DANGERS of the "Church of Christ" | Round 2

The Apologetic Dog

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When they see the word work of God, that's code for works of obedience that you do, okay?

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And so this kind of stems from John chapter 6 Because we see that phrase and what's my pattern?

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We're gonna define terms We're gonna look at context and we're gonna be consistent. Tell people that's what we're gonna do every time

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It'd be no different here. Like they really think this is a like a big defeat Just look at context

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Welcome back ladies and gentlemen, I'm your host Eli Ayala and I am here with The apologist with perhaps the coolest apologetics like ministry name the apologetic dog just makes me picture me like Walking my dog and an atheist comes up and before I open my mouth

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My dog starts spitting arguments at him and that's that's pretty intense, bro Apologetic dog that is awesome.

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Well, I am happy to have my good friend Jeremiah Now I say my good friend.

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I better pronounces his last name, right? Nortier got it. No, you like the

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French version. Is it North Hill North? Yeah, I can't In the South a lot we say

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Nortier Nortier I've had Jeremy on a number of times and The particular episode that I think people found really useful was when we were talking about the

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Church of Christ And we had a lot of negative comments about that episode but we also had some very positive ones and I've actually had people personally reach out to me to express how helpful that episode was so We we know this going into these sorts of discussions that not everyone's gonna agree but we do our best

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Jeremy does his best to just share things from his perspective as he understands things and tries to explain and give

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You know the truth from the Word of God as best as he can and we just pray that God through his grace Allows those seeds to take root and grow and so we're here we are to continue to do that But before we do that,

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I want to talk about his recent debate on baptism. This this man is a debating dog

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He's a beast I think he does such a great job and he does it it's with such kindness but with biblical precision

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I really do appreciate listening to him teach and speak. So we're gonna jump right into that in just a few moments

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But I want to read something that someone sent me that was an encouragement now I hear this all the time you guys know that on this channel.

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We do some precept man where I'm a presupposition list, right people Come to this channel.

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They know they're gonna get presuppositional apologetic methodology And you have kind of the mixed reaction of the people who take the various camps of apologetic methods, you know

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There's always there's always those people, you know apologetics a precept sounds interesting

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The problem what it is. It doesn't work, right? Okay Now I have a problem when people say something doesn't work.

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Okay Apologetics is not simply a pragmatic thing, right?

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We don't do precept because it works or doesn't work We primarily do it because we think that it's biblical.

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You think it's a biblical approach to apologetics That's the first and foremost reason why we do it

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And if it's biblical Then it will work in so far as it accomplishes what the scriptures say Apologetics is supposed to accomplish and we leave room for the work of the

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Spirit and things like that. However To satisfy those people who say that it doesn't work.

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Okay, I'd like to read something. I was a sense I can't mention any names I don't want to mention any name and drag anyone into this and details, but someone had reached out to me and Texted me this so he says so I just talked to a

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Christian who got saved because of presuppositional apologetics So here's an encouragement keep doing what you're doing.

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He also said that nowadays nowadays he listens to your stuff almost daily Thank you very much And then he said yes

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He was a hard atheist and tag the transcendental argument for God's existence just stuck with him

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Today, he is three years saved and active in church. Okay. There you go, right?

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Does it work? Yes Is that the reason why we do it? Not necessarily, but God does use it.

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And so when someone says well, where are the results? Well, I mean this is a wonderful example of the results of Using such a method in form of argumentation and I can

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I could attest and I'm sure Jeremiah could attest your personal interactions. I have seen God use presuppositional apologetics quite powerfully that said

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To not rattle any cages unnecessarily I've also seen God use classical apologetics, right as we famously say

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God can strike a blow with a broken stick and in reality while I think I have the right Apologetic method we are all broken sticks.

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And so God uses us nonetheless. So there you go, right? I'm not gonna throw any red meat to the to the tribe, right?

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You know the the camp but uh, I I don't know who's told who told me this But they said that I like how

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I do apologetics better than how you don't do apologetics So I'm a presupper.

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I hope more people use presupp because I think it's biblical but if you're using classical or evidential Hey, that's not my cup of tea.

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I've got my issues, but I think God can still use it and so keep talking about Christ keep thinking rationally and biblically and In the end when we go to be with Christ and glory, we'll all be presuppers then.

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So anyway, I Just wanted to get that little that little bit out. Let's jump right in We're five minutes in got some people listening in.

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Thank you so much, and I'm looking forward to talking about this So Jeremiah, you have been making your rounds a little not gonna lie.

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I'm a little jelly a little little jealous Doing all these cool debates.

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Let me make sure I get on. Let me see this gentleman's name You just recently debated a gentleman by the name of Gavin James.

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Am I correct? Is that yes? Yes, Kevin James on the topic of Baptism it was the baptism debate proposition is what our baptism necessary for our justification before God Okay, baptism super important topic

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We obviously will not hold to the position that baptism is necessary for justification But that is not to undermine the great importance of baptism.

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So how did that debate come about? I mean you walk up to someone on the street and be like, you know, we debating right now on justification

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But what is the context for this interaction you had with with Gavin?

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Good question a few months ago I was on the cultish podcast with our friends

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Andrew and the other Jeremiah And you have a brother named Jeremiah, right? I do.

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Yes. All right. We're the Jeremiah crew Me me and my friend the fishbone

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Trey Fisher. This was his second time on cultish on Examining the

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Church of Christ and we see them outside of the fault Unfortunately, and we say this with love and care

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We do not think they believe in the right gospel that they veered away from Orthodoxy They've added works into the gospel of grace and added it with faith.

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And so that's what he talked about in cultish and And Eli we've had a ton of feedback both good and bad and so Gavin messaged me on Facebook and He told me that He really likes the cultish podcast and then to his dismay

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He found that there was two episodes on the church the Church of Christ being a cult And so he was telling me or asking me to reconsider basically and I just invited him.

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I said hey You know, I'm sure you're very passionate about your position I'm passionate about holding to faith alone looking in the perfect Savior alone.

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And that's how we're made right before God I was like, how about we have just a public discussion debate on this and one thing led to another and so We're able to make that happen.

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And so I real quick before we continue on with that I just want to encourage people go to the cultish podcast go check out those episodes

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I love the work that Jeremiah Roberts and Andrew are doing out there at Apologia You're no stranger to Apologia yourself

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Yes, I have the opportunity to go up there and record six I don't call them lectures, but I guess they're lectures six teachings

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I suppose on Presuppositional apologetics and it's gonna be available on their Apologia Studios Academy in the near future

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So I had an opportunity to meet Jeff and Have dr. James White buy me dinner.

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I mean that that's that was that was cool, man I'm a little jelly. No, I was like I was driving with him in his car and I'm like look

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I'm like James white truck like this is weird and awesome at the same time.

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So on the back of his truck Did it say Christ or chaos kind of? Let me tell you something

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I don't remember the color but when when you see James white in a debate He's all dressed up in his suit and you know, he's being

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James white when I see him in his natural habitat He comes in and picks me up in this bright. I think it was his bright orange jacket with these like Ultimate warrior shades, you know, like wow, this guy is cool

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He has such a unique style about him. It was awesome and we had such a good time to such a Different very different person from the debate stage and then when you're kind of just hanging with him casually it was really cool to to kind of hang with him in that context, but yeah, that was that was recently and I'm Looking forward maybe doing something again in the future.

