George Bryson's “The Biblical Doctrines of Grace”

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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 good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line, a mega edition of the program today.

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Two hours I want to get as far as I possibly can in concluding our review of Matthew Vine's presentation on the subject of homosexuality and his defense of the concept of a gay

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Christian. We have gotten a tremendous number of contacts about this particular subject.

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There is a real need for continued dialogue on this subject, not dialogue in the sense of, well, we need to understand the other side better or, well, there needs to be a compromise, anything like that.

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No, what we need to continue to do is to dialogue with people who are confused or deceived or are involved in deceiving others into believing that the

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Bible is unclear on this and that homosexuality is just simply one aspect of the way that God made things.

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And that simply is not the case. It is a perversion of God's intention and it is a destructive behavior.

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And while we still have the freedom to do so, because for some reason homosexuals do not want us to have that freedom to say what we are saying, they try to shout you down or legislate you down.

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And that is happening all around us. Anyone who denies that's happening is just simply denying there's a sun in the sky or that it's blue or whatever else.

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And so we will dive right back in. We, for those of you who have the presentation, we are 35 minutes and 18 seconds into the presentation.

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It's only a little over an hour long. So I unfortunately doubt we are going to get all the way through it as much as I would like to attempt to do so.

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We'll give it a shot here. So let us press on. For unnatural ones.

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In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another.

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Men committed shameful acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

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Well, now it seems the case is finally closed. Even though the verses in Leviticus don't apply to Christians, here we have

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Paul in the New Testament explicitly teaching the unacceptability, the sinfulness of same -sex relationships.

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Now, just a pause for a moment. We've already seen that Mr. Fiennes is, of course, in error concerning the application of the

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Levitical passages. We saw why. And if you're just now tuning in, haven't heard that before, please look in the archives.

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I think what we will be doing is taking all of these programs, putting them into one single whole and making that available from the front page of the website for people to be able to access that so that you can go through it point by point.

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But certainly, the same apostle who has said, we do not do away with the law, we establish the law by faith, et cetera, et cetera, this same apostle is drawing from that very same

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Levitical law in his understanding of God's revelation of what is and what is not appropriate human sexual behavior as well.

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That needs to, again, be emphasized, even though the normal homosexual attempt to deal with these texts atomizes it, it disconnects them.

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You're not going to ever hear—well, I hesitate to use the term ever—but you almost never hear a homosexual apologist dealing with these texts as a whole unless they take the position that the

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Bible's witness should just be rejected in toto, which I would think would be about the only consistent position that a homosexual could ever take on this particular subject.

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And even though he only speaks of lustful behavior and not of loving relationships. And notice, reading into the text a category that Paul does not acknowledge.

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As we saw when we looked at this before, this is talking about the—it is an illustration of idolatry.

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That is, an abandonment of the truth that has been revealed by God and a twisting of the creator -creation relationship.

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And that's exactly what you have going on here, in that these individuals are those who

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God has given them over to dishonorable passions. Now, the homosexual will say, well, since God made me this way, then—and since I am not an idolater—the

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Christian, the quote -unquote Christian homosexual, which again is an oxymoron, but that's the terminology they use.

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They want to hold on to a form of religiosity. The quote -unquote Christian homosexual will say,

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I am not engaged in idolatry. I haven't done all these things. I haven't suppressed the knowledge of God.

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And therefore, I can't be described in these ways. The problem is that the apostle identifies this kind of sexual behavior as an illustration of the very twistedness of what idolatry brings.

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And so, you can go at this backwards and establish your own position and then try to cram it into the text, or you can actually listen to the text and see how it consistently flows from the

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Old Testament text that we've already seen Mr. Vines has inappropriately and improperly attempted to get around, primarily utilizing the argumentation of countrymen and Scroggs and Skenzoni and Mullincott, and especially

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Boswell, some of whom are homosexual, some of whom are not, but all of whom have a particular agenda they are seeking to attempt to promote.

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He labels same -sex unions unnatural. They are outside of God's natural design, which was set forth in Genesis 1 and 2 and is exclusively heterosexual.

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So even if a same -sex relationship is loving and committed, it is still sinful.

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Now I just want to emphasize something in regards to the actual language that Paul uses in verses 26 and 27.

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When we talk about the natural function or the natural relations, notice that it says for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural.

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And then the parallel in verse 27 is, and the same way also, the men abandoned the natural function of the woman.

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So when we're talking here about nature, when we're talking about the natural function, we're clearly talking about the sexual function, we're talking about the complementary nature of the female body and the male body, that which produces life, et cetera, et cetera.

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That is clearly what is in view in what the Apostle is saying in these texts.

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It's not just simply what's natural for them, as in these are heterosexuals engaging in homosexual activity.

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That is reading a category into it that is not being derived from the text, it's being enforced upon the text.

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That is the normal attempt of most, quote -unquote, gay

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Christians, end quote, to get over this particular problem. That is the traditional interpretation of Romans 1, 26 -27.

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How solid of an interpretation is that? Does this passage require us to reject the possibility of loving relationships for gay people?

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We have already, of course, addressed the issue of what love is, how the Bible defines love, and that true

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Christian love is defined on biblical parameters, that it is defined on the basis of complementary relationship and all the things that have already become a part of at least three hours,

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I think, we've done so far. Yeah, I think three hours we've done so far, just in response to the first half hour of this presentation.

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And if so, how does that make sense, given the problems that I outlined earlier with that position? Was that Paul's intent here, to teach that God desires gay people to be alone?

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Now notice the completely eisegetical decontextualization of the text. I mean, there's just, this is completely loading the conclusion.

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This is not exegesis. This is not going to the text. This is not honestly dealing with the text. This man has an agenda.

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He has a position that he is seeking to force into the text. This is, well, the man has perverted his own life, and now he's seeking to pervert the scriptures as well.

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And it is an unfortunate thing to observe. It's a sad thing to see, but that's exactly what is going on.

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To even ask such a question of the context of the text is just completely inappropriate on any meaningful basis for a

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Christian, a person who claims to be a Christian at the very least, and shows a tremendous bias on his part.

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For their entire lives, because their sexual orientation is broken and is outside of his created natural design.

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Their sexual orientation is rebellious, not just broken. It is a rejection of God's intention, and it is an acceptance of desires.

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So much so, and so much of an abandonment of the fight against what would be considered the appropriate mechanism of resisting temptation, that it becomes definitional of the person and very much a part of the entire worldview that is created around it and then brought to the text, resulting in the kind of reading that we're seeing right now.

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How we understand this passage hinges in large part on how we understand the meaning of the terms natural and unnatural.

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It's commonly assumed by those who hold to the traditional interpretation that these terms refer back to Genesis 1 and 2, and are intended to define heterosexuality as God's natural design, and homosexuality as an unnatural distortion of that design.

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Now one of the problems with this is that the term natural that is found in this text, for example, in verse 26, that is the natural use.

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The term natural here is used in a phrase, and on a lexical basis, you need to allow a phrase to be defined by its context.

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You can't just take one element of that, run off to some other text like, oh, let me just guess, 1

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Corinthians 11, 14, and take that particular reading and bring it back into this text.

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And so you have a natural use that is being exchanged for that which is paraphusen, against nature.

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And then as I pointed out, it's important to see verse 27, Hamoyos likewise also, the men, abandoning the natural usage, again, in parallel, of the female, then burned in their lust one for another.

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And so clearly, this is any and all, this is any homosexual activity.

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Lesbianism, male homosexuality, this is what's being described here by the

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Apostle, this is in perfect harmony with how the Apostle interpreted God's law, the

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Levitical law, how Jesus interpreted the creation of man and woman,

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Matthew 19, all of these things that we have already seen, we see a perfectly harmonious testimony so far in all of these texts.

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But of course, we're being told that, well, I can't mean that because that means that I'd have to be alone.

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Well, if you choose in your rebellion against God to violate his ways, then, yeah, you will be alone in your violation, but that's not an argument against this interpretation of Scripture and the consistency of this interpretation of Scripture.

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But once again, closer examination does not support that interpretation.

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In order to understand what Paul meant by the use of these terms, we have to consider two things.

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First, we have to look at the broader context of the passage in order to see how the concept of nature functions within it.

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And secondly, we need to see how Paul himself uses these terms in his other letters and how they were commonly and widely applied to sexual behavior in particular in the ancient world.

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First, the passage's context. In chapter 1, verses 18 through 32, Paul is making a larger argument about idolatry.

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And that argument has a very precise logic to it. The reason, he says in verses 18 through 20, that the idolaters' actions are blameworthy is because they knew

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God. They started with the knowledge of God, but they chose to reject him.

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Paul writes, Paul's subsequent statements about sexual behavior follow this same pattern.

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The women, he says, exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. Now immediately, once again,

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Matthew has demonstrated a real inability to engage in meaningful exegesis.

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Because in verse 24, you have already had the summary statement made by the

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Apostle Paul that they knew God. They did not honor

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God or give thanks to him, but became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. So he's just jumped over, skipped, a transitionary section that begins to deal with the results of idolatry.

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And the result of idolatry is a futility of thinking, a darkening of the heart, a becoming foolish, even though they claim to be wise, an exchanging of the glory of the immortal

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God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. In other words, there is an impact, there is a fundamental perversion of the created order that follows from the existence of idolatry.

