?
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That's probably going to be the best way to go so that there's no—it's not a matter of people going out and buying a book or something like that.
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And there won't be any difficulty tracking down, of course, the Chalcedonian definition and the
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Athanasian Creed and all that kind of stuff. That's easy to find. But the question is, would
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Boyce's Abstract of Systematic Theology be online? And if it is, then that's how we'll do it.
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Okay, with that in mind, let's go back to Roger Perkins' opening statement. Tonight, for my opponent, if he believes that the humanity of Christ—I started to add this in my questions—but if the humanity of Christ is literally divine,
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I'd like for him to deal with that when he comes back up here. If he does, that's a form of divine flesh, which John and Paul wrote against.
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If deity, ladies and gentlemen, can die as deity, then he would not have had to wait until Calvary to die.
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He could have died as soon as Adam and Eve ascend in the garden. He wouldn't have had to wait thousands of years to die if deity as deity can die.
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But Hebrews 2 and 17 says that he was in all things made like his brethren. We don't have divine flesh, and neither did he.
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1 Timothy 2 says there's one God and one mediator between God and men, and I like what he says here.
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He says that in order for one to be a mediator, then you have to possess that of both parties that you represent.
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Very good, Mr. Reeves. You and I have a human spirit, don't we? Yes, we do.
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If Jesus Christ represented us and he represented divinity, then Jesus Christ also had a human spirit.
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But the question that has to be asked of Mr. Perkins' oneness theology is what is the nature of intercession and mediation?
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What is the Son doing today? What does it mean when we are told that Jesus has entered into the presence of God in our behalf?
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What does that mean in oneness theology? How can Jesus be interceding for the people of God?
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I mean, when you think about Christian theology, you think about the book of Hebrews, you think about the relationship that exists between the elect and Jesus Christ.
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They are united with him. So who are we united to? Because it is the
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Son who enters into the presence of the Father and intercedes in our behalf.
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So are we only united to a human nature? There is no vital union with the divine.
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See, once you make the Son a non -divine person, then you have to deal with the nature of the
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Son after the resurrection and his operation as high priest and intercessor.
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So who are we united to? And what is the nature of intercession?
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And who is the Son interceding before? If there is no distinction of divine persons, if there is a
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Unitarian perspective here, Unitarianism has always led to a view of Jesus as just a great moral teacher.
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And Unitarianism has always led to a destruction of the supernatural characteristics of Christianity so that the idea of the intercessory work of Christ becomes a mere metaphor and not a reality.
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Obviously, I'm drawing on this, especially because I've been preaching through Hebrews and to deal with that glorious portion as it addresses the subject of intercession and mediation only makes sense when you recognize the divine nature of the
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Son. But who is interceding before the Father? That will be a question that I will be asking
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Mr. Perkins in just a matter of weeks. Out of your own mouth, you said that he had to have both parties that he represented.
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So let's see what the Bible says, ladies and gentlemen. Jesus said, believe on me as the scriptures have said.
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Hebrews 5, 7 says that Jesus prayed. We heard about the prayers tonight. Hebrews 5, 7 says that Jesus prayed in the days of his flesh.
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I'm going to give you what the scripture says and we're going to match it with what the so -called Church of Christ says. Well, don't wait.
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That sounds wonderful. You give us what the scripture says and not what the Church of Christ says. That's wonderful.
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But here's the question. What does it mean that Jesus prayed in the days of his flesh?
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What is that supposed to mean? How is that relevant to proving this point?
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We believe Jesus prayed in days of his flesh. It says, Hebrews 5, 7, who in the days of his flesh prayed.
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Okay. The NET says during his earthly life, Christ offered both requests and supplications.
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ESV, in the days he offered prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to him who was able to save him from death.
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And he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
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So clearly, this Jesus who's offering up prayers is praying to somebody else.
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Now, in Oneness theology, that's an internal conversation. It's a conversation going on inside Jesus.
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It's one person in Jesus praying to the other person in Jesus. That's not what Hebrews 5, 7 is saying.
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But Hebrews 5, 7 is also not saying that his prayers originated in the flesh and went to the divine side.
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That is a gross, eisegetical reading into the text of something that is not there.
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Jesus prayed because as the God -man, he continued in perfect communion with the
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Father. One would not expect that communication to end, but it also clearly distinguishes between Jesus and the one who was able to save him from death, which in Oneness theology is a distinction within the one -person
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Jesus, which is what makes him two persons in Oneness theology.
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And that is not in any way, shape, or form what we're looking at here. By the way, a bunch of people in channel posted in channel the fact that Founders .org
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has Boyce online. And so I'm looking here and chapter 26 is the person of Christ.
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And I'm just scanning through it here to see how long it is. Truly God incarnate, had a human body against the docetics.
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That's good. And let's see here, had a human soul also.
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Very good. Objection, there must be two persons in Christ as an objection to the unity of his being.
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And this is all that leads to the acceptance of the doctrine of the divine nature as substituting the human soul, if therefore such be the union that Christ can as one person subsist in two natures without involving that personal duality, the full objection of the human soul is removed.
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We shall see hereafter that this can be done. If it could not, then we should have two theories, each with difficulties.