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So we're actually having the cultish podcast host on this show where we are going to do an episode called the presupping the cults presupposing the cults

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So we'll be talking about various cults and maybe issues of the occult and kind of dig into how we will we could approach those topics from a

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A presuppositional approach so that I'm looking forward to that. That's in early April. I think April 8th

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I have to double -check but I think that's it. That's just around the corner just around the corner Yeah, so looking forward to that.

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Those are great guys there and they're doing some great work But let's get back to what you're doing man that that's awesome that you were people should definitely check out your interviews there

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And I highly recommend if you haven't already The apologetic dog YouTube channel,

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I highly recommend and I'm not I'm not just saying this because Jeremiah is a great guy and he's doing awesome things.

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He's got some really good content I mean if if you kind of put this on pause and kind of just like subscribe to his channel and like just do him

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A solid he's almost at let me see you you are currently at 900 900 subs

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They're actually on a race with a few other YouTube channels to 1k. Help me people.

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Yeah We do need to support people who are doing good ministry, right and support sometimes just means

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Subscribing right that means something. So so if you guys can if you haven't already go to the apologetics dog

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YouTube channel and support Support your local apologist sound like a infomercial, right?

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If you go right now to the apologetic dogs Channel and subscribe you will receive a small vial of oil from the

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Holy Lamb. It's getting Who knows you'll get some Pentecostals going over there real quick So so this debate let's go

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I'm a little saucy today so I do apologize I'm ready to go. I've got my I got my Bonson coffee mug.

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Oh, yeah the coffee I'm ready to talk about this important topic. So so the context of the debate is as you explained it why why?

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Why was the proposition Framed in the way that it was It says here is what our baptism necessary for our justification

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Before God why not the generic is is baptism necessary for salvation?

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What's the reason for that wording? So me being in apologetics and in the bait realm.

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These are the types of categories I'm constantly contending for like when we say or is it necessary for salvation?

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Well, which part of our salvation are we talking about justification we talk about sanctification or we we're talking about what

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Jesus accomplished Calvary talking about Glorification and I'm not gonna lie Eli as he was knocking on my door saying hey reconsider these things

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I was like, hey, let's debate and he it was pretty soon where he said, okay, I'm interested in this

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He goes I don't have a YouTube account. I said all you need is a camera. He said, okay And Really?

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Yeah, all you need is a phone and he asked me if I had any suggestions and I suggested this topic thinking

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Maybe he'd want to you know, word it a little bit differently, but he said no, I like it And I just thought well water baptism that way when we go to certain texts that I think is more

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Baptism of the Spirit. I don't want to get lost on that even though that's relevant And he would have been totally within the confines of the debate to ask me about what baptism of Spirit looks like We talked about the word necessary But more so in the sense of when we have forgiveness of sins now the

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Church of Christ They think at baptism your passions are washed away and the way that we view justification getting into this next term we believe it's the whole enchilada as Greg Bonson would have said right the whole enchilada all of our sins are forgiven and put on Calvary in exchange

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We receive that that righteousness of Christ. And so that's why I wanted to say necessary for our

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Justification because when we just say salvation in a broad sense We have to do some more heavy lifting to get at that term

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Sure to say that's what we're contending for here. Not not sanctification in the broad sense

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And so I want to just go ahead and put that out there Now we understand

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Justification as being forensic or judicial and that's so necessary This is what really sets us apart from a

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Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox But I tell people is if justification is judicial Then it's necessarily before God as judge.

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And so this is the language that Romans uses And so what's on the backside of that is what is

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James 2 talking about? What kind of justification is is that before because you and I've talked about this before this is in a context before men vindication before man

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Horizontal justification versus vertical justification so that so that and this is an important point in terms of just biblical

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Interpretation when you see the term justification It doesn't always mean what you think it means the context determines and so you have

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Paul utilizing Justification in a very different way than James is using justification That's a very important point because as you know,

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James chapter 2 is always brought up. Look, it's clear, bro The only place in Scripture, right?

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You've heard this before right the only place in Scripture where it says faith alone is preceded by Not by faith alone as though you've never read that before Well, just think that is always brought up So it's important to know the context there but good and I'm so quick to say read the whole verse

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It says you see carrying this person -to -person interaction and what kind of faith is he talking about?

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Oh a said faith He's not talking about pistis firm trust in the perfect Savior. Oh, yeah, we just developed that context.

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Well, that's excellent I like I like that wording and it really highlights really the center of the gospel and this idea that What what makes us right before God?

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Is it this declaration that God makes upon us by faith? Which itself is a gift of God or is it something we do?

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I think that's so important Now, can you kind of I think people from the other perspective might perceive a person like yourself and People like myself people in general who hold to this kind of justification by faith alone

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That we don't really take seriously the issue of baptism. What is the proper understanding that a justification by faith alone?

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Believer, what's the proper context that we should understand the importance of baptism if it's not for salvation

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Then is it really all that important? How should we how should we frame that in our own thinking as Christians?

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Yeah, something that I contended heavy for in the debate if some of our viewers go over there as you'll see me begin to articulate how our baptism is something we participate in in a work and It's a wonderful God glorifying sanctifying work that we do and participate in and so we just got to have the proper categories

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Scripture, I would say from Genesis to Revelation makes the case that it's based on our faith in the perfect Savior That's how we're justified.

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That's how we're saved But now we're on this wonderful journey of walking in the light walking with Christ in sanctification and so all of our works

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Ephesians 2 10 talks about how we're his workmanship created for good works all the commands given to us that we should

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Delight to obey belongs in our sanctification. That's what we're created unto after we've been declared right before God So works are not bad as long as we understand the proper category our works belong in our sanctification

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And so when we obey Christ's command to be baptized We are showing the watching world what true disciples of Christ look like we are set apart

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By the things that we do and how we identify with Christ. So that's huge in this debate

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I really made the distinction between justification and sanctification in faith and works and I saying guess what our baptism

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Which is a ceremonial right by definition belongs in our sanctification and it's a work that we do.

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Mmm All right. That's awesome. Now. I'm kind of gonna break my normal way of doing things. I usually take questions at the end

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But if some questions start coming in and we'll kind of just shoot them up right away So the people don't have to wait too long is a good question here too by Shane So if you have any questions, you're listening in Shane Fisher, that's right.

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If you have any questions Shoot them in the comments and we'll try to shoot them up and and and kind of get to them.

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So Shane, thank you so much for your question Shane asks, how is it justification before men when

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Abraham and Isaac were the only ones on the mount and according to Genesis 22 How were they justified before men?

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How would you how would you interact with that? Excellent question? I've been asked this time and before I answer I have a question for Shane Are you related to Trey Fisher?

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I want to know that I think y 'all are distant cousins So Genesis 22 is super important because we see that James 2 tells us that Abraham is being obedient to God was not

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Abraham justified by his works when he offered up his son Isaac And so how do we say that this is a vindication before men?

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I would say Shane you need to go read all of Genesis 22 Because when you do that You do see more people with Abraham There was two travelers with him and his son and he says something remarkable to the two travelers

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Because Abraham knows God told him to go sacrifice his son and he says to the two travelers

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Basically, I'll stay here and we will come back to you Okay, Hebrews 11 says that he had faith in God even to resurrect

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Isaac from the dead essentially And so he's putting his faith on display to them regardless of what they know is gonna happen all they see is

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Abraham's faith saying he knows with certainty full assurance that him and Isaac are going to come back

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So those are two witnesses I would say and then the third witness is

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Isaac himself This is an experience Isaac would never forget right? And so it keeps going

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And hey Isaac remember that time we went fishing yeah dad remember that time you like almost sacrificed me

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Oh, yeah, I remember that Actually, I'm reminded as you the way you answered. I know that I think it was

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Paul I don't remember where but he is making reference to the Exodus and the Wanderings in the wilderness and the disobedience of the people of Israel and he says to his current audience

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These things were written for you So that in a very broad sense we are witnesses to the genuineness of Abraham's Faith right you jumped ahead of me.

