A Live DL from Westbury, New York

And welcome to The Dividing Line. My name is James White. I'm coming to you sort of live, I would imagine, from Westbury, New York. I never thought I would say this, but I'm awful glad to be driving in New York now.

The only way you could ever say that you're glad to be driving in New York is if previously to that you had to drive in New Jersey, because, wow, that's, New Jersey, really, guys, seriously? No left turns, honestly?

If you want to go back the other direction, you know, I can't say how many times I end up driving through neighborhoods, you know, down streets next to kids playing and stuff just because I want to turn around.

It's like, really? Wow. Anyway, so I'm glad to be out of New Jersey. I had a good time there. Spoke at Trinity Fellowship Church, and I'm encouraging the brethren there to get the audio up so I can link to it.

We had a discussion on standing firm in regards to the cultural attacks upon Christianity, and then I drove up to New Brunswick for Sunday morning. That was fun. One of the most frustrating trips I've ever taken.

And spoke in New Brunswick Sunday morning, first on Islam, and had a Muslim in the audience, which was interesting. Sadly, he couldn't, just wouldn't listen. It was just one of those guys that, you know, he would rattle off some verses, well, God is not a man, Numbers 23 and 19.

And if you try to talk about Numbers 23 and 19, yeah, but over here it says this, you know, after like one sentence, so it really couldn't get anywhere. But anyway, and then we, Sunday morning service was on Deuteronomy chapter 11.

Then the New York City Marathon was going on, and so I had to take a sort of roundabout way to get on the island to avoid that, because the Verrazano Bridge was closed. And so, you know, driving through Brooklyn, even on a Sunday, you know, bumper-to-bumper stuff.

But that's just what it is to drive out here. But at least I can turn left now. It's really nice. So tonight I'm speaking at a church on, by their request, on the biblical role of pastors and elders. And the next two nights I'll be at Hope Reform Baptist Church, speaking on Islam one night and on the homosexual movement the second night.

And then Thursday night I'm speaking as well. Friday I have off. Saturday is the debate with Shadid Lewis. Sunday morning I preach at New Hyde Park Baptist Church. Sunday evening, North Shore Baptist Church.

And on Monday, back home for just a matter of weeks before heading off to Kiev and Berlin. So there's where we are right now. Last night's presentation on Doctrines, Dates, and Dead People from Grace Reform Baptist Church is up on Sermon Audio, and I linked to that on Facebook page, on my Facebook page anyways.

I'm not sure if what I put on my Facebook page automatically links to the Alpha Omega one. I don't know. But that's where it is. It's actually easier to link stuff there than it is on the blog at times.

So there we go. So anyway, I want to start off, my light just blinked on the camera. So I hope that didn't mean something. I still got myself there. So feed buffered. So I'm not sure if it was your feed that buffered or it was my feed that buffered, because the light went whoo, and I'm not sure what that means.

But we're doing the best we can. I'm on hotel Wi-Fi. So the very fact that we have anything happening is good. And they cycle it every 24 hours. So I'm just hoping that it's after we get done here that it gets cycled.

Otherwise, there's going to be a break, and then we'll come back. And that's sort of how it is when you're traveling. And that's how it goes. So I wanted to start off with an October 5, 2014 Q &A from William Lane Craig.

And I find it very interesting, and this is sort of the first opportunity I've had to really address it. And so you can find this on the ReasonableFaith .org website. And the date is October 5, 2014. Dr. Craig, I'm growing more skeptical about Christianity and was wondering if you could answer a question about the Gospel.

When Jesus was on the cross, he either paid for all sin or some sin. To pay for some sin would mean limited atonement, which is not what Scripture teaches. But if Jesus paid for all sin, then why are some people who are in hell paying for their sin?

One, if Jesus paid for all sin, then no man has to pay for sin. Number two, some men are paying for sin. Number three, therefore, Jesus did not pay for all sin. So it's obvious we should reject the view, Jesus paid for all sin.

Limited atonement view contradicts what Scripture about salvation—should be what Scripture says, I imagine—about salvation being open to anyone. So which way is right, and how do we answer the problems of that view?