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See, that's good. Seems to be pretty long and pretty full here, so that probably will work out a good number of texts cited.
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I love seeing biblical texts there. Yeah, this looks good. This looks good.
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So I will keep this. If you go to the founders .org library under voiceabstract .pdf,
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you can grab it and put it on your Kindle if you want.
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But it looks like about, what, how many pages here? There, it looked about,
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I don't know, that was about 10, 15 pages. Well, less than that, 10, 15 pages, somewhere around there. So that would be some good background reading.
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So I will get that linked up and that way we can have that as auxiliary reading.
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And so we'll be ready to go. So we will, I'll look at the calendar and look at the travel schedule.
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Next week, I am in Augusta, Georgia from Tuesday night through Saturday morning.
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And so that's going to make it really, really difficult to do dividing lines at all.
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We'll try to do one on Monday because that's probably all we're going to get in unless something just happens to where we can work something out, but we might not.
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So that's life. That's how it goes. But I'll be down in Augusta, Georgia.
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And I don't think we ever managed to get anything up on the blog about that.
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I apologize for that or like a banner ad or anything like that. But I will be in the Augusta, Georgia area speaking on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings.
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There may be something Saturday morning. I'm just off the top of my head. I don't remember that there is. So we'll be doing that then.
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And I'll try to have some more details on that on Thursday. I'll try to remember to send the email over that has the schedule so that at least
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I can give you all the details. All right, let's get back to Roger Perkins here.
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First Peter 3 and 8 says that Jesus was put to death in his flesh.
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First Peter 3 and 8 does say that, but what does that mean?
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Is that an assertion of the reality? Actually, First Peter 3 and 8, that's not what
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First Peter 3 and 8 says. I will take that back. Did he say First Peter or say Second Peter? Let's try
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Second Peter. Nope, it's not Second Peter 3 and 8 either. Well, there's nothing.
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Well, I guess we just have a miscitation there, which makes it difficult to respond to unless it was 3 and 18.
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Let me see. Yes, yeah, 3 and 18, not 3 and 8. Okay.
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For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous of the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.
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So what does that mean? If you are limiting, and I'm not sure why he's presenting this other than, well, it's just Jesus' flesh that died.
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Well, was it just his spirit that was made alive? Because if you're going to use that kind of argumentation, then the resurrection has to go out the window because it says, but made alive in the spirit.
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So is that something different? But the idea, again, is dismissing the reality of the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ.
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That evidently seems to be what the argumentation is there. I'm not really certain because, as you'll notice, we're just sort of getting these verses thrown out without any exegesis offered in the process.
36:14
4 and 1 says that Jesus suffered in the flesh. Colossians 1 and 22 says that the body of flesh through death.
36:24
1 Timothy 2 .5 says, again, none of this is, of course, relevant to the subject because we believe that Jesus Christ as the
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God -man suffered and died, so I'm not really sure what the issue is. Says that the man gave himself, not the deity, but the man.
36:41
I agree. Now see, you've just cut, again, the one person of Jesus Christ into two persons, a schizophrenic union with no meaningful connection between the two, so that Jesus, when he prays, that's just his human side praying to his divine side.
37:00
This results in the Son not being divine. While Jesus is divine, the Son is not.
37:06
So you need to see what that means and realize why the church, this is one of the very first errors the church rejected, even before the
37:17
Arian controversy arose. So if there is a position of honor amongst heresies, it goes to this one.
37:26
I agree Jesus Christ was deity, but if you're telling me that we have dead deity at Calvary, respectfully,
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I'm not trying to be ugly here, but I'm going to tell you you're not sober enough to be here tonight. Dead deity at Calvary, well, what do you think death is?
37:42
And as Mr. Reeves will rightly point out, then, you do not have Jesus Christ truly dying. The very foundation of atonement, the very foundation of substitutionary atonement and redemption is undone when you, in essence, like the
37:57
Gnostics of old, have the deity part flitting away on the cross.
38:05
It was one of the big Gnostic stories of the second and third centuries, that the divine
38:12
Christ stands upon a hill watching the events of the crucifixion, laughing, thinking that his, you know, he's laughing because his enemies think they've got him, but of course he has separated himself from the human being who dies, and that seemingly is a similar concept here.
38:32
That's not what the Scriptures present about Jesus Christ. If deity could die, then there was no need for the incarnation, because but without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.
38:45
God prepared a body, and that body had to die, and that body was not only a human being, he was the only sinless human being to ever die, to be buried, and to vindicate himself as indeed the
38:56
Son of God through the resurrection from the dead. But Son of God, by adoption evidently, by some sort of incarnation, but not the incarnation of Christian theology, some kind of indwelling, but the
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Son himself is not a divine person, and it is by the giving only of an innocent human being that all of humanity, all of the elect of God, men from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation are redeemed.
39:31
That evidently is the argument that is being presented. That's the only way
39:38
I can understand it. Act 1731 says that God will judge the world by that man whom he raised from the dead.
39:46
So I'm giving you what the Scripture says, he's giving you what the Church of Christ says. Well, again, yeah, we believe that Jesus Christ is identified as the man, as a man, and as the one by whom judgment is going to take place.