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I was Good I still got some more spice to add in there.

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Oh, you gotta have this you got the salt with salt Bay the justification No, no, you're good

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So what we're seeing set up with the three witnesses is a picture of how truth is established by three or more

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Witnesses that would come later in the law. So we have that but we're not done Because we also have a theophany

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Where the angel the Lord speaks from on high but to man's level and says this amazing statement

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Now I know that you fear God So when when in this conversation

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I also entertain the Church of Christ asking me this question a lot of times is do you think God was learning?

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Abraham's faith in this moment that he truly feared man or was he speaking on the human level which is what we're talking about That's what

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James 2 is talking about, right? And so John Calvin brings us out in his commentaries how

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God is speaking on man's level God is witness that true living faith will manifest itself out to the world

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But we see old and New Testament is the just shall live by faith, right?

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But we keep going baby because this was in the Pentateuch, right? So millions of Jews would be seeing

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Abraham's living faith put on display in the story And that is the application

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James 2 is also making to Christians. What do you think about that Eli? I think that that's good stuff it

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Shane continues I'm not sure if you're if your answer I Have it for Shane, but it won't he he

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I don't know if he's a professor if he teaches at Church Christ College But I've invited to him to debate me on Marlon's channel or Donny's channel.

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I taught him anything he wants Let's do it. He told me he'll already do it on this channel. I don't think I've ever had a baptism before on this channel

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Yeah, I don't I don't mind Okay, so here here Shane asked again, so he has first of all he says no he's not related to the

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Shane that you know Clarification Shane so Shane continues in your debate

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Jeremiah you admitted that there are different categories of works Could you please elaborate more on that saying you you got ahead of us man?

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Cuz I definitely want to bring this up, but now is the best time as ever Okay, cuz Eli I figured out a few things with the lingo scaling the language barrier with the

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Church of Christ Okay, so I think it's interesting that they think it's profound that we do have

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Categories for work, so I just want to tell people clearly what I'm talking about for one We have the works of God, which it's no surprise

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I'm a monergist and I would go to Ephesians 1 11 to say look Monergistically God is working out all things together

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After the council of his will I just preach a sermon on this by the way People if they want to hear that develop

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I get a little rowdy in the pulpit too, so some people like that So that's number one you got the works of God the things that God is doing

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Okay, that's gonna be important because they they will use the the term the work of God differently than what we mean

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I mean, it's literally what God is doing. God is working by sustaining the creation by the word of his power

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Okay, and so then we have another category of human works human effort

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Accomplishments that we participate in and do okay, so that's a category

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So I want to continue to look under the category of human effort human achievement human works

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We are not saved by anything that we do anything that we can accomplish by our hands get up and walk and do using our feet

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And then after we're saved after we're declared right before God by faith

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Which is firm trust from the heart in the perfect Savior, then we're created unto good works

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We're not gonna just do anything under the Sun that would be sinful because that's still under the domain of works

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We're called to good works commandments that Christ has Given us to do and participate in as we're

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Walking with him in sanctification and so yeah in the debate Gavin I think he was wanting me to say no works is the same every time without qualification.

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I just said yeah There's a huge difference between Ephesians 2 9 and 10 and it's the difference of being saved

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We've been called out of darkness and now we can do things that are pleasing to God like the commandments that he's given us

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All right Excellent. Very good. Yeah works is an interesting thing. I was talking about this with my students just recently

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Whereas we're not saved by our works, but we're our works are rewarded aren't they? Yeah Bible speaks about being rewarded for our work.

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So they do play a function. We're not minimizing works We just want to understand them in the proper context. So, all right,

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Shane has one more question and then And then we'll continue back to the specifics of the debate but another question too

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Can we can we do a debate? Maybe in the near future Okay, well he can she could uh,

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I don't mind I'm done Jeremiah's trying to debate everybody look at this You see you're you're like a

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James. They're not James White, but you're James Brown. He's got a brown James, I'm right

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James Brown. I just caught myself there First before I get into this one

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Shane not Shane. Sorry. This is a words of truth from Scripture Jeremiah talks quick question

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How hard was it not to laugh when unarmed Gavin looked like a deer in headlights? So apparently

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I did not catch this part but apparently there was a moment where you made a point that had awkward silence, maybe it was kind of a

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Not it not a cheap shot moment, but you had like a gotcha moment. I Presume well, there are multiple

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Okay, but I want to tell this individual I have enjoyed our talks He's somebody that's reached out to me in light of some of my works

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I will say me and this person have vast disagreements But we can actually laugh and be cordial with one another and so I appreciate that so much

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I thought Jeremiah you were going to challenge this person to a debate. So Would I would but he has told me clearly he's done podcasts this individual and he thinks debates are sinful

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And so we had a not debate on if debates were sinful or not in our phone conversations

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But it was good. Like I really appreciate it and I'm talking we for two hours We had we had a dialogue and I want to tell him something real fast

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So as the pauses were coming up as I was asking challenging questions My heart is to evangelize so not to belittle or make fun of somebody and that's one of the biggest feedback

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Eli I've gotten from people is they could feel my love towards Gavin. Yeah, so that that was the goal so and sometimes being caught in in as it like a deer in headlights is necessary to expose a

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False position right? All right, as long as we don't use that as opportunities to to act sinfully towards people, right?

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So very good. Excellent. All right. Well here we go back to Shane's question. Yeah Shane had a question here.

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How was Rahab hiding the spies? justification before men so Kind of similar principles earlier for one the spies themselves are seeing

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Rahab's faith put on display But we see but we see them the better application come out in James is to Chapter twos point of what true living faith looks like so we are the beneficiaries of seeing

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Rahab's faith because if you go back in the Old Testament to Joshua 2 I may be totally wrong on that.

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I think it's in Joshua 2 But if you look at the whole narrative She was a sinner acting like a sinner and God showed her grace in spite of her sinfulness

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I won't preach sermon, but it's awesome. But there there's a sermon there. So yeah, excellent all right, so Let's talk about the

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I mean people can go and watch the opening statements and the rebuttals and things like that But I want to talk a little bit about where most people think the juice is and that's the cross -examination

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So you got earlier with the wise disciple? YouTube channel

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Nate Salah, he's been on my show before I've been on his he's got an excellent series on his channel called the debate

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Teacher reacts and he talks about how debate supposed to happen. And so I agree with him He says what all the action happens is in the cross -examination because in the cross -examination is where what debaters call?

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Clash comes out where you see really the distinct and unique differences of both the sides on full display

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Pressing up against each other where you can see the strength or lack thereof of a person's position.

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So What was the nature of you in other words when you were in cross -examination?

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What Kind of questions did you want to ask or did you ask so as to bring out clash?

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So as to show the strength of your position in the weakness of his with respect to the debate proposition

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So in answering this I want to tell you that two big things that I've learned from Nate Salah Love his channel watch everything that pumps out there and I always want to frame the conversation

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Well, whether I'm doing an opening whether I'm engaging in a rebuttal I want to remind the audience what we just heard and how it's either wrong and how

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I'm approaching it So framing the conversation he had a wonderful interview with William Lane Craig and they spent a lot of time talking about Framing the debate and so that's been invaluable

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Eli is dr. Craig is excellent at that. Oh, he's now I will remind you the three arguments

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I said at the beginning argument one Whatever begins say he's and you repeat sounded a robot but that remind constant reminder

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You're right kind of says that framework and allows the audience to follow along and of course, he does it in his own

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You know framing the discussion. Yes. That's what glows in my mind each debate.