Thanks so much. I really enjoy your work, a fellow by the name of Alan. Now, of course, we all see what the problem is here. Scripture does not contradict limited atonement, in particular, redemption—in fact, it teaches it very, very firmly and very, very forcefully in regards to the role of Jesus as the high priest, the intention of the atonement, the effect of the atonement.

But here's what happens when—and somebody, by the way, I forgot to save it, but someone in Twitter—I could probably scroll down to find it, but I won't right now—someone in Twitter sent me a picture of a poster that is up in one of the, I think, libraries at Southern Seminary, and it says, Theology Matters.

I'm just going, hey, come on. Here's an example of it. Theology does matter. Here's where someone has thought something through and recognizes that the idea of substitutionary atonement does not fit with the idea of men being punished for their sin, that if it's a true substitution and not just a theoretical one, that this just simply doesn't work, and he's correct.

The problem is that he's been given bad Biblical teaching on the nature of the atonement, Biblical texts on the subject of the atonement, just isn't aware of that. And so he writes to Dr. Craig, it's a shame that he wrote to Dr. Craig, it would have been nice if he had written to us, we would have been able to give a nice, full, Biblical response, but it went to Dr. Craig, Dr. Craig's answer of a Molinist, and Dr. Craig's answer of a Molinist, and he says, I agree with you, Alma, Christ died not just for the sins of the elect, limited atonement, but for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2 .2.

Now the problem is, 1 John 2 .2 is not a text that is talking about the purpose of atonement, effect of atonement, it is saying that not only people who are believers now, but people who are not believers now, both Jews and Gentiles, will experience the substitutionary and the propitiatory work of Jesus Christ.

The problem is, you have to change the meaning of propitiation to fit a universal reading into 1 John 2 .2. It would be nice if Bill Craig could be challenged with these things, but Bill Craig won't debate Christians on these issues.

And so, there you go. But it seems to me that the fairly obvious answer to your question is, if you reject Christ's payment for your sins, then you have to pay the penalty yourself. Where does the Bible ever talk about rejecting Christ's payment?

We reject Christ, not the idea of rejecting payment. Anyway, only Calvinists who deny libertarian human freedom, because the Bible denies it over and over and over again in explicit terms, no one can come to me unless this happens, only Calvinists would be troubled by your question.

No, we would just answer the question biblically, actually. Which is precisely why the doctrine of limited atonement finds itself only in Reformed circles. Well, duh, we're the only monergists that it could exist with.

The person who believes in libertarian human freedom can consistently say that while God offers you the gift of forgiveness and eternal life on the basis of Christ's atoning death, if you reject that gift, then you will remain unforgiven and culpable for your sins.

Which means, Alan, that the synergist can only offer you a hypothetical atonement, not a truly substitutionary atonement, which is why substitutionary atonement is a Reformed doctrine. And those who hold to it, who are not Reformed, can only do so inconsistently.

Now I'm thankful for those who do, even inconsistently. But that remains the fact, that that's the problem. So I would, without hesitation, reject premise number one above, those who reject Christ's atoning sacrifice, their sins, and shut their hearts against God's grace, will pay for their sins.

Well, again, it's not so much rejecting Christ's atoning sacrifice as it is refusing to repent and believe. Let's see, there was something else that says, what disturbs me most about your question, Alan, is your comment that you're growing more skeptical about Christianity.

You're moving in quite the opposite direction to others who wrote me questions this week. For example, a medical practitioner in the UK reports that his study of doctrine of apologetics has added considerable substance to my faith and energized my walk with God.

If the grounds for your skepticism lie in arguments like the one you shared, then you need to study harder Christian theology and apologetics. May I recommend our Defenders podcast on this website? It would be tragedy for you to lose faith over misconceptions.

Well, it would be certainly a tragedy for anyone to walk away from the faith, but the question is, what is the nature of this individual's faith? And the synergist, evidently, would have to say, well, it's possible he is a true Christian, but could lose that position over against the biblical perspective that, again, man-centered versus God-centered.