40:02
What does that have to do with whether that man is two persons, or whether that man is one person with two natures, and that the divine nature was a divine person in eternity past, distinct from, distinguishable from the
40:26
Father, and distinguishable from the Holy Spirit? That's the issue, and I'm going to do everything in my power to focus upon that issue when we engage this subject, because it is the issue upon which
40:42
Oneness Theology stands or falls, and it is the issue where it is simply, demonstrably wrong.
40:50
And its apologists seek to maintain the system by focusing upon almost anything but the key issue, and that is, did the
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Son, as a person distinguishable from the Father, pre -exist
41:09
His birth in Bethlehem? If there was a divine person who is the
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Son, who is the one who becomes flesh, who is not the Father, then
41:21
Oneness Theology is thereby disproven and should be abandoned as a bad unbiblical idea.
41:30
Acts 2028, I think he referenced Acts 2028, this is anthropomorphical language.
41:37
Anthropomorphism is the act of attributing human form to deity, whereby we can better relate to him. God does not literally as deity have blood, and if you want scripture for that,
41:47
Jesus said, John 4, God is spirit, and then he said in Luke 23, and a spirit does not have flesh as you see that I have.
41:57
Well, that's an interesting way to get around Acts 20. The text is rather straightforward, and when you have to jump over to other texts and say, well, it can't possibly mean that because of these over here, you need to look very carefully at what is being said.
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Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood.
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Now, no one is saying, and this was the argument that was just being made, no one is saying or arguing that Jesus has eternally had a physical body.
42:38
No one is saying that God has eternally had a physical body, or that a physical body is definitional of the essence or being of God.
42:52
No one's saying that. And so, you can find all sorts of biblical texts where God does,
43:00
I'm spirit, I'm not man, do not change, not limited in physical manifestation or anything like that.
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Sure, that's easy, very, very easy to do. But again, it's irrelevant to the point.
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How can Paul speaking to the Ephesian elders use this kind of language? To care for the church of God which he obtained with his own blood.
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Now, some people would say that diatu haimatas tu idiu, that the tu idiu should be understood the blood of his own son, the blood of his own and that son is understood.
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In fact, that's how the NET translates it, is with the blood of his own son. I don't like putting in an entire word that is not there.
43:56
I don't think there's any reason to go there. But the point is that if we understand this phraseology, the reality is that the incarnation was a true incarnation and that just as Paul can speak of crucifying the
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Lord of glory, Paul can speak of which he obtained with his own blood because of the reality of the incarnation.
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And I think Mr. Reeves is exactly right. If you really think through what oneness is saying, there is no true incarnation.
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There is no true incarnation, there is no true foundation for meaningful atonement and redemption.
44:39
It really does undo the gospel. So it does not surprise me that oneness Pentecostalism doesn't have the gospel and fundamentally violates the key elements of the gospel on so many levels.
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Its addition of all sorts of forms of legalism and things like that doesn't surprise me in the least at that point.
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Jesus himself said a spirit does not have flesh and God is a spirit. In the Reeves and Weatherly debate,
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Mr. Reeves made a very interesting comment. He said that our position makes
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Jesus an animal sacrifice if deity didn't die. I'm going to tell you again.
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I would assume not having heard that debate, I would assume that what he was actually stating is that if there is nothing that transcends the merely giving of a singular life, that there is no divine self -giving in the atonement, then we have not transcended the giving of animal sacrifices.
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That's my guess. I haven't heard it, but I just sort of have that sense.
45:52
If deity as deity died, you have dead deity. And if Jesus is the second member of second of three members in the
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Godhead, you have two thirds of a Godhead for three days and three nights. If deity as deity was dead.
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No. And Mr. Reeves refuted this. And I asked Mr. Perkins, please, we are not annihilationists.
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We do not believe that death means cessation of existence. It's just a bogus argument.
46:22
It's like the commercials on TV right now for Carfax, and show me the
46:28
Carfax. And, oh, look at this thing over here. Show me the Carfax. And, oh, look at that over there. You're just trying to draw attention away from the reality.
46:35
There is absolutely nothing in what we believe that would substantiate the idea that you only had two thirds of the
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Godhead for three days. Jesus went and made declaration by spirit to those spirits that were in prison.
46:51
He hasn't ceased to exist. It's just not even an argument. It needs to be abandoned.
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And I call on Mr. Perkins, realize that if you have to use that kind of argumentation, isn't that telling us that you don't really have any argumentation is what we really believe?
47:09
When you have to use this kind of straw man thing, we don't we don't believe that death means cessation of existence.
47:16
But you and he brought up, he said that whenever you die, he said, when you and I die, he said, we do not cease to exist.
47:23
Yeah, very good for you and I. We're not God manifest in the flesh, Mr. Reeves.
47:29
What does that have to do with anything? Again, we're not cessationist.
47:34
His argument is based upon assuming that we are cessationist. So now the answer is, yeah, but you're not the
47:39
God man. What? So are you saying that cessationism would be true for him, but it's not true for us?