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I'm thinking Okay, remember to bring the audience along where I'm going and explain it, right? The other the other thing that Nate has talked about is in cross -ex is setting a garden path, right?

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We're agreeing. We're just walking looking at the garden together and then BAM you pin them up against the wall, right?

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And so this this is my debate tactic is I want to know my opponents position well enough where I could argue for it

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Beforehand so this goes back to even what William Lane Craig has talked about is you can't over you can't over prepare for a debate

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Right, you're always just pumping in that time and you and I've talked about this How important that is to just put the necessary preparation into debate, right?

31:46

And so what I want to do is know their position well enough to be like, okay What are the things that we can agree with along the way but then we're gonna

31:54

I'm going to try to expose a massive Inconsistency, so my thinking is very presuppositional

32:01

I want to ask them questions how they account for certain things that I think is either impossible or very very

32:08

Difficult Sure. Excellent. So you're so the nature of your questions is to really bring out

32:14

What must be true in order for what you're saying over here to be true a hundred percent? Yeah Let's let's set the garden path together.

32:21

Let's agree. And then I'm about to ask you a question of consistency So this is this goes back to apologetics in general.

32:28

We're gonna scale the language barriers. We're gonna define terms We're gonna look at proof text in Context and if people go back to the debate not only every question

32:38

He asked did I just develop the context every time and remind him of certain definitions of words?

32:43

But then I press for consistency, right? And honestly, there's nothing magical like those three steps the defining words looking at context and being consistent.

32:53

That's my goal Everywhere and that should be everybody's goal, right? And and and laying the garden path to pin your opponent is not a disingenuous thing right within the context of a debate

33:04

I mean, that's the whole purpose of a cross -examination. The opponent is is is Welcome to do the same as well, right?

33:10

We want him to lay his garden path so that when he thinks he's got us we have an opportunity to explain it, right?

33:17

So that's that's a good good technique. Maybe people can hopefully they'll keep that in mind. That's that's that's important Okay, we have one more quite well not one more

33:24

I have another question here Thomas kink,

33:29

I apologize How do you guys make sense of someone leaving the faith like Tyler Vela who seemed to be a strong precept guy

33:37

Thanks. Well, they're perfectly honest I would make sense out of it in the same way Tyler would say we should make sense out of it in light of Calvinism Tyler is convinced the

33:47

Bible teaches Calvinism even if he is no longer a quote -unquote believer And so he would have to grant our explanation that there were those who are with us

33:56

But they left us because they were never of us, right? Notice what the question is asking who seemed to be a strong precept guy

34:04

The there is a difference with what what seems to be the case and what is actually the case

34:10

Someone can seem very confident very strong But in their personal life, they can have various issues spiritual issues moral issues or whatever the case may be and of course a tree is known by its fruit and eventually a

34:25

Fruit can look nice and eventually you bite into it only to find that it wasn't as healthy as It seemed so I would

34:32

I would I would describe Tyler's quote -unquote Deconversion right in the same way

34:40

Tyler would allow me as a Calvinist to explain it theologically, right? so if Calvinism is true and You know this idea that you know those who claim to be saved walk away

34:51

They're not really saved that would be the account that I would give regardless of how strong he seemed to be

34:56

Yeah, so that's how that's my take on it So I'll add the way that processed it.

35:02

I was shocked not happy Yeah, it was good on this hand on this side for my sanctification because I remember being in prayer still pray for Tyler Because I see content popping up on YouTube he's being interviewed by atheists and things like that But it's a good reminder that I don't need to put my trust in any human apologists

35:22

You know, I mean, it's a reminder that I need to keep my gaze on Christ and him and so that's not to disparage

35:29

You know looking up to guys like Eli or dr wide and Durbin and a lot of those guys But I need to make sure to keep the main thing the main thing and I remember listening to Tyler in the past I think you might have been talking with him.

35:41

He the way that he described his apologetic methodology was cousins to presuppositional ism

35:48

Because he was more in favor of arguing abductively inference to the best explanation. So he had a different bent

35:56

Which this is just observations like that made over time And I listened to all of his debates.

36:02

Excellent. He's an excellent debater. He's a very smart a smart guy. However After he kind of made his

36:10

Deconversion public he kind of said some stuff about Jesus that was really like even if I wasn't a

36:15

Christian I'm like, well, that's really sloppy It's very interesting to see him have some sloppy reasoning when I'm so used to seeing him very sharp and I would say that even if I if I wasn't a

36:25

Christian to be like Where'd you get that one from? But nevertheless, we don't want to get into details about that.

36:31

Yes. We need to pray for Tyler You know It's still feels weird when

36:37

I think about it, but God is in control either way. He's not our Savior Bonson's not our

36:42

Savior. James White is not our Savior William Lane Craig keep your eyes on Christ and Keep your focus on him.

36:49

That's all I can say. Yes. So what did you want to say something? Yeah I was gonna say one other observation because I mean

36:55

I'm analyzing everything and Because you know, I would fall in that Determinist camp understanding

37:02

God's sovereignty. And so I learned a lot from him, but I did not like how he Articulated and I could have been

37:08

I could be wrong with how I was perceiving this But the way he described God's eternal decree seemed to be active active rather than what

37:17

I would say Historically is active passive and because that's crucial and how we would Distinguish equal ultimacy and how

37:24

God is the primary causes and uses secondary means so there were just things that I thought I might would

37:29

Explain that a little bit different, right? Okay. Thank you for that question. That's that's fair game

37:35

We do we open up the chat and people could ask whatever they like. So those are those are our thoughts on that So I continue to pray for for Tyler Still consider him a great guy.

37:44

I haven't talked to him in a while. I have been busy myself, but I do follow along when

37:50

I see a post or a video, you know, I check in and see what's going on That's all

37:55

I could say about that so, um, all right, well, let's get back into this debate now you said towards the beginning that The Church of Christ would say that your sins are washed away what at the moment of baptism is it have

38:10

I got that, right? Eli your past sins man your past sins. Okay, so thankless.

38:15

Thank you See and I was drinking my coffee and it's still I'm kind of brain dead now stuff

38:21

So your past sins are forgiven yeah at the moment of baptism Have I got that right when you come into the the the watery graves of baptism?

38:30

That's how you receive the blood and when you come out, that's the moment your past sins are washed away

38:36

Okay, so now now I can't help but to think that when they use that language

38:41

They think that that language is strong because it reflects language of Scripture What kind of Scriptures would do they use to support that particular understanding because I know they they word it that way on purpose

38:54

Which is fine If you think of positions biblical and you want to use biblical terminology what scriptures do they use the strongest?

39:01

Scriptural support that you can think of in your experience that they use to support their particular understanding

39:08

So there's about three and I can't recall them recall them off the top of my head specifically I know one's in Ephesians 1

39:15

I know another one's in Acts 20 and they like to go to the one in Revelation 1 and all these references are the blood of Jesus right and and I noticed

39:26

Almost every time like I've not seen this yet They don't quote the one that I think would actually be better.

39:32

But I think I've discovered why in Romans chapter 3 But what's the revelation what's the

39:38

Revelation reference it might be around verse 7 off the top of my head

39:44

Not verse 7, but the one in Revelation We may have to do a quick search on it, but it just mentions about the blood of Jesus Essentially washing away sin.