Is the focus upon the sheep who wander away from the shepherd who wants to save everybody, or is the focus upon the perfection of the shepherd who will save his sheep? I've said it before, I'll say it again, the William Lane Craig genre of apologetics is determined by the apologetic approach determining theology.

From our perspective, your theology is what has to determine your apologetics. It just simply has to go that direction. That's the only way it can possibly work. Ta-da, ta-da, ta-da. Cy says something about very hard to find.

I'll advise you to follow someone if you have not been to Hope Reform Medford. Believe me, me and Hope know each other very well. In fact, I was having dinner with Rich Jensen last evening after speaking at Grace, and we were talking about my first debates out here on Long Island, which were in 1995, so 19 years ago, even before Hope started.

Hope started the next year, and I've been out to Hope many times, including their new location, where they are right now. So yes, I very well know where Hope Reform Baptist is. I appreciate your worry about my getting to where Hope Reform Baptist is, but yeah, I know where it is.

All right, let's see here. Looks like we're still feeding correctly and everything's working right. That's a good thing. Now the next test of the system is I want to go back to finish up Brian Zahn's opening statement.

Limited Atonement, Propitiation, and the Nature of Salvation

Oh, before I do that, before I do that, hold on, before I do that, there's been various developments since last week in the field of Roman Catholicism and the current brouhaha in regards to the Pope. There was an article, and let me see here.

It should be under web clips. Where did it go? I saw one just this morning. It was very, very interesting. Let's see. How do I open up this one? There it is. I'll get there eventually. Cardinal Burke, Catholic Church under Pope Francis is a ship without a rudder.

I'm not sure about that. I just think that the rudder is turned hard left. Well, if turned hard left, let me go right. Well, whatever way you turn it for the ship to go left, that's the point. American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the feisty former Archbishop of St. Louis, who has emerged as the face of the opposition to Pope Francis' reformist agenda, likened the Roman Catholic Church to a ship without a rudder in a fresh attack on the Pope's leadership.

In an interview with the Spanish Catholic Weekly Vida Nueva published Thursday, October 30th, Burke insisted he was not speaking out against the Pope personally, but raising concerns about his leadership.

Many have expressed their concerns to me. At this very critical moment, there is a strong sense that the Church is like a ship without a rudder. Now, it is more important than ever to examine our faith, have a healthy spiritual leader, and give powerful witness to the faith.

Burke is the current head of the Vatican's highest court, and it was the Apostolic Signatura, but he said recently he is about to be demoted. There is speculation he will be made patron of the Order of Malta, a largely ceremonial post.

I have all the respect for the Petrine ministry, and I do not want to seem like I am speaking out against the Pope, he said in the interview. I would like to be a master of the faith, with all my weaknesses, telling a truth that many currently perceive.

They are feeling a bit seasick because they feel the Church's ship has lost its way. Burke has expressed an uncompromising stance on keeping the ban on communion for Catholics who divorce and remarry without an annulment, and is one of the five conservative cardinals who aired their views in a new book, Remaining in the Truth of Christ, released on the eve of the Bishop's Blockbuster Synod in early October.

When the Synod signaled a more welcoming tone to gay and lesbian Catholics, Burke publicly accused the global gathering of bias, and was among those who pushed for a less conciliatory approach in the final report.

Burke had previously said that Catholic families should not expose children to the evil of homosexuality by inviting gay son home for Christmas with his partner. Now, it's interesting. Oh, first of all, just in commenting in passing, there have been a number of us, and I haven't been able to jump into these conversations, but I have been monitoring them, so I thank those of you who include me in the CC lists and the emails and stuff, but there have been a number of us who have been noting that the Catholic apologetics community is reeling a bit.

A lot of the really conservative people have either just taken their blogs down, haven't put anything up for ages, and just seem to be in hiding. This pope has given them very little reason, as conservatives, to have much hope for the direction of their particular church, and for those apologists who are continuing, are soldiering on, their work is becoming extremely difficult.

Difficult. In fact, I'm hoping that this is, yeah, this is the one. Oh, well, why didn't it give you this? I'm pretty sure this is Mark Shea. He was commenting on that comment that I mentioned last week, where the pope talked about God is not a divine being.

