Response to Dave Hunt on Reformed Theology, Part 3 of 3, Atonement and Consistency

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July 7, 2001

Again, Dr. White demonstrates how Dave Hunt has bitten off more than he can chew in taking on Reformed theology at his current level of understanding. Hunt is confused in thinking that biblical appeals to repent refute Calvinism. Dr. White explains the necessity of consistency in apologetics with the example that Hunt appeals to aspects of the concept of penal substitutionary atonement when dealing with Roman Catholics, which is a concept that can only cohere with the Reformed perspective.

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James White vs. Nadir Ahmed, March 21, 2008 Part 4

00:00: And good afternoon and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. It's good to be back with everyone this afternoon.
00:06: Finishing off this week, our discussion of Dave Hunt's attack upon the
00:12: Reformed faith in a tape, Reformed Theology in the Light of Scripture, we have been listening to what
00:19: Dave has been saying, pointing out the errors in Mr. Hunt's presentation. We've listened to about 22 cuts or so.
00:27: And for those of you who have not heard the presentation before, let me just lay out again why we're doing this.
00:34: Why would we engage in a critique, a response of Mr. Hunt on a subject such as this?
00:41: Well, obviously, we believe the subject is extremely important. There are legions of folks who follow Dave Hunt and his statements and believe them to be the gospel truth.
00:51: Dave has done good work in some areas in the past, and therefore when he takes up the sword against the doctrines of grace, there will be many who will simply accept it as being true simply because he says it.
01:05: And so as a result, we need to respond to the misrepresentations, the strawman argumentation that is used by Mr.
01:12: Hunt in his current presentations. And we would invite Mr. Hunt to, well, first and foremost, to simply not misrepresent the opposition.
01:23: I think it would be very good if Mr. Hunt would re -evaluate his presentation and perhaps provide a better response to the
01:34: Reformed position than that which he is currently offering. But secondly, if he will not do so, to take up our challenge to debate this issue fully so that the people in the
01:44: Christian church can hear the debate and can hear both sides presented with one another, side by side, in conversation with one another, that is the best way to respond to this.
01:55: Now I remind everyone that Mr. Hunt has changed his position somewhat over time.
02:01: When we had a confrontation, a discussion on KPXQ Radio in August of the year 2000, we at that time started off by asking
02:14: Mr. Hunt some questions concerning his position, and he confessed ignorance of the
02:19: Reformers, their writings, the whole situation. And yet only a few months later, in February, Mr.
02:26: Hunt put out this tape, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to play for you something I played last week.
02:31: It is a contrast. The first section is Mr. Hunt saying, I don't know anything about the Reformers. Here's the second section from his radio program where he is able to say that he knows more about the
02:43: Reformed faith than most people who confess that faith. Here's how he himself put it. Well, first of all,
02:49: James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers. I have not had time to read them, their truckloads,
02:58: I guess, of their writings, and I like to just kind of pretend that we're back there in the days of the
03:05: Apostles before all of these things were written, and I like to go to the Bible.
03:11: So whether the Reformers said this or that, I don't know. I disagree with a lot of Martin Luther, for example, when
03:19: I read his 95 Theses on indulgences, and when
03:24: I read the Augsburg Confession, it sounds to me like they were still pretty much Catholics.
03:29: That's one of the things that concerns me, Tom, because we've gotten some very angry letters accusing me of not knowing anything about Calvinism.
03:38: Well, if they want to walk in my study and see the many, many books that I have read by leading
03:44: Calvinists, both past and present, Calvin's Institutes that I have all highlighted, and Augustine, whom
03:51: I've read, and Luther, and so forth, I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves
03:59: Calvinists. Well, Mr. Hunt is claiming to know more about Calvinism than most of those who claim to be
04:07: Calvinists, and so that is a very broad assertion, and yet, since it has been made,
04:14: I think we need to hold Mr. Hunt to a higher standard, a standard of someone who does know more about Calvinism than 90 % of Calvinists.
04:22: But so far, as we have listened to Mr. Hunt, we have been able to demonstrate very clearly that he truly has never taken the time to learn the system, to learn why we believe what we believe, the biblical basis, and certainly has not provided a biblical response to the position at all.
04:40: Now, last week, we had started to get into the last section of where I'll be quoting from him.
04:45: I will take the time to respond to some of his historical assertions later on.
04:50: But in quoting from him in regards to biblical passages, in regards to theology, we had just started on a series of citations where Mr.
05:01: Hunt demonstrates a tremendous inconsistency in his view of the atonement, and in statements regarding particular redemption.
05:10: We may recall that last week I played for you, in fact, I'll open it up here, and I believe it's this section right here, just off the top of my head, let me see if this is the right one.
05:19: Well, in fact, this is from Calvin himself. Now, God arranges... No, that's not the right one. That's what you get for just guessing off the top of your head what number of nearly thirty -some odd different wave files in front of you is the right one.
05:33: He had made the statement that, in point of fact, particular redemption or limited atonement is shocking to some people, and we can all tell that he's one of the people that it is shocking to.
05:45: He finds it to be extremely reprehensible. And so, in that context, we started to look at some of the things he said, and last week we did look at this one, but since it's a part of a whole series,
05:56: I wanted to start back there. He said, No one takes my life from me. I lay it down to myself. He cried in triumph with a loud voice,
06:04: Tetelestai! It is finished! And they stamped that on documents, and that day it meant paid in full.
06:12: And unless the penalty was paid in full, there is no forgiveness. It is a matter of God's justice, and no church can do that for you.
06:19: There can be, I mean, indulgences or influence, prayers, penance, nothing will do it, unless you accept the penalty that Christ paid for your sins on the cross.
06:29: Now notice here, Dave is sort of giving an evangelistic message to Roman Catholics. And in that context, he will use the theologically correct assertion that when
06:40: Jesus said, Tetelestai! It is finished! That it was used in secular documents to refer to the perfection of the bill, the completion, the payment in full.
06:55: And so when Jesus says, Tetelestai!, it is payment in full. But we have to step back and ask the question of Mr.
07:03: Hunt, do you believe that? Notice the last, notice this little thing that's sort of thrown in at the end.
07:10: Unless you accept the penalty that Christ paid for your sins on the cross. What does it mean to accept the penalty?
07:17: Well, I don't understand what that means. Obviously, what he's attempting to say, well, unless you of your own free will, accept the offered gift of salvation.
07:28: But you see, here's the problem. You see, that's very different than quote -unquote accepting a penalty.
07:36: If someone comes into the death chamber as a person who's about to be put to death and takes my place and the penalty is fulfilled upon them, that penalty then cannot be laid upon me.
07:49: So what does it mean to accept a penalty? I don't know. And I honestly don't believe that Mr.
07:56: Hunt knows either. And yet throughout this section where he sort of turned from Calvinism for a while and began to address some
08:06: Roman Catholics in the audience and things like that, then came back to it, you'll hear this constant inconsistency. And that's because modern evangelical
08:13: Arminianism is a self -contradictory system.
08:19: It is inconsistent. It is inconsistent in much of its doctrine, but especially when you get to the issue of the atonement, because modern evangelicalism, including
08:29: Mr. Hunt, have adopted the phraseology of the
08:36: Reformation and Calvinism in speaking of the substitutionary atonement of Christ. Christ died in my place.
08:43: That is not what Arminians believed initially, because they recognized that if Christ's death is a legal and penal substitution, then it cannot have been made for all men.
08:57: If it was made for all men, then the penalty for sin has been paid completely, and there no longer remains any basis upon which
09:05: God can punish the wicked, because the penalty has been paid in full in their place.
09:11: And so they didn't hold to that. They held to a view, sort of a governmental type view, that the death of Christ demonstrates the love of God, and in observing this love of God and the death of Christ, we are going to be encouraged to live holier lives and to live lives that are honoring to God, etc.,
09:28: etc., etc. But the idea of a penal substitution, they had to deny that in a substitutionary facet, because that simply did not fit into their free will system.