39:55

Oh, it's a verse 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness and the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of Kings on earth to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood.

40:08

Mm -hmm Okay, one second here. I tried to get the scripture up there, but now my screen has exploded and there's a giant

40:15

See what happens when you try to be all technologically savvy and then it backfires Let's remove that.

40:21

Sorry. I was trying to get that. I'll figure that out. I should figure that out before I here Shane says

40:27

Romans 6 3 & 4 acts 22 16 first Peter 3 20 to 21 this okay.

40:32

This is a great example They leave out the to me the one that's even more precise than this now in Shane's defense

40:40

He's quoting a lot of verses that do bring in baptism But but when we're talking about coming in contact with the blood

40:48

Shane, I would recommend y 'all include Romans 3 225 let me read it real quick Eli sure and I'll even back up a little bit for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and we are

41:01

Justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom God put forward as a propitiation

41:07

Take care careful attention this by his blood to be received by Faith now in their mind they got their five -step formula.

41:17

You gotta you gotta hear the word you believe the word you got to repent And you got to be but you got to confess and you got to be baptized so in their mind

41:25

They have a five -step formula to be saved But what they don't tell you hidden step number six is it has to be in the church of Christ?

41:32

And then another hidden step is you got to continue to live a holy life to stay saved So I've discovered some of those hidden steps going on.

41:40

I like how you visually gave us like here's the five but there's this secret one

41:50

My mind's a scary place It's all good. All right. So what were some of the scriptures that your opponent used were these some of these very ones?

41:59

What was what do you think so so I could ask you in this way in in in interacting with with your opponent

42:05

Gavin? What was the strongest biblical point that he made did they did his points simply?

42:11

I mean and this is fine if you say yeah, you know to what I'm about to ask you But did his points just simply roll off you like no

42:19

Silly Gavin, right, you know You're you're so misguided or were there points that you could admit?

42:26

Yeah, you know what? I think you're wrong. But that that's a great point. Let's unpack that What was the strongest point of your opponent?

42:33

There's two points that I want to address and I'm the first to say I and I even in the debate if you go listen I will tell

42:39

Gavin I think that's a good point. Like I Don't have any shame to tell someone I think this is the direction that you should go

42:45

You know, I mean and so now we'll say on my end I think God has just prepared my heart by his grace to just love these things

42:53

So Gavin has a tick -tock and I went and listened to all of his tick -tocks because he's a little bit of apologist himself for the church

42:59

Christ I listen to all of them Does he do like are they snippets from like talks or does he like does he like respond to like the crazy tick -tock people?

43:08

He responds to questions sent in and they're usually like selfie mode. He just breaks it down. All right, cool

43:13

I liked him, you know, I mean, but they did help me a lot for the debate So when he started making arguments,

43:20

I was kind of like, oh, I know where he's going with this Okay, you know and that's one thing I love about debates is you don't always know how it's gonna go down So I know some people are if you love about debates, that's what petrifies people about You want to know my favorite part of the debate is is being asked questions

43:37

So the second favorite is when I get to ask questions and so people are like that's weird German like I know

43:44

That's interesting. Cool. So we talked about Ephesians 2 8 9 and 10. I Really appreciate that dialogue.

43:51

I think he was really surprised with how I was saying, of course, there's different categories of works I think they were just like no you're supposed to say works as works and Because a big part of my case is is trying to show that baptism is a work that we do that we participate in And I encourage people to approach it this way

44:10

Yes have a definition of works go study the the semantic domain of Ergon or in its verb form or gods of mine

44:16

And what you're gonna find especially if you go to the BDAG or if you go to Thayer's lexicon Which is a little bit more outdated lexicon is it's anything that you do in hand or deed and accomplishment that you can display

44:27

That others can see deed of any kind anything that you do and also remind people that Ergon is

44:34

The word that the English word is derived from of energy and so that just even more so says any

44:41

Energy that you can exert and show people as you're doing tasks. That's works

44:48

Now and this is where the dance begins is when we start talking about works of God and works of man now it's interesting what they mean by that because this is

44:57

I'm gonna bring out a few different points here, but They view the works of God meaning the works that you do in obedience to his commands that they cloak that under well

45:07

That's a work of God. That's not work of man when you're being obedient to God and I'm over here like Okay works of God are things that God does and we can show that in many ways when

45:17

God sustains his creation Well, that's by the the power of God what he does Ephesians 111 even uses

45:24

Ergon in that sense Colossians 2 talks about the powerful working of God and a lot of times the context is in Regeneration when he's taken out that heart of stone and giving us a a new heart now that has a profound desire to glorify

45:38

God and to search after Christ. Mm -hmm. So that's the work of God now for them

45:44

That's code for when you do works of obedience Thing is I know that So I get to go to passages where I'm gonna lay a garden path

45:55

Okay, if you want remind me I'll tell you the garden path later in Romans 4 that I think is really hard for them to be

46:02

Consistent but talking about points that Gavin brought up that I think are good number one I think a church of Christ needs to try to make the case that baptism is not a work and you can say this in Many different ways, but when you just say well nowhere, do we read?

46:16

Baptism is not a work or baptism is a work Well, that's not how we do exegesis and that's not how we get theology

46:22

But I get when you have to push your point They're gonna a lot of times say baptism No word in the

46:28

Bible doesn't say baptism is work and I and the my always push back is but define works for me Well, you got works of merit.

46:34

You got works of flesh. You got works of law and I'm like, yeah Yeah, I get how you're talking about a lot of different kinds of works

46:41

But what is the definition that you're already using to make those particular points, right?

46:47

What's that? What's that universal? Not don't give me the particulars yet, right Eli that's my precept had on So really contending for the definition of Ergon that's on our side for those of us that are resting in God's grace by faith

47:02

I'll move push for the definition of works. And so that's going to help Church Christ even understand how we're interpreting

47:09

Ephesians 2 8 9 and 10. Yes, because because what Gavin was saying is well

47:15

Um Belief is a work of God, correct? John 6 which I do want to talk about here in a little bit now

47:21

I'd say yes It's a work of that God does in the heart and he's like but that work is excluded in your mind in Ephesians 2 8

47:29

And I'm like, no, it's a gift He grants us to believe in him at Paul says elsewhere.

47:35

And so the word answer by by faith alone, right? Yes. Okay.

47:41

Well, there's a zinger here. I don't know. I have to interrupt you because Oh think

47:48

Think gossiper says if repentance is needed for salvation Then salvation isn't really by faith alone.

47:56

Now is it that's funny and think Oh fallot He's in he's been on my channel a lot.

48:01

I know he's I know he's a fan to the apologetic dog So I appreciate the question. Okay, so what I throw you off.

48:07

I just say I Like being asked questions And by the way,

48:12

Eli the church I serve at with pastor Nathan. We're a plurality of elders We do a sermon Q &A after every service.

48:19

So, oh, wow. Okay, that's a little different people like wow, we can actually We love it

48:24

So faith alone in the historic sense is faith apart from works

48:29

Especially with Martin Luther apart from the sacramental works of Rome and so that's the sense But there's more ways to describe the faith alone that justifies us is it's a repentant faith.

48:40

It's a loving faith It's a faith of humility one that doesn't look to oneself

48:45

We're a beggar, but we're looking to the one that gives us the bread of life And so I think it's a bad argument and I mean this in charity

48:53

I think it's a bad argument to say all y 'all believe in five solace five alones. Well, that's that's contradictory

48:59

Well, there are loans in different senses, right and so this is another one is Oh faith alone well that must be devoid of repentance and I'm saying no repentance is also a category of the heart if it's in a salvific context because It means to change the mind but not just Intellectual ascent only it's engaging the heart.

49:17

And so but that's a result of a changed nature So repentance is a gift that is granted

49:25

By God 2nd Timothy 224, I believe in 25 and you have repentance which is a fruit of Regeneration.

49:34

Mmm, which allows you to then exercise faith and that's why we say faith is a gift

49:40

Repentance is a gift that is granted. Yep 100 % so it's interesting that repentance is articulated in the same way that faith is as a gift that it's granted to believe

49:50

Ephesians 2 here We see that faith is a gift even repentance is from the gracious hand of God Working in us and I also try to tell people there's a difference this came out in the debate a little bit

50:00

There's a difference between repentance and the fruit of repentance because the fruit of repentance is works right that we do

50:09

But repentance is in the category of the heart because when Paul starts talking about how we're justified

50:15

By faith and not by works of law or any other accomplishments that we can do He's contrasting faith from works faith is inward and of the heart

50:24

It's immaterial that God sees and you know in your heart and works for everything external.

50:30

It's the things that we do Jeremiah you're missing something bro. It's clear in Scripture, bro

50:38

Man Clint came late. We totally and I totally guessed that right? Yeah, you know why

50:43

I don't like when people use that one Okay, it's fine And I don't think I'm not saying

50:48

Clint does this but like you honestly think that like when a person who believes by faith alone I'm just wait that we haven't read

50:54

James 2 24 Like I do this this says it like Caesar's close it you see now it's not but it's like we never read that before Clearly, you know how a

51:03

Protestant is gonna understand. Hopefully, you know, right and we've addressed this already at the towards the beginning But I want to say something positive towards Clint though because he roasts me to no end on my channel

51:13

I like you got a little King James translation going on ye see yes Yes, but it but I do agree with him here.

51:19

Jesus commanded baptism Okay, so whether it's a work or not, it's commanded and I think an obedient Christian will be baptized

51:28

And I think that's that's an important point. But good. I'm sorry. No, you're good. Well Me and Clint.

51:34

I mean he's asked me all these questions And so I think it's a little funny that he just wants to ask me when we're going live.

51:40

I love it You know, yes, you heard correctly Shane regeneration precedes repentance not

51:48

Necessarily chronologically, but logically there's difference there are different sentences in which something can be can proceed none of this business that you're regenerated but then there is a time between your regeneration and your faith and repentance and so there's this limbo point where you're

52:04

Regenerated but not saved right? We make a distinction between Chronological procession and a proceeding and logical proceeding.

52:12

But yes, you did hear me correctly. I do believe regeneration precedes repentance in the proper understanding of what that means and I want to say something about like Shane and the

52:21

Church of Christ and I think and I don't think they would take offense to this but they're true Pelagians They really believe that man is born perfect and it's their environment that corrupts them not that they're born sinners

52:33

So when they start hearing us talk about regeneration Precedes all this logically.

52:40

I'm telling you like I see the lights get real big like they're not tracking and that doesn't mean every single one

52:45

But I'm like because I guarantee you Shane's thinking about Titus 3 5 and I want to talk a little bit about 1st

52:51

Corinthians 6 11 which came up in the debate and so we start talking about regeneration We say that has to be true because we're dead in our sins and trespasses.

53:00

We're children of wrath We're not Privy to the things of God. We don't understand these things.

53:06

We're at enmity with God We're at war with God and we spit at God So some type of heart change needs to take place and so Eli I've had the wonderful privilege of a lot of people

53:15

By the grace of God explaining that and man you can just see they're connecting the dots like well Because because that speaks to their testimony.

53:22

They realized that they weren't seeking after God. They were going the opposite direction and God Providentially came into the life and saved them like the

53:29

Damascus Road experience that Paul had right, you know, so Sorry, bro.

53:35

I can't help Good this is this is I mean you okay think think gossiper.

53:43

I apologize. I Don't know how much you are aware of reformed theology or Protestant theology

53:48

I'm not gonna I'm not gonna answer this but you do need to read some of the basic stuff. This is

53:55

So you have to be saved before you can believe you You need to know the difference between the different ways.

54:02

We understand Precedes right? No reformed person believes that you're saved

54:08

Before you believe it's not a chronological thing, right? You believe because your nature has changed they somebody would even argue it

54:16

Simultaneously it occurs But there is a logical priority not necessarily a chronological priority

54:22

So again, these are really Not good points which basic books

54:31

You can oh, well, you can read some of RC Sproul's work. He's got some good introductory material What is reformed theology talks about this?

54:38

You know a role of regeneration and repentance and faith and all those sorts of things You could even read a good old reformed systematic theology pick up a

54:45

Wayne Grudem and read the section on Justification and regeneration explains it quite easily and simply so Would I debate

54:55

Leighton flowers I have debated Leighton flowers Well, we had an informal discussion

55:02

I've been on his channel before you can check that out I speak to that a little bit. Yeah, go for it So we're trying to get a debate with me and Leighton flowers on Marlon's channel

55:11

We're still trying to figure out a proposition for Leighton to defend Okay, Marlon wants him in the hot seat,

55:17

I'm just like When I was on his show it was more of a discussion we didn't debate but I suppose we were disagreeing

55:25

So it was kind of a debate discussion sort of thing But he's a nice guy and I think as much as I disagree with him

55:32

He does bring up questions that I think are important to address. So I'd like to see that happen. It's not my cup of tea

55:38

I don't like to do it as much as Leighton does that's kind of his wheelhouse But yeah, that'd be cool to see you interact with with late.

55:45

I like to call provisionist the flower patch kids Late Leighton's a nice guy

55:53

I know that other people have beef with him But my interaction to them have been nothing but respectful and he's been cordial and nice And so I appreciate him for that Even though we disagree so if I debate

56:03

Leighton my goal would be for him to like me a lot at the end of it That won't be very difficult. He's a he's he likes he's very

56:11

Well, he's very nice He's just firm on his position, you know, it's Yeah, it's all good.

56:17

So, all right. Let's see here. I had a question for you and I forgot so I'll pick up on some of the good points that yeah

56:26

Yeah, go ahead because I've been interrupted when I see some of the comments You guys got to read up a little bit on what like Protestants believe

56:34

Yeah, so And I like this here so Shane Shane says I'm honestly not trying not to misrepresent your view and I'm I'm sure

56:41

Jeremiah appreciates that I appreciate that as well And this is why you're asking a lot of questions. That's cool. You don't have to apologize at all.

56:48

That's that's That's why I'm like dude me and you to debate will be profitable for a lot of people.

56:54

Yeah, I Respect everyone here in the chat. Even someone who I'm kind of just like, oh, come on, man That's that's a question.

57:00

You should I don't mean that in a bad way It's just Sometimes it's easy to get frustrated like that's kind of like the basic stuff.

57:06

You're gonna understand the other side That's why I don't much about the Church of Christ myself because I don't know and I don't know enough about it to properly

57:14

Represent it, but I have no problem having someone like yourself on or something like that to explain it So people like your church cross impersonation last time we did this

57:25

You know, I try to keep the You know, I always have to exaggerate the opponent I don't mean it in any bad way if I you know

57:33

I have impressions of all sorts of Denominations or positions so Let's see here.

57:40

Okay. All right. There's some more questions coming in But then we'll save them until you're done making the point you're making because I'm just rudely interrupting you.

57:47

So Love it. So I was so we talked about Ephesians 2 I just think

57:52

Gavin was kind of shocked with some of my answers there, but it's like hey This is what we've always believed.

57:58

You know what I mean? So one of the questions I thought was really good as when he took me to 1st Corinthians 6 11

58:04

I'll read it and we'll talk a little bit about the context in his specific question and such were some of you

58:10

But you were washed you were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the

58:15

Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God His question about this

58:22

Initially was well, we see st. Sanctified comes before Justification. So Jeremiah, how can you have justification first and then sanctification now the first time

58:33

I've ever thought about this was watching Dr. James Wyatt debate a Roman Catholic with the same point. Mm -hmm.

58:39

And so my first point is well sanctify It depends on the context because it literally just means to be set apart

58:48

And so the moment we're regenerated tipping my hat to what I think washed means there

58:53

We are set apart from the world because we're justified by what Christ did all in the context of the

58:59

Holy Spirit being at work Now tell people if you look earlier in 1st Corinthians chapter 1 verse 2

59:04

Talks about calling upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ both Lord and earlier says to the

59:12

Church of God that is in Corinth those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus So Paul's already using the argument that sanctified is in a positional sense being set apart from the world before God and he qualifies it with our

59:28

Justification. So I just let people know it's okay that we see sanctified in different context

59:33

Not the full breadth of what sanctification walking with the Lord as we do works to glorify

59:40

God Right, so that's the first point and then his bigger point I think was okay,

59:46

Jeremiah, you believe washed is regeneration and not water baptism. I'm like you got me, you know

59:51

And he said well you were washed is in the middle voice And so his point there is that means that you're not merely passive, but you are

01:00:01

Participating to some degree which is funny because I'm like well for one if you have that Definition then it sounds like a work right because you're participating in this and I'm saying oh now

01:00:11

I get to speak to the category of Monergism because that's his big point is if it's in the middle voice if you're participating it can't be monergistic

01:00:22

And so my big point number one always is nothing magical in the Greek A lot of these verb tenses are just having to do a sentence structure doesn't mean we shouldn't study it.

01:00:31

This is a historic faith We need to study the original languages So I'm just I want to say like to let him know that this is great that you're bringing this out and this

01:00:39

This is why Gavin's a little bit distinguished from the Church Christ at large is because they want the

01:00:44

Bible and the Bible only that's what They tell me don't give me that Greek And so the fact that he's willing to look at these things

01:00:51

I'm saying props to you Gavin, right? But I'm saying the middle voice isn't going to overturn the context that Paul has already been laying out.

01:01:00

He's talking about idolaters He's talking about people that are living in a lifestyle of sin

01:01:07

Right who will not inherit the kingdom of God and now he's talking about Christians after their conversion

01:01:12

This is this was the reality that you once experienced. And so I told Gavin I said this were some of you

01:01:19

But you were washed you were regenerated and he's like, how can this be in the middle of voice if in regeneration you're passive?

01:01:26

I said because we have a personal experience Right, the light bulbs come on the dead heart now is beating and we see life differently

01:01:35

And I tell him that's what it's qualified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the

01:01:42

Spirit of God So I told him I don't think Paul's going for an order of salute is here

01:01:47

But if we do push for that We see that washed comes first right being regenerated comes first and obviously

01:01:53

I have Titus 3 5 in my mind as well talking about the renewal and Regeneration of the

01:01:59

Holy Spirit not by works that we've done but God has saved us by his grace and his mercy So anyway props to Gavin just for looking at the

01:02:06

Greek and and asking about the middle voice he thinks that's a defeater for monergism Okay, and it's like no we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling

01:02:17

So we have a perspective right when people say I chose Christ. I want to say, of course you did.

01:02:24

Amen But yes, because you chose him because he first chose you like once we get deeper into who God is

01:02:29

There's a reason why you had that experience. So this washing is just a transform Of the heart by the

01:02:37

Spirit a cleansing of the Spirit. This is Ezekiel 36 language This is John chapter 3 language

01:02:43

Titus 3 language It's a work of God that we share an experience of what that's like.

01:02:49

So That was a good point. And then if you're okay with this Eli I want to talk about another passage that didn't get brought out in debate, but it was just an assumption

01:02:58

Given in Gavin's mind and most Church of Christ and this took me a while to figure out the lingo now

01:03:04

I told you earlier when they see the word work of God That's code for works of obedience that you do

01:03:12

Okay, and so this kind of stems from John chapter 6 Because we see that phrase and what's my pattern?

01:03:20

We're gonna define terms We're gonna look at context and we're gonna be consistent. Tell people that's what we're gonna do every time

01:03:26

It'd be no different here. Like they really think this is a like a big defeater. I'm gonna say let's just look at context.

01:03:32

So You have this crowd that experienced the the the miracles of Jesus Taking the fish taking the bread and man.

01:03:41

It was an incredible experience. And so a lot happens and then Starting in verse 28 this crowd of people said to Jesus What must we do to be doing the works of God?

01:03:54

Jesus answered to them. This is the work of God that you believe in him whom he has sent

01:04:01

Okay, and they say see believing is a work that you do and it's a work of God and I'm like time out

01:04:09

Because there's a lot of given assumptions on their side. Number one. I think the biggest assumption is that these people are

01:04:16

Sincerely seeking after Christ wanting to know who he is and sincerely asking

01:04:22

What do they need to do in order to be made right with God I actually push against that I would say

01:04:27

I don't think These people are sincerely seeking after Christ. Why do I think that literally the verse before says

01:04:34

Jesus says to them Do not work for the food that perishes But for the food that endures to eternal life, which the

01:04:41

Son of Man will give to you And before that he says truly truly I say to you you are seeking me not because you saw signs

01:04:47

But because you ate your fill of the loaves So thereafter

01:04:52

Jesus being the miracle worker man, he fed us last time We want some more of that.

01:04:58

And so here's the point that I would have brought out to Gavin in the back I had a strategy I wanted him to go to all of his baptismal verses because I are because it's like I'll explain the context

01:05:07

I was ready to talk about John 6 but when it was my time I wanted to emphasize on the

01:05:13

Justification part because I've already made the case that water baptism is a work so anyway what

01:05:18

I would have done here is to say look these people are not sincerely seeking after him and They earlier saw the works of God in Jesus by performing miracles

01:05:28

Okay, that's crucial to the context The works of God are the miracles that God does and we saw that in Jesus and they are not sincerely

01:05:38

Asking Jesus these questions. They are saying Okay, they said what must we do and I pause and say look

01:05:47

They are thinking in earthly categories things that they can get up and accomplish and they do they want to do miracles like Jesus What do we need to do in order to be doing these works of God?

01:05:58

I tell people look we know already in the immediate context that they're not being sincere based on what Jesus rebuking them for wanting

01:06:05

After the miracles, but if Nicodemus earlier in John the ruler of Israel if he wasn't understanding it

01:06:12

Why do you think these people are going to get it and understand you need to even drive the wedge even deeper?

01:06:18

These are the people when Jesus started talking about doctrine Right looking to him in faith alone later talking about believing in him and how he gives true bread from heaven

01:06:26

And then he starts talking about drink my blood and eat my body Verse 66 says they walked with him no more

01:06:34

Right some point is you can't put these people in a positive light. And so when they ask

01:06:41

What are the works that we're doing? They're thinking earthly They're thinking about the things that they can do and accomplish in order to perform these works of God these miracles

01:06:51

Okay, and then what Jesus says, this is the work of God This isn't code for just do commands in obedience and then you'll be doing the works of God no, the work of God the miracle that must occur is

01:07:08

Believe in me And so this is a beautiful passage or so that a miracle the works of God need to happen in your heart to look upon Jesus in faith

01:07:19

Hmm, and so it's like whatever in the context you want to talk about there. That's that's the position

01:07:25

We're gonna land in consistently now. There was a question about a scripture that I lost me, but it was

01:07:32

I Think it was in the book of Acts I accidentally

01:07:40

X out the They're gonna accuse you for from for running away from that verse.

01:07:46

I know By the way, anyone who's Church of Christ and listening. I so appreciate you guys asking questions and interacting.

01:07:53

I really do So I might be a little saucy and sarcastic at times, but that's because it's late

01:08:00

Apologize if I come off of it certain way, but Well, we are at the top of the hour Jeremiah and I do have to wake up early tomorrow

01:08:09

So perhaps we can kind of take a couple more questions here and then I can have you back on we can do a part

01:08:14

Three, I don't mind at all. You know, I would love it. That'd be awesome. Yeah, I seriously I would really love if we do it

01:08:20

We'll talk more about the garden path that was saying while Romans 4 is kind of this

01:08:25

Central passage that I always try to drive back to we're gonna have proper category of faith proper category of works

01:08:32

Look at Paul's argument and how he grounds it with Abraham Awesome.

01:08:37

Very good. All right. Let's see here a couple of questions here or comments that I wanted to Cover, let's see here a piece of the dog

01:08:48

Let's see, oh man, it was right there. Well, I Was a priest up, but I guess we could take a priest up question here

01:08:56

And I'll what while we talk about this one, I'll find the one I was looking for So if you want to take a stab at that and maybe

01:09:03

I'll share my thoughts afterwards and then I'll search for the other question I may have to phone a friend on this one do presupposition does do presuppositional does pre that's the proper grammar does presuppositional ism and divine conceptualism go hand -in -hand

01:09:20

Are you familiar with Divine conceptualism. Oh, I would just be taking a guess at what divine conceptualism is

01:09:28

Okay. All right. Are you are you sure of what he's asking or getting it?

01:09:34

Yeah, I'm familiar with divine conceptualism. So divine divine conceptualism is is this idea that propositions

01:09:41

Have an ontology they actually exist like universals actually exist And Divine conceptualism will take these propositions these truths these perfections as being ideas in the mind of God So that they are couched within the context of God's mind.

01:09:58

They are not say for example Platonic ideals floating out there

01:10:04

Independent of a mind, right? So if there is such a thing as ideals like Plato mentioned the perfect idea of say a duck

01:10:12

There is no such thing as the perfect idea of a duck floating out there independent of a mind thinking them and so Christians would say, you know, if there is a perfect idea of a duck or a universal category they are ideas in the mind of God which makes sense ontologically that a

01:10:29

Perfect idea would be a reflection of a perfect mind And it would not destroy the doctrine of divine aseity which is the idea that God has self -existence and There is nothing external to himself that exists independent of him

01:10:44

So Platonism poses a threat to Christian theism because it posits

01:10:50

Ontological propositions and universals that exist independent of God God thinking them so to speak they they are just as eternal as he is but they do not spring forth or are grounded from him

01:11:03

So presuppositional ism and divine conceptualism go hand in hand. I would say probably yes

01:11:09

I'm not an expert in this area. But if we're thinking in terms of universal categories and Logical truths being a reflection of God's thinking then.

01:11:18

Yes, I would say that isn't it? That's it. That is an essential feature of presuppositional ism and I would even go so far as to say that is a biblical

01:11:26

Concept of God if it's like you study these things like it's the the background music of your yeah this kind of stuff

01:11:34

Yes, so I yes I'm still I still can't find that question, bro

01:11:39

I'm like trying oh, they're gonna get you and I found it. Okay. All right Let's see.

01:11:46

I guess X to 38 X 22 16 One of them one of them was if that wasn't the one

01:11:51

I was remembering. I'm excited now But I hope my presuppositional ism question answered it.

01:11:57

I think it goes hand -in -hand Unless there because here's the thing there there are different models theological models and philosophical models that are within the bounds of divine scripture

01:12:07

That a presuppositional is could hold to like we hope to say like a revelational epistemology But there's some variation in there that is open to a presuppositional is that you know

01:12:16

Not all presuppositional is might agree on so there's some flexibility within that but divine's conceptualism as I understand it

01:12:22

I think is a very important aspect of how we understand God and how he grounds Truths and propositions and things like that.

01:12:29

So I hope that I hope that's a little helpful All right, so the words of truth from scripture says Jeremiah you are you surprised

01:12:35

Gavin never used Romans 6 7 in context of verses 3 Through 6 to show justification the

01:12:40

Greek word. There is DK. Oh the same as in Romans 5 1 I'll be honest.

01:12:47

I wasn't surprised because I've watched his tick tocks And so he never went this route now in our conversation me and words of truth from the scriptures

01:12:56

Me and him talked about it And so I think Romans 6 is an interesting chapter because I think we're starting to see a shift of Paul talking about justification by faith that leads to sanctification later on in the chapter so You know anytime that these words are being talked about to be set free from I usually

01:13:18

Agree that it's still in the judicial categories that Paul already established earlier in Romans 5 1 so to me

01:13:25

There's no Inconsistencies there. I think the real debate in verses 3 and 4 is how we understand the word baptized now

01:13:34

Some people get mad at me. I'm like, I don't think this is a wet immersion Because when you look at the context, we have been baptized in Christ into his death and I'm like, this is a spiritual reality

01:13:46

Right, and I think that grounds the context that these people who have been water baptized that are listening or reading

01:13:53

Paul's Didactic letter they're getting theological truths that point to the spiritual reality.

01:13:58

They would understand. That's what my ceremonial cleansing my ceremonial baptism was pointing to that reality like when

01:14:07

I have tons of people say show me a verse where It says baptism is a ceremony. I'm like go look at the the the meaning of the word itself rich history of how this ties back to John the

01:14:19

Baptist and his baptism and Mikvah's that originate in the Old Testament how they were totally bathed in water and all these are in a context that pointed to Spiritual realities.

01:14:31

It's a ceremony by like definition it is And so I've had other people say so you're just assuming that they're gonna make that connection in their mind this is where dr

01:14:41

White I'm indebted to his teaching because for one we see first Corinthians starting out with that because I've had people say so you don't

01:14:48

Think anywhere in Paul's epistles. He's ever talking about water baptism I'm like, oh sure first Corinthians even talks about I'm not sure if I baptized any one of you

01:14:57

I'm in the household of Stephanus and I'm like that sounds like the language of Acts which are clearly water baptisms

01:15:04

And I'm like, that's what you got there first Corinthians 10 You have the baptism into Moses and I'm like obviously water was around but it what they weren't immersing it

01:15:13

The water literally split for them to walk through it So they're being immersed into Moses's authority and then later in first Corinthians 15

01:15:20

You got baptism of the dead all these contexts inform us of how Paul is using this word and so I do point people to first Peter 3 21 where I do think there is a a

01:15:34

Touching point of the word baptism that he's talking about being baptized into Christ That's the baptism that saves us and then he even just says almost like he's correcting his audience misunderstanding

01:15:45

It's not the removal of dirt, which would be a ceremonial bath. That would literally do that He's saying that's not the thing that saves you.

01:15:52

It's being immersed into Christ by faith. Well, okay There's gonna be my last point the last thing

01:15:57

I'm gonna do and then we'll wrap things up. I do apologize I wish I can do it longer. I wake up at 430 in the morning.

01:16:03

Oh, that's brutal. Yeