Timothy George

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:12

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

00:19

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.

00:28

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

00:34

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

00:43

United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now, with today's topic, here is

00:50

James White. And welcome to The Dividing Line, the only Dividing Line of this week.

00:56

I head out to Boston on Thursday, look forward to seeing my friends in the

01:01

Massachusetts area over the weekend on Friday and Saturday, and then travel over to, via Frankfurt, no,

01:11

Stuttgart, one of the two, to Berlin, and looking forward to the time there, teaching on textual criticism, cults, false religions, preaching, et cetera, et cetera, very, very busy schedule.

01:25

I've been looking at it, and prayers appreciated, folks traveling from a long way to be there, so obviously want it to be a really good time for them as well.

01:37

And I know on Friday, 540 minutes of lecture in translation,

01:44

Frankfurt, thank you, wow, that's going to be a long day, from 8 a .m.

01:51

in the morning to 9 p .m. in the evening, and in translation, which means, obviously, stop, start, stop, start, which is exhausting.

01:59

I mean, that would be an exhausting day if you were just speaking your native tongue and not having to stop and start and think about everything you're saying, as well as what you're saying.

02:09

That's the hard part, is you have to think about, okay, where can I break here that's actually going to be understandable, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

02:15

So it's going to be a challenge. But that's why there will not be a Dividing Line on Thursday, and highly problematic that there would be anyone during the course of next week, because if I'm teaching from 8 in the morning until the evening, evening over there is, you know, what time is it in the...

02:38

Well, you know, actually, it's possible. We might be able to work something out now that I think about it.

02:44

I'll see. I'll see. It depends on what kind of connectivity I have and stuff like that. So we'll see.

02:50

We'll see. But appreciate those of you who have stepped up to help make that a possibility.

02:56

We still have those links on the main page to help us get to Germany and to South Africa as well via London.

03:07

And I just was informed this week that one of my debates with Yusuf Ismail will actually be against Yusuf Ismail and another gentleman, last name of Bashir, I think.

03:15

And I just downloaded a debate that he was involved with a few years ago with Jay Smith, who has debated everyone.

03:22

And so I will be getting to that maybe. Since it was a two -man debate, maybe

03:28

I'll be able to sneak some of his comments into the review that we're doing of the Yusuf Ismail presentation.

03:35

We will see over the next couple of weeks and months as we get ready for that major trip across almost, you know, if we came back via Australia, it would be a worldwide, you know, entire world tour thing there.

03:48

But your help in allowing us to do this kind of thing, very, very important. I do want to make a major note.

03:55

I was going to cue up the song, something like that, but I didn't get to it.

04:01

I'm sorry that our sound effects budget is somewhat limited. But anyway,

04:07

I don't have all the sound effects and stuff that Chris Rosebaugh has. I mean, he really goes to the nth degree with all of his craziness.

04:18

But there's a mistake in my new book. Yes, there's a mistake in my new book.

04:25

Now, I have the reputation among some who do not know me, do not read any of my books, do not do anything, do not listen to my debates, sermons, dividing line or anything else, but somehow seem to know everything there is to know about me.

04:38

I have a reputation among some of claiming to be infallible, which you'd have a hard time documenting anywhere that I've ever made that.

04:47

And in fact, I'm pretty transparent about the fact that I do make mistakes. This one, I think most of you in the audience are not going to go burn your book if you already have one, and probably not going to keep you from going and getting one.

05:02

But I want to, it was pointed out to me, I've said a couple of times on the program and certainly when

05:08

I've been traveling, that my very minimal Arabic is propped up by my

05:14

Hebrew. I took a fair amount of Hebrew in seminary, and then when

05:19

I was teaching Greek at Golden Gate back in the late 90s, they asked, could you teach

05:26

Hebrew? And I'm like, oh, well, I think I could get people through first year. And how about Hebrew exegesis?

05:33

Well, did a lot of studying, and I did, and I got people through Hebrew, actually, which seemingly other people were having trouble doing, getting people through Hebrew.

05:44

You got to be able to explain it well enough to get it through. Anyway, my Hebrew has been both a help and a hindrance in my study of Arabic, haven't had a chance to be meeting with my wonderful Arabic tutor for quite some time now.

05:57

And as a result, what I've discovered, it's sort of like back in the olden days when

06:03

I tried to study French while I was also taking like my fourth year of German, bad idea, really bad idea.

06:13

The German destroyed the French, just blew it. I mean, that's normally how it works in most things too, but linguistically, especially because you actually pronounce everything in German and you only pronounce about,

06:29

I don't know, 60 % of the letters in French. And then you just sort of squish it all together anyways.

06:36

Anyway, let's just say the French didn't stick and the German did, and it was bad.

06:41

Well, I think what's happening over time as I'm not reviewing stuff in Arabic the way

06:46

I should be, is that some of the places where Arabic and Hebrew are very similar, which has been a help in the past, is becoming a bit of a hindrance.

06:56

Here's the error. I evidently typed in the book the term Mushrikim. Now, im is a standard

07:06

Hebrew plural. You've heard about Elohim and Zedikim and terms like this, which is a standard pluralized form in Hebrew.

07:20

The appropriate plural form for Mushrik is

07:26

Mushrikun, not im. So the difference is un and im. The im is the

07:32

Hebrew, un is the Arabic, and I put im. So there you go. Now, I can actually probably predict that there will be certain

07:45

Muslims who will use that as an argument against everything. It doesn't matter that he documented that the

07:53

Quran quotes from these sources. He put the wrong plural ending on a verb or noun or parsiple, actually, in that case, a substantive parsiple.

08:01

And therefore, everything he's ever done is wrong. I can just see that coming. And I do not blame, of course, my editors at Bethany House, who do not read

08:10

Arabic, just to sort of respect that. So there you go. I put the wrong

08:16

Semitic ending, wrong language, but it doesn't change even the meaning of the sentence.

08:25

But, you know, we just want to—unlike certain people who claim transparency, we actually want to be transparent around here.

08:33

Uh -oh, that got heard. That's already in a prism somewhere, huh? Yes, yeah, I bet you everything

08:38

I've ever said is in a prism somewhere. Anyhow, moving on to other things here.

08:47

I saw an article—what's the date on this thing? 6 -4, so we could go today.

08:56

I don't know. This just makes me ill, sad, depressed, a little bit angry at times,

09:09

I'll be honest with you. It's on the Christianity Today website,

09:16

ChristianityToday .com, Contra Mundum, and it's Chuck Colson and Timothy George.

09:22

Well, Timothy George, what an interesting fellow. We've talked about him many times before.

09:30

I won't tell the joke that some of us guys told, somebody in our little group told, about his attachment to the papacy.

09:38

But he wrote an article here on the 4th called Our Francis Too—Why We Can Enthusiastically Join Arms with the

09:48

Catholic Leader. So, Papa Francesco, in the damp darkness of St.

09:55

Peter's Square, the crowds chanted his name when Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the

10:00

Archbishop of Buenos Aires, was named the new pope. Seldom has a religious leader been embraced so warmly across the

10:06

Christian world, including by many evangelicals. Seldom has hope risen so high so quickly, and the hope has arisen for good reason.

10:15

Can I stop just a second and go, is Ratzinger reading this stuff? You know, it just sort of makes me wonder, you know, if Ratzinger's reading this stuff too, going, well, what about me?

10:29

Was I that bad? We've never actually had to wonder about that before, but we do now.

10:37

Since the Reformation, many of the names chosen by popes—Pius, Clement, Leo, Urban, even Benedict—sound quaint to non -Catholic ears.

10:45

But the humble Francis of Assisi is a saint for everyone. Francis challenged the church of his day, not by conforming to the standards of the world, but by returning to the pattern of Jesus—the one who did not seek status, but humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross,

10:58

Philippians 2, 5 -11. Early on, in a radical act of dispossession, Francis broke decisively with his former life as a soldier and playboy.

11:07

He stripped off his clothes and ran out of the bishop's palace stark naked, saying, I will no longer be called the son of Pietro Bernardone.

11:13

From now on, I shall say simply, Our Father who art in heaven. We see already an intimation of St.

11:19

Francis in Pope Francis. There is his simple apparel, black street shoes instead of the calfskin red of his predecessors, simple white cassock minus gold -embroidered accessories.

11:32

In addition, a pope who lives in a modest guesthouse versus the spacious papal apartments, worships on Maundy Thursday with young prisoners, who embraces

11:40

HIV, AIDS patients in a hospice, follows in the steps of il paverello, the poor one, as St.

11:46

Francis was called. Since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision in 1973,

11:52

Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States have worked side by side to advocate for the sanctity of life. The pro -life community will have a strong ally in the new pope.

12:00

He is referred to abortion as the death penalty for the unborn. In 2005, he admonishes fellow believers in Argentina to defend the unborn against abortion, even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court, or kill you.

12:14

No child should be deprived of the right to be born, the right to be fed, the right to go to school. Likewise, Francis of Assisi was known for his passion for spreading the good news, once making a trip deep into North Africa to declare

12:24

Christ to a sultan. One of the great challenges of Pope Francis will be to energize Catholic leaders for the new evangelization—remember, this is an ostensible

12:33

Evangelical writing this—the new evangelization to study the scriptures, renew the disciplines of the faith, and boldly proclaim the love of Christ.

12:41

I just stopped just for a moment because I have to. If you know anything about the new evangelization, if you know how this is used within Roman Catholicism, if you turn on EWTN for five minutes, as I regularly do, then you know that that is a very, shall we say, sanitized version of the new evangelization.

13:01

In fact, most of us, when we hear Roman Catholics talking about the new evangelization, you know what we actually recognize is that it's an evangelization to the

13:10

Church. It's the proclamation of Rome, is what it is.

13:16

And so this just sort of makes me cringe. It's the promotion of Rome's evangelism in terms acceptable to Evangelicals who clearly know zippity -doo -dah about their history.

13:35

The problem is, of course, Timothy George doesn't know zippity -doo -dah about his history. He has just decided that all those people in the past who stood against Rome and against the papacy just missed the boat.

13:46

Anyway, as important as interfaith dialogue may be, real evangelization requires something more unambiguous witness for Jesus Christ as the way, the truth, and life, the one and only

13:55

Savior. The sex abuse scandals, by no means limited to the Catholic Church, have besmirched Christian witness in the 21st century.

14:00

Both outside and inside the Church's walls, there is much that makes us wince and turn away. But reform and renewal can only come as we face squarely the evil within us and around us and seek the repentance that comes only as a gift.

14:11

I believe that Pope Francis, a Jesuit, would agree with the first of Martin Luther's 95 theses, when our

14:17

Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, Repent, he willed for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

14:24

Well, you know what that got for Martin Luther. Excommunication. Francis succeeds two men of genius in his papal role.

14:33

Pope John Paul II was the liberator who stared down communism by the force of his courage and prayers. Benedict XVI was the eminent teacher of the

14:39

Catholic Church in recent history. Francis appears now as the pastor, a shepherd who knows and loves his sheep and wants to lead them in love and humility.

14:47

The new Franciscan moment is the season of the shepherd. Catholics and evangelicals are the two largest faith communities in the body of Christ.

14:54

Notice, we now have extended the body of Christ out to where, remember, remember, for folks at Timothy George, for all these people, the gospel does not define the faith.

15:04

It just doesn't. It doesn't. It does not define the faith. As long as you're a Trinitarian, all the rest of that stuff is just window dressing.

15:12

Just the way it is. Without forgetting the deep differences that divide us.

15:19

Now, as never before, we are called to stand and work together for the cause of Christ in a broken world. We can start by praying with St.

15:25

Francis, and I'm not even going to bother with that. Timothy George is dean of Beeson Divinity School.

15:32

There is this. This is the voice of compromised evangelicalism.

15:38

It is the voice of much of the media forms of evangelicalism.

15:45

And we may ask ourselves the question, well, what's wrong with it? I mean, let's face it, we're a minority these days by a long shot, so why can't we always get together?

15:57

Why do you have to be so mean -spirited, White? You are just, you're always looking for a fight.

16:02

Can't you just get along? I hear it all the time. And I often ask the question of myself, you know, why did

16:12

I choose this article? I could have let it go. I could have skipped it. I could focus solely upon stuff that a wider audience would go, oh, yeah, that's pretty good, you know, that stuff on Islam, you know, it doesn't really excite me a whole lot, but I guess we need to know it.

16:28

And, you know, that kind of stuff. I hear that all the time. Why respond to this? Why? I mean, you know,

16:33

Timothy George, you say something about Timothy George, and you're just making sure you're never going to end up in any of them big conferences because, you know, that you're just, you're just loose cannon and you're the mean -spirited, nasty, terrible, horrible guy.

16:49

But, and there's this picture, this very thoughtful picture. It reminds me a little bit. Remember, remember back in 2000, the, the elections in 2000 and, or was it 2004?

17:05

One of the two Bush elections. I think it was the second one. So that'd be 2004, right? There was this picture that was distributed amongst evangelicals.

17:17

This really thoughtful, prayerful picture of George Bush, the man of prayer.

17:26

Well, there was somebody, in essence, trying to create a persona to influence evangelicals.

17:34

Well, here's a picture of the Pope, and it's a, it's one of those deep in thought, you know, weight of the world upon the pontiff pictures, which you see very frequently.

17:50

Sometimes I just want to be rather bold and say, I don't know why these guys just don't get, stop paddling around the middle of the

17:57

Tiber River and just go on over. Because fundamentally, I don't get them.

18:05

I don't get the, I don't get the Tiber paddlers. And if you don't know what that means, the Tiber River, of course, forms, well, the boundary is the city of Rome.

18:13

And to convert to Roman Catholicism has often been called swimming the Tiber. Of course, it could go both directions.

18:19

I mean, if you're Roman Catholic and you leave Rome, you'd be swimming the Tiber too, I suppose. And when

18:24

I responded to Francis Beckwith, who I heard on EWTN this morning, actually, as I was driving in, I pointed out that someone who actually really leaves

18:35

Rome, I've said many times, Beckwith never did. I don't think he was actually converted in the sense of any conversion out of Rome.

18:43

Even he said, oh, I never became an anti -Catholic. In other words, I never really felt that Rome's gospel wasn't a true gospel.

18:48

If you think Rome's gospel is a true gospel, then I don't think you've ever left Rome. You've changed your taste.

18:58

And I have a hard time coming up with a lot of respect for people who just change taste.

19:04

Well, you know, excuse me. I'm glad I have a cough button there.

19:11

Well, you know, I don't know. I'm not really into vestments and too many candles, or I don't like all the statues and stuff.

19:24

So I'm going to go this direction. It's all just a matter of taste. It's what I like. I have a hard time respecting folks like that.

19:31

And so if you're going to leave Rome, as I said, when I reviewed Beckwith, you cross the

19:37

Tiber, and you get on the other side, and you break your boat up, and you turn it into a pulpit, and you preach to those that are on the other side, flee.