47:48
What's your basis for saying that? This is just rhetoric. Jesus Christ was
47:54
God manifest in the flesh. So you cannot take and put on us what would be said or rather what would be said of us and put it on God.
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God's an omnipotent invisible spirit. I'm sorry, that's a complete and total non -answer.
48:07
There is nobody in a logic class anywhere that could line that one out and say, oh yeah, oh yeah,
48:19
Roger Perkins answered that. No, he didn't. He spent 35 seconds expressing verbiage, but nothing he just said made any sense at all.
48:30
In fact, that one was so bad, I'm tempted to find that awesome clip on YouTube during the break from that one movie where the debate moderator says, what you just said was the dumbest thing
48:45
I've ever heard. And we are all stupider for having heard it. Remember that one where he just, you'd never once came close to a rational statement in anything.
48:51
He does it so deadpan and it's just so straight on. It's one of the best ways of saying, look, you just got caught trying to give an answer to a question you really can't answer.
49:03
Instead of just skipping it and moving on, you just gave us 30 seconds of words, but there is no way to put those words in any logical order to where they actually mean anything.
49:15
It sounds like you said something and maybe people on your side who really, really, well, yeah, it was spin.
49:27
That was wind up as fast as it can go and hope you make it. You bet. Now, if God died as God, I'd like to know if he ceased to be eternal on the cross.
49:39
No, he didn't, because he had united to himself a true human person.
49:48
And as that one person with two natures, for his purposes to fulfill the justice of God, he gave his life a ransom for many.
50:00
That's what the Bible teaches. That's what Christian theology has been all along. And I would just highly, highly recommend that we stick to the actual subject of discussion.
50:13
All right, we're gonna take a brief break. And in case you've wondering, yes, this is a jumbo deal.
50:19
We're going for another 40 minutes. Once we get done here, we'll go back to the green debate, and we'll be right back right after this.
50:30
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50:37
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53:29
Thank you. What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things
53:51
I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought.
54:03
Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may
54:10
God have mercy on your soul. Oh, that has to be the best.
54:20
Absolutely the best. That was from Billy Madison. I never saw
54:25
Billy Madison. It was probably a terrible movie. I don't know. But that is one of the best.
54:30
I think we have that sound clip. It says, oh,
54:35
Ralph is telling me, Freel uses that sound bite daily on Wretched. I bet. I should have that queued up.
54:42
It's in our sound files somewhere in the 3 ,000, 4 ,000 sound files we have in channel somewhere.
54:48
I just don't know what it's called. Maybe somebody will find it. I'm sure the actual film was horrific, but that was one of the best.
55:00
There are many, many times as I'm riding through the desert listening to various debates that that runs through my mind, and I go, man,
55:09
I wish I could use that in some of my debates. Just queue it up and play it or something like that. But anyways, we press on.
55:16
I apologize for that. And just a small diversion there. But we press on with the not so good sound quality of the
55:27
Kunda Green debate. And as you may recall, I mentioned last time that Abdullah had gone over his time in his opening statement, two and a half minutes.
55:37
And so the moderators, doing what moderators are supposed to do, took notice of this and took two and a half minutes off of his his rebuttal time.
55:47
So he only has seven and a half minutes to respond to what Samuel Green had to say. So here is the beginning of Abdullah's seven and a half minute rebuttal to Samuel Green on the subject of the
56:02
Trinity. Eventually, evidently taking a while.
56:15
There we go. So what Samuel had said was that Christians read all of the prophets and hence take seriously what you find in Isaiah or Hosea or whatever else it might be.
56:50
And that in essence, because of the Islamic exaltation of Muhammad to a position that in essence makes the other prophets irrelevant.
57:01
And I would argue that that's true. I mean, Samuel didn't put in those words.
57:08
But functionally, how relevant is Isaiah for a modern
57:13
Muslim? In fact, I don't have it in front of me. If somebody in channel can find it for me, maybe
57:21
I can read it for you. It's just, there's only so much multitasking you can do at one time.
57:28
Listening to sound bites and surfing the web all at the same time is not a good thing. But there is a very interesting,
57:37
Sam Shamoon sent it to me so I could track down my email, but there is a very interesting hadith statement in the hadith literature where one of the companions of Muhammad, he encounters
57:54
Muhammad and Muhammad says, what are you doing? And he says, he's reading from the Torah. He's reading from the
58:01
Jewish scriptures. Now, remember, this would be something that Muhammad could not do. And Muhammad's face becomes red.
58:09
Now, I've read a number of times in the hadith where Muhammad's face became red. And generally that's not a good thing.
58:17
When the prophet gets angry, bad things happen. And so the guy is like, yikes, sorry.
58:26
And Muhammad goes, what I have brought down in the Quran is sufficient.
58:35
And what's the lesson that you learn from this? It's a lesson that I see over and over and over again in dealing with my
58:44
Muslim apologist friends, especially those who are of the primarily conservative
58:51
Salafi Wahhabi perspective. And that's a majority of apologists.
58:57
I wouldn't put Abdullah there, but there is a fundamental ignorance that the only reason they read any of these texts is in a secondary way, pulling texts out to try to create arguments against Christianity or Judaism.
59:15
But the idea of, and see, this is what's weird because I think you could make a fairly decent argument that at least in the earlier portions of the
59:23
Quran, you have a view of the preceding scriptures that is very high.
59:36
And if you have prophets that are clearly, the
59:44
Quran says in their writings are light and guidance. So what would be wrong with reading their scriptures?
59:50
But then you have this later traditional concept that develops to where if you study that stuff, aren't you in some way, shape or form insinuating that what we have in Muhammad isn't enough?
01:00:05
Well, I can see why that tradition developed because if you read those other scriptures, they're going to tell you things a whole lot different than Muhammad does.
01:00:16
A whole lot different than what Muhammad does. And they might prove to be attractive. And so, somebody in jail said, it's
01:00:26
Hadith 2425. No, you guessed wrong.
01:00:32
And in guessing wrong, you actually make the point for me about Hadith 2425.
01:00:38
You know, I'm going to have to set a date where we're going to reveal the identity of Hadith 2425.
01:00:46
We'll have to do that sometime. But only after we've had plenty of opportunities, only after someone sends me a sound file of a
01:00:55
Q &A at one of these apologetics conferences, where somebody asks either
01:01:01
Ergin Kanner or Norman Geisler, could you please identify in light of your statement, in light of the published view of Norman Geisler, on his website, that there is no official way of citing
01:01:18
Hadith literature, and that simply putting Hadith and a number is sufficient. Could you please identify
01:01:25
Hadith 2425 and explain how it is relevant to the Quran? Once somebody sends me one of those, where they've asked the question, and you're not going to get a meaningful answer, because it's impossible to get a meaningful answer.
01:01:38
Can't be done. Then we will identify, and I will be able to demonstrate without any problem, that Hadith 2425 is relevant to the issue of the
01:01:50
Quran. In fact, I will probably quote it in my book. It's that relevant.
01:01:57
But when I quote it, you'll actually be able to look it up and find it. What a concept.
01:02:03
Isn't that cool? Well, anyways, let's continue on with what
01:02:10
Abdullah was saying. Well, unfortunately, the issue with that contention from Samuel is whether the prophets that he's reading from are absolutely reliable, and if the whole message indeed is in there.
01:02:24
Now, this is going to get interesting, because Abdullah has some
01:02:29
Old Testament background knowledge. Unfortunately, as I have listened, and I know what's coming up here, of course, we could spend a great deal of time on each one of the alleged issues he brings up, and I would like to, especially,
01:02:51
I'm really tempted, really, really, really tempted to fire up the
01:02:59
June 23rd, 2011, fire, oh, good grief,
01:03:10
Michael Brown's program, his radio program. And I tweeted this yesterday, let me mention it now.
01:03:16
I would highly recommend that you listen to the June 23rd, 2011,
01:03:22
Michael Brown radio program, because my good friend, Dr. Michael Brown, took the time to ask the question, does
01:03:30
Matthew misrepresent the Old Testament in his use of it? How does
01:03:36
Matthew use the Old Testament? And what
01:03:42
I, he's going to raise the issue of the netzer, the branch, and I just,
01:03:52
I thought Michael Brown's presentation on it, even though he's, unfortunately, extremely limited time -wise in the radio format that he has right now, and hence has to be very quick and very to the point, very brief, he goes into much more depth in his
01:04:10
Answers to Jewish Objections books. But he did a wonderful job in laying out
01:04:16
Matthew's use of Isaiah 7 through 11, and I found it interesting, because I only listened to the program yesterday.
01:04:26
It was on my iPod, I just hadn't gotten around to it. But those of you who were at the Psalm 119 conference, we'll bring you all in on this, those of you who were at the
01:04:36
Psalm 119 conference, that should ring a faint bell if you were awake, because here you have
01:04:47
Dr. Brown pointing out that there is a theme in Matthew's use of Old Testament citations from a particular portion of the prophecy of Isaiah, chapters 7 through 11.
01:05:05
And if you follow the use of that, you will remember that in my presentation on Saturday at the
01:05:17
Psalm 119 conference, and you'll be able to follow this because Lane Chaplin will be posting this to his
01:05:24
YouTube channel, and then I will post it on my blog, because Ralph sat there with his video camera and recorded it and cramped his arm up and can no longer use that arm, but it's a sacrifice he was willing to make, you know.
01:05:36
I think it's a wonderful thing. We will have the video of that presentation from 1
01:05:44
Peter chapter 3. What did I demonstrate? In the immediate context of the third chapter of 1
01:05:51
Peter was a consistent pattern of drawing from at that point
01:05:56
Isaiah 7 through 9 instead of 7 through 11. Clearly, the early church sees that portion of Isaiah's prophecy as deeply messianic, and these writers are specifically pointing you back to it and drawing their language from it.
01:06:17
We saw that, and it's a little dangerous in a context like the
01:06:25
Psalm 119 conference to go to the depth of, okay, let's go back and let's look. Let's look at Isaiah 8.
01:06:30
Let's look at what he's quoting from here. Let's look at who he's identifying as Yahweh. Let's look at what it means to sanctify Christ as Lord.
01:06:36
What does that mean to set him apart as kurios? What did kurios mean? There's a lot of information there, I will admit, but I try to present it with enough fervor and passion to keep your attention to realize
01:06:49
Peter wants you looking back at these. He wants you to see that there is this Old Testament testimony and that what we have in the
01:06:57
Christian faith is not something that is a radical departure. It is a radical fulfillment of what was there before.
01:07:05
What I'm saying is that when Abdullah launches into his attack here on the
01:07:12
New Testament usage of the prophets, here's my suggestion. Abdullah is looking at Matthew on far too surface of a level, in a surface level way.
01:07:26
He's not allowing Matthew to be as deep as Matthew is, and again, if you want even more on this than what
01:07:36
I'm going to be giving to you, and Ralph, just put in the channel the link to that 623 podcast.
01:07:44
Like I said, I tweeted it yesterday. Go there. I subscribe on iTunes.
01:07:51
There's lots of ways to get it. Get the June 23, 2011, it's a two -hour, well, yeah, it's two hours, but once you take all the radio time out, it's not two hours.
01:08:03
It's about an hour and 15, 20 minutes, something like that. But he deals with Matthew.
01:08:10
He has to take some phone calls, and so that gets a little distracted, but you probably get about 40 minutes of really good discussion of Matthew's use of Old Testament texts, including his use of Hosea, because that's one of the main ones.
01:08:26
Out of Egypt, if I called my son, that's not a prophecy. That's a historical statement about how
01:08:31
Israel as an infant nation had been brought out of Egypt, and he points out that what
01:08:37
Matthew is doing is he's saying just as God's son in the
01:08:45
Old Covenant, the people of Israel, were called out of Egypt, that is a parallel to a shadowy fulfillment of a greater fulfillment in the his true son, the son of God, out of Egypt.
01:09:01
He's not saying that Hosea was prophesying something there. It was a historical statement. So you just have to allow
01:09:09
Matthew to use the text the way that, well, people were using the text in the first century, and that's where we really get in trouble here, to be perfectly honest with you, is that we have standards that we use to interpret ancient texts, and we need to recognize that Matthew is writing to the
01:09:29
Jews of his day, so why would he use argumentation that would only be relevant 21 centuries later rather than using argumentation that would be relevant to the people of his day at that time?
01:09:45
And then we, recognizing that, get to follow that argument and see how it all comes together and see the themes that are woven all through scripture and the beauty of that harmony, and it's great stuff.
01:09:57
But anyways, that's just sort of some background as we dive into some of these alleged contradictions.
01:10:45
That statement did exist, because if you would you have to read
01:10:51
Matthew in his original language. I like what Dr. Brown said. He did have a caller, and you could just tell.
01:10:57
It was funny. He had this caller call in, and I don't know if it's just because I've been doing this for so long, but as soon as this guy had three words out of his mouth,
01:11:09
I knew exactly where he was coming from. This was a guy who was calling in, and he thinks he has it all figured out, and everybody needs to be listening to him, and I guarantee you he doesn't go to a church anywhere.
01:11:24
He's Lone Ranger, and he's an expert, and he wants to get his 15 minutes of fame, and very quickly he's debating.
01:11:33
He's challenging Michael to debate, and Michael's response is, well, what credentials do you have?
01:11:39
Why should anyone take you seriously? Well, Jesus didn't have a PhD. Yeah, but what we're asking about is why should anyone listen to what you have to say?
01:11:50
You're not Jesus. And of course, one of the arguments that he actually made, and I don't know if Michael just didn't hear it or if he was just being nice.
01:12:00
I'm not sure which, because sometimes when you're in a conversation with somebody, I can't necessarily hear everything that someone's saying at the same time
01:12:08
I'm speaking, but people who are listening can sometimes make out what both of us are saying. He actually made the argument that, because in the
01:12:16
King James, there's one point, I guess, where in the
01:12:21
King James translation, Jeremy is used for Jeremiah, and that shows that Matthew was ignorant, because it wasn't
01:12:30
Jeremiah, because the King James translates the Greek form, and he doesn't even seem to realize that, well,
01:12:39
Matthew is written in Greek, and so there is a, that's just simply the King James's way of rendering the
01:12:45
Greek version. What does that have to do with Matthew at all? And it's like, well, if a translation gets it wrong, that means the original author must not have understood it, and you just want to go, wow.
01:12:57
Obviously, someone who doesn't know what they're talking about here. But he raised these same issues, and one of the things that Michael was saying is asking him, have you thought that possibly maybe
01:13:07
Matthew had thought more deeply about this than you have? And that's what
01:13:13
I would say to Abdullah. Is it possible that Matthew has thought about this more deeply than you have?
01:13:19
He's using a form of argumentation that would have been understood by his contemporaries, and that the text in Jeremiah, and actually the branch terminology is used in other places, but especially in Jeremiah, that netzer, that branch, that that's the application he's making, and it is there, it's right there in front of everybody, and he's not quoting from some unknown book or has nothing to do with textual corruption or any of these things?
01:13:47
And one of the things that Michael did is he asked his caller had he ever read through the, it's the
01:13:59
International Critical Commentary set. It's three volume, 2300 pages on Matthew.
01:14:05
I don't even have it. It is on the ministry resource list now, however, because from what
01:14:10
Dr. Brown said, if you want the most in -depth discussion of the prophetic passages in Matthew and the sources from which they were drawn, this is the go -to source.
01:14:21
And these guys are not conservatives. The International Critical Commentary set is well known as being
01:14:27
A, extremely expensive, and B, center at best normally left in the spectrum of things.
01:14:36
I found on Amazon, I found a paperback of the first volume for 56 bucks and the others are in the hundreds for the second and third volume.
01:14:44
So they're on the ministry resource list if someone would really like to add them to the library here.
01:14:51
But anyway, he asked him, have you even looked at it? Well, no, of course not. He doesn't bother to look at things like that.
01:14:57
And so he dismissed him from the program by saying, I'll tell you what, if you want to have that go around, you and I, you go read that commentary.
01:15:06
We'll come back and we'll have a discussion. 2 ,300 pages. I was juggling because he said 95 % of your objections will be answered if you will actually do that, which
01:15:18
I thought was an interesting way of approaching it. But so I would just simply say to Abdullah, it's similar to when
01:15:26
Abdullah challenged me and I did not get, this is one of the things I don't like about some of the debate formats.
01:15:33
In our very, very quiet, calm debate in Sydney last time on which contains light and guidance, the
01:15:44
New Testament or the Quran, it was only in the Q &A section, the cross -examination section, that any sparks began to fly at all.
01:15:54
And unfortunately, one of them that came up was the Psalm 22 issue. And I was really surprised that Abdullah said what he did about as a lion.
01:16:04
I'm not sure if this is going to come up here. I don't remember if this is here. If it is, then I will, I will, I'll want my iPad from the other room if I want to actually give all the information.
01:16:15
But it's actually, yeah, my iPad's sitting next to my computer in the other room.
01:16:21
Oh, great controller of things. So yeah, let's grab it real quick just in case it comes up. I'm not sure that it does.
01:16:31
Or the modern reader has not listened closely enough to Matthew to recognize the form of argumentation he's using that would be very relevant in first century
01:16:47
Jewish polemics. As well, we also need to be brought into question from that regard.
01:17:01
Now, having said that, Samuel did say that we need to read all the prophets, we need to read it all together, the whole message. Well, I gave some 25 quotes from 12 different books in the
01:17:12
Bible, comprising of the New Testament and the Old Testament. Samuel gave two quotes from the
01:17:18
Old Testament, one from Genesis, one from Isaiah, and limited allusions to the New Testament.
01:17:24
So I actually did present a wide range of information from a wide range of books in the
01:17:32
Christian scriptures. Now, I would be happy to contend that, or accept that perhaps some of the statements that Samuel made must mean what they say.
01:17:41
But then he would also have to agree that the statements that I presented must mean what they say. I think we went through all of those statements and demonstrated that they didn't say what
01:17:53
Abdullah thinks they say, because he's not exegeting them and he's not allowing the text to speak for itself.
01:18:00
And he's engaging in eisegesis and ignoring context and, you know, all the rest of that stuff.
01:18:05
I mean, remember, one of those arguments was that Jesus was ignorant of who had touched him and couldn't control the power going out from him and etc, etc, etc.
01:18:15
And doesn't even allow for a significantly better reading of the text that would be more consistent with the
01:18:24
Jesus' purposes. Now, if that's the case, say we get it down to 50 -50, that we have 50 % of the
01:18:30
Bible saying that God isn't in a trinity, and 50 % of the Bible saying that he is. And of course, we didn't find any of the non -trinity texts to be compelling at all.
01:18:50
Where does it say in the Old Testament that God is not the author of confusion? Everybody knows what that is.
01:18:57
At least most people I know know what that is. That's the Apostle Paul in the New Testament to the Corinthians.
01:19:04
It's not found in the Old Testament. Or we have a much deeper text than Abdullah would like it to be, and he's refusing to allow for harmonization.
01:19:26
And I would say that is, again, one of those situations where I bet that's not how he interprets the
01:19:33
Quran. He would demand that, for example, when we have the multiple conflicting accounts of the fall of Iblis, that the differing accounts and the differing words that are spoken and the order in which they're spoken, things like that, would have to be harmonized with one another, right?
01:19:56
I mean, there's not as much of this to do in the Quran because you only have allegedly one author. And you only a few times have multiple relating of the same story.
01:20:12
Now, I would argue that actually greatly diminishes the historical value of the document.
01:20:18
But that's another issue. That's what raises for us the need to do the kind of study that we do in synoptic studies and things like that.
01:20:28
But still, Abdullah still has to deal with places where he's going to have to ask for the freedom to harmonize
01:20:38
Quranic statements. I mean, just simply looking at the development that takes place in the theology of Muhammad—of course, a
01:20:47
Muslim doesn't believe it's the theology of Muhammad, but everybody outside of Islam does—between the
01:20:54
Meccan period, where he is a minority persecuted prophet, and the
01:20:59
Medinan period, where now he is at the head of the Muslim armies, you have to come up with some methodology of fitting those things together.
01:21:12
Now, people do it in different ways, but it has to be done. It's not just nice and simple.
01:21:18
But unfortunately, the approach that Abdullah is taking here is, well, you've got these texts over here, and they clearly contradict these texts over here, and there cannot be any harmonization.
01:21:27
It's just a clear conflict, and we will not allow for harmonization. Well, why not? If you're demanding it for your text, why won't you offer it for somebody else?
01:21:37
Just a question that has to be asked. Which we ourselves know.
01:21:54
Well, Abdullah Kunda doesn't know that. He doesn't know that at all. He may theorize it.
01:22:01
He may have been taught that. It may make it a lot easier to believe what the Quran says, but he does not know that in any way, shape, or form.
01:22:12
It's similar to me, to the question that he raised.
01:22:18
And since Rich went and got my iPad for me, in our last debate, he mentioned
01:22:28
Psalm 22. And we didn't have time to get into it, and I asked, you know, are you telling me that the translations and the texts that they used, you reject them, and nothing really more came of it.
01:22:41
But in Psalm 22, now, this text is not directly cited in the
01:22:49
New Testament, but, And he said, well, anybody knows that that's a mistranslation.
01:23:06
It's not, they pierced my hands and my feet. The Hebrew says, as a lion. Yeah, as a lion, my hands and my feet.
01:23:15
What does that mean? If a lion swings at you with his claws out, what does his claw do to you?
01:23:23
It's going to pierce and tear. If he uses his mouth, what do his teeth do? They pierce.
01:23:31
But even at that, even at that, this isn't a mistranslation.
01:23:38
The Greek Septuagint, specific, the earliest foreign language translation of the
01:23:43
Hebrew that we have is the Greek Septuagint, and it renders it pierced. But not only that, not only that, but the earliest
01:23:54
Hebrew manuscript we have of the text, the earliest
01:24:01
Hebrew manuscript we have, says pierced. He does not seem to be aware of the fact that there are a number of Masoretic texts that specifically, there's at least a dozen medieval
01:24:19
Masoretic manuscripts that read pierced. And the 5 -6
01:24:24
HEVPS, the, from the Nahal Hever version of the Psalms, the Dead Sea Scrolls, they have pierced my hands and my feet.
01:24:33
Line 12, column 10. So there is a reason, it's not something someone just made up, but there is a reason why it's translated that way.
01:24:46
And when you have the earliest Hebrew manuscript and the earliest translation of the Hebrew, both reading that way, and when you look at the
01:24:54
Hebrew, it's a very small variant between as a lion and pierced, as far as the continental text is concerned.
01:25:03
Then you can see it's not some kind of conspiracy or anything of the kind.
01:25:09
But instead, this was a very understandable variant, and that pierced is probably a much better reading than you have in the concept of using and a lion.
01:25:24
So I just thought I would mention that since I had that particular information right there, and I wanted to go ahead and bring that up.
01:25:32
And we're getting close to the end of the program, but we will press on for just a few more minutes here. There's a significant difference, and that significant difference is that my attribute of forgiveness, or my inclination to forgive, comes from God.
01:25:56
It's created by Him. His attribute of forgiveness is independent of creation.
01:26:02
It has no origin. All my attributes have an origin. His attributes have no origin. So even though we can draw a similitude, they are not the same at the foundation.
01:26:11
The foundation of God's attributes are absolute existence, without the need for an originator.
01:26:17
Everything that I perceive, that I understand, has the need for an originator. They're totally, totally different concepts.
01:26:25
Now, Samuel quoted Psalm 2 to give us the idea that the Son of God is present in the
01:26:33
Hebrew Scriptures. Well, Psalm 2 is actually referring to David, and indeed God is reported to have called
01:26:39
David, my forgotten son, this day I have forgotten you. This one's also very interesting, and we're almost out of time.
01:26:46
Let me go ahead and comment on it very quickly. Well, of course Psalm 2 is about David, but all the
01:26:51
Messianic Psalms were about somebody when they were written. And I just wonder,
01:26:59
I want to ask my Muslim friends, how could anybody have known
01:27:04
Jesus was the Messiah, given your interpretation of the Old Testament? How could anybody have known
01:27:13
Jesus was the Messiah? Because when I listen to Jamal Badawi, for example, ransack the
01:27:19
Old Testament and basically turn every Messianic prophecy into a prophecy about Muhammad. I mean, talk about stretching things.
01:27:26
But the question is, how could anybody have known Jesus was the Messiah if the answer is, well, that was about David?
01:27:34
Okay, take all of them off the table that were about David, or Solomon, or anybody else in history.
01:27:43
How can, and the Quran holds people accountable for having rejected Jesus. Jesus is the
01:27:48
Messiah in Islamic theology. But how did anybody know that, given their interpretation?
01:27:55
But since they could know Jesus was the Messiah, then maybe their interpretation is wrong.
01:28:02
Looking for consistency amongst our Muslim friends. Well, thanks for being with us today.
01:28:09
Lord willing, be here at our regular time on Thursday afternoon.
01:28:15
We'll see you then. God bless. Transcribed by https://otter .ai
01:29:45
Revised by https://otter .ai