09:40: And it doesn't fit, and yet Mr. Hunt and Arminians like him continue to use language borrowed from Calvinism while denying the underlying concept of the substitutionary atonement, which must be a particular atonement unless you're a universalist.
09:58: And Mr. Hunt's not a universalist, neither am I. No one can be a universalist consistently in the pages of Scripture.
10:05: And therefore, there is this inconsistency that is found throughout the teachings of Mr.
10:11: Hunt, and it comes up over and over again. But wait a minute, wait a minute now. You're saying that Christ died for everyone.
10:19: Well, if he did, then some of Christ's blood was shed in vain. Look, you cannot divide up the blood of Jesus and say some of it was shed for these people's sins, some of it was shed for those people's sins.
10:30: No, the blood of Jesus Christ had to be shed for sin. The penalty of sin had to be paid.
10:38: By one man, sin entered into this world. He had to pay the penalty for Adam's sin.
10:43: And James says, you break one command, you're guilty of all. He had to pay the whole penalty, even if nobody believed, because it was to the glory of God that he was willing to die in our place and pay the penalty.
11:00: Now, it's up to the person whether they will receive this penalty or not. See, notice again right there toward the end, we noticed last week,
11:11: Mr. Hunt is incorrect to say that it is our response. Well, that means some of Jesus' blood was shed in vain, that it was wasted.
11:20: That's not the point. We don't believe that Jesus' blood can be shed in vain.
11:26: That's the point. We don't believe that God is so unjust as to punish in his son the sins of a particular individual and then turn around and punish the individual for the same sins.
11:41: We don't believe that God is unjust. We don't believe that it was Christ's intention in going to the cross to save every single individual.
11:52: And that's the real point. The vast majority of objections that Arminians raised, particularly redemption, is not really the issue of particular redemption.
12:01: It's the issue of unconditional election. It's the idea that God can freely choose to save someone and remain just and remain righteous.
12:09: That's really what causes the problem. That's what causes them to put their brakes on and say, no, no, no,
12:16: I cannot possibly accept this idea, because if that's the case, then it removes the concept of free will.
12:23: And that is the ultimate priority of Arminians. That's the ultimate priority of all of man's religions, is to protect the free will of man and to make sure that it is man who ultimately is in charge of salvation.
12:36: Man must be the one who determines whether God will be successful or not.
12:42: That is the very essence of the religions of men.
12:48: And it is the very essence of Arminianism. And it's the very essence of Romanism.
12:54: Roman Catholicism does this through the sacraments. But those sacraments are only utilized and availed through the free will actions of man.
13:05: And you cannot make heads or tails of Roman Catholic theology without the concept of the free will of man.
13:11: It just simply isn't possible. It's foundational, and it's foundational to Arminianism as well.
13:18: And so this is the assertion. But notice what's said right toward the end here. Because it was to the glory of God that he was willing to die in our place and pay the penalty.
13:29: Now, it's up to the person whether they will receive this penalty or not. Now, within just a few sentences, or within two sentences, here it is again.
13:38: To die in our place and pay the penalty. Now, it's up to die in our place and pay the penalty.
13:46: So there's the use of the language of substitutionary atonement.
13:54: To die in our place and to pay a penalty. That is penal substitution. That's a
13:59: Calvinistic doctrine. It's not an Arminian doctrine. It doesn't belong in Dave Hunt's vocabulary. However, he utilizes it anyways.
14:08: But having then said that Jesus dies in our place and pays the penalty, then the entire work of Christ, the entire work of the
14:19: Son on the cross is then subserviated to the will of man.
14:26: Now, it's up to the person whether they will receive this penalty or not. Again, I don't understand this use of the word penalty.
14:33: Receive this gift, whatever it might be, etc., etc. But the simple fact of the matter is that the substitutionary atonement, as presented by Dave Hunt in his words here, is subserviated to the free will of man as to whether it'll actually work.
14:51: Now, how that functions, I don't know. I don't see any evidence that Dave has dealt with this, that he's gotten into this, and has actually explained how it can be that Christ could substitutionarily die in behalf of person
15:07: X. But if person X doesn't accept it, then what happens to person X? Why is he punished? How can he be punished?
15:14: Upon what basis? Does God somehow supernaturally remove the punishment from Jesus and put it back on the person or something?
15:21: I mean, I don't understand, and I don't know that anyone else really understands either.
15:27: But let's continue on with what Dave's saying. And here's a tremendous scripture. Luke 6, 36.
15:34: Jesus said, Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful.
15:40: But if my Father in heaven shows his mercy, as Calvin taught, by damning billions to hell whom he could save, because by irresistible grace he could impose this upon them, then it's okay for me to act the same way, isn't it?
15:58: I don't have to forgive all my enemies. I don't have to do good to those who despitefully use me, as the scripture says.
16:05: I don't have to be a good Samaritan. Jesus says we should be. I see somebody in need, I can just show my mercy by...
16:16: Be you merciful, as your heavenly Father is merciful. Well, if he is the example of mercy, and he expects me to be merciful to all, then how can
16:27: I say that his mercy is limited? But Calvinism says, no, his mercy is only to the elect.
16:37: He shows his grace to the elect. This is the standard Arminian argumentation against the freedom of God.
16:45: The fundamental assertion that's being made here is, if God is to be merciful at all, he must be equally merciful to every person.
16:56: That is the assertion that's being made. Now, it's generally not boiled down to that level, and that's one of the problems we have in our conversations we have with peoples, because the verbiage is still up there, and we don't get down to the bottom level.
17:11: The bottom level assertion is real simple. If God is more merciful or gracious to the elect than to the non -elect, then he is not truly omni -merciful or omni -gracious, or omni -loving for that matter, omni -benevolent.
17:31: So, God cannot be free. He cannot be free to show his mercy to some and not to others.
17:42: That's why you have to take Romans 9 out, you have to remove it from its context, turn it into nations, and make it so it's non -personal.
17:49: You can't do that exegetically, but that's basically how it's done. You've got to get rid of that, because that specifically says,
17:55: I'll have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I'll harden who I harden, and they just have to turn that into something about nations and things like that to try to remove it from the table.
18:02: But the simple fact of the matter is, for Arminianism to work, and for human religions to maintain their power over their people, through the exaltation, this concept of, quote unquote, free will, then
18:16: God must be chained. You must limit
18:21: God's freedom. You cannot grant to him the freedom to show mercy to one person and justice to another.
18:33: Because once you've done that, your whole system collapses. You're in deep danger now, because now that's starting to sound a whole lot like Romans 8 and 9, and Ephesians 1 and John 6, and so on and so forth.
18:44: And so since those passages can't mean that, then God cannot be more merciful to one person than another.
18:52: And since God commands us, Dave says, to be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful, well, that must mean that since we're to be merciful to everyone, then that means that God must be merciful to everyone.
19:02: Let me ask you something. Should we have been merciful to Tim McVeigh? Should we be merciful to Adolf Hitler?
19:11: When a judge shows mercy to someone, does that mean that he has to free every rapist, and every murderer, and every bank thief, and every terrorist that comes before him?
19:24: I've often used the illustration of the governor of the state of Arizona. If the governor of the state of Arizona, who has the authority because of the
19:32: Constitution, to grant pardon to those upon death row in Arizona, if the governor of Arizona did that, would it not follow, given
19:45: Mr. Hunt's argumentation, that the governor of Arizona, to be fair, to be just, would have to pardon everyone on death row?
19:54: Or do we not even recognize that we give sovereignty and freedom to our leaders, to where they can exercise that freedom and show mercy to one person, or to two persons, or to however many as they desire to do so, but that there is no basis for the charge of fairness and injustice in the exercise of mercy?
20:19: Remember, fairness and justice are categories of justice. They're categories of law. Mercy and grace are not.
20:27: Mercy and grace transcend law. They are in and of themselves, by nature, not fair, because they're not a part of that venue of mere legality.
20:38: Mercy and grace transcend the categories of justice, and hence,
20:44: God isn't fair when he's merciful. If God was simply just and fair, then there would be no mercy, there would be no grace, and we would all receive the just penalty of our sins.
20:54: That's not what we want, or at least it's not what we should want, if we recognize our own need.
21:03: And so the argument being presented here, it may sound very emotionally pleasing, but it's logically absurd, and it's biblically untenable.
21:15: God has mercy on whom he desires to have mercy. It's not a matter of us earning it.
21:22: It's not a matter of us receiving it in the sense of he just sort of throws it all out there, and it's up to us to grab it.
21:31: God is merciful based upon his own free will. He is the free will.
21:37: He is the one who has true freedom. Man does not want to have that kind of God.
21:42: We want to have a God that we can control, and that's the position that Dave Hunt is presenting.
21:49: 866 -854 -6763, 866 -854 -6763 is the phone number.
21:56: If you would like to take time to call us today, 866 -854 -6763 is the phone number today.
22:06: Now, notice this is a short little clip, but it follows on the heels of what was just said.
22:13: Luke 18, 13, remember the prayer of the Pharisee, God be merciful to me, a sinner.
22:21: He didn't say God be merciful to me because I'm one of the elect. God be merciful to me, a sinner is what he said there at the end.
22:30: Mr. Hunt doesn't understand Calvinism at all. I've said that a number of times, but here's another example.
22:38: Here's another example. Now, let's do it again. Luke 18, 13, remember the prayer of the Pharisee, God be merciful to me, a sinner.
22:48: He didn't say God be merciful to me because I'm one of the elect. Now, where do you think
22:54: Mr. Hunt has gotten the idea that Reformed people believe that our being of the elect is somehow a basis upon which we plead for mercy?
23:10: That somehow I'm of the elect, therefore, that's the basis upon which
23:15: I'm to plead for God's mercy. No, all of the elect,
23:22: Mr. Hunt, are sinners. In fact, the only people who truly understand the depth of their sin are the elect because it is in their lives that God brings spiritual life so they can see themselves the way they truly are.
23:42: All of the elect are sinners, and they have nothing in and of themselves to claim as a basis of having
23:53: God's mercy. It is all free. It is absolutely free.
23:59: And so for anyone to say, oh, you know, the publican, he said, be merciful to me, the sinner, not the elect, is to show a complete misunderstanding of the system that Mr.
24:17: Hunt not only claims to know more about than 90 % of those people hold it. I can't imagine a reformed person saying this.
24:25: Who knows what they believe? There might be 5 % of reformed people who would make that mistake.
24:33: That puts Mr. Hunt in the bottom 5%, not the top 10 % as he claims for himself. No one would say that.
24:41: This is a man who claims to know it, but it's very clear he doesn't. And this is a man who's writing a book on this subject.
24:48: He shouldn't. That's the whole thing that we've been raising for quite some time now, over the course of the past few weeks.
24:56: But anyways, in the next section, we have a further explication, and I've already addressed this, but I want you to hear it, a further assertion.
25:06: God can't be free. God has to be equally merciful to all, or he can't be merciful to any. That's seemingly the argument being made here.
25:14: There is no way that you could say that God is infinite in mercy, and he chooses to damn millions or billions that he could save.
25:25: You see, I don't believe that God can just force salvation upon anyone.
25:31: I believe that they have to believe. It says, whosoever will. Does man have a will?
25:38: Standard, standard stuff. We responded to most of this before, but we'll respond to it again.
25:44: Mr. Hunt just finds it amazing, amazing that God has the capacity to save all, but doesn't.
25:56: In other words, God can't be free to show his grace and mercy and his justice.
26:03: Either he's got to just be just to everybody, or he's got to be merciful and gracious to everybody. But God doesn't have the freedom to do what we can do.
26:11: God doesn't have the freedom to demonstrate his own glory in saving his elect people.
26:16: God does not have that freedom. Why? Well, we don't know. We're not told. We're certainly not given a biblical basis.
26:23: We are simply not told. But then we have the old saw.
26:28: You see, I don't believe that God can just force salvation upon anyone.
26:35: Force salvation. There's that term again.
26:42: God's gracious mercy, whereby he takes a rebel sinner, a person who hates
26:48: God and changes them from being a God -hater into a God -lover, takes out that heart of stone, gives a heart of flesh, as we read in Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
27:04: That's force. God forces Lazarus out of the grave, etc., etc.,
27:11: etc. Resurrection is not force. Resurrection to spiritual life is mercy.
27:21: It's free and sovereign mercy, and that's what the Arminian does not like.
27:26: I believe that they have to believe. Well, of course they believe. But do they believe so as to result in their resurrection and regeneration?
27:35: Or do they believe because of their resurrection and regeneration?
27:40: That, of course, is the issue. It says, whosoever will. Yes, it says, whosoever will. But who will,
27:46: Dave? Who will? The Bible says that no man can come to the Son unless he's drawn by the
27:52: Father, that man is not capable of freeing himself, that man is not capable of doing what is good.
27:59: The Bible is constantly talking about God's capacities and man's incapacities. Why is it that Arminians insist upon talking about man's capacities and God's incapacities?
28:09: It's backwards. Mr. Hunt, and that's the position you're presenting. It says, whosoever will.
28:14: Does man have a will? The term whosoever will, if you're using that term from John 3, the word will isn't in there.
28:22: But it is in Romans 9, but somehow just disappears from the discussion, isn't it? Well, anyways.
28:30: 866, 854, 67, 63. Looking at the ones that I have left here, we have about six or seven more to listen to.
28:40: We've got some historical stuff to talk about. But if you'd like to get online, 866, 854, 67, 63, we'll start taking phone calls probably sometime during the next half hour.
28:49: If you'd like to get online, we'll be talking to you too. We'll be right back. And welcome back to Dividing Line.
28:57: My name is James White. It's only, let me see if we refresh this thing here. Only 98 degrees outside.
29:03: That's pretty good. You know, this week's been very strange here in Phoenix. Uh, we set two records last week in our weather here.
29:11: Uh, yesterday we set a new record for the low high.
29:18: That's right. It's only 89 degrees. Uh, it was the highest we got to yesterday, which, uh, in July in Phoenix is really, really weird.
29:26: Uh, 89 degrees. But on Monday, we set a new high high of 116 degrees.
29:34: So in five days from 116 to 89, that's, uh, that's what you get when you live in the desert.
29:44: We are looking at the claims of Mr. Dave Hunt regarding the doctrines of grace.
29:51: Dave has, Dave has decided to, uh, to go after Calvinists now. He, uh, claims to know more about Calvinism than, uh, than 90 % of Calvinists.
30:06: And, uh, that's, that's his own, that's his own claim. I think I probably, uh, know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves
30:14: Calvinists. That's what he says. And, uh, so we are, we're examining that.
30:20: And so far, um, we, we think that, uh, that Dave needs to spend a little more time on this particular subject because, uh, that is self -evidently not the case.
30:33: And we are looking right now at the closing statements he made on the theological issues. I'll try to throw a little historical discussion in.
30:39: There's a lot of folks, oh, go after what he said about, about, uh, history. Go after what he said about, well, you know, if we get some time, we'll, we'll look at some of the things that he said there.
30:46: But first... Well, Jesus in John 7, 17 said, and it's one of the most powerful scriptures.
30:53: It's very instructive in many different ways, not only in the topic where we have before us now, but Jesus says, well, the
31:00: Pharisees come to him, you remember, and they say, how do we know that what you're teaching is true? You're not from our school.
31:08: You don't have our degrees. You didn't go to our theological seminaries. How do we know that what you're teaching is true?
31:15: Jesus says, if any man wills to do God's will, he will know.
31:23: I got the distinct feeling when I heard that, that when he, there toward the middle says, ah, well, you didn't get your, you didn't get your degrees from our seminaries and stuff.
31:35: I had the distinct feeling, and maybe I'm wrong, but I got the distinct feeling that Mr.
31:41: Hunt there was taking a little bit of a shot at folks like myself that are saying, Dave, you don't know what you're talking about.
31:48: You haven't read what you need to read. You're addressing a subject that many of us have spent our lives studying, and you wrap it up in a matter of weeks and think somehow you have the basis for making the kind of assertions that you're making.
32:05: It doesn't make any sense. I get the feeling that's what he was saying, but what about that passage in John 7?
32:11: If anyone wills to know, well, who is going to will to know, Dave?
32:18: Do lost, unregenerate people honestly want to face the holy
32:26: God and deal with doctrinal truth? Dave, haven't you ever looked in the eyes of a
32:34: Mormon with whom you were sharing the clear testimony of scripture about the fact there's only one true and eternal
32:44: God, and you see that look coming back at you that says, I will do anything in the world to maintain my belief in Joseph Smith.
32:54: Do you think that person really wills to know, Dave? I don't.
33:02: I don't. Just because you find the word wills in a verse doesn't mean it's relevant to the existence of the alleged, quote -unquote, free will of man.
33:14: Well, I continue on. Now, see, you can take scriptures where Paul is quoting from Psalm 14 in Romans 3, there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God, they're all gone out of the way, and so forth.
33:28: Or you could take Genesis 6, 5. God looked down upon man.
33:34: He saw that the imagination of man's heart was only evil continually. And the Calvinist takes these verses and says, you see, no man can do any good.
33:43: But Jesus says, do good. We have Abimelech could say to Abraham, I have done nothing but good.
33:55: Even of Laban, Jacob's father -in -law, it says he did good unto
34:02: Jacob. Now, good won't save you. There are unsafe people who put Christians to shame by their good deeds, charitable deeds.
34:11: Let's stop it right there for just a moment. I'll pick it up here in just a moment. I think we can see immediately what's going on here.
34:20: Mr. Hunt does not offer an exegesis of Romans chapter 3. He does not offer an exegesis of Romans chapter 1.
34:27: He does not offer an exegesis of Romans 8, 7 through 8. Instead, he says, well, it can't mean that man is totally incapable of doing good because, well, there's some references in the
34:37: Old Testament about people doing good. Well, Mr. Hunt, there's something called context.
34:45: And in Romans chapter 3, there Paul is talking, Paul specifically lays out, he is demonstrating the absolute universal condition of man so that he can close every mouth, that all the world can become guilty before God, and then they can hear the gospel of God's free grace and justification by grace through faith alone.
35:09: That's not exactly what's going on with Abimelech. That's not exactly what's going on with Laban.
35:17: And obviously, when we read of people doing good deeds in the Old Testament, does that mean they were perfect?
35:24: Does that mean they were good in God's sight? In the sense of being perfect and without any selfishness or anything else?
35:30: Of course not. Context, context, context,
35:35: Mr. Hunt. None of that that you just said is relevant. What does Romans 3 mean,
35:41: Dave? Why is it there? Why does it say there is none who seeks after God? See, your whole system,
35:47: Dave, is based upon believing that outside of the regenerating grace of God, that there are those who seek after God.
35:56: Without that, you don't have a system. You don't have a theology. Okay, what is
36:02: Paul talking about? What does he mean? Well, let's continue on and see if we get an answer.
36:08: But that's not going to save you. Well, then what does the Bible mean when it says there's none that understandeth, none that seeketh after God?
36:15: They've all gone out of the way. That is our natural bit of heart. This is what it's saying.
36:22: But you have scriptures where God says, you will seek for me and find me when you seek for me with all your heart.
36:31: We have Isaiah 55. Ho, everyone that thirsteth. It doesn't say everyone of the elect.
36:37: Everyone that thirsteth, come to the waters. It says, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts and let him turn unto the
36:46: Lord. And the Lord will have mercy upon him. So we have many appeals to turn to the
36:54: Lord, to seek the Lord. And he promises, not if you seek some magic genie.
37:01: When you rub the lamp, it comes along and says, what would you like this time? You seek me, the true
37:09: God with all your heart. You will find me. If any man wills to do
37:14: God's will, how do you know whether the Bible is true? Well, a number of things there.
37:20: It seems again that from Dave's perspective, if there are any appeals in scripture, seemingly
37:27: God can't speak to the elect. He can't make general appeals that the elect will embrace and love and obey and that the reprobate will scoff at.
37:35: God can't do that because if God does that, that means everybody automatically has the ability to do those things.
37:43: Passages, beautiful passages, such as Isaiah chapter 55. Who is going to embrace that?
37:53: That's Isaiah 53, Isaiah 55, the gospel in the book of Isaiah.
37:59: I mean, everyone who thirsts. Well, who thirsts? Who thirsts,
38:05: Dave? Is that Mormon that you and I were talking to, that I brought up before, is that Mormon? Is he thirsting after the true
38:12: God? Satisfied with his self -righteousness? Satisfied that he himself will become a
38:19: God someday? That God is an exalted man? Is he thirsting? Do dead people thirst?
38:27: Dave? Oh, I know you don't believe that when the Bible says we're dead in sin, we're really dead in sin, but you haven't told us what it actually does mean.
38:35: We've already seen that. Does the unregenerate
38:40: God -hater thirst after righteousness? Does the unregenerate God -hater recognize the true nature of his need,
38:49: Mr. Hunt? You seemingly are saying yes, but we haven't seen a biblical basis for any of this kind of assertion.
38:59: There are many passages in the Bible, Mr. Hunt, that call us to repent and believe.
39:09: The general call of the gospel goes out to everyone. I don't know who the elect are. When I stand outside the gates of the
39:16: Mormon temple in Salt Lake City, I don't know who the elect there are.
39:24: I don't have any special glasses. My new pair of Oakleys don't allow me to see the elect glowing in a special color.
39:32: It would be nice, but it doesn't work that way. And so you know what I do, Dave? I give a tract to everybody that will take one from me.
39:41: Sometimes they take them from me, and they're angry with me. Sometimes they don't want to take a tract from me, but they take it anyways, and then
39:48: God's merciful to them later in their life. Because of that, we've had that happen many times.
39:53: But the simple fact of the matter is, Dave, I don't know who the elect are. But if I didn't believe they were there,
39:58: I wouldn't do what I'm doing. Remember that passage from Paul when he writes to Timothy, I endure all things for the sake of the who?
40:07: The elect. I know, Dave, you said the elect is never used that way in the Bible, but it is. You seem to have missed a few passages.
40:13: I endure all things for the sake of the elect. And isn't it fascinating? Even though we proclaim that general call of God to all those people up there and many scoff, many laugh, sense of their spiritual depravity, they have no sense of their need.
40:34: Isn't it strange that the only people that are up there every six months aren't from the bringing call? Nope. Nope.
40:43: They're from a reformed ministry. I wonder why that is. Oh, we've seen folks up there from Arminian groups, but not on a consistent basis because, you know, those are the tough folks.
40:57: Those are the tough folks to go to conference. Those folks at conference, oh, they're the hard cases.
41:05: Yeah. Yeah, they are. But you can't assume they've ever heard the gospel and the gospel is the power of God and the salvation.
41:13: It's not my words. It's not my trying to convince somebody. It's the power of God.
41:22: Someone in channel just asked for a pair of Oakleys that would allow us to know who to allow into church membership.
41:27: Yeah, that would be nice. That would be really cool, but it doesn't work that way at all.
41:36: Well, I'm spending more time than I thought I would. Let's continue on. Paul writes, this is a faithful saying, worthy of all acceptation, all, no, all of the elect.
41:47: See, you're going to twist the Bible when you accept this, and then you've got to make the
41:53: Bible fit your theological idea. Let me just mention something. It's hard for me to listen to that without pointing something out.
42:00: Remember Acts 13, 48. Remember Mr. Hunt saying, I don't know anything about Greek.
42:06: However, let me offer a translation based upon my looking at Strong's Concordance that goes against all the translations
42:15: I ever use. Isn't that twisting the scriptures? Isn't that making things fit,
42:23: Mr. Hunt? Well, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. When you accept this, and then you've got to make the Bible fit your theological idea, and there are so many verses where it won't fit.
42:34: Now, let's say that there were an equal amount of verses on both sides, and we couldn't make up our minds.
42:43: Which way would you go? I would go to God's love, His mercy.
42:48: I would honor Him, okay? But there's not an equal number of verses. There's a preponderance of verses.
42:55: This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world to save whom?
43:03: Sinners. No, no, no, no, no. That means elect sinners. I don't think you can do that.
43:10: You have to impose that upon the Bible. Absolutely amazing. Uh, what if there are equal number of verses?
43:20: That, uh, how do you? I don't know how to respond to that.
43:28: The Scripture is one whole and consistent revelation. It's not these number of verses versus that number of verses.
43:40: But even if there were, we are told, I'd go with God's love. Well, I'm sorry.
43:47: This is going to offend some folks, but you know, there's a lot of really icky sentimentalism in evangelicalism today.
43:57: And if you don't have a love of God that is actually capable of saving anyone and doing anything, then may
44:07: I suggest you've been deceived? The love of God on the cross accomplished
44:16: God's intention. We do not recommend to people the love of a man or a woman that does not accomplish anything.
44:28: Do we, do we hold up as a pedestal, on a pedestal, people who say, oh, I just love my kids so much that I just let them eat whatever they want.
44:37: And if they want to just eat ice cream all the time with Snickers bars in it, that's okay because I love them so much.
44:45: And if they want to play out in the middle of the road at midnight, that's okay with me because I love them so much.
44:52: No, we don't hold those people up. Then why in the world would we hold up a
44:59: God who says, oh, I just love people so much that I've done so much for them. You know,
45:05: I did the cross and I did the resurrection. I've sent the spirit. I just,
45:10: I just really hope it works. Is that the love of God?
45:17: No, that's, that's sloppy agape. That's silly, sickly sentimentalism.
45:23: It's not in the Bible. Is, is that, is that what you see in Revelation four and five?
45:31: Is that what you see when all bows before he who is upon the throne and the lamb and worship him for having really tried hard?
45:45: Is that what's going on in Revelation? No, it's not. We must differentiate between sickly sentimentalism and true biblical love.
46:00: There's somebody in the channel before the program started. Oh, James, you know, a lot of people take you a whole lot more seriously if you weren't so, if you just didn't attack people so much.
46:09: Well, what do you, what do you mean attack people? Well, that, that, that thing you have on your website right now, where you, you point out that to your opponents,
46:15: Barry Lynn and Father Stravinskas, they were, they were unprepared. You're just attacking them. And I said to that person, you know, there are those folks who, who think based upon emotions and sentimentality, and those folks are not going to like me.
46:31: But you know what? I've never had anyone make a biblical case that on this issue,
46:37: I'm wrong. And I mean the issue of how we should think the basis upon which we should think and the fact that we have to make
46:43: God's truth as our first priority, not our emotions. Well, anyways,
46:51: I started preaching there and I, Mr. Hunt then demonstrated that he has no idea at all what we believe.
47:02: Listen to this. His mercy, I would honor him, okay? But there's not an equal number of verses.
47:08: There's a preponderance of verses. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.
47:15: Christ Jesus came into the world to save whom? Sinners. No, no, no, no, no.
47:21: That means elect sinners. I don't think you can do that. Dave, Dave, Dave.
47:29: All the elect are sinners. Every one of them. But Dave, you don't believe the verse.
47:38: You don't believe what that verse says. Don't you see how you translate it?
47:45: The same thing happens to this verse that happens with every Arminian and in fact with every
47:50: Mormon and Roman Catholic at Matthew 23, 37. They all misquote it so they can say that God desired to gather the
48:00: Jewish leaders and they would not. That's not what it says. And you misquoted it, Mr. Hunt, in your own article because that's what you think.
48:07: But Dave, don't you see you're using the exact same filter here. Listen again what's said.
48:13: This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation. Christ Jesus came into the world to save whom?
48:20: Sinners. Notice sinners. But there's a little phrase that sort of got lost.
48:28: To save, Dave. To save. You translate that in your own mind.
48:36: Into Christ Jesus came into the world to make a way of salvation available so that sinners by their free will can bring about their own salvation.
48:47: Your whole tape has said this. Did Jesus Christ come to save sinners or just to make their salvation possible?
49:03: Did he come to save? Does not Hebrews chapter 7 say he is able so designed to save.
49:14: Well, you see, if he can save, that makes him a powerful savior.
49:20: Jesus came to the world to save sinners. Matthew 121 tells us you will call his name
49:27: Jesus. Why? Because he's going to try real hard? No, because he will save what?
49:37: His people from their sins. How can he listen?
49:48: How can he hear those words? And not see that the emphasis is not upon us.
49:59: It's upon Christ who saves. That's the difference between an anthropocentric view that's focused on man and the theocentric view of Scripture that's focused upon God.
50:14: Jesus Christ did come, Dave, to save sinners.
50:21: What a vast difference between the two perspectives. Well, we began the last hour of John 3 16.
50:29: You all know it. For God so loved, so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
50:48: Is that not an offer of salvation to everyone who will believe?
50:55: Again, we've already mentioned it, but people come in and out of programs. Maybe this is the only program you've heard.
51:01: We've pointed out that Mr. Hunt does not understand John 3 16. Mr.
51:06: Hunt assumes a traditional interpretation, that he assumes an interpretation that automatically inserts into the phrase whosoever, which actually is every believing one.
51:17: There is no indefinite relative pronoun sitting there that says, oh, well, there's no election.
51:24: There's no particularity. The point of John 3 16 is that there is no such thing as a believing one who does not receive eternal life.
51:33: Jew, gentile, bond -free, male, female, doesn't matter who your daddy or your mama was.
51:39: If you believe in Jesus Christ, you receive eternal life. It does not address, does not address whether that is a capacity inherent in every single individual.
51:51: The scriptures are very clear to that, that it is not. It is a tradition that Mr.
51:57: Hunt is presenting, not an exegesis of the text itself. Come unto me,
52:03: Jesus said, not to a church, come unto me, I will give you rest.
52:09: All you who labor and are heavy laden, you who are weary, all, this is an invitation to all, everyone who thirsts, come to me and drink,
52:20: Jesus says. And I think you are doing violence to the word of God. If you try to say in all of those instances, all means, sinners means, world means, any man means, just the elect.
52:33: I believe the God of the Bible loves all. He so loved the world that he gave his son to die to pay the penalty for the sins of the world.
52:44: And notice again, the gross inconsistency. He paid the penalty of the sins of all the world, every single individual.
52:51: God loves everybody equally. Well, then why are they gonna be punished? Well, we're not told.
52:57: Well, there's these, come to me. If you thirst, if you hunger, again, because Dave will not deal with the internal self -contradiction of a
53:09: God who exists outside of time, but does not by his decree form the very fabric of time.
53:15: And since he does not deal with his unbiblical view of man as this autonomous creature, who is not a dead rebel sinner against God, a
53:23: God -hater, but is instead this semi -Pelagian, injured man who can bring about his own redemption if he just works the system right.
53:31: This semi -Pelagianism, this Arminianism, it's rampant in everything he says because he won't deal with those things. Then he has no context upon which to understand the other passages that he brings into the issue.
53:45: Now, there is, let me, what happened to number 31?
53:51: Oh, I thought I just played number 31. Oh yeah, I did play number 31. Well, here's the last two sections.
53:59: Especially this next one. Here is Dave's invitation, shall we call it.
54:09: He attempts to explain some issues of foreknowledge. Actually, is this the invitation?
54:14: Well, let's listen to it and then I'll talk about it at the end of this. I've still got two left to go here. And by the way, that's important because the
54:22: Calvinist says, look, if man has a free will, then that interferes with God's sovereignty. And furthermore, it interferes with God's foreknowledge.
54:31: How could God foreknow what's going to happen? And you could still have a choice. Why, if God knows
54:38: Mr. Jones is going to do this, then Mr. Jones has to do it, doesn't he? Otherwise, God's foreknowledge would be wrong, right?
54:45: Well then, how can you say that Mr. Jones then has a choice to do what
54:50: God knows he's going to do? Very simple. Well, maybe it's not simple.
54:56: It's hard for us to understand. God is not part of time. Time is a construct of this space -time -matter universe that God created out of nothing.
55:08: He is not part of time. Time means, that's when it says, a day is with the
55:15: Lord is a thousand years. A thousand years is a day. Or a thousand years are like the watch in the night. And as, you know, yesterday when it has passed and people try to come up with some special prophetic meaning out of that.
55:26: No, all it is saying is time means nothing to God. He is not part of time.
55:33: Everything is one eternal now. And God looking from outside, he's not part of this universe.
55:40: He looks out from outside. He sees past, present, and future as now. The things that are to us future,
55:48: God sees them as already having happened. His foreknowledge is not interfering with our free will.
55:54: His foreknowledge is not making things happen. Even Augustine said that.
56:00: I'll give Augustine credit for a couple of things. John Wesley said it in a sermon in 1780 that God is not bound by time.
56:11: He's not part of time. He's looking at all of this from outside of time.
56:17: Well, all that's wonderful. But does it answer the question concerning the meaning of foreknowledge? Well, that's a question
56:24: I will answer. We'll get to your phone calls after we take this brief break. And welcome back to Dividing Line.
56:41: We have three folks on hold and a few more comments we need to sneak in here.
56:47: In regards to the last assertion, we heard the standard Arminian use of foreknowledge, but we did not hear any substance to the assertion.
56:55: There was no discussion of material found in many of the books that Dave Hunt claims to have marked and outlined regarding the meaning of the term itself as it's used in Scripture.
57:06: We had the simple assertion that, well, God's foreknowledge does not restrict our free will.
57:13: Well, why not? If God perfectly knows what's going to take place in time, then how is it?
57:20: And this is the whole argument that open theists use against their fellow Arminians.
57:26: And it's a good argument that if you're going to make that type of assertion, how can there be this autonomous free will?
57:34: If God said in Isaiah 45 that Cyrus was going to let the
57:39: Jewish people go, then doesn't that mean that the Jewish people are going to be let go by Cyrus?
57:45: Does he have some sort of a freedom to change his mind?
57:53: And if he doesn't have freedom to change his mind, then what's free will all about? I don't know. These questions not answered on this tape, maybe answered on some other.
58:03: Let me quickly grab the last thing I wanted to play, then we'll be done. We'll be able to go to all of Gilbert, George, Pete, and Chris.
58:08: We'll get to you in the last 25 minutes here. It gives us about five minutes with each person.
58:15: That's nice. That works out real well. Stay there online. But I wanted to get to, in essence,
58:21: Dave's invitation. Listen to the inconsistencies found here in this invitation.
58:30: You can't earn it. You can't merit it. It's only possible because Christ paid the penalty.
58:36: But that's not going to be forced upon you. You must accept his payment on your behalf.
58:43: And when you accept Christ as your savior, you have said, Lord, I believe you died for my sins.
58:48: You paid the penalty. It's finished. Some great benefactor pays your debt to the bank.
58:54: You don't go back to the bank every day and try to pay them some more. It's finished. He said to tell us died, paid in full.
59:02: And only on that basis can God forgive. It's not a matter of sovereignty. It's not a matter of election. It's not a matter of some thing that God can do.
59:12: He's done it all. Now we must either accept or reject. Well, there it is.
59:21: Well, he's paid it all. But it's not election. It's not sovereignty. But it's all him. But we've got to do this.
59:28: We wonder why it is that the
59:35: Arminian evangelical presentation does not garner the kind of of respect from the world, quote unquote, because it's so it's inconsistent.
59:48: You're speaking out of both sides of your mouth. Maybe that's why there are so many problems with it in its development of an apologetic.
59:59: It can't defend itself because you can't defend an inconsistent position. You end up having to use arguments against someone else that would be just as effective against you when your position is inconsistent.
01:00:13: And that's what the Arminian position is. It is the very picture of inconsistency.
01:00:22: Well, there is our response. I didn't get to the historical stuff. There are some of you who are truly disappointed.
01:00:30: But the historical material, quite honestly, would be refuted by anyone who sat down with almost any meaningful scholarly text on either the subject of John Calvin's life or the life and ministry of Aurelius Augustine.
01:00:48: I would recommend to you a study of the Donatist and Pelagian controversies would place
01:00:56: Mr. Hunt's comments in such context as to demonstrate that he really has not read
01:01:02: Augustine. And certainly, his constant ad hominem upon John Calvin would be helped out greatly if you would read, for example,
01:01:10: McNeill's excellent work on the life of John Calvin and the character of Calvinism.
01:01:15: You would, I think, find in those truly scholarly works that were not written in a matter of weeks a much better insight into the issues that are going to be presented there.
01:01:29: Let's go ahead and get to our callers in the order in which they came. It looks like we have some whiners in the other room, but we're going to ignore them.
01:01:38: Let's start with Gilbert in Somerville, South Carolina. Hi, Gilbert. Hey, how you doing? Doing good.
01:01:44: I was just wondering, I think this question is based on if you believe the same interpretation of 1
01:01:49: Timothy 4 .10 as John Owen did. And if it is, then what in the context would also lead you to believe that the
01:01:57: Savior means the preserver of all men? 1 Timothy 4 .10. Well, someone raised this issue actually in the channel recently, and I, in essence, respond the same way to them.
01:02:11: I said, well, let me ask you something. When you see the phrase who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers, since there is only one
01:02:18: Savior, then he of necessity can be only the Savior of all men. There is only one
01:02:23: God. He is the God of all men as well, but especially of believers. There's only one Lord, but he is the
01:02:30: Lord of all men, but especially of believers. And I asked this person, can you see how to a believer he would be
01:02:37: Lord in a way that he is especially to them, even though he's
01:02:43: Lord of all? And for some reason, this person just couldn't see it, could not see, well, God's always
01:02:48: God, so he can't be more God. But the point of, I think fairly clearly is that since there's only one
01:02:55: Savior, he can be called the Savior of all men since he is the only way of salvation, except very clearly a person who rejects him, who mocks him, who does not even see the need for a
01:03:08: Savior, is going to see him as Savior in a way that's very different from the believer who recognizes his needs and embraces him as being his personal
01:03:19: Savior. So I'm not sure, I don't know what John Owen's interpretation of 1st Timothy 4 .10 was, but I understand the phrase to be used in the same way if you use the term
01:03:29: Savior or Lord or God, anything where there is only one, where God holds a position that is unique to all men, that there's only one
01:03:39: God, there's only one Lord, there's only one Savior, there's only one Creator, et cetera, et cetera. Except I recognize that he is my
01:03:45: Creator in a way very different from a person who rejects the concept of special creation, who believes in Darwinism or whatever else it might be.
01:03:55: I think that's what Paul is talking about when he reuses that phrase. Q. All right. And there's one other thing, that has to do with Cornelius and his situation in light of Toll of the
01:04:05: Poverty and how he did, like his prayers and alms came up before God and all that.
01:04:12: And just that, in light of Toll of the Poverty, how could he do all that stuff if he was a searcher of God or a seeker of God?
01:04:18: A. Well, it's very, very obvious he didn't do those things outside of God's grace. Anyone who thinks that Cornelius was just simply in and of himself a good man outside of grace doesn't seem to understand either the effect and power of sin, let alone the impact of grace.
01:04:35: Here is a person who was clearly one of God's elect people, and he works within that person's life and brings about faith over time in especially a very special situation here because God chooses him in a very unique way, a way that could not possibly be repeated in the future, to be the avenue through which he causes
01:04:58: Peter to understand that the gospel needs to go in its clarity to the
01:05:03: Gentiles as well as to the Jews. So for someone to take what was obviously an extremely unique situation with Cornelius and obviously the sovereignty of God and providence and bringing visions to Peter and audibly speaking to Peter and all the rest of this stuff and then take that unique situation and draw out from it some concept to where, well, we can't truly be totally brave.
01:05:27: Romans 8, 7 through 8 doesn't really mean what it means. Jesus wasn't serious in John 6, 44 obviously is to grossly misuse the text.
01:05:37: All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. All righty. Thanks very much, Gilbert. We now go to George. And I'm making the folks out there move their fingers very quickly.
01:05:46: George, you there? Dr. White. How's it going? Doing good. Hey, man. I am the Reformed United Methodist.
01:05:51: It's a big fan of yours. Ah, yes, sir. Down and down and Florida way. Yeah. In fact, I just switched denominations.
01:05:57: I'm in the PCA now. Ah, well, I know some folks in the PCA and you're amongst some good people.
01:06:04: Well, hey, I want to start off by confessing a couple of things to you. I don't like Dave Hunt at all, personally.
01:06:10: Well, actually, I like Dave Hunt. Have you ever met him? I've never met him. We had to read his book at Clearwater Christian College, The Seduction of Christianity.
01:06:18: Right, uh -huh. And, man, I was kind of liberal back then, so I didn't like the fact that, you know, he was so strong on the
01:06:23: Bible. Now that I'm on the other end of the scale, I'm kind of disappointed he really doesn't know the Bible that well at all.
01:06:29: Well, I'm very disappointed because I have met Dave a number of times. We've spoken a number of things together.
01:06:37: And when he talks about Roman Catholicism, he says a lot of solid and sound things.
01:06:43: I think he's done a good job sometimes in dealing, for example, with Carl Keating, who will not debate me.
01:06:50: But this, for some reason, when it comes to God's freedom, this just brings out in people this tradition.
01:06:58: And people defend tradition very, very strongly. And Arminianism is a tradition. It is not a biblical teaching.
01:07:04: And therefore, they can become extremely vociferous in their defense of that tradition.
01:07:11: Well, he is a... You know, he was like on the last, like, I think it was like two segments ago, he said something that kind of caught my eye.
01:07:19: He said that God is apart from time. Right. And that, you know, he just looks at everything as a big hole and that he won't interfere with free will.
01:07:28: Right. I just kind of started scratching my head, and that sounds like deism to me. Well, yeah, well, obviously,
01:07:34: I would immediately assert that Dave Hunt clearly has not yet wrestled with the real issues of systematic theology and the relationship of God and time, the relationship of God's decrees.
01:07:51: Given what he confessed last year, he's never even read the Reformers, then I would very much doubt that he's ever read Hodge or Warfield or any meaningful systematic theologies.
01:08:00: The man is not an exegete. He's not a theologian. And that's why I said to him, honestly, very clearly,
01:08:05: Dave, you are not qualified to address this issue. There is work that is required to stand as a teacher amongst
01:08:14: God's people and address these topics, and you haven't done it. Now, that's not mean on my part.
01:08:20: That's not unchristian, unkind, unloving or anything else. I would say that it's unloving to God for us to say that you can act as if you are a teacher in the church when you don't do what is required to be able to rightly handle the word of truth.
01:08:37: He's addressing issues he just doesn't know anything about. And so I would immediately say you're exactly right.
01:08:43: It does lead to deism because he's, in essence, removing God from the events within time.
01:08:50: And what is the difference between that and deism? I don't know. But when I read the Bible, man, God's pretty clear on time.
01:08:56: You know, three days I'm going to resurrect. I mean, he seems to have a preoccupation with time when he talks to us.
01:09:02: Well, he has to. We're time -bound creatures. That's the way he communicates to us. I don't have any problem with the assertion that God exists outside the realm of time and is not limited by it.
01:09:11: But the simple fact of the matter is the result of Dave's position is God is, in essence, sort of like the little child looking through the glass at the zoo at the animals.
01:09:21: He's watching what's going on. Now, how can he avoid processed theology or open theism or any of these other things if he is simply limiting
01:09:30: God to passively examining what takes place in time? I don't know that he's even been challenged to do it because I don't get the feeling that the people around Dave Hunt are able to say to Dave Hunt, Dave, you're wrong.
01:09:47: Dave, you need to do more research. You need to look into this more. I don't get the feeling that he has the people around him who would be able to do that.
01:09:55: And that's one of the problems. Well, what's the update as far as the challenge you made out for him to debate? Well, we just sent it out.
01:10:01: I believe it went out yesterday. And so I don't know yet. It's it's marked special and personal to Dave Hunt from James White and gets that set, etc.
01:10:10: I will let you all know as soon as there is a response, because I do want to set something up fairly quickly because there is a fair amount of work that goes into arranging one of these things.
01:10:20: And we need to, you know, mesh schedules and teaching schedules at a number of different schools and all the rest of this stuff.
01:10:26: So we'll let everybody know. And I know there's some folks who might actually want to possibly make plans to travel because it'll be it'll be something definitely to watch.
01:10:38: I mean, you probably have it up north somewhere. Don't know. Don't know right now. Look into Florida and save me some money.
01:10:44: Yeah, well, you know, someone in the chat channel said the exact same thing. Hey, come on. Come on down to Florida. We actually have some folks down there in the
01:10:51: Tampa area that might be a possibility. We have folks in the Indianapolis area and we have folks in San Diego.
01:10:57: So we'll see. We'll see what Mr. Hunt says. And then once we have a positive from him, then we can contact each of those folks and say, hey, what can what can you do?
01:11:06: And we'll go from there. OK, take care, man. All right. God bless. All right. Bye bye. All right.
01:11:13: Now the last two folks we're going to talk to, I'm scared. I am scared to death about the next two folks we're going to talk to because I know who they are.
01:11:21: First, we're going to talk to Pete. But before we can talk to Pete, Pete, I have to I have to just ask, have have you been working on those straps?
01:11:33: On those what? Straps. Straps. No, no, no. They're still fully secured.
01:11:39: OK, good. All right. Then I feel a little safer because I well, you and I know why
01:11:44: I feel safer now. So anyways, now the second thing I have to ask you is, are you going to analyze
01:11:50: Dave Hunt in the way that Gail Riplinger would? No. Oh, good. No, I'm not. That's that's upcoming.
01:11:56: OK. All right. I'll send you a wave file. OK, thank you. Thank you very much. I am looking forward to that very, very much.
01:12:03: OK, then you're actually going to be serious? Yes. I actually have a serious question. I've listened in the past to your discussion with Dave Hunt on the the issues at hand.
01:12:16: So it absolutely shocks me, for one, that he seems to have totally ignored the issues that were presented then.
01:12:26: And I certainly didn't get any sense. I don't know if you did. I should have brought that up. I didn't get any sense that our conversation had ever taken place.
01:12:34: I didn't get any sense that he had ever seriously dealt with the potter's freedom, which I sent to him for free.
01:12:40: It was like all those issues just can't be true. So we're not going to deal with them.
01:12:46: You're exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's what really bugs me is because it seems like he's almost taking this approach.
01:12:55: Now, I understand that he says he's read all of Calvin and all of Luther, etc., etc., etc. But even if he did, he's obviously gone in there with the presupposition that it is wrong and that it is, in fact, anti -gospel.
01:13:09: So I guess my question is, how do you deal with that? How do you overcome that almost hatred for Reformed theology when dealing with folks?
01:13:20: Because I know I've been trying to open up a dialogue with a few folks that I know on a personal level who definitely take his viewpoint.
01:13:29: And there seems to be this underlying rage at the very prospect. So how do you actually deal with that and try and bring it down to the biblical level?
01:13:40: Well, that's why I suggest a debate, because it would be moderated, it would have a specific topic, there would be exact amounts of time that would be given to each side, and there would be cross -examination.
01:13:53: And I think that with some individuals, there's nothing you can do. But I remember when I first wrote some books on Roman Catholicism, there was a bookstore here in town that was run by an individual who was a former nun.
01:14:09: I mean, this person really did not like Roman Catholicism. But there was one thing she disliked more than Roman Catholicism.
01:14:17: Calvinism. She would not even carry my books, because even though it responded fully and clearly to the
01:14:23: Roman Catholic position, well, you're coming from a Reformed perspective and I simply can't handle it. So sometimes there isn't anything you can do.
01:14:32: You simply have to stick with the biblical materials, you have to present the exegesis.
01:14:37: And there was someone in the chat channel that came in, and we hit her with John chapter 6.
01:14:46: And she would sometimes come in and say, you know, I'm really angry with you people, because I can't sleep right now, because I can't deal with this.
01:14:55: She was involved in the Church of Christ. And she has since then not only left the
01:15:00: Church of Christ, but embraced those things. But there was a while where she just confessed, I'm really angry with you people.
01:15:05: Why did you do this to me? But you've got to recognize that here in her situation, she simply believed if it's scriptural,
01:15:13: I have to believe it. And that can only come from the Holy Spirit of God. And many people who rage at the truth of the doctrines of grace really just don't have the type of dedication.
01:15:30: The Bible is absolutely true, and they must follow and be willing to change. They're really not practicing Sola Scriptura. They're holding to a tradition.
01:15:38: There are traditions out there. And so, anyways.
01:15:45: So I'm being told to work peeps into the conversation somehow. Work peeps or furbies, either one into the conversation.
01:15:51: Yeah, or silly Brits or anything like that. Yeah, well, you worked it in very well, and so did
01:15:57: I. So anyways. All right, Pete. Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. All right. God bless. Bye bye. All right.
01:16:04: We have just a few minutes left, and it is my great honor to close our program on Mr.
01:16:12: Dave Hunt by bringing online a man who is a scholar in his own right, a man who is giggling in the background and making me laugh.
01:16:22: And it's very hard to do this with a straight face, but he's good at doing things with a straight face. A man who is the president, the president
01:16:29: I want you to know of the great debate, who also has a computer that makes noise that he's there's nothing you can do about.
01:16:39: A man who has been responsible for getting me into more strange situations than almost any other individual that I know of.
01:16:50: And yet, despite all of these things, I still consider him one of my best friends in the whole world because I am desperate.
01:16:59: Hi, Chris. Excuse me, bartender. I'm waiting here for 15 minutes for my scotch and soda. Excuse me.
01:17:05: Am I in the line now? Am I in the air? Stop that. You're going to make my asthma kick in.
01:17:15: Thanks, Chris. Oh, yes. I'm on the air. OK. Hey, how are you? Hey, I'm doing just fine. I'm at a
01:17:20: OPC session meeting. Excuse me for a minute. Um, I was. It's flowing freely there, bro.
01:17:31: I was calling because there's a lot of these Calvinist chat rooms, as you may know yourself.
01:17:38: The question often comes up, usually by someone more from a hyper -Calvinist strain.
01:17:45: But the. You're not going to try to get me in trouble in the middle of all this, are you? Oh, no. Oh, OK. Very serious question here.
01:17:52: Um, the question is often posed. Oh, what?
01:17:58: Or let me put it this way. How much can an Arminian oppose the doctrines of sovereign grace before he's actually totally apostatized into a false gospel?
01:18:10: A lot of these more hyper -Calvinists would say that Arminians cannot be saved because their gospel is false, that they are including too much of man's cooperation with what
01:18:23: Christ has accomplished. And sometimes it's hard to argue too strongly because the line can be fuzzy at times between Rome and Arminianism.
01:18:32: So I just wanted your comments on that. How far does an Arminian have to go before he is really actually abandoned the faith?
01:18:41: Well, that's a very, very good question. And I'm very thankful that none of us ever have to actually, on a personal level in regards to a particular individual, make that kind of a decision.
01:18:53: I think that the best way to respond to it is to try to remove personalities and go to the
01:19:01: Word and go to a theological basis. And that is, Arminianism as a system denies the substitutionary atonement of Christ.
01:19:10: Arminianism as a system denies the sovereignty of God, the grace of God. It is semi -Pelagian at best.
01:19:19: And I would agree when Michael Horton was on the Bible Answer Man broadcast, when he very clearly said that there may be some
01:19:27: Arminians who are in the pale of orthodoxy, but Arminianism is not. And that,
01:19:33: I think, woke everybody up real quickly. However, the amazing thing is to listen, for example, to Dave Hunt, mix truths and errors.
01:19:45: Talk about the substitutionary atonement, though that's not consistent. Talk about Christ saying, it is finished, but not consistently.
01:19:52: The question then becomes how much inconsistency in our understanding can be allowed for.
01:20:02: And I honestly, I think we have to try applying it to a person and saying, look, when the gospel message being preached denies substitutionary atonement and the gospel message being preached denies the ability of grace to save in of itself, then we're dealing with a false gospel.
01:20:25: How many Arminians do I know of who clearly and without compromise deny those things?
01:20:32: Not a whole lot. Do their systems deny it impracticality? Yes, they do. Do they know that?
01:20:37: No, they don't. Well, how do they respond when I try to show them that? They generally look at me like, well, like you look at me normally.
01:20:45: Or like I look at you when you do various and sundry things as well. They look at us, you know, with this shocked misunderstanding.
01:20:55: And why would you challenge me on something like that? Because of their traditions. So that's not a real clear answer.
01:21:01: But I would say that when the system clearly denies substitutionary atonement and the ability of grace in of itself to save, it becomes a false system.
01:21:09: But that is the whole issue. The Arminian becomes inconsistent at that point. They hold to those things.
01:21:15: They'll sing amazing grace, and they'll talk about John Newton, and they'll talk about all of grace, and they'll talk about the substitutionary atonement.
01:21:23: But then they'll turn around and contradict all those things because their tradition causes them to not see the relationship of all those things together.
01:21:31: Consistent Arminianism is a false gospel. There's no question about that. And I think there are certain denominations that are very deeply involved in that.
01:21:40: I don't believe the Church of Christ has a true gospel. I've said that many times because they take
01:21:45: Arminianism to its logical conclusions. But thanks be to God, absolute perfect consistency is not required of any of us because I know on your part, especially, we would be in a lot of trouble.
01:22:03: Well, I guess that's how you would explain Luther. Yes, yes, I would. Yes, I would. That would be baptismal regeneration.
01:22:09: Yes, I would. Yes, I would. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Java Man, Chris, for not only all the work you do back on Long Island and making available those debates, but for calling in today.
01:22:21: We really appreciate it. I'll let you get back to that OPC session meeting. My pleasure, brother.
01:22:29: God bless. Well, we just offended all of our OPC friends, unless in point of fact they were partaking when they heard it and then they'll enjoy that.
01:22:38: So anyways, thanks a lot, Java. We really appreciate you getting us all in trouble. But oh, gracious.
01:22:44: Well, thank you for being with us the last three weeks as we address this subject. And next week I will be with you, but it'll be a long distance as I'll be in San Francisco.