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From the existence of the suppression of the knowledge of God, katakonto, they are holding down the knowledge of God.

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And when the creature suppresses the knowledge of the creator, the result is a deformation of the created order.

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And part of that involves the mind, the thinking, claiming to be wise, they become fools.

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They exchange, there is an exchange going on. Now in verse 23, the term that is found there, alaso, is the same term that's going to be found in verse 25.

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They exchanged the truth of God. And then in verse 26, where likewise you have the same term, it's meta there, but it's the same root, the exchanging of natural relations.

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And so if you're going to follow this, if you're going to at all claim that you are even pretending to honestly deal with this text, then you must note the context appropriately.

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And so after the assertion of the exchanging of the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things, in other words, man's mind and his worship is turned away from its proper object to that which is inappropriate.

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Then you have, verse 24 starts off, Dea paretokon altus hatheas, therefore

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God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity.

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And so whatever he's describing is impurity. It involves the dishonoring of their bodies amongst themselves.

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But it is a part of God's giving them over. They want to suppress the knowledge of God.

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They want to pervert the relationship of the creator and the creation. All right.

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Here comes the result. God gives them over in the lusts of their heart to impurity because they exchange the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

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So what is Paul stating? Paul is stating that there is an absolutely necessary result of the perversion of the created order on the part of the created order.

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God gives them over to degrading passions. He gives them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies amongst themselves.

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You can't skip that and pretend that you're dealing with verses 26 and 27.

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I mean, it's just, it might work, and sadly in a Methodist church where very few of the people sitting in front of you anymore even bother to read a

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Bible, but it's not going to work if you're actually claiming to be dealing with the text itself.

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Remember, and people say, oh, you're just so mean to set. Hey, remember, I'm the one that sat in the debate with Barry Lynn.

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Yes, Barry Lynn, who is on Fox News all the time and CNN all the time. Barry Lynn used to be head of the

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American Society of Separation of Church States. I'm not sure if he still is, but I think they might be.

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I don't know. I haven't checked for a long time. Barry Lynn, who does not like me, let me assure you.

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And we were in a debate on this very subject, and I was asking about this very text, and I had to let him borrow my

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Bible to read the text because he came to a debate where he was one of the debaters on the subject, is homosexuality consistent with biblical

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Christianity, and he didn't bring a Bible. And so when I say something about people not reading, not really looking at the text, not really driving their beliefs from the text,

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I think I've got a basis for actually saying that that's been my experience, because you know what?

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It has been. And the men abandoned relations with women and committed shameful acts with other men.

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Both the men and the women started with heterosexuality. Really? What do you mean they started with heterosexuality?

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Are you trying to, you know, these folks need to figure out whether they are going to assert that the

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Bible knows nothing about quote -unquote sexual orientation or whether it does know about it.

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If you can say it doesn't, then you can't be talking now about, well, these are heterosexuals, they're acting like homosexuals, because now you're assuming that it knows something about it.

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You know, make up your mind. Which one is it? The whole idea, actually, is a reading in of something that's not only not necessary but it misses the whole point, but which one's it going to be?

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They were naturally disposed to it, just as they were naturally disposed to the knowledge of God.

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Just as they were naturally disposed to the knowledge of God. No, Paul's point is that all of the created order testifies the existence of God, and that all men and all women, until they bow the knee to Jesus Christ, are involved in the suppression of that knowledge of God.

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Not that it's quote -unquote natural. It is a part of the witness of all of the created order.

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But by skipping verses 24 and 25, he's now able to provide a completely different context and therefore not even follow the thought of the text, and explain why.

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Why is there a diatouta? Verse 26, diatouta paredokon, now he had already used paradidomi in verse 24, therefore

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God gave them over in verse 24, it was already there.

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But then he repeats it, but he uses diatouta in verse 26, for this reason

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God gave them over to dishonorable passions. So are we being told here that the reason that these are dishonorable passions is simply because these are heterosexuals pretending to be homosexuals?

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You really think that's Paul's point? You really think in establishing this grand theme of idolatry and the perversion of the created order, that Paul's point is to refer to, that Paul actually knows that there are people who are by nature homosexual, and he's excluding them.

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Oh no, they're fine, they can go do what they want to do, that's fine. But if you're actually a heterosexual, but you engage in homosexual behavior,

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I'm going to use you as the example. But they rejected their original, natural inclinations for those that were unnatural.

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For them, same -sex behavior. Paul's argument about idolatry requires that there be an exchange.

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The reason he says that the idolaters are at fault is because they first knew God, but then turned away from him, exchanged him for idols.

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Paul's reference to same -sex behavior is intended to illustrate this larger sin of idolatry.

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But in order for this analogy to have any force, in order for it to make sense within this argument, the people he is describing must naturally begin with heterosexual relations, and then abandon them.

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No, that does not follow in any way, shape, or form. Because of the verses that Matthew, either in self -deception or deception led by others, skipped over.

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Therefore, God gave them over. God gave them up. Those who suppress the knowledge of God, and that's everybody,

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God gives them over. Now, in grace,

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God thankfully does not do this to everyone, in the sense of giving them over to the same kinds of sinful behaviors.

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But notice that this whole text is going to continue on, and it's going to, after talking about homosexuality, it's going to continue to say, and since they did not see fit to acknowledge

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God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. And they were filled with all manner of, and then you have a couple found in Paul's writings of the vice lists, the sin lists, all manner of unrighteousness.

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So all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, which might be translated actually, hated by God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents.

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Now, disobedient to parents is in the middle of this. It's identifying the source of all human sinfulness in the refusal to have the right relationship with God himself.

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It starts with God. Human sin cannot be defined separately from the fact that we are creatures and that therefore there is a law that we must be held accountable to in regards to our

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Creator. And so, to try to say, well, this means that they were heterosexuals, or the analogy doesn't hold, misses the fact that this is something

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God gave them over to, and that it results in the perversion of the natural order.

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The natural order is that men and women together engage in sexual behavior producing life.

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But a man to have sex with a man does not produce life. A woman with a woman does not produce life.

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There is no complementary element. And by nature, the bodily functions do not fit.

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And so, to go against nature is to see, as man sees in the universe around him,

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I see the evidence of God, but I'm going to go against that. We see the natural relationship of man and woman.

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I'm going to go against that, and I'm going to lust after men. And notice something.

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The text specifically says, in verse 27, it doesn't say this about the women, but I think the homoios would allow this.

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Homoios means in the same way. Likewise, the men gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another.

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Sir, how much more obvious does it have to get? The description is of a man who lusts after men.

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Is that not homosexuality? Is that not the very description and definition of it?

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Seems to be. We might put it another way. We might ask Matthew another way.

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How could, would it be possible for the apostle to have actually described homosexual behavior as that desired by Matthew Vines in this text, and if so, how?

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What words could it be used? That's what I'd like to know.

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Because I'm starting to wonder that no matter, is there any way scripture could describe homosexuality that a homosexual could not find a way around it?

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Could not find some mechanism to say that it really doesn't refer to me? And that is exactly how he describes it.

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But that is not what we are talking about. Gay people have a natural, permanent orientation for those of the same sex.

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It's not something that they choose, and it's not something that they can change. What has been my statement from the beginning?

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That is his assertion, that is his position, and he will do whatever he needs to do with the biblical text to maintain that.

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He's not deriving this from the text. He's derived this from, this is his conclusion. His conclusion is, this is how

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I have been made, and it's good. And that's it.

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That's how it's supposed to be. That's the end of the discussion. They aren't abandoning or rejecting heterosexuality.

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That's never an option for them to begin with. No. Once again, it is an option.

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It has become an option for many who were consumed by homosexual lust, but they are able, by the grace of God, because they are human beings who can be influenced by the

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Spirit of God and changed by the Spirit of God, to not only resist those things, but to change those things as well.

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And if applied to gay people, Paul's argument here should actually work in the other direction. If the point of this passage is to rebuke those who have spurned their true nature, be it religious when it comes to idolatry, or sexual, then just as those who are naturally heterosexual should not be with those of the same sex, so too those who have a natural orientation toward the same sex should not be with those of the opposite sex.

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Well, there you go, folks. If you can take a text like this and actually turn it into its opposite, then you have demonstrated that you are doing the exact thing that Paul described.

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You are twisting the creator -creation relationship, and you are twisting the very words of Scripture themselves.

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It's right there in front of you, and it is amazing. For them, that would be exchanging the natural for the unnatural in just the same way.

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We have different natures. There is absolutely no evidence. I mean, if he's actually saying this, then what he's saying here is that Paul did understand.

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Most of these writers will say, oh, this was beyond Paul's understanding, but now it sounds like he's saying

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Paul did understand the concept of sexual orientation, and that he would have had a positive view of it as a

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Jewish man. And I would challenge him or anyone else to prove that from history.

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Show me anybody in the Jewish milieu of Tanniatic Judaism, Second Temple Judaism, that was promoting what this man is promoting.

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I mean, that's the big thing today, isn't it? The big thing today, you want to be on the cutting edge, let's talk about Second Temple Judaism, and let's talk about Paul as a

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Jew from the Second Temple period, and okay, let's do that. Show me a context that would substantiate this.

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I've never seen anyone even try. Never seen anyone even try. Because it just doesn't exist.

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It just wasn't there. When it comes to sexual orientation. But is this just a clever argument?

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Yes. That has no grounding in the historical context of Paul's world, and therefore yields an interpretation that could not be what he originally intended.

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After all, the concept of sexual orientation is very recent. It was only developed in the past century.

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Except he just used it and asserted that Paul would have understood it, didn't he? And has only come to be widely understood within the past few decades.

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So how can we take our modern categories and understandings and use them to interpret a context that is so far removed from them?

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But that level of removal is precisely the point. In the ancient world, homosexuality was widely considered not to be a different sexual orientation or something inherent in a small minority of people, but to be an excess of lust or passion.

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Some people did have that view. Not Jewish people.

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Not in the context from which Paul would be speaking. But watch the mixture of stuff here.

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When it's convenient to try to interpret Paul as a Second Temple Jew, they'll do that.

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When it's then convenient to just completely ignore that and say, well, we need to look at how the

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Greeks viewed it, or how Philo viewed it, or how the Romans viewed it, or whatever, then they'll do that. Don't even bother trying to find consistency in pro -homosexual readings of scripture, because the only thing you're going to find consistent in that is inconsistency.

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That anyone could be prone to if they let themselves go too much. Just a couple of quotes to illustrate this.

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A well -known first century Greek philosopher named Diocritus wrote the following. The man whose appetite is insatiate in such things, referring to heterosexual relations, will have contempt for the easy conquest and scorn for a woman's love, as a thing too readily given, and will turn his assault against the male quarters, believing that in them he will find a kind of pleasure difficult and hard to procure.

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A fourth century Christian writer said of same -sex behavior, you will see that all such desire stems from a greed which will not remain within its usual bounds.

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The abandonment of heterosexual relations— I'd be really interested in knowing why he didn't identify that particular person, so we could look at the context.

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—for same -sex lust was frequently compared to gluttony in eating or drinking. Sexuality was seen as a spectrum, with opposite -sex relations being the product of a moderate level of desire, and same -sex relations the product of an excessive amount of desire.

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Now that is incredibly simplistic, incredibly simplistic, and none of this has anything to do with the

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Jewish perspective, which again would be what he would have to establish to come up with any meaningful foundation for interpreting the

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Apostle Paul within this context. Personal orientation had nothing to do with it.

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But within this framework, as I said, same -sex relations were associated with the height of excess and lust, and that is why

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Paul invokes them in Romans 1. His purpose is to show that the idolaters were given over to unbridled passion.

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That would not be a part of his argument at all. It wasn't a matter of excess.

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He wasn't saying, well, there are some idolaters that are less idolatrous than other idolaters, and being a really big idolater is a really big bad idea.

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It wasn't his point. His point was the exchange. It was the twisting of the creator -creation relationship, and the result that God gives them over to dishonor themselves.

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You see, it is something that is honorable for the creature to recognize and honor the creator.

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If you choose to suppress the knowledge of the creator, thereby seeking to dishonor him, the creator will actually bring about your own dishonor.

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And that this dishonoring takes place in the mind, their foolish hearts are darkened, and also in the body, in that they engage in behaviors that bring about the destruction of their own flesh.

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And that has been going on for a long, long time. And to depict a scene of sexual chaos and excess that illustrates that.

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And that is completely consistent with how same -sex relations were most commonly described at the time. But the only reason that a reference to same -sex behavior helps

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Paul illustrate general sexual chaos is because the people he is describing first began with opposite -sex relations, and then, in a burst of lust, abandoned them, exchanged them for something else.

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None of which you find anywhere in Romans 1. We have not found any foundation to accept what

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Matthew has said to this point. This is a gross twisting of the

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Scripture rather than an exegesis of the Scripture. And surely it is significant that Paul here speaks only of lustful, casual behavior.

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He says nothing about the people in question falling in love, making a lifelong commitment to one another.

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Which, again, falling in love and making a lifelong commitment to one another. Yeah, there's nothing about love here, because from Paul's perspective, there can't be in this context, because love involves that complementary aspect which can't be there.

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And what's this momentary thing? Where's this lifelong thing? Yeah, there was no one promoting the concept of homosexual marriage or anything of the kind in this day in Paul's context.

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And so he doesn't say anything about it because it wouldn't have even crossed his mind. That's true, because it's to take a perversion and pervert it even more.

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It's one thing, you know, I can understand the homosexuals that I mentioned last time in the study from Macquarie State University, who, 50 plus, 50 plus year old male homosexuals, where 50%, if I recall correctly,

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I'm going off top of my head here, if I recall it was 80 % had had 11 or more sexual partners in their life, 50 % had 100 or more, and 25 % had 500 and more in their life.

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That I can understand from a human perspective.

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The vast majority of homosexuals do not want what Matthew is describing here.

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And in nations where homosexual marriage has been made legal, 90 plus percent of homosexuals do not get married.

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They're not interested. And those who do have divorce rates significantly higher than the heterosexual population.

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Might want to mention that in passing. But the point is that to address this as he is addressing it is to take a tiny minority.

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And the President of the United States did the exact same thing. A large portion of the apologists for the homosexual perspective will do the same thing.

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They'll talk about committed monogamous relationships. Why? Because they know that if they were to represent homosexuality as it actually exists, and as people know it exists, no one would ever accept it.

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They would never even begin to give consideration to it within the context of a moral discussion.

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But you're talking about maybe, maybe the 1%.

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Isn't that ironic? You're talking about the 99 % versus the 1 % here.

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So you're judging a movement of the 99 % on an argument for the 1%.

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Think about that. And so to say, well Paul doesn't mention this.

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Nobody was promoting this in that age. It was not an issue.

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You cannot even begin to establish that there was anybody in his context that would even begin to make this argument.

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So the honest way of dealing with Paul is to say, well Paul you're just ignorant. And just abandon the scriptures.

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That's the only honest way to try to make this kind of argumentation. Don't twist them. You don't like what they have to say.

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Okay, we understand that. We understand why. Because you're in rebellion against them. That's all there is to it.

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Starting a family together. We would never dream of reading a passage in scripture about heterosexual lust and promiscuity, and then from that condemning all of the marriage relationships of straight

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Christians. Especially because we have all these wonderful, positive, direct teaching passages that talk about marriage as a symbol of Christ and the church and the intention of God.

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Where is that for homosexuality? Where is that? We noted the glaring absence in Matthew's presentation of any discussion of Matthew chapter 19.

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And Jesus' own teaching. Why is there a glaring absence of that? Because it just can't be twisted far enough.

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Well, I guess anything can be twisted, but you can't do it with a straight face. There is an enormous difference between lust and love when it comes to our sexuality.

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Between casual and committed relationships. Between promiscuity and monogamy.

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That difference has always been held to be central to Christian teaching on sexual ethics for straight

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Christians. Why should that difference not be held to be as central for gay

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Christians? How can we take a passage about same -sex lust and promiscuity, and then condemn any loving relationships that gay people might come to form?

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Notice, again, we don't have to define loving relationships from the Bible. We define, quote -unquote, loving relationships based upon some external thing.

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And then read that back into the Bible, somehow. And say, well, we know these exist because, well, we are here.

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And we experience these things. And therefore the Bible can't be condemning these things. It is a completely anachronistic, backwards twisting of the scriptures.

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You take a passage specifically talking about the homosexual activity of males, and turn it into a positive statement, defending what can at best be a 1 % activity.

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A 1%, maybe, at best, of homosexuals would ever experience a, quote -unquote, monogamous relationship.

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It just doesn't happen. It's so rare. And I really wonder, if these guys are really out there making these arguments, why don't we see them protesting at the gay pride parades?

44:52

You'd say, why would they be doing that? Because if you've ever been to one, I haven't, but I have seen the videos.

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And what's going on the side streets is the exact, it's exactly what we just read in Romans 1, okay?

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It's disgusting. In public. Why aren't these guys out there protesting that?

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Saying, you people are giving us all a bad name, you're giving us the majority of us a bad name, because they know they're not the majority.

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They know they are the tiny minority. They know that. And so, it sounds like what he just said, it sounded to me like a denunciation of at least 90 % of the, quote -unquote, gay community.

45:40

I would think that the gay community would be a little upset about that. That is a very different standard than the one that we apply to straight people.

45:50

And again, the primary argument that is advanced in support of this kind of a different standard is that Paul doesn't merely condemn same -sex lust.

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He also calls same -sex desires shameful and labels same -sex unions unnatural.

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I've already explained why Paul's use of the term unnatural requires the idolaters' willful spurning of their natural heterosexual desires.

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Actually, the willful spurning of God's creative action of them as male and female, which is exactly what

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Matthew Vines is doing. It's right there. And that's how this term functions within the passage as a whole, mirroring the idolaters' exchange of God for idols.

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But before we leave this passage, we also need to consider how Paul himself uses these terms in his other letters.

46:39

Now, this is something you need to tune into if your mind has wandered and you're going, okay, okay, okay.

46:45

You need to tune in here because it is very, very common. This is another conversation stopper. You need to be aware of the fact, and this is why

46:54

I mentioned this before, but what homosexual apologists will do is they will run over to passages like 1

47:01

Corinthians 11 -14, and they will take the term nature, and they'll say,

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See, over here it has a limited meaning or a cultural meaning, or it can mean something else, and therefore we really can't know what

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Paul means in Romans 1. So a real common argument is because Paul says, does not even nature tell you that it is wrong for man to have long hair.

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See, nature means cultural norm, therefore cultural norm in Romans 1, and that's how you get around it.

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All right? So that's why I emphasized what I emphasized earlier. I emphasized earlier that it talked about not just nature.

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It doesn't just say parafusus, which is against nature, but it used a specific term.

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It used phusikein kreisen, the natural use of the woman, natural use of the man.

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So you can't just take a phrase that has a specific meaning in one context, and because one of the words is used differently someplace else, overthrow what it means, and that's exactly what you have here.

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And again, if you just want to see what happens when you get these apologists into a debate, rather than a talk show where the hosts are all on the liberal side anyways, but into a debate where they actually have to answer questions, just listen to the debate that I had with Barry Lynn on this very subject, and listen to the cross -examination.

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That must have seemed like the longest cross -examination he had ever experienced in his life, and he's an attorney.

48:54

He was so angry after that, and it wasn't because I was playing games. I just held his feet to the fire and held him to the text.

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It happens very rarely. And how the terms natural and unnatural were commonly applied to sexual behavior in his day.

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One of Paul's most significant references to nature outside of Romans 1 comes in 1

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Corinthians 11. There, in verses 13 -15, he writes, Judge for yourselves.

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Is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but that if a woman has long hair, it is her glory?

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This is actually the most similar passage in the New Testament to Romans 1, 26 -27. No, not even close.

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Not. Even. Close. There is absolutely nothing.

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Whatsoever. Parallel. To the use that is found in Romans 1, 26, of tein fussekein kreisen.

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It's not there. It's not there. It is untrue to make the statement that he just made.

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Now, I don't know if he knows it's untrue, or if he's just following the deceivers who have deceived him, whatever it is, but that is not a true statement.

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Because not only does Paul refer to nature here, he also speaks of the concept of disgrace, which is the same term that is translated as shameful in Romans 1.

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But the way that we interpret these terms in 1 Corinthians 11 is very different than how the traditional interpretation wants to read them in Romans 1.

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One of the most common meanings of the Greek word for nature is custom. And that is how

50:48

Christians widely interpret this passage in 1 Corinthians today. And the reference to what is a disgrace, or shame, is taken as specifically being shameful given particular customs.

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So how we read Paul here in 1 Corinthians is basically this. Do not the customs of our society dictate that it's considered shameful for a man to have long hair, but honorable for a woman.

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This reading aligns with ancient Mediterranean attitudes about gender and hair length. And it makes much more sense than the idea that natural biological processes would lead men to have short hair.

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By nature, it would grow long. But again, this passage about hair length in 1

51:31

Corinthians is the most similar one in Paul's writings to the passage about sexual behavior in Romans 1.

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It is not. So if we understand Paul's references to nature and a disgrace in 1

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Corinthians as being about custom, why do we not do the same in Romans 1?

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Because that would require you to abandon sound exegesis and all principles of meaningful interpretation because the term nature is used in a phrase that is defined by the context.

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I mean, this is really one of the most pitiful arguments that is put forward.

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And anyone needs to be prepared to take this apart because it is just so badly formed and is just so obviously in error that it can only work with people who do not have the text in front of them and do not do serious reading of it on a regular basis.

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And in fact, unlike the traditional interpretation, that approach would be consistent with how the terms natural and unnatural were actually used in regard to sexual behavior by the ancient

52:38

Greeks and Romans. Notice, ancient Greeks and Romans. Remember, how about by the Jews?

52:43

We didn't hear anything about that, did we? No, we decided to go to a different background for Paul than that from which he actually spoke.

52:54

In those patriarchal societies in which women were viewed as inferior to men, the main distinction that they made when discussing sexual behavior was not orientation, but rather active versus passive roles.

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The Greeks and Romans, along with other societies of biblical times, believed that a man's natural, customary role was to be active in sexual relations, whereas a woman's was to be passive.

53:21

When either of those roles were inverted, when a man was passive or a woman was active, they labeled that behavior shameful and unnatural in a sense of violating customary gender roles.

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So we now go to Greek and Roman, some Greek and Roman sources, and read them back into Paul, having ignored the use of phrases and things like that, as if somehow we're actually exegeting the text of Scripture.

53:46

And I think even most of the folks in the audience could tell by now, we're not exegeting the text of Scripture anymore, we're finding a way around it.

53:54

That is why they commonly called same -sex unions unnatural. But just like Greek and Roman attitudes about appropriate hair length, their views about gender roles are specific to those patriarchal cultures.

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In both of these cases, Paul is merely using terms that have already gained a wide currency to describe things in the societies that he's addressing.

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And he uses the term nature in Romans 1, just as he does in 1 Corinthians 11. So if we're going to be consistent, as well as historically accurate in our biblical interpretation, then we need to acknowledge for Romans 1 what we already do for 1

54:31

Corinthians 11. The term nature here refers to social custom, not to the biological order.

54:39

Okay. Now, what you need to understand is this is another common pro -homosexual means of introducing confusion.

54:54

That's not what he said earlier. What he said earlier was these are heterosexuals who engage in homosexual behavior.

55:03

Now we have the idea of custom, that this is against cultural custom.

55:10

Well, which one is it? Many times I have found that homosexual apologists will throw out contradictory arguments without even sensing the contradiction.

55:23

The only thing that binds the arguments together is that it gives me excuse for my lusts and my activities.

55:30

But it doesn't matter if my arguments actually contradict the other arguments I've already put forward.

55:35

As long as it produces some sense of confusion in the minds of people, then there you go.

55:43

That's just how it is. And that is exactly what we're hearing right now.

55:49

And it is a culturally specific term. Our two remaining passages are less involved than the others, so I'll spend somewhat less time on them.

56:00

They are 1 Corinthians 6, 9 and 1 Timothy 1, 10, and the debate here centers around the translation of two

56:07

Greek terms. In 1 Corinthians 6, 9 through 10, Paul warns against those who will not inherit the kingdom of God.

56:16

And then he lists ten different types of people who will not inherit the kingdom. Because the dispute here is about translation,

56:23

I'll start with the King James Version of this passage, which was published more than 400 years ago and so predates this modern controversy.

56:32

It reads, You know,

56:57

I wonder if he's going to be consistent here and also argue about the drunkards.

57:05

I mean, aren't there people who are disposed to a weakness to alcohol? I wonder if he's going to be consistent here.

57:15

Our keywords for the discussion here are the words translated as effeminate and abusers of themselves with mankind.

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These somewhat ambiguous translations in the King James are consistent with how these words were actually translated into English for hundreds of years.

57:31

Some kind of immorality or abuse, but specifically what kind was never stated. This changed halfway through the last century when some

57:41

Bible translators began connecting these terms directly to homosexuality. The first occurrence of this shift came in 1946 when a translation of the

57:50

Bible was published that simply stated that, quote, homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God.

57:56

By the way, if his argument here is that no one before 1946 had understood arson a koitai at 1

58:05

Corinthians 6 .9 as referring to homosexuals, that is just absurd. This text has been understood to refer to homosexuality for a very, very, very long time, not just since 1946, but there are many people who, again, 1946 sounds so long ago that it might as well be ancient church history.

58:28

And so I'm afraid we're going to have to pick up with the discussion of arson a koitai, arson a koitais, and the meaning of the term, which we've already addressed, the next time.

58:40

And maybe since we're 50 minutes in, there's only 15 minutes left, I think we might actually make it through on the next one, but we'll probably take another hour.

58:49

That's going to be five hours of response. Well, we're going to do it next time, but we're going to be back after this break.

58:55

Keep listening. Pulpit Crimes The criminal mishandling of God's Word may be

59:05

James White's most provocative book yet. White sets out to examine numerous crimes being committed in pulpits throughout our land every week as he seeks to leave no stone unturned.

59:14

Based firmly upon the bedrock of Scripture, one crime after another is laid bare for all to see.

59:20

The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from His Word. What has happened to this sacred duty in our day?

59:26

The charges are as follows. Prostitution using the gospel for financial gain, pandering to pluralism, cowardice under fire, felonious eisegesis, entertainment without a license, and cross -dressing, ignoring

59:41

God's ordinance regarding the roles of men and women. Is a pulpit crime occurring in your town? Get Pulpit Crimes in the bookstore at almen .org.

59:58

Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

01:00:04

Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

01:00:10

In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

01:00:16

Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

01:00:24

Genesis, Leviticus, and Romans. Expanding on these scriptures, they refute the revisionist arguments, including the claim that Christians today need not adhere to the law.

01:00:34

In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for His people.

01:00:43

The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality.

01:00:49

Get your copy in the bookstore at almen .org. And welcome back to Dividing Line.

01:01:05

If you had a couple people asking about the Macquarie State University study, you can find those stats in the work by Robert Gagnon, or as he puts it,

01:01:19

Gagnon, but that's because he's stuck over here in the United States. He's French, and so it's

01:01:25

Robert Gagnon, would be how you should say it. Anyway, his work on homosexuality and the scriptures, excellent work.

01:01:37

Obviously, he's not nearly as conservative as I am in his view of scripture. He's PCUSA, but he is evidence that not everyone in the

01:01:47

PCUSA has completely lost their mind when it comes to this particular issue, and so I would recommend it.

01:01:54

But, as with all works, including my own, I would recommend that you read it with discernment and always check for consistency.

01:02:02

You'll find stuff like references to well, for example, in dealing with the

01:02:08

Old Testament passages, he thoroughly embraces the Graf Wellhausen hypothesis, and so you have the

01:02:16

Deuteronomics writer and the Levitical writer and the Yahwist writer and so on and so forth.

01:02:22

Even in dealing with these New Testament texts, he'll talk about Deutero -Pauline in dealing with the pastorals and stuff like that.

01:02:32

What's interesting is you've got someone here who's not as conservative as I am in his view of the origination of scripture, and yet still comes the exact same conclusion, and that is you cannot hold to this text.

01:02:46

You cannot seriously pretend to be interpreting this text and come to any other conclusion than that it condemns same -sex behavior in all of its forms.

01:02:58

So you might want to check that material out.

01:03:04

All right. Well, we've gone an hour already, and we've covered a very important topic today.

01:03:11

I do recognize and understand that this is an important topic in our culture today, and therefore it needs to be addressed.

01:03:20

And I realize I'm not going to allow it to become the only topic that we address. Sometimes you can lose balance, but at the same time, when there is something that is absolutely at the forefront in your society, you cannot flinch at that one point, as unpleasant as it may be.

01:03:41

Next topic. Completely shifting gears. Put the clutch in and shift radically somewhere.

01:03:49

Most of you know that there has been a most of you know that the

01:03:56

Calvary Chapel movement, the Calvary Chapel denomination, because that's what it is, it is a denomination, with a horrifically unbiblical ecclesiology.

01:04:07

Calvary Chapel is one of the best examples that I know of. Of what happens when anti -confessionalism goes to seed.

01:04:20

You end up with unwritten confessionalism. But since it's unwritten, you can't deal with it in a biblical fashion.

01:04:36

I was shocked to discover a number of years ago that if you are a

01:04:46

Calvary Chapel church, you'll be drummed out of the movement if you establish church membership.

01:04:52

So if you do church discipline, if you follow the plain teaching of the New Testament about putting people out and doing church discipline, how do you do that if you don't have a membership role?

01:05:03

I don't understand that. You'll get kicked out. And there's some really wild stuff about the

01:05:09

Moses model and some of this really weird stuff that has a home in the

01:05:16

Calvary Chapel movement. You know, Chuck Smith is Moses and he comes down from the mountain with the word of God for people and it's like, whoa, this is weird stuff.

01:05:24

Well, Chuck Smith is not healthy. He has developed cancer and no one rejoices in that but he's an elderly man and elderly men eventually leave this world.

01:05:35

And when you have developed a religious movement around one man, then speculations arise as to well, who's going to take over for the one man?

01:05:47

And when Chuck Smith dies, I expect to see quite an interesting power struggle.

01:05:52

You're not allowed to even talk right now about the successor. You're not even allowed to talk about it. You've got

01:06:00

Skip Heitzik and Bob Coy and Greg Laurie and Damian Kyle and Sandy Adams and Raul Reiss.

01:06:06

In fact, the church I was at in Southern California, the building is where Raul Reiss started.

01:06:15

I have now spoken at Raul Reiss's old church.

01:06:21

Anyway, these folks they make up the non -denominational denomination and we all know

01:06:33

George Bryson. George Bryson, the primary promoter and author of the absurdity who has refused to repent of the absurdity and therefore has shown himself to suffer horribly on the level of simple honesty and integrity when it comes to theological issues.

01:06:51

George Bryson, whose calling in life in the

01:06:56

Calvary Chapel movement is to attack the subject of Calvinism.

01:07:03

He is the Calvinist bloodhound. He goes about sniffing out

01:07:09

Calvinists in the Calvary Chapel movement and attacking them with John Calvin quotes doomed from the womb and stuff like that.

01:07:20

Well, some of you may have seen some of the letters coming out and a letter came out from George Bryson just lately where he really went after particular people by name but part of some of these letters that have been distributed under George Bryson's name include a presentation of the italics, biblical italics and doctrines of grace versus the italics, reformed italics and doctrines of grace.

01:07:50

And so we have the attempt on the part of the Calvary Chapel movement to present a well, it's

01:08:01

I guess five points. It is five points. The five points of biblical grace versus the five points of reformed doctrines of grace.

01:08:13

So here it is. He's going to conclude

01:08:20

Let me read the very end of this. For most of the

01:08:26

Calvary Chapel pastors receiving this email, I think you will agree that 1. Calvinism is doctrinal leaven that will leaven the whole

01:08:33

Calvary lump if we do not keep it from pastoral and leadership teaching positions in Calvary Chapel churches. 2.

01:08:40

Trash and bash websites represent an equally great perhaps even greater threat to the spiritual health and well -being of the

01:08:45

Calvary Chapel family of churches. So this particular, what he's talking about here is trash and bash

01:08:53

There have actually been some young Calvary Chapel pastors who have criticized

01:09:00

Chuck Smith. Oh. Oh. No. Yes.

01:09:07

Criticism of Chuck Smith. You know where I've heard the exact same type of stuff? From traditionalist

01:09:14

Catholics who think it's horrible to say anything about the Pope, of course, because the parallels are amazingly the same.

01:09:20

It's a sad thing. But anyway, we've got to avoid this leaven.

01:09:27

And here's how you avoid the leaven. Here's the five points of biblical, because everything is always biblical.

01:09:36

Here's the five points. 1. Saving faith in Christ always and immediately results in regeneration and any and all lost sinners can believe in Christ and be born again.

01:09:46

John 1, 10 -13. John 20, 30 -31. So I immediately note that unlike the five points of the tulip that have a direct connection with one another, they follow logically from one another, they follow the flow and in fact if we were to have a six point tulip

01:10:08

I've often said it should start with the sovereignty of God God's kingly freedom is the term that I've used a number of times his royal freedom to do with his creation as he sees fit and as he wishes.

01:10:24

But it then flows to the depravity of man God's unconditional election, the provision and the atonement of Christ, the action of the

01:10:31

Spirit in providing salvation the finishing of the work and the perseverance of the saints. There is no logical coherence or order to these five points.

01:10:42

They're just thrown out there for the fun of it. So, number one, saving faith in Christ always immediately results in regeneration and any all lost sinners can believe in Christ and be born again.

01:10:51

So in other words, unregenerate sinners are fully capable of doing that which is pleasing to God.

01:10:59

So, evidently the Calvary Chapel Bible doesn't have Romans chapter 8 which specifically says that those who are born in the flesh those who are unregenerate cannot do what is pleasing to God.

01:11:10

They cannot submit themselves to the law of God. They're not even capable of doing so. Evidently that's not there. And woe be to you if you are a

01:11:17

Calvary Chapel pastor especially a younger one who doesn't have a big name if you happen to run across that text and go,

01:11:23

Hey, wait a minute. I've been taught to actually read this and read it in context and I do that and it seems to be saying something that is against the

01:11:35

Calvary Chapel theology. What do I do now? Well, don't say anything about it at least not in such a way that George Bryson can hear you.

01:11:47

But something tells me that's the studio audience laughing in the background that is not a laugh track I want you to know something tells me that George Bryson, he cultivates sort of a culture of reporting.

01:12:10

If someone says something that doesn't sound quite right sounds a little

01:12:17

Calvinistic. Something tells me just like amongst Jehovah's Witnesses where there is the open exhortation to turn people in if they say anything that goes against Jehovah's Witness orthodoxy.

01:12:30

Something tells me there are folks amongst Calvary Chapel folks that will do that.

01:12:36

Anyways, I need to read these. 2. God desires all men to be saved and has determined that all can and will be saved on condition they believe in Jesus Christ.

01:12:46

And that's John 3, 15 -18 1 Timothy 2, 3 -4 and Acts 16, 27 -31 3.

01:12:55

Christ died savingly, redemptively, or or propitiously I wonder why they would use or That almost sounds like redemptively or propitiously can be taken in two different ways.

01:13:06

That's weird. Christ died savingly, redemptively, or propitiously for all the sins of all sinners.

01:13:13

1 John 2, 2 2 Corinthians 5, 14 -15 4.

01:13:18

God calls all lost sinners to a saving faith in Jesus Christ through a gospel proclamation by believing the gospel all lost sinners can and will be saved.

01:13:25

Romans 1, 16 1 Corinthians 15, 1 -3 which sounds pretty much like a restatement of number one actually.

01:13:33

You'll notice, again, there's just no flow here. There's no, it's just willy -nilly and that's what happens when, anyway.

01:13:41

5. All those who believe in Jesus Christ and are thus saved regenerated and justified are called to live a life to please, honor, and glorify the

01:13:49

Lord and that such a life although possible for and expected of the believer is not automatic or inevitable for the believer.

01:14:01

Yeah, I need to repeat that one myself. Let me try that again. All those who believe in Jesus Christ and are thus saved, so I guess this would be real

01:14:11

Christians, regenerated, justified Christians are called to live a life to please, honor, and glorify the

01:14:17

Lord and that such a life I guess a life of pleasing, honoring, and glorifying the Lord although possible for and expected of the believer so anybody who's really saved, it's possible for them to live a life that glorifies the

01:14:30

Lord and it's expected that they would live such a life is not automatic or inevitable for the believer so I guess

01:14:43

I'll take that to mean that there can be backslidden Christians who don't live

01:14:49

Christ -honoring lives and it sounds like it's saying consistently, not just periods of it but that it would mark them as descriptive of the entirety of their life,

01:15:04

I guess I don't know. There's obviously something behind that somewhere, maybe some internal debate that I am unfamiliar with but I don't know.

01:15:20

So interestingly enough let me just go ahead and read this next part

01:15:32

According to Mark Driscoll Jack Packer, Tim Keller, Wayne Grudem, Al Mohler CJ Mahaney, John MacArthur Jr.,

01:15:40

R .C. Sproul Sr., Alistair Begg, Francis Chan, David Platt, and other mainstream Calvinists. Right there, just that list

01:15:48

Driscoll doesn't belong in there There are fundamental differences between a number of these folks on particular issues so once again we find

01:15:58

George Bryson just a tremendously unreliable source of anything theological but according to mainstream

01:16:08

Calvinists, my name didn't get involved in there my name does get mentioned somewhere else I did get mentioned elsewhere,

01:16:15

I forget where it was where did my I'll have to do a search on it

01:16:22

I did sort of take a passing shot somewhere maybe it was earlier on in it, but anyway

01:16:31

I did notice my name being taken in vain somewhere, but that's okay but he says, here's what we believe

01:16:41

Regeneration precedes and produces faith in Christ Only those unconditionally elected for salvation can and will be born again

01:16:47

All of the elect will be regenerated Yeah, okay

01:16:52

Number two, God unconditionally elected to save some and not all lost sinners. Only the elect will or even can be saved

01:16:59

All of the elect will be saved None of the non -elect can be saved Well, I would not agree with that because he's putting the phrase can be saved into a different context of the unconditional election of God what he's saying is that God's will will be done and since he's the only one who saves then the only ones who will be saved will be those whom he saves well, duh but he's put it that way for specific reasons to introduce the idea of the impossibility of saving someone and all synergists and even though he doesn't understand what the synergist is hopefully after our debate he figured it out but he didn't in our debate all synergists have to say what he said at that point

01:17:47

Christ did not die for all the sins of all sinners and in fact he did not die for any of the sins of many sinners

01:17:52

For the elect and only elect Christ died for their sins that is, Christ only died savingly, redemptively, or propitiously for the elect if what you mean by that is that only those whom

01:18:01

God has chosen to save are savingly united with Christ in his death well, of course because it is that saving death that provides perfect salvation and only by, again, introducing synergism and adding something outside of God's work can you have an objection to that which, unfortunately, obviously he does and number four, only the elect are inwardly, effectively, efficaciously, or irresistibly called to saving faith in Christ to the non -elect a gospel proclamation is necessarily waters on a duck's back or totally ineffective

01:18:40

I think they mean water off a duck's back but that's funny waters on a duck's back there's a phrase that I had not run into before anyway, to the non -elect a gospel proclamation is necessarily totally ineffective no,

01:19:01

George the gospel presentation is always effective for exactly what God intends it to be now, by limiting the meaning of a gospel presentation to saved person proclaiming to lost person resulting in their salvation then you can come up with something like that but that's not even a biblical use

01:19:19

Paul wanted to evangelize the church at Rome and so Christians evangelize other

01:19:25

Christians and build them up in the faith and when Christians evangelize non -Christians God either uses it to draw his elect into himself or he uses it as a means to curb the evil of mankind or to excite mankind's hatred of the gospel to their own condemnation and judgment but the point is the gospel presentation is always effective for that which

01:19:45

God has intended it to be effective for I guess that then becomes the counterpoint to number 5 up above I don't know but anyway, so what we see in these points that George has produced the biblical doctrines of grace is a jumble of assertions that is basically little more than we determine to read the

01:20:16

New Testament in the context of synergism and so God desires all men to be saved and they should put in the phrase equally and it's determined that all can and will be saved on condition they believe in Jesus Christ but we would then, as I've said many times remember,

01:20:36

I forget how many years ago it was now I think it was during the winter because I remember it was darker in here I went through George Bryson's anti -Calvinism seminar for Calvary Chapel pastors we played the whole thing and I went through and kept pointing out over and over again that George loves to criticize

01:21:02

Reformed theology on questions that he himself absolutely refuses to answer for his own position he loves to put

01:21:12

Calvinism on the defensive but put himself only in positions well, look what happened when

01:21:17

I asked him many questions, read my book read my book how do you defend against open theism?

01:21:25

well, you can't, you just can't do it and that's why you won't see a debate with him because he'll never put himself in a position again of being forced to actually positively define his own position

01:21:42

God desires all men to be saved does he know that all men will not be saved? well, he would have to say yes because he's not an open theist at least not the last time

01:21:51

I checked and so he'd have to say yes so God desires the salvation of men that he knows will never be saved so is that an equal desire?

01:22:02

so God will have the same desire for people in hell that he has for people in heaven for all of eternity? so you have this

01:22:08

God that's got this schizophrenic he's decreed himself to be schizophrenic he's going to be eternally disappointed because he has an undifferentiated salvific desire for the salvation of those in hell as well as those in heaven is that what

01:22:24

George Bryson believes? I think if some Calvary Chapel pastors started asking questions like that at Calvary Chapel meetings they would probably not be

01:22:34

Calvary Chapel pastors for very long and of course Christ died savingly, redemptively, and propitiously for all the sins of all sinners which means all the sins of all sinners have been propitiated which means there is absolutely no wrath of God left for any sinner so no basis there for avoiding universalism might as well just go for it so it's interesting to see what's going on and I don't know a lot of the names there are names that pop up in this and I don't know a lot of them

01:23:10

I'll be perfectly honest with you and to be honest with you, I don't want to know a lot of them it doesn't really matter to me but it is interesting to read

01:23:20

I think these are just the rumblings of what's coming and when Chuck Smith goes every movement in history has required a charismatic, strong second generation leader and I don't know who it's going to be and if there isn't one you're going to see a major fracturing of this movement and I just cannot help but think

01:23:47

I cannot help but pray that there will be a development of a group, probably of young Calvary Chapel pastors who are willing to stand against the status quo and start to bring some meaningful reformation to the movement bring about a biblical ecclesiology get rid of this

01:24:14

Moses model silliness start allowing people to read all of scripture and to come to their conclusions which would include recognizing the freedom of God and salvation so I wanted to talk about that, it strikes me as rather interesting now, shifting over in the last 30 minutes 34 minutes of the program

01:24:45

I need to, I want to get into the debate that took place in University of Sydney involving

01:24:57

Abdullah Kundat but I need to finish up the Jay Smith, Adnan Rashid debate first so I've got both of them queued up and I've queued this up to where we get a really good example

01:25:13

Jay Smith has just answered a question about the death of Christ and we get a really really good example of Adnan giving a classically bad

01:25:25

Islamic response and this is where again

01:25:32

I keep calling Islamic apologists to a higher standard if you say that in the death of Christ God ceased to exist you don't even believe that death involves the cessation of existence you should know we don't believe that death involves the cessation of existence and so if you expend any effort at all to actually make a criticism of our faith that is accurate within the context that it is intended to be made then you will not argue, you will not say as the vast majority of ignorant

01:26:19

Muslims and most Muslims are utterly ignorant of Christian theology just like most

01:26:25

Christians are utterly ignorant of Islamic theology but what do ignorant

01:26:32

Muslims say? you think that God ceased to exist for three days who is running the heavens?

01:26:41

that is an argument born of abject ignorance it's not a meaningful argument we've answered this, you should know that I keep saying you've got to step up your game guys and I know you're listening because you quote me all the time in your videos and everything else and doesn't it bug you like anything that for example in the first hour of this program you had to agree with me doesn't that just drive you nuts?

01:27:14

Muslim by choice? yeah it must I don't even need to call him he's going to listen this will end up in a video somewhere and they'll pick on something in it

01:27:28

I guess anyways but listen to what Adnan says here and this is the kind of thing

01:27:35

I just keep saying guys you've got to step up effectively

01:27:43

Jay is again saying that God died for your sin and in other words God ceased to be God if God dies he ceases to exist if he ceases to exist he ceases to be

01:28:39

God this is exactly what my intention has been from the beginning and this question Jay cannot simply answer if he ceases to exist he ceases to be

01:28:48

God and if he ceases to be God he is not God can you respond to that in the next comment yes next question

01:28:59

I would love to have heard the response and I understand why this is the moderator is like we're doing audience questions here not cross -examination

01:29:10

I understand that but I would have liked to have heard a response now this is again if you're not if you're a regularist in this program you've heard this one a million times before and I hope you are ready to respond to it because evidently it's because the popularity of certain

01:29:49

Islamic apologists Ahmed Didat in particular but Zakir Naik there is not one unambiguous verse in all of the

01:29:57

Bible where Jesus says I am God worshipping and this seems to be the only apologetic these folks know and there is a very non -reflective

01:30:09

I'm just gonna accept this and run with it type attitude that exists amongst many ignorant

01:30:15

Muslims and I say ignorant Muslims and I again say there are many ignorant Christians about Islamic theology it's not an insult it is a description of 95 % of the

01:30:29

Muslim population that have never been exposed to or shown any interest in actually knowing the religion that the

01:30:39

Quran condemns as being excess and that our abode will be hellfire that's where you go

01:30:51

I just got distracted by something in channel Dr. Oakley I'd be interested in knowing why you think

01:30:57

Driscoll isn't a Calvinist because of his view on the atonement that's why he rejects particular redemption that's simple enough there you go that was the end of that I got interrupted so I answered it and we move on look folks if you can't see the centrality of particular redemption to the rest of the points

01:31:20

I don't think you're a Calvinist I really don't but anyway that's another issue that we won't go into any further at this point but here's a lady now

01:31:29

I think I'm going to be listening myself to Jay's response here because I think this is one of the places

01:31:34

I have to criticize Jay a little bit I think it is let's find out including your interpretation because you're not a scholar and you said that scholars cannot be trusted and then you criticized a lot of our scholars saying they're not reliable so I would like to know your sources and it was

01:31:56

God's presence that's your own interpretation of God I'm back at level 13

01:32:01

I already gave the reference you want me to go back to this place? and then and you're saying that God sometimes needs to change things so he needs to turn into a human to go down and change it but God has a will turn into a human really?

01:32:20

he just needs to he just has a will that something would change he doesn't even need to lift the veil okay you have the text

01:32:38

I need the sources I need the sources I could go on and on there's so many sources that talk about the corruption of the

01:32:46

Quran and say what words were missing even Isha made up a verse there are so many that I can refer to so they're not my sources they're your sources as far as God coming down and forgiving us and coming to earth he didn't have to do that no one is saying he had to there's no reason in the world that God had to do that he chose to do that he just chose to because that is what sin requires and for Muslims to suggest that God can simply forgive it do not understand the heinousness of sin and I think this triviality of what sin has done is completely missed by Muslims look and see what we were like we were in God's presence at one time we were walking and talking in God's presence it says so right there in Genesis 3 verse 8 and 9 obviously because it's part of not only the scriptures you're supposed to go to but your

01:33:33

Quran says in surah 1094 surah 21 ayah 7 if you have any questions go back to the people the book it's surah 4 ayah 136 it says all

01:33:41

Muslims go to those scriptures God has given you for they are signs for you surah 5 ayah 46 and 47 it says all

01:33:47

Christians come back to those scriptures that God has given us surah 29 ayah 46 do not argue with the

01:33:52

Christians don't argue with me on this ok alright that was and everybody he he he ha ha ha the rest of the phrase says except with beautiful words so when

01:34:07

I heard him say it I knew he was joking I knew he was just trying to get her to to stop so he could finish saying what he was saying but he just handed something to Adnan who then is going to who knows the rest of that text and is going to appropriately whack him for that one and that's just I understand the temptation she's not listening to his responses she just wants to argue she thinks she should have been up there doing

01:34:35

Adnan's job ok Adnan should be rebuking her I guess but come on you're supposed to come to us if you have any problems you're supposed to ask us and read our scriptures you can catch him outside James has thrown so many misconceptions and spun so many

01:34:57

Quranic verses that I simply can't respond to them do not argue with them he said do not argue with them that's what he said right but if you go to the next part of this except with beauty and wisdom that's what happens when you only tell half the verse wait wait wait now he talked about Bukhari, Muslim and all those verses and the corruption of the

01:35:18

Quran why don't you go to your own scholars why don't you go and see what they have studied and what they haven't studied well and what studied all of these sources he mentioned all of these contentions and to name a new one

01:35:29

Michael Mark she named all of these scholars they studied all of these sources and their conclusions the

01:35:34

Quran is what Muhammad gave to his companions regardless of all these questions raised they have studied all of them they are scholars there is a difference between scholars and Jasons ok you all see it so scholars are telling you that the

01:35:46

Quran we have today came from Muhammad and his companions and if that's true we are happy when that will be thank you there's one hat over there we'll give a chance to the ladies so one two and the ladies

01:36:09

I'm glad that this evening it reaffirms the different attitude to Christianity and Islam when it comes to the challenge and I suppose the main reason is that the

01:36:22

Christian faith went through the process of enlightenment Jay himself is saying look 40 verses in Bible got question marks on top of it he admits it he accepts the challenge he said yeah 40 of them it's question marks but in the

01:36:43

Islamic faith especially in the Muslim country in a society which is dominated by the

01:36:49

Muslims you don't dare to put any question marks on top of any of those surahs and as a child who was raised in Islamic society one of the main miracles you have to accept always coming in the final exam was what is the biggest miracle about Quran it's been never changed it's authentic and you have to accept the whole set so in the

01:37:20

Christian faith some Christian scholars went through it and said look some of them have question marks no problem the

01:37:31

Jay's attitude this evening yes I accept there are some question marks I'm not saying this is the absolute truth nothing but the whole truth but when it comes to the

01:37:42

Muslim faith there is no challenge so my question is in Christianity you are allowed to accommodate the different opinions is it the same in Islam?

01:38:03

thank you for your question that was a long way of basically saying look has there really been or is there freedom for a really serious examination of the questions that Jay had raised in regards to the text of the

01:38:25

Quran why is it that the average Christian at least knows of textual variation it's sort of hard to avoid the notes at the bottom of your page but your average

01:38:39

Muslim thinks that the Arabic Quran that he has which he probably can't read given that less than 20 % of the world's

01:38:49

Muslims are Arabic but that the Arabic Quran has come down absolutely unchanged from Uthman without so much as a single textual variant how come they're not aware of how the early tafsirs were rife with discussions of variations and the differences between the readings of Abdullah ibn

01:39:10

Masud and Ubaid ibn Kab and things like that why are they seemingly unaware of these things and don't quite honestly seem to show much interest

01:39:20

I mean I found it very interesting when I travel around and I do presentations on New Testament Reliability I find the average person in the pew to be very interested when

01:39:31

I start showing pictures of the manuscripts I mean one of the things I do in my presentation is

01:39:36

I show a portion of one of the earliest manuscripts we have of the book of Revelation and it's from Revelation chapter 13 and it's about the number of the beast and I ask everybody do you all know what the number of the beast is and everybody knows what the number of the beast is and I point out that actually the two earliest papyri manuscripts of the book of Revelation don't say 666 they say 616 and people are fascinated now what

01:40:10

I really like to do is say now if any of you want to know what that means as far as eschatology goes ask your pastor and everybody always gets a good laugh out of things but I don't have people getting up and walking out people are very very interested in that but I just don't see a commensurate interest in the history of the text of the

01:40:33

Quran on the part of Muslims and maybe it's because it's precluded it's precluded they're not allowed to there's a fear,

01:40:44

I think what this man was saying is there's a fear in primarily Islamic countries you do not even so much as ask you don't even entertain that question mark and that is

01:40:57

I think a troubling thing to consider this is a misconception that the Muslim scholars haven't actually studied the

01:41:03

Quran and seen the Quran with a critical eye there was a time in the past before Islamic orthodoxy became absolutely predominant when there was examination and discussion of these things but today you go to Al -Azhar and you teach there and you present the idea that we need to produce a textual critical project on the

01:41:36

Quran to examine whether the Uthmanic codex is actually representative of the original and you are going to be in big trouble the entire book is a critical view of Islam Muslims have been arguing and debating for centuries in fact

01:42:05

Muslims allowed a debate to take place in an open environment in 9th century

01:42:11

Baghdad there are historical reports go to a Christian scholar, his name is Sidney H.

01:42:16

Griffith he wrote a book titled Church Under the Shadow of the Mosque in this book he gives you references whereby

01:42:25

Christians and Muslims were debating in Islamic lands. It's happening today It's happening today?

01:42:31

No it's not happening today it was again in the early period something that did take place but the vast majority of debates today

01:42:43

I know of one debate that took place Thabiti Anyabrili did a debate was it

01:42:50

Qatar? something like that but it's one of the more westernized moderate nations it ain't happening in Afghanistan, Pakistan it ain't happening in Mecca it's a misconception that Muslims don't allow a debate to take place or any criticism to take place if the criticism is valid, if it's academic then it's respected but if criticism is based upon insults and discrimination then it's not allowed for anyone for that matter no one is allowed to be discriminated against in Islamic land ok

01:43:26

I've been told it was Dubai, that sounds right let me finish, as far as the Christian world is concerned it wasn't the

01:43:33

Christian world where you couldn't have an opinion Christians burnt more people in the history of mankind than anyone put together

01:43:40

Christians were burning heretics, Christians were burning witches Christians were burning scientists show me one example from our entire history where someone was burned for having a religious opinion or a scientific opinion let me just get to the question, the whole thing with burning and all that is irrelevant because they use the sword but let's go ahead and let's just talk about the burnings, the entire number of satan witch trials let's just look at the

01:44:21

Armenians that were killed 1 .5 million that were killed in 1915 if you want to talk about death let's talk about what you're saying is criticism allowed in Islamic sources show me a critic that has done this the level of work that Betzger has done on the bible show me one

01:44:36

Muslim that has gone and looked at the enormous number of mass caverns that Arthur Jeffries did as early as 1935 just look and see the variance that they're finding look at the palimpsests that have now come to light showing chronic verses that are washed out and written over top why aren't these being written and why aren't these being debated in Muslim lands show me a debate like tonight in any

01:45:01

Muslim country you can't have debates like this anywhere but in the west thank god that we have the freedom to do so here and please please stop saying that Christians have killed people look and see who did the killing the killings were the state not the church and it was the state and the church that are separated in Christianity the mosque and the ulema in the state come together be careful of the claims you make we can go claim by claim but look and see

01:45:31

Christianity does not use violence Jesus was very clear, he lives by the sword, dies by the sword so we are not permitted to use violence thank god now obviously

01:45:42

I would have made the distinction on the grounds of Roman Catholicism but Jay is a good pacifist and so he makes the distinction based upon that particular line which...

01:45:55

I know it's your turn but he wants to respond Jay Clayton no no no would you not consider somebody like Saddam Rushdie as a critic?

01:46:08

no I'll come to that 25 witches Jay Clayton were burned there were 100 ,000 witches burned and you can read a book on this by Brian P.

01:46:21

Lemack he is an authority on this field why are these witches being burned?

01:46:27

it's from the bible in chapter 21 of the book of Leviticus verse 9 it is clearly stated if a woman, if a girl pervades her father by sleeping with another man, a daughter of a priest she is to be burned alive excuse me but this is the

01:46:48

Torah which according to the Quran contains light and guidance so why is

01:46:55

Adnan criticizing the Old Testament and how is that relevant to the

01:47:03

Inquisition or whatever it is he's referring to, he hasn't even been specific I mean this is the scattergun approach that Adnan is unfortunately well known

01:47:14

Timothy 3 .16 Paul tells us all scripture is good for learning, for righteousness and correcting, all scripture and he's talking about the

01:47:22

Old Testament if Old Testament is good for learning, righteousness and correcting then that burning of those women was good, righteous and correct in the theocratic nation of Israel yeah, ok so so burning comes from the bible not from the

01:47:39

Quran and then he said show me one word like this show me one word like this from a Muslim scholar

01:47:45

Ali Imam published a book on the Quran and its readings and its recitations yeah readings is not the same thing as textual variants and the book was published by IIIT and you go and check that book show me one

01:48:02

Muslim country where these kinds of debates are taking place I had debates in Pakistan recently one month ago and my brother

01:48:08

Bassam Nawadi he had a debate in Dubai with a Christian very recently so you don't know what I'm talking about yeah the only one

01:48:16

I know of in an Islamic nation in Dubai one, that's it, that's all I know of are they saying that this really really really happens in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Egypt?

01:48:30

Come on Adnan we all know that there's far more freedom here Islam does not produce freedom for this type of thing to happen it doesn't

01:48:40

Salman Rushdie he insulted the prophet he not only insulted the prophet he insulted the queen he insulted everyone he talked about you go and read the book

01:48:49

Satanic Verses it's the most rubbish book on the face of the earth it's a work of fiction

01:48:56

Adnan come on that one is I think you've just I think you've just had an own goal on that one

01:49:12

Salman all of us in Britain know exactly what Salman Rushdie wrote read the Satanic Verses this is well known

01:49:20

Surah 53 verses 19 and 20 is the Satanic Verses we're talking about it's a problem for Muslim scholars how to deal with this verse

01:49:28

Salman Rushdie was bringing up in a genre that's quite typical and that is quite legitimate in the west we are permitted to be critical and you can criticize

01:49:37

Jesus all you want we will not destroy you you can burn the Bibles we will not have riots and kill people for burning

01:49:43

Bibles we still will not destroy the Bible it's not the pages that make up the

01:49:50

Bible it's the words in them that's the beauty of it we are not permitted to use violence and to say that Salman Rushdie deserved what he got

01:49:58

I think it's not right it's not permissible it's that attitude that we must stop that attitude of going and eradicating anybody and saying that they deserve to die because of some words on a piece of paper no not in the 21st century and not because of just the 21st century it's because of who

01:50:16

Jesus is and what he said to us Jesus took abuse Jesus was put on the cross

01:50:24

Jesus died on the cross and look what he said to those who killed him Father forgive them they know not what they do that's the attitude of Jesus and I give you

01:50:32

Jesus I'm trying to make this a question you stated that Christ died for sinners therefore by definition regardless if you remain in that condition you will be forgiven however

01:50:52

I think at the end of this meeting some of us will be taking the 37 bus into Dublin we know that it will go to Dublin but knowing that it's going to take you to Dublin the fact that there's a piece of paper outside the stand will start saying it will go at such and such a time we may know these facts however unless we get onto the bus we ain't going to get into Dublin you seem to be not making any distinction between knowing the fact and appropriating that fact could you comment on your misuse of logic so that in essence is a

01:51:35

Arminian's response saying well yeah you can say Christ died for sins but you've got to appropriate that and that's the same thing as getting on the bus so there is a synergistic response to Adnan's argument which we have noted before how was my statement you kept repeating endlessly that even if you sinned mightily that you would be forgiven because God forgives he doesn't forgive you unless you repent so which sin did

01:52:08

Jesus die for he didn't die for any sins he died for sin very different subject so all the sins are not paid for no sins are paid for he deals with the most principal issue which is sin itself which sin is that everything the total package which includes your looking at pornography you committing adultery no not being a

01:52:38

Muslim nothing to do with being a Muslim who says that because the issue of being a Muslim is 600 years later and the prophet

01:52:46

Muhammad leans backwards for instance at the battle of the ditches where he has a little go and gets a couple of Jews murdered about 600 so Jesus goes to the end which sin did he die for sin in general my point is consistent because if he died for sin in general me being a

01:53:15

Muslim is a sin that's your definition I don't even think

01:53:22

Adnan gets what the guy was saying but I don't know what the guy is saying anymore either be perfectly honest with yourself so this is called the blind leading the blind if he died for sin and unfaithfulness is a sin then he died for that unfaithfulness and if that's the case then

01:53:38

I have the salvation I don't have to be a Christian especially when you don't have the word of God Adnan's argument is just silly from any perspective to be perfectly honest with you as we explained at the very beginning it does not make any sense

01:53:52

I don't even have the issue because I believe in particular redemption but even beyond that he's completely ignoring he's saying well if Jesus died for all sins then he'd have to be a universalist as everybody says which he's arguing or hold my position but even the

01:54:09

Armenians saying but there's still the issue of repentance you're just ignoring that part and he is, he's ignoring that part so I would rather logically follow the

01:54:44

Quran and be sinful and have salvation because Jesus died for our sins anyway really really muddled thinking it's really hard to even know how to respond to that kind of muddled thinking the scriptures nowhere state that because Jesus Christ takes away the sins of the world that means that an unrepentant person who does not bow to Jesus Christ is a recipient of that gift of grace it just never says that it just goes against everything it does say so to try to create this well

01:55:20

I'm safe one way or the other so you might as well be a Muslim argument is really bad I think that is what

01:55:31

Jesus did is to die for sin that means all sin the enormity of what

01:55:38

Adam and Eve did the imputation of sin on all of mankind had to be dealt with and it can't just be simply saying

01:55:44

I forgive you because in order to do that you have to be able to eradicate the punishment of sin which means being eradicated from God's presence see we can't get back to God's presence we can't get back to walking and talking in Kudu day as Adam and Eve did there's no way we can do that because God is so holy he cannot have sin in his presence in order to do that sin has to be eradicated but that can only come through a sacrifice of he who has sinned against that means it has to be

01:56:13

God that takes on that sin that we don't see in the Bible and it's so good to know that that has been done that which was promised at the very beginning was fulfilled in Jesus Christ he died on the cross eradicating that separation between us and God which means any one of you in this hall who accepts what

01:56:33

Jesus did to you can be with him forever walking and talking with him on the other side of death as Adam and Eve were at the very beginning isn't that a great future to look forward to isn't it beautiful that I can be with God again thank

01:56:47

God that's fine written all through this lady wanted to ask a question there are two more questions so lady my question is a bit simple

01:56:59

Jesus in the Bible everything that he did he did in front of crowds in front of people and I was just wondering when

01:57:05

God revealed himself to Muhammad why he did it so quietly and just in front of everyone so that question is for me?

01:57:14

so can you repeat that question? my question was that Jesus when he did things he did them in front of people in the synagogues in front of crowds of people so that they could come and see for themselves to the best of my knowledge

01:57:33

I'm not a scholar or anything when God revealed himself to Muhammad and gave him the word

01:57:38

I was wondering why he did that only to him and why he did it so quietly no it wasn't a quiet misconception when the

01:57:47

Quran was being revealed to the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him the revelation was evident everyone was listening to it it was recited memorized immediately and practiced immediately then he committed miracles prophet

01:58:03

Muhammad he had many miracles he's one of the guys who had his eye dug out and that's interesting as we're out of time the

01:58:12

Quran never relates any of these miracles this is only later generations that present this type of a concept in regards to Muhammad but we will maybe pick up at that point

01:58:22

I'm going to check out the rest of what's there there's only a few minutes left in that particular debate and then weigh that against being able to dive right into some of the comments of Dilakunda next time we get together but that will be next week here on The Dividing Line so thank you very much for listening to a mega edition

01:58:39

I imagine probably on Tuesday we will try to finish off the Matthew Vine response and a few other things while we're at it we'll see who knows what might happen over the weekend we might have a completely different topic to address that's what the live webcasting is all about folks but thanks for listening we'll see you next week

01:58:57

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02:00:01

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02:00:09

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