19:46

Get out of her Babylon mystery religion. Flee for the wrath to come.

19:53

And you recognize that you didn't just go, oh, well, I just happen to like the color of the grass on this side of the

20:02

Tiber River. And, you know, I think the sun on the Tiber looks nicer this direction than the other direction.

20:08

That's irrelevant. I don't consider such a person an actual person who was converted to the gospel from Roman Catholicism.

20:16

And so I look at this kind of an article, and I go, what causes people to write this kind of stuff, which is just barely a little bit off from being a promotion of Rome on the

20:34

EWTN website type stuff? Well, it's the desire for unity.

20:40

It's the pro -life thing. And I've said, if you go back to what I wrote in the mid -90s in response to the evangelicals and the

20:48

ECT stuff when it first came out, I recognized the power of that working together type thing.

20:58

When you work side by side with somebody, maybe even face arrest together with somebody, it's real easy to allow that to start changing your priorities.

21:07

Start changing your priorities. And I think that's part and parcel of it. For me,

21:14

I recognize that the papacy, not the individual man who is a pope,

21:21

I don't know what this papacy is going to bring. I don't know what this man's statements are going to be like.

21:29

He's given a couple years to even begin to form a major opinion as to exactly where he's going to be going, all the rest of that kind of stuff.

21:37

But I simply look at the office that he has embraced, and I refuse to cast upon the scrap heap of history the men and women who were my forefathers who resisted that office's usurpation of all

22:02

Christian authority to their death. And that's what you have to do.

22:08

These people today, like Timothy George, who glad hand with the representatives of the papacy, are betraying, in a fundamental way, their own heritage.

22:24

That's what drives me insane about this. There's nothing in here. All you ever get is, well, we still have real differences, but we don't have to mention them.

22:32

Well, what are those real differences? Well, we have a different gospel.

22:40

There's this issue of the anathemas. There's the massive spiritual carnage, let alone the physical carnage that has been created by the

22:55

Roman Catholic Church over the centuries in Inquisitions and Crusades, and then spiritually in the promulgation of false gospels.

23:09

That's sort of important. And then you have a guy who may be the humblest pontiff in a century, but there are still people bowing down before him and kissing his ring and calling him by names that are appropriate only for divinity, such as Holy Father, Vicar of Christ, Alter Christus.

23:42

Oh, but we can just let that slide because we all need to get together on this abortion thing. Look, abortion is a plague.

23:48

It's genocide. But you don't solve the problem of abortion by abandoning and marginalizing the one power that's been given to the church that can change the hearts and minds of men, and that's the gospel, and that's what you have to do.

24:10

So now that gets mentioned, oh, can't we all just get, why do you have to keep bringing this stuff up?

24:19

Well, because someday I'm going to have to stand before God, and the question is not going to be, what did you do to get along?

24:28

The question is going to be, how did you honor me and my gospel? Because I think

24:34

Jesus said something about, if anyone is ashamed of what? Losing elections?

24:40

No, no, that's not what he said. Let me, I'm trying to think. Then he was ashamed of, oh, me and my gospel.

24:47

My father will be ashamed of him. I don't know.

24:54

I just, I read these and I shake my head.

25:01

I shake my head. But there it is. A sad story from yesterday.

25:12

A young man by the name of Mohammed Kata in Syria. This Syria situation is serious.

25:20

I am, sadly, a citizen of a state whose senator is thoroughly smacked out in the middle of the wrong side of this entire issue.

25:34

Who just snuck over to Syria to meet with people who are murdering Christians right and left, but of course he doesn't care about that.

25:42

I am just disgusted beyond all commentary on that particular issue.

25:49

But a 15 -year -old publicly executed for blasphemy in Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports

25:57

Islamist rebels in Aleppo executed a 15 -year -old in front of his parents for blasphemy.

26:05

The UK -based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported Sunday that Islamist rebels in the city executed 15 -year -old

26:11

Mohammed Kata in the Sha 'ar neighborhood of Aleppo before the horrified eyes of his parents. The punishment came after the boy was overheard by someone during an argument while he was working.

26:22

Even if Mohammed comes back to life, I won't lend, the boy reportedly said in his workplace, where he sold coffee and from where he was detained at 10 p .m.

26:30

Sunday. He was later returned by the rebels to the area, his shirt covering his head and his marked from torture and beating.

26:37

The men who escorted him then announced to the crowd in classical Arabic that apostasy and cursing a prophet is a terrible vice and that anyone who does so will face a similar fate.

26:48

The SOHR reported the boy was then shot by the two men with an automatic rifle in front of the crowd, which included the boy's father and mother, once in the neck and once in the head.

26:58

The two men then drove away in their car, leaving the boy's body behind. Now, if the roles reversed and these were alleged

27:12

Christians who were rebels and it was Muslims that they were killing right and left, the media, of course, would be all over this.

27:22

But the media won't be all over this, just as the media has not been over the fact that the

27:27

United States of America has sat by and picked our collective noses while the

27:33

Christian communities in Iraq have been systematically destroyed, while now the

27:40

Christians in Syria live under constant threat. Obviously, Syria has become a—it's a very complex situation.

27:53

I recognize it's a very complex situation. You basically have the Shiites and the

27:59

Sunnis now at war in Syria. And the government of Assad is now beholden to and becoming dependent upon the

28:15

Shiites, which Iran thinks is wonderful and great and is part of the

28:22

Shiite crescent that they want to create, which gives them a highway directly to the northern border of Israel.

28:30

And so now you have Muslims killing Muslims, and there's all sorts of politics involved, and there's all sorts of religion involved because Islam is a political religious system.

28:43

So you can't avoid that. It's just the nature of the beast. And while Muslims are killing

28:51

Muslims and the vast majority of Muslim violence is against other Muslims, it also needs to be recognized that Christians are suffering horribly in Syria and the

29:00

West doesn't care. Our government doesn't care. Just look at what our government has done in Iraq and Afghanistan and places like that, and it is painfully obvious the official position is

29:17

Christians, shut up, show all deference to Islam, show no reason to protect

29:24

Christians so we can have—we think we can have peace.

29:31

And that's what's going on. Obviously, am I stating something that's radically out of step to say

29:40

I don't think God's going to bless a country that does that? I mean, seriously? Is that really all that wild an assertion?

29:49

Oh, you're terrible. You are against the United States. No, I'm just pointing out that the

29:55

United States government is led by evil men and women. Truly evil men, morally, ethically, spiritually evil men and women.

30:08

Most governments are. Most governments are, because to be honest with you, unless God's blessing a people with a tremendous amount of common sense to get elected, you've got to be able to lie through your teeth while smiling.

30:22

I mean, could a really good Christian person who doesn't back down anything and speaks the truth, how do you get elected in a land like ours today, if that's what you are?

30:33

Just getting your head ripped off by the system itself.

30:41

I don't know. It it says a lot. But the fact of the matter is the people pushing for us to arm the

30:50

Syrian rebels are pushing us to arm Al Qaeda. Smart, good move there.

30:59

I won't name names, but you all know who we're talking about. Real smart. And these folks, again, may

31:08

I offer a balance here? Those two men that shot that boy, you can argue, depending on what you determine are the ultimate sources within Islamic theology, whether you're acting in accordance with ancient tradition or against it, depends on who you want to quote, for crying out loud.