He was using the term demiurge there. He meant that in a magical sense. You know, I still disagree with his whole concept of capitulating to Darwinism and so on and so forth, but he wasn't trying to say God's not God or something like that.

And that's somewhat what Mark Shea is responding to. But at the end of his article, here's what Mark Shea had to say. See, life is getting a little tough for the Catholic apologetics organizations. Francis is keeping them up at night, and he says, the pope is, I promise you, a real Catholic chill.

And then here, listen to this last paragraph. And before you so much as begin to say, quote, why does he keep saying things that sow so much confusion, end quote, consider asking instead, quote, why do I keep listening to people who sow so much confusion about what the pope says?

Why don't I learn my faith better so I don't keep having these panic attacks over nothing? End quote. Now, it's fascinating to me to watch a Catholic apologist who for years have made their bread and butter out of attacking Sola Scriptura and saying that Sola Scriptura leads to confusion.

Sola Scriptura, the blueprint for anarchy, is Patrick Madrid's worn out line. Now, the chickens have come home to roost, shall we say. And what we have said all along is being illustrated to the nth degree.

And that is the papacy never has been and never will be an answer to the issue of false teaching. It will never provide you with what you think you need, that you think the scriptures don't provide. Because you see, as soon as the pope says anything, it has to be interpreted.

As soon as a council writes something out, it has to be interpreted. And so all you're doing is adding to the material that has to be interpreted and hence to the possible interpretations. Adding to the text of scripture, the authority of the traditions of men accomplishes that.

Oh, but it's a living voice. Yeah, so Francis is a living voice and you're getting all sorts of interpretations. And right now, I'll be perfectly honest with you, the Catholic apologetics people are having to spin what he's saying because it's pretty obvious what his real viewpoints are, isn't it?

And it's not consistent. I mean, honestly, just a basic level of honesty. Isn't it obvious that Francis believes fundamentally different things on very important issues than Cardinal Ratzinger, the still living, former, no longer infallible pope guy?

Isn't it obvious that he believes different things than all of the popes that lived in the 19th century? And the century before that, and the century before that, isn't it? Isn't it obvious? I mean, it makes this whole infallibility stuff so empty of any type of meaning because, oh, but he hasn't said anything, ex cathedra, no, no, no.

Come on, you know how you all use it. You have the itsy bitsy teeny weeny infallibility when you're defending it and a big comforting infallibility when you all are talking amongst yourselves and you've got this continued guidance of the church and blah, blah, blah, blah.

So who knows what the future will bring? How far, you know, how much spin is going to be enough for some of these folks before they start realizing this doesn't work? Maybe there's a better way. And yeah, there actually is a better way.

It's just the one he rejected a long time ago. But there's also this other aspect of our interaction with the homosexualist movement. And that brings me to some comments. We are going to get this on. But that brings me to some comments about the DRLC meetings last week.

I only got to listen to a small portion. I tried to listen on my phone. As soon as I put the cover on my phone, it would stop streaming. I didn't get a whole lot. But I've certainly seen things online and was sent a Wall Street Journal article today on the subject that primarily focused upon the comments of Justin Lee and Matthew Vines, who attended, I guess, there were a number of the, quote, gay Christian movement in, end quote, sorry about that, in attendance at the get together.

And evidently, there was some kind of closed door meeting with the leaders of this movement. A couple things are concerning to me, just in what I have read. And it could just be the spin of the reporting.

And maybe further discussion with the people that were there, some more background would alleviate some of the concerns that I have. For example, one of the, Russell Moore, if I recall, one of the leading speakers at the conference, was asked if he would attend a homosexual marriage ceremony.

And of course, I, again, I don't know what other terminology to use. I like Doug Wilson's mirage, same-sex mirage ceremony. But someone might not know what you're talking about when you say that. But would you attend one of these, from my perspective, profaning of marriage ceremonies?

His answer was, I would not attend the ceremony, but I would attend the reception. Well, I was talking with a dear pastor friend about this via Twitter this morning, and I said, well, there's not a specific biblical text that addresses this issue, because the whole idea of redefining marriage in this way is completely outside of the spectrum of biblical revelation.