31:36

I mean, I wish we saw meaningful, controlled, intelligent debates amongst

31:45

Muslims on these various subjects. But obviously, the

31:50

Al Qaeda perspective is, if you disagree with me, I will shoot you. That's how

31:56

I will do my debates. That's not good. But there are

32:04

Muslims who will look at that in absolute shock and terror.

32:09

There were people in that crowd who were undoubtedly just sickened to their stomach by what those men did and who said in their heart, if not with their mouths, if that's

32:30

Islam, I'm not a Muslim. But of course, what they really wanted to say is those people aren't

32:36

Muslims. The problem is that when you have situations like you have in Syria today, there is—and

32:48

I've tried to raise this issue with my Muslim dialogue partners and debate opponents.

32:56

I can say, without any shadow of a doubt, that's consistent with the

33:04

Gospel and that's not. Christians taking a boy out in front of a group and shooting him for saying something they didn't like, that's not consistent with the

33:19

Christian faith. Those people are not Christians. But I find a real hesitance on the part of Muslims to say, well, those men aren't

33:29

Muslim. They might say, well, they're not acting consistently with an Islamic profession. But you see, there's a massive difference.

33:37

Here's where theology matters. There's a massive difference between becoming a

33:44

Muslim because you say la ilaha illallah and becoming a

33:50

Christian because God changes your heart. Because there's regeneration, repentance, faith, a radical break with the old life, death with Christ on the cross, resurrection to new life, all of that.

34:05

There's such a radical thing that Islam, by its nature, encourages nominalism.

34:15

And I think that's one of the major problems. And I've talked with Muslims, and they'll admit there's a tremendous amount of nominalism within Islam.

34:26

Nominalism, obvious, in name only. But they don't seem to want to then try to address that and say, okay, here's how you can recognize who is and who is not a

34:40

Muslim. Here's where these guys demonstrated that they are not Muslims, and we condemn them.

34:46

And unless they repent, they will be lost. And here's the basis for saying that.

34:53

And see, my concern is, all right, I'd like to hear that. Like I said, back with Michael Adebayejo, or whatever, however you say his last name, in London, in Woolwich.

35:06

All right, if you say that that man staying there with human blood all over his hands is not a Muslim, he was not doing what surahs 8 and 9, surah 8, strike at the neck, surah 9, fight them, okay, we need exegesis those texts, we need context, we need to demonstrate that there is no other way to look at that, and then we need the arguments from the

35:26

Sunnah of Muhammad, we need the arguments from the Hadith that demonstrate that that man is not only not a

35:33

Muslim, he's going to go to hellfire. All right, could we get that? Make it clear.

35:41

Give us an entire book worth of stuff, okay? Because I just keep hearing people going, well, that's not a really

35:51

Islamic way to act. What? You know, let's make this condemnation as clear as possible, and let's make it a theological condemnation, but I'm concerned that that's just not what we're going to get.

36:07

All right, I've got other things to get to today. We are going, I should probably mention this before the music starts at the end of the program, we are going for a jumbo today.

36:15

So we're going to go to 1230 hour time, so we still have not quite an hour left in the program today, because we have many things to get to.

36:24

I just wanted to spend a couple moments on some of the, there was an article posted a couple weeks ago.

36:32

Again, Huffington, the HuffPost Gay Voices, always a place where you can find all sorts of really bad, bad argumentation.

36:46

But here is an article by a fellow by the name of Murray Lipp, social justice activist.

36:57

The top 10 arguments against gay marriage all receive failing grades. So what are the top 10 arguments and why do they fail?

37:05

Nature, it's not natural. The most basic argument presented by gay marriage opponents purports that marriage between two people of the same sex is not natural and is in violation of the natural order.

37:15

At this level of the debate, there is very little exploration of the inherent validity or otherwise of same sex marriage, but rather a fixation on the notion that homosexualism is unnatural.

37:22

It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve, the opponent's quip. Now, of course, I would immediately respond by saying, excuse me, but you're the one redefining things here.

37:29

You're the one redefining thousands of generations of human experience here.

37:36

And yet you are just assuming that you can do so without providing a substantiation for so doing.

37:44

Yes, it is obviously unnatural for one simple and obvious reason. And that is if everybody engaged in gay marriage, the human race would end in one generation.

37:54

That would make it unnatural. But of course, everybody has their overriding presuppositions.

38:02

And the presupposition of this perspective is that there is no external objective source of authority that can define what marriage is.

38:15

Marriage is whatever we define it to be. And hence, it is not a divine institution.

38:22

It is not provided by God and defined by God.

38:28

And therefore, we can do whatever we want. And to be honest with you, from this perspective, there is no natural at all.

38:34

And of course, if this argumentation were to be allowed to stand, then there is nothing that's not natural.

38:40

Bestiality, pedophilia, it's all natural to the person doing it. So why do you oppose that?

38:49

Well, because you can't hurt anybody, including animals.

38:55

Okay. Well, I would argue that homosexuality hurts those who engage in it. And I think the numerous death studies that have been done that demonstrate a significant diminishment in life expectancy amongst active homosexuals bears that out.

39:12

So again, search for consistency cannot find consistency.

39:18

Number two, procreation. Marriage is for procreation. With the procreation argument, opponents of equality argue the institution of marriage is essentially in place to assist the procreation and the raising of children.

39:27

No. While that's an extremely important element of marriage, one maybe that we have allowed to be somewhat diminished because I was raised in the generation where the wackoids who were talking about, you know, that pretty soon.

39:47

Well, I remember. Oh, oh, no. Oh, no. I just came up with a Star Trek illustration.

39:52

Oh, I hate when that happens. But you remember the

39:57

Star Trek episode? He knows it's dangerous, but he goes there anyway.

40:03

He can't help himself. But literally, it just it just struck me that this was this was part of the cultural milieu.

40:14

I've got a scratchy throat, so I've got to try to turn the volume down on my talking, but I can't do that very well. Remember the one where they they did this thing where they beamed

40:23

Kirk down to a mock enterprise where everybody's gone and they took his blood because he had had some disease in his youth.

40:36

And this is the only disease that would that this people did not have an immunity to.

40:42

And every once in a while, one of the view screens would actually show the fact that there were all these people just crowded together outside this mock enterprise because this planet was just teeming with people because all of it was a big, huge overpopulation sermon that we need to not overpopulate the planet stuff.

41:06

And I remember when I was in a kid in school, you know, fourth, third, fourth, fifth grade,

41:11

I remember hearing people talking about by 1990, there's not gonna be any food left and billions of people are going to die and and, you know, all the rest is stuff.

41:22

And I just I didn't haven't finished it yet, but I got a book recently, What to Expect When No One's Expecting.

41:29

And it's on the demographic bomb and how, especially in Western cultures, we we's we's going to disappear.

41:37

We aren't even replacing ourselves anymore. We are so no long as we are so we find children and families so distracting from our own personal accomplishment that we have dropped below the replacement level.

41:54

We have fewer kids than you have to have to keep your culture going. And the world's population is going to peak out and start declining.

42:02

And there ain't gonna be nobody to take care of these younger generations that have just been so happy to wait to, you know, even if they even once they finally get married, kids, big deal.

42:16

Not a not a, you know, what can I say? Interesting book.

42:23

But going back to the issue of procreation, obviously, marriage is

42:29

God's means of providing the proper context for human flourishing.

42:37

So you can have a dad and a mom and there is something absolutely definitional about words like father, husband, mother, wife, and no man can ever be a mother or a wife and no woman can ever be a father or a husband.

42:59

It's not possible. It's the square circle. OK, so it is vitally important.

43:12

And, of course, the only response that this fellow can come up with, well, you'll let heterosexuals marriage when they're married, when they're not going to have kids.

43:21

That's true. And there's nothing wrong with that. The issue is, of course, the fact that were these two individuals to not have a physical issue in regards to something that has to do with with their fertility, they could produce offspring.

43:41

It is definitionally impossible for two men to create life.

43:48

They can only use up resources and create disease.

43:55

They cannot produce life. It's not possible. Sure it is. It's in vitro. No, no, no, no, no.

44:00

It's not possible. You can't do it. Two men will not produce life.

44:08

Two women will not produce life. It's not going to happen. And yet there, remember, we've commented on it before.

44:15

There are people out there, actually, of course, in California promoting the idea that insurance companies should pay for gay couples to have kids.

44:28

Insurance companies. Yeah, you and I, we should get to pay. For that, the insanity will never end.

44:37

Well, there's many of those we go into. It's just it's just so sad to see. And to be honest with you, I'm just I want to close this because my eyes kept going over to the sidebar and the stuff that was scrolling by was just absolutely disgusting.

44:50

What can I say? It's it's it's Huffington Post. And that's the way things are now.

44:56

I'm going to very briefly here. Let's see.

45:05

I'm going to keep waving my arms above my head like this. Could you queue up a is it possible for you to queue up a brief break as I I've got everything queued up here, but for some reason, and this is worrying me just a little bit, got a little bit of a scratchy throat today.

45:23

I do not need a scratchy throat right now. Because as I mentioned,

45:29

I'm going to be talking for hours every day, starting

45:34

Friday, all the way for what, 10 days, Friday, Saturday, not on Sunday.

45:40

I guess I don't have to talk to people in the plane. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. That's nine days, nine days of constant talking.

45:52

I need to start off with a good voice, not one where I've got a scratcher going on.

46:02

I think I better I better get go buy a drugstore and buy all that stuff that I carry while traveling just in case something happens.

46:10

So I'm going to take a quick break and drink a little bit of water here. We get back. I'm going to listen to what

46:17

Michael Brown had to say about Romans 9. Right back. Pulpit crimes.

46:28

The criminal mishandling of God's word may be 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.

46:40

Based firmly upon the bedrock of scripture, one crime after another is laid bare for all to see. The pulpit is to be a place where God speaks from his word.

46:48

What has happened to this sacred duty in our day? 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

47:06

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

47:23

More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils.

47:31

They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements, and many evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the

47:40

Roman Catholic Church appealing. This newfound rapport has caused many evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided

47:49

Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,

47:56

The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine.

48:07

James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored.

48:15

Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at AOMEN .org.

48:21

What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book Chosen But Free? A New Cult? Secularism?

48:27

False Prophecy Scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called

48:33

Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

48:41

In his book, The Potters' Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But The Potters' Freedom is much more than just a reply.

48:48

It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.

48:55

In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme

49:03

Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the

49:08

Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potters' Freedom, A Defense of the

49:13

Reformation, and a Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at aomin .org.

49:46

Makes you turn to a puddle of sweat. So I think I'll stick with something nice and cold, actually.

49:52

Anyways, one way of doing this would be to allow someone else to talk.

50:00

So I do have some stuff queued up here that would give me a little bit of a break. I did want to get to the section where in the

50:12

Calvinist call -in program with Michael Brown, where we can talk a little bit about Romans chapter 9, just very, very, very briefly.

50:22

And maybe even listen to the one Roman Catholic caller who called in. So let's go ahead and listen to this.

50:29

I think we have a fundamental theological difference in regards to Adam's headship, the concept of federal theology, the result of the fallen

50:42

Adam, and things like that. So here are some comments. This was, let me see how long ago.

50:49

This was, I don't know, a few minutes after Brian's call.

50:56

And here's what Michael had to say. Very quick note on Romans 9.

51:01

If you want to argue that God chose Jacob for salvation, not based on anything he did, and twins were in the room, hadn't done anything good or bad, right?

51:09

God said, Jacob, I love you, so I've hated. The elder will serve the younger. If, in fact, you want to argue from that, that God chose

51:16

Jacob for personal salvation and Esau for personal damnation, then you can't say it's because Esau was already fallen and in sin because of Adam, because it says before they had done anything good or bad.

51:26

Now, I was really surprised by that, because we all fell in Adam, and the point of Paul in emphasizing in Romans chapter 9 that they had done nothing good or bad was not to say that they were morally neutral.

51:47

It's a given for Paul by Romans 9, because he's already done Romans 5. It is a given for Paul that Jacob and Esau are both under the condemnation of God.

51:59

The point of Romans 9, and especially that section, is that God is free, absolutely free.

52:10

He's under no external compulsion to do anything but to bring judgment, but he doesn't.

52:23

Instead, his purposes in election will stand.

52:30

So, for example, this is the actual interpretation provided by the text itself.

52:37

Not only so, but also when Rebekah had conceived children by one man, our forefather Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might stand, not because of works but because of him who calls.

52:53

There's the interpretation. There's Paul's own interpretation. Dial back on the volume,

53:00

James. There's Paul's own interpretation of why he emphasizes the fact they had done nothing good or bad.

53:07

He's not saying that they were not in Adam. What he's saying is, in order that God's purpose of election might stand, not because of works but because of him who calls, she was told the older will serve the younger.

53:27

You see, the emphasis all the way through here is, again, the answer. Romans 9 is answering the question that is asked in Romans 9, verse 6.

53:42

But it is not as though the word of God has failed, for not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham, because they are his offspring, but through Isaac shall your offspring be called.

53:53

In other words, the question being asked is, Paul, if everything you've said is true, if all of these blessings have come to us through Jesus Christ, why is it,

54:05

Paul, that the majority of your own people reject this

54:10

Messiah that you are preaching? And he's going to explain. There's nothing new here.

54:16

Nothing new here at all. God has always had a purpose in election. There have been many forks in the road, and God chose what fork he was going to take.

54:29

When Jacob and Esau were conceived in the womb, it was

54:34

God's purpose that his promise go through Jacob, not Esau. Isaac, not

54:40

Ishmael. That was his purpose. And he is free to do this because he's under no compulsion.

54:49

That's why at the end of this argument, people are going to say, well, wait a minute, that's, why does he still find fault?

54:58

For who can resist his will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God, well, what is molded, say to its molder, why have you made me like this?

55:05

These are God's purposes. God can, out of the same lump, form some for honorable purposes and some for dishonorable purposes, and that is his right.

55:19

So the idea, evidently, that Michael is suggesting here is if, well, if you're going to say all fell on Adam, this says they hadn't done anything good or bad.

55:29

No, they did fall on Adam. The point of they've not done anything good or bad is in order that God's purpose of election might continue.

55:40

In other words, God's not sitting there looking down the corridors of time saying, oh man, I'm going to,

55:45

I guess I'm going to have to go with Jacob because he's going to be so much better than Esau. Really? Really?

55:52

No, not at all. God's elective purpose is free.

55:59

It is not limited to what God sees us doing or what we provide to him by our actions.

56:07

That's why I emphasize the remnant is that which God reserves for himself, not which reserves itself for God.

56:19

I'm concerned that if you say it otherwise, then you're in essence making the remnant righteous, self -righteous, righteous by their own actions rather than righteous by the works of God.

56:32

That the purpose of election might stand. So election would have to transcend human responsibility, would have to transcend human guilt, and would simply be based on God saying,

56:41

I choose one and I pass by another. Would have to transcend human responsibility.

56:48

If what you mean by that is that God can have an eternal purpose which cannot be thwarted by man and that everything that happens in man's experience is subsumed under God's eternal purpose, well, if you want to say

57:03

God can't do that, well, more power to you. But I am absolutely amazed that anyone would even want to suggest such a thing.

57:18

But to say it—in fact, I want to go back to it here, and I'm going to slow it down to the actual speed here for a second.

57:25

I want to hear the exact terminology again. That the purpose of election might stand. So election would have to transcend human responsibility, would have to transcend human guilt.

57:37

Election does transcend responsibility and guilt in the sense that it is

57:43

God's purpose in election that provides the foundation for why those things are relevant. Human responsibility and human guilt is not the ultimate authority in the universe.

57:54

God's purposes cannot be thwarted by the mere creature that God created and knew exactly what he was going to do.

58:03

Again, open theism being the only consistent Arminianism. So I'm not sure what

58:09

Michael means by transcend human responsibility or human guilt. It takes into consideration the absolute consistency of human responsibility and human guilt and provides the only way out of human guilt.

58:31

So I'm really not—let's do it one more time here. That the purpose of election might stand.

58:36

So election would have to transcend human responsibility, would have to transcend human guilt, and would simply be based on God saying,

58:45

I choose one and I pass by another. Well, and I have a problem with that formulation as well, because it's focused solely upon the effect of election on human beings.

58:59

That's backwards. The focus needs to be on the accomplishment of God's purpose that then has an effect upon human beings.

59:09

But folks, we are not the central issue here. God's glory is. That's what Ephesians 1 teaches us.

59:15

It's all to the praise of his glorious grace. We are important, we are united with Christ, we are creating the image of God, all these things, but we are still but creatures that God created to bring about his ultimate glory.

59:33

It's vitally important to see that—I'm afraid a lot of my non -reformed friends look at this and they look at it backwards.

59:44

And they see election as merely God choosing one and not choosing another, rather than seeing that those choices, as real as they are, are simply the flip side of the accomplishment of something far greater, far greater than, unfortunately, what's normally communicated, and that is that God is just arbitrarily sitting up in heaven and going,

01:00:08

I think I'll take that one, I'm not going to take that one, I'm going to take that one, I'm not going to take that one. When we emphasize unconditional election, all we're saying is it is absolutely free, and thank

01:00:21

God it is based upon the good intention of his will, because if it wasn't based upon the good intention of his will, there's only one other will that it can be then based upon, and that's us.

01:00:38

And man, I do not want that. Man's going to mess that up royally.

01:00:44

I choose to save one, I choose to damn the other. Ultimately, that's the only conclusion you can come to from Romans 9 there.

01:00:51

Now, there was the danger of equal ultimacy, which I reject thoroughly.

01:00:58

Again, the idea being that, well, it's just a flip of the coin, you need to recognize that what is required for the extension of saving grace to an individual is fundamentally a completely different category than what is required to allow a fallen son or daughter of Adam to remain in their sin.

01:01:27

Fundamentally, they are not just simply two sides of the same coin.

01:01:34

They are related logically, but if you allow everything the

01:01:40

Bible teaches to enter into the equation, there is a vast difference between the extension of saving grace to save one of the elect and the allowance of a guilty sinner to remain in his sin.

01:01:55

Well, here's a little bit more on Romans 9. Now, secondarily, you can see clearly it has to do with national choosing to be in God's purposes, not personal salvation, because the very verse quoted

01:02:06

Malachi, it's about the nations. Malachi 1, Jacob, I've loved you, so I've hated you, unless you want to believe that every

01:02:12

Israelite was saved, which we know is not the case, and every Edomite was damned, which we know is not the case. So even there, you have to press the text beyond what it's saying.

01:02:20

When you understand that the election spoken of is national election for service, then it's not up to us to say, well, why did you choose

01:02:27

Israel and not the Gentiles? Why did you choose this? That's God's business. And it's not based on what we do.

01:02:33

It's based on his sovereign choice. 866. Now, that is the standard

01:02:39

Arminian interpretation of Romans 9, and it surprises me that Michael adopts it for one real painfully obvious reason.

01:02:50

When Norman Geisler presents that, when other people present that, we have over the years, I think, provided a rather devastatingly strong response to it.

01:03:00

And I say it's devastatingly strong because you can't walk through the text.

01:03:07

You can't walk through the text and come to that conclusion because all of the objections that Paul raises are not to national privilege of service.

01:03:18

Where is that objection? I mean, look at the objections that are listed.

01:03:27

All right. The first one, you have that very text in Romans 9, 13, right?

01:03:36

As is written, Jacob, I love, but Esau, I hate. Well, that can't be about Jacob and Esau because that comes later.

01:03:44

That's an objection against Paul's own interpretation. Why do

01:03:50

I say that? Because what is the objection that Paul then deals with in verse 14?

01:03:55

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part by no means?

01:04:05

Now, is that someone saying, well, it's unjust for God to choose one nation for service over another nation for service?

01:04:16

Is that what the injustice here is? I think most people just naturally recognize, and I think it can be established pretty strongly, that when we're talking about injustice on God's part, adikia, that is about God's ultimate vindication.

01:04:34

That is not about, well, God chose this people for service, didn't choose that people for service.

01:04:41

Adikia is about theodicy, the justification of God himself.

01:04:49

And Paul's interpretation of his own teaching is, he quotes what he's quoted from Malachi, he applies it to Jacob and Esau.

01:04:59

But it was later. Well, take it up with the apostle. You're arguing against Paul's own application at this point.

01:05:08

What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part by no means? And has he responded to this objection?

01:05:14

For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion whom

01:05:19

I have compassion. So literally, I will mercy whom

01:05:25

I have mercy, and I will compassion whom I have compassion. As I've pointed out many, many times before, in English, we do not have verbs for those actions, but in Greek you do.

01:05:41

And so he quotes this text, which again emphasizes what? God's freedom not to choose a nation for service, but mercy and compassion.

01:05:55

Those are soteriological terms. And then his own interpretation is, so then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who mercies.

01:06:11

So the emphasis is on nations? No, it's on God.

01:06:18

And why mention not on human will? Well, that would be the entire nation operating together.

01:06:24

No, we're still talking. It's not about the human will. It's not about what Jacob did.

01:06:29

It's not about what Esau did. It's not about what Pharaoh did. It's about what

01:06:35

God did. And then he even brings up the Pharaoh.

01:06:40

The scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose, I raised you up that I might show my power in you, that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

01:06:47

Now that had nothing to do with service. That had to do with the destruction of an idolater and an idolatrous nation.

01:06:55

But before you go, yeah, you see, there it is right there. You've got the idolatrous Egyptians and the good righteous

01:07:01

Israelites. I hope everybody laughs at that one, because that's not what you have at all, is it?

01:07:09

No. The point is the Jews are just as idolatrous as the Egyptians. But God is going to accomplish his purpose through them.

01:07:19

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills and he hardens whomever he wills. And you will say to me, the objection is, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will?

01:07:28

Is this a nation speaking? Is this a nation speaking? I mean, when you think about it, it's not what nation can resist his will.

01:07:41

And then notice the response. But who are you, O man, not who are you, O nation? Who answers back to God?

01:07:48

Will what is molded say to its molder, why have you made me like this? This is all very intensely personal, folks.

01:07:56

Very intensely personal. And of course, then when he makes application, he says, has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?

01:08:10

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make his power known, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction or to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which is prepared before him for glory, even us whom he has called not from among the

01:08:24

Jews only, but also from the Gentiles? Did he call individuals or nations from the Jews and the Gentiles? Individuals.

01:08:32

Now we together make up the body of Christ. But the reality is, this is just about nations to service thing.

01:08:43

You can't walk through Romans 9 and make it stick. It's just not possible.

01:08:49

It's just not there. Now, I did want to mention really quickly, there was one interesting caller. Roman Catholic called in, decided to do a little proselytizing for Rome, the process.

01:09:01

So let's take a listen to what he had to say. Yes, Dr. Brown, thank you for taking my call.

01:09:07

I don't want to take any longer than I need to, but this is certainly relevant to the Calvinist table of conversation.

01:09:13

I thought I would drop just a few names of some very scholarly men like yourself that are former

01:09:19

Calvinists and spent a tremendous amount of time emphasizing that, according to the whole contextual reading of both

01:09:27

Testaments, as you do, Dr. David Anders, Dr. Scott Hahn, and Dr.

01:09:33

Peter Kreeft. I've learned a lot from them, and they've got me thinking in several different directions in the whole.

01:09:43

Uh, interpretive authority. Yeah, yeah, they're former Calvinists, all right. They're apostates to Rome, is what they are.

01:09:50

Structural interpretive authority. And I thought maybe— And the fundamental—to hear him say, you know, the whole context of Scripture.

01:09:58

Yeah, in other words, Roman tradition that comes long after Scripture and essentially overthrows the teaching of Scripture.

01:10:04

On a future show or something, we might have them on, obviously not all together, but— Oh yeah, one of them, yeah, and obviously to discuss

01:10:12

Catholicism and why they've gone in that direction. Yeah, it's not something I've focused on in terms of expertise, you know, study of Catholicism, but I've certainly studied

01:10:22

Scripture and have my differences there. But yeah, folks have mentioned it. I just want to make sure

01:10:28

I do a good job on my end or have someone that would do a good job because I always like things to be informative and fair.

01:10:35

Exactly. But yeah, absolutely. I'd certainly like to do it. Scott Hahn's name's come up a few times as well, so perhaps we can.

01:10:42

Hey, thank you for the call. Yeah, so there you have the Roman Catholic decided to call in on the

01:10:48

Calvinist call -in day. Again, the vast majority of callers were not

01:10:53

Calvinists, but certainly there is a massive contradiction between Calvinism and Roman Catholicism.

01:11:02

And to be honest with you, I think most solid Roman Catholic apologists know that it's us Reformed folks.

01:11:08

That gives them the greatest challenge. That's why I think they're focusing upon trying to get

01:11:13

Reformed folks, and I'm not going to even go there right now.

01:11:20

I haven't opened up the phone lines today because I do want to get to some more of the Yusuf Ismail debate as we wrap things up.

01:11:28

We've got about 17 minutes left of the program, so that'll give me enough time to at least make a little bit of some more progress through Yusuf Ismail's opening statement.

01:11:39

As I mentioned, Yusuf Ismail will be joined by another gentleman in a debate on the

01:11:47

Incarnation, and I can guarantee right now I could give you probably a very—let me put it this way.

01:11:58

I hope that by doing this review and responding to some of these issues that I can avoid the opening presentation that I would expect from these gentlemen, which would be focused upon bad attacks on the consistency of the

01:12:18

New Testament, bad parallelism to Mithra or Dionysus or any of these other types of things.

01:12:30

I would like to hope that I could try to encourage them to actually present an argument against the

01:12:42

Incarnation that is consistent with an Islamic worldview, similar to what

01:12:48

Abdullah attempted to do in Sydney. I hope it will be up to that level.

01:12:56

I really do. That's my desire. But anyways, again, this is a debate between Yusuf Ismail and William Lane Craig, which we started, oh,

01:13:06

I don't know, early last week or the week before. I forget when it was, but it's fairly recent. And we're picking up with Yusuf Ismail's opening statement.

01:13:14

He is about halfway through. We have a problem here. If we are to believe that Jesus is both human and divine, which

01:13:21

Dr. Craig hasn't spent much time elaborating on, then it stands to reason that everything Jesus has done is done both by the humanity and the divinity in him.

01:13:29

Now, immediately, we have, again, a level of confusion.

01:13:38

Jesus is one person with two natures. Jesus's human nature is not uncreated or eternal.

01:13:49

There is a necessity to recognize that this absolutely unique conjunction in the history of the world, there is no model that you could have for it.

01:14:02

You cannot give an illustration of it from the natural world, because if you could, it would not be unique.

01:14:07

That's why every analogy to the Trinity breaks down. It has to break down.

01:14:17

You might be able to illustrate an aspect of a unique divine truth from the created order, but you cannot do it in fullness, because then it wouldn't be unique anymore.

01:14:31

If there is an analogy, if there is an example of something in the created order, then that's not unique.

01:14:39

And so there is evidently some misunderstanding on Yusuf Ismail's part right from the start.

01:14:55

The very idea of saying both, again, shows a fundamental misunderstanding.

01:15:04

Jesus gave his life as a man upon the cross. That does not mean that, for example, the spirit of man does not cease to exist at death.

01:15:19

There is the giving of that human life, but there is not a cessation of existence. God cannot die in the sense of ceasing to exist.

01:15:32

Muslims don't believe that death involves a cessation of existence, but for some reason tend to project that upon us when it comes to the person of Christ, as we'll see.

01:15:43

Huston Smith is a world -renowned writer on comparative religion. In his book, The World's Religions, he said that the orthodox doctrine is logically incompatible.

01:15:53

Why? He says we may begin with a doctrine of incarnation, which took several centuries to fix. What do you mean it took several centuries to fix?

01:16:02

What does that mean? Expand upon these things. It's easy to find religious liberals who mock

01:16:10

Christianity just as it's easy to find religious liberals who mock Islam. I'm hoping that when a

01:16:18

Christian and Muslim debate, the Muslim will not just throw out religious liberal quotes as if they somehow are supposed to have authority.

01:16:26

I mean, when my Muslim opponents do that, they are really, in my opinion, destroying their own position.

01:16:34

They don't even seem to realize it. They don't seem to realize they are conditioning their followers to give authority to the very people who would undercut the teachings of Islam.

01:16:45

This seeming lack of recognition of the worldview conflict is very troubling.

01:16:53

It is very, very troubling to me. By the way,

01:16:59

I want to continue that. I apologize. What do you mean it wasn't fixed for centuries?

01:17:06

It is a part of the most primitive documents of the Christian faith, even from a just merely historical perspective.

01:17:14

So what does that mean? John 1 .14 said what John 1 .14 said, and that is a first -century document.

01:17:23

There's really no question about that. There's almost nobody that questions that any longer. So the

01:17:30

Word became flesh. That is a first -century teaching of the

01:17:38

Christian faith, not something that came centuries later. Now, are you saying that it took centuries for formal creedal statements to answer all sorts of philosophical questions or something?

01:17:51

Well, it took centuries for y 'all to figure out in Sunni orthodoxy that the Quran was uncreated, right?

01:17:58

I mean, there's at least one caliph who didn't believe that, right? I mean, that's what your own historical works say. So, again,

01:18:06

I ask for consistency. If you're going to say, well, yeah, there were questions that needed to be asked and answered, and as Islam goes out and it encounters these questions that were not a part of the context originally with Muhammad, then there needs to be issues thought through.

01:18:27

Okay, great. Now extend the same courtesy to me, right? I mean, that's consistency.

01:18:34

You're not using different scales. You're using the same standard, right? That's what you need to do. It affirms that Christ was

01:18:41

God -man simultaneously, both fully man and fully God. To say such a contention is paradoxical seems a charitable way to put it.

01:18:48

Why? He says it seems more like a blatant contradiction. If the doctrine held that Christ was half human and half divine, or that he was divine in other respects, our minds would not balk.

01:18:59

Yeah, so the doctrine of the Incarnation is new. It is amazing.

01:19:05

All of that is true, but I just have to say, so what? What you had in Isaiah 9 -6 was pretty amazing 700 years before Christ.

01:19:17

So what? God can't do anything amazing? God cannot do anything that is fantastic?

01:19:25

God's limited to only what man's mind can find to be natural? Really? I mean,

01:19:32

I guess that's rationalistic religion. But have you ever noticed that rationalistic religion eventually just sort of dies away?

01:19:45

It's interesting to note that on the actual TV show by Lee Strobel, Faith on Fire, Dr.

01:19:52

Craig conceived... Wasn't it Faith Under Fire? I don't think it was Faith Under Fire.

01:19:57

I don't think it was Faith On Fire. That reminds me of the joke that I got in trouble with Jerry Matitix.

01:20:04

Remember that one? Algo remembers. I'm sure Algo remembers that in one of the very first debates

01:20:10

I had with Jerry. I think it was the very first debate I had with Jerry at the Coral House on Long Island.

01:20:17

They had set up the tables in front of the fireplace, which was bad because the fireplace was on.

01:20:23

And I guess it was cool that evening, but it was pretty warm in there, and it just made things worse, to be honest with you. But I made some joke about being uncomfortable debating

01:20:35

Roman Catholic around wood and fire. I thought it was funny, personally, but Jerry obviously just took such feigned offense.

01:20:48

Feigned offense. I just think it's terrible that Protestants killed Catholics.

01:20:54

And everybody in the audience is going, Jerry, it was a joke. He later tried to tell a joke during that.

01:21:01

The proverbial lead balloon. I mean, wow. It was the one about, you know, oh, the story of the woman caught in adultery.

01:21:13

Let he who is among you without sin cast first stone. A stone comes flying in. Jesus goes, Mom. Yeah, I mean,

01:21:20

I tell it better than he did. It just, there is a little bit of a courtesy chuckle from somebody out there.

01:21:28

But other than that, all I can say is that Jerry Matitox learned that telling jokes is not something he should try to do for a living.

01:21:35

I conceded in the debate with Rabbi Tobias Singer that the Trinity cannot be found in the

01:21:41

Old Testament. How many times have you heard me say that the fundamental revelation of the doctrine of the

01:21:48

Trinity is to be found in the incarnation of Christ, his death, burial, and resurrection, and the outpouring of the

01:21:55

Holy Spirit. So the Old Testament becomes the preparation for.

01:22:01

There are shadows. There are indications. But the specific revelation, in fact,

01:22:07

I'm writing about this right now in the first big chapter in the next book and trying to cram it all into 4 ,000 words, which is not easy to do, but the fundamental revelation of the doctrine of the

01:22:19

Trinity is found in the incarnation and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So it is an intertestamental revelation so that the

01:22:27

New Testament then becomes the record of that revelation, not where the revelation itself takes place. The revelation of the doctrine of the

01:22:33

Trinity, God performs in history. God performs in history. It's got prophetic references in the

01:22:42

Old Testament, the preparation of the people, but it happens in time. And so this statement, not really an argument against the

01:22:51

Christian position at all. You can't derive it. It's not there. The existence of the Trinity would be hard to find, hard pressed to find, and to paraphrase what he actually said.

01:22:59

I would submit that the same principle would apply in the New Testament. It's not there. Wow. It's not there.

01:23:06

It is everywhere. You can't even begin to understand what the

01:23:12

New Testament is saying. Unless you presuppose the Trinity. You can't. How can you explain the exalted position of Jesus Christ in the

01:23:23

New Testament, in all these first century writings, if he is a

01:23:28

Muslim Christ, a mere prophet? How do you explain the constant conjunction of his name with God, the use of kurios, identification of him as Yahweh, that his is the name in which we suffer?

01:23:44

You can't. So to say it's not there, when the reality is, it is the very matrix in which the entirety of the

01:23:56

New Testament exists. That's like saying, well, the term

01:24:02

Tawhid, Yusuf, does not appear in the Quran. Wahad does. Tawhid does not.

01:24:08

And so that's like saying, well, Tawhid's not in the Quran. You would say it's the very essence of what the Quran is all about.

01:24:13

You know what? I agree with you. But you see, I'm able to hear the Quran from your perspective in that way.

01:24:19

For some reason, most of you guys won't give our side that type of fair analysis.

01:24:27

You just don't even seem to try most of the time, which is a shame. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the

01:24:32

Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one. Oh my. Let me once again, to all of our

01:24:41

Muslim listeners, we know that the

01:24:46

Kama Yohaniyim is not original. Okay? As soon as I hear back and get a mailing address from Mysterious Mail, I'm going to send him my book.

01:24:57

Wrote an entire book on the doctrine of the Trinity. Never had to quote 1 John 5 -7. 1

01:25:04

John 5 -7 in the Greek language does not appear in the first thousand years of the

01:25:10

Christian church in a Greek manuscript. It comes in through certain

01:25:15

Latin glosses. There's probably an explanation of the three witnesses that are mentioned in 1

01:25:23

John 5, but it is clearly an edition that comes very, very, very late, and the only reason it was included in the printed

01:25:40

Greek New Testament, specifically called the Texas Receptus. Long story, but it was because of Desiderius Erasmus.

01:25:48

He did not have it in his first two editions of his Novum Instrumentum, but it was inserted in the third edition, probably due to the production of a manuscript in 1520 called

01:26:02

Codex Monfortianus, which is in the archives of Trinity College Dublin.

01:26:09

I've seen it. I've read that section, not through glass, but holding the book in my hand, and that's why it's in the

01:26:19

Texas Receptus today. But there is no serious

01:26:24

Trinitarian scholar who is going to blindly quote the

01:26:30

Kama Johannium from 1 John 5 -7 from the King James Version of the Bible as if somehow this represents the essence of the doctrine of the

01:26:39

Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity was argued about and debated without that text having anything to do with it long before Erasmus inserted it with a copious footnote indicating why he did not think it was original in the third edition of the

01:26:57

Novum Instrumentum. Okay, we know that. I'll be happy to send you a book where I talk about that in the

01:27:07

King James -only controversy. It's time, you know, if the only people you're trying to impress are the people who don't know about that stuff.

01:27:19

Okay, all right, fine, then you can just keep talking about that forever. But you see, you know, what does that say?

01:27:27

I mean, I could use a lot of arguments against Islam that would be exceptionally impressive to ignorant

01:27:35

Muslims, but I want to try to present argumentation that will cause the most well -read

01:27:46

Muslim to think as well as the one who is not well -read.

01:27:54

Try to do that for many, many years with every group that we've addressed and try to do it there as well. Didn't get very far, but that's okay.

01:28:01

We'll pick up from that point whenever we get back. Please pray for this trip. Pray for my health and strength and help us to get there as well and pray for the upcoming trip coming to South Africa as well.

01:28:14

We'll be back sometime, Lord willing, here on The Dividing Line. We'll see you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:29:22

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602 or write us at P .O.

01:29:27

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

01:29:33

World Wide Web at aomin .org, that's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.