But I certainly could never do that. I could not attend anything associated with that. And would, in all good conscience, always make very clear my firm belief that this relationship is not in any way parallel to the relationship that I have with my wife, or that my parents had for over 50 years, or et cetera, et cetera.

It's simply not marriage, and it can't be called marriage, and marriage is cheapened when you do that. That also means I could never go to a reception or anything associated with it. And so, I could not do that, and I don't understand the reasoning that would see a difference between going to the wedding itself or going to the reception.

And of course, people say, well, you're just not being friendly. No, it's not a matter of being friendly. Some of you who saw my exchange with Matthew Vines on debating, you need to start realizing what these folks are doing.

They are demanding that we accept a level of legitimization for them and their position before they will ever even debate whether their position has merit or not. We need to recognize that there are different, and unfortunately, this recognition isn't being done, and I think it's causing a problem.

There are non-Christian homosexuals who do not want to be married. That's one group. That's the largest group. The vast majority of males, especially male homosexuals, have no interest whatsoever. They have multiple partners all the time, like it that way, not interested.

Remember, we're talking less than 10 of the quote-unquote homosexual community has any interest in any of these things, and that's 3 of the population. So what's that? We've now eliminated 99 .7 of the human family from this entire conversation.

So you've got them. Then you have the non-Christian homosexuals who desire to marry. Then you have the homosexuals who claim to be Christian who do not desire to marry, and the homosexuals who claim to be Christian who do desire to marry.

Those who claim to be Christian, who are seeking to overthrow, redefine, revise the biblical teaching on this subject, are heretics. Change the subject for a moment. What do you call someone who calls himself a Christian and is working to change the Christian view of the resurrection so as to deny that Jesus Christ rose from the dead?

What do you call that person? A false teacher and a heretic. What do you call a person who calls himself a Christian but is seeking to change the Bible's teaching and view in regards to the role of pastors and just doing away with the office?

False teacher and a heretic. These are plain biblical teachings that are right there in the text of Scripture. Do we, how do we approach someone who is seeking to promote false teaching within the church?

I mean, you're going to approach them differently than you're going to approach an individual who says, I experience, obviously, those who call themselves Christians, who experience same-sex attraction, and yet say, I will not be defined by my attractions.

I will be defined only by Christ and His Word. Therefore, I will live celibately. I will seek the Lord to change my desires. If He does not see fit to do so, then I will glorify Him in the subjugation of those desires to the clear teaching of the Word of God as to what sexual purity is.

Those individuals should be part and parcel of our churches and should be the people that we are investing effort in to assist them in their walk of holiness. And they should be honored members of the fellowship.

Such were some of you. That's 1 Corinthians 6 .11. But I don't think those people identify themselves as homosexuals. And that's why I reject Justin Lee's definition and Matthew Vine's definition that if you've ever experienced same-sex attraction, that makes you a homosexual, period, end of discussion.

That is not a Christian view of mankind. That is a humanist view of mankind, that you're defined by your desires. No, you're not. Not biblically. That, from a humanist perspective, a naturalist perspective, materialist perspective, sure, fine.

But we're talking Christianity here. So that group will be viewed very, very differently than those who, knowing what the Bible says, seek to overthrow that through revisionism and through the oft-refuted arguments that are being offered in their most scholarly form by someone like a James Brownson, in their less scholarly, more popular forms by Matthew Vines and Justin Lee and the pastor of Vineyard Church up in Wisconsin somewhere, those more populous presentations.

How should Christian leaders respond to those two different groups? Well, I've already said how we should be responding to the first group that wishes to live under the Lordship of Christ and not change the church, but see themselves changed.

But I would see the primary responsibility of the leadership of the church to engage those others in debate, refute their false teachings, and warn the sheep. Now, you don't have to be mean and nasty, but the problem is, in our society today, you're directly defining them as false teachers, as being mean and nasty, and it's not.

That's called being loving to the sheep. That's called being clear. That's called being biblical. That's called following apostolic example. And so I do think that the pro-homosexualist movement will spin and use things like this past meeting to say, see, we're making strides here, and we will only engage people who will not treat us as false teachers.

Well, what if the whole position we're holding is that you are a false teacher? Isn't that your position about us? I mean, honestly, just on a logical level, if what you're arguing is true, if arson equites doesn't mean what it clearly means, and if Leviticus 18 and 20, all that stuff in there about the poor and the elderly and your parents and all that kind of stuff is irrelevant, just like Leviticus 18, 22, and 20, 13 is supposed to be irrelevant, and if all Paul was really talking about was excessive sin in Romans 1, and not just plain old sin, and if the Bible's actually completely insufficient to even address the desire for faithful, committed, monogamous relationships, then those of us who are saying otherwise, we're the false teachers, aren't we?

How can you avoid saying that? So are you really saying that, well, we will identify you as false teachers, but if you identify us as false teachers, we will not engage you in debate? Clearly inconsistent, clearly a double standard, and so I'm not surprised that they would be spinning this, but we'll see what comes of it.

We'll see what comes of it. I would like to, I would assume someplace, all of the talks have been archived, and I'd like to grab at least three or four of them to gain a good flavor of exactly what was being said and what was being said at the thing.

I just saw something in Channel. What are the topics Dr. White will address in Europe? Well, as far as I know, I don't know right now. You could contact EBTC. Christian Anderson and Theo were just here in New York.

They were at Duggar Master's Church yesterday. I didn't even know it, and they just flew back to Germany today, and so it might take them a few days to get back to you, but you could contact them to see if I will be doing any public speaking, but right now, as far as I know, all I will be addressing, all I'll be doing is teaching a class in Kiev on the Trinity and a class in Berlin on justification.

I would imagine you could ask about auditing those classes or taking those classes or something along those lines, but that would all be up to EBTC and Urban Biblical Seminary outside of Kiev. So there you go.

Normally I do end up, I think, now that I think about it, I think I did see something about preaching at Christian Anderson's church, but I'm not 100 certain on that, so we'll find out. Still got a few weeks to that, but that's where we're going.

Okay, let us press on here. Let me just double check and see if there's anything else coming through the Twitter sphere and like. Check Twitter real quick here in case anything popped up. Nope, nothing in the past 27 minutes.

You all have just been fascinated with this scintillating conversation. Let's go back to finish up Brian Zahn's opening statement and then go to his rebuttal statement. This was the last thing that we heard Brian Zahn saying.

That God is like Jesus, but Calvin's caste system looks nothing like the radical hospitality of Jesus. How is it good news to say God's going to save some of you, but most of you are damned from eternity for eternity?

You say, well, we don't say that. Yeah, that's because it's the dirty secret. No, it's not the dirty secret. It's just not the apostolic example. We do say that all, in fact, are under the... Oh, hold on a second.

Hold on one second. Christian and Theo are still in the U .S. till mid-November. Can contact them. Oh, I'm guessing that Doug is listening. Hi, Doug. Just down the road from you here, actually. In fact, I think I'm closer to you than the church I'm going to this evening.

Oh, they're still in the U .S. till mid-November. Can contact them. Well, I will. I guess they're doing a lot of traveling around. They do a lot of that. Okay, well, I'm sure they're probably still checking their email and hence our friend could contact them anyways and find out what we're going to be doing in just a matter of weeks when we get back.

So anyway, going back to Brian's on there, I just saw that pop up and thought I wanted to get that. It's not a dirty little secret. The reality is that we say all men are under the condemnation of sin, and since we don't know who the elect are, it would be ridiculous for us to speak in this way.

So to accuse us of hiding something that we're trying to, you know, that we just don't want people to know is absurd. So many times the objections to Reformed theology are based upon the assumption that we know the identity of the elect, and we do not.

And so we are following the apostolic example in the proclamation of the Gospel to command all men everywhere to repent. We recognize the rest of what Scripture teaches, which is being filtered out by Zond and his fellow emergents, but the reality remains that we accept everything that the Scripture teaches on the subject.

But my Gospel has no dirty secrets. Calvinists like to speak about the glory of God, but I'm not sure they understand what that word means. Does glory mean to be overawed into terror? No, the glory of God is the beauty of God.

Well, the glory of God includes the beauty of God, but it is not limited to the beauty of God. The salvation of the elect will be to the praise of his glorious grace. Okay? If Zond's position was correct, it would almost of necessity have to lead to universalism for his reasoning to fit, because if you're glorifying his glorious grace, you're glorifying his grace and the salvation of a specific people, but not all people are saved, then that glory obviously doesn't fit into the categories that Zond just laid out, does it?

Just one example that could be given. Is a God who condemns the majority of human beings to an eternal hell from birth powerful and terrifying? Yes. Is that God beautiful? No. Again, you have to so twist the presentation, because the biblical presentation is that God's glorified in the salvation of undeserving sinners.

That's what he is glorified in. And the flip side to that, the demonstration of his justice, yeah, actually God is glorified in that as well in a different fashion. Just as you have that amazing statement that Michael Brown asked Brian Zond about, and Zond really didn't have an answer for, that statement in Revelation concerning the wrath of the Lamb.

If your theology isn't big enough to understand that there will be a day when people cry out for the rocks to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb, then your theology isn't big enough to be called biblical.

The one who is a Lamb who has given himself has wrath, and it's just wrath. And are you going to tell me that Jesus does things and did not glorify the Father? Again, this is what happens when you create a system of theology and then you decide what portions of the scriptures you're going to be comfortable with in light of that.

But Jesus is beautiful, and does Jesus capriciously reject people? No. Does Jesus behave like Calvin's God of reprobation? No. Jesus said to Jews who are standing right in front of him, you're not of my sheep.

Now, an ultimate being cannot be capricious by definition. You have to diminish the God of eternity to allege capriciousness on his part, but the fact of the matter is that Jesus specifically taught what he did in the synagogue Capernaum so as to result in the walking away of all but one of the false disciples.

Of all but one of the false disciples, and that was Judas. That's not capriciousness, but that is sovereignty. And that same Jesus is the one who in John 9 leads one blind man to see and leaves an entire group of seeing men in their blindness.

I could multiply the examples where this faux Jesus, this this is the Jesus that makes me feel good, simply doesn't fit the Jesus of the Bible. Does Jesus equate glory with force? He never does. David Bentley Hart.

Does Jesus ever equate glory with force? Well, I would say that in John chapter six, when Jesus says, no one could come to me unless the father who sent me draws them, that Hakuo there is an exercise of energy and power in bringing someone because Jesus says, all the father gives me will come to me.

It is inappropriate to call that force because we're talking about hearts of stone being turned to hearts of flesh. But if you want to use words of force, what's resurrection? What's resurrection? You see, I'm tired of synergists robbing God of his glory by redefining terms and thinking that we're not smart enough to catch them in their equivocation.

Resurrection is the exercise of power, and in this context, you could call it force. Is it not? Aren't you glad that God exercised that power in reference to yourself? I certainly am. I certainly am. Such a God, the God of will, the God who is something like Nietzsche's Ubermensch, who is nothing but the will to power.

This God is nothing but will, nothing but an infinite brute event. The only adoration that such a God can evoke is an almost perfect coincidence of faith and nihilism. So the God revealed in Jesus Christ is not capricious and cruel, but he is the beautiful God of unconditional love.

And that's his opening statement. Unbiblical, incoherent, incapable of defense in any meaningful fashion, destructive of all grounds of apologetics because it is inconsistent and unbiblical. It is false teaching and robs the children of God of a full-orbed picture of God and leaves them, because it is a minimized picture, because it is a partial picture, leaves them subject to being crushed by the realities of life when God causes us to walk through the truly difficult times, the fiery trials.

We're left with no true foundation upon which to deal with those issues. And that's one of the reasons that I oppose this kind of false teaching. And again, in our society, we'll be accused of unkindness and unlovingness, but my love is for God, for his Gospel, and for the sheep, because the sheep are the ones who are damaged by this kind of leather-jacketed airheadedness, because that's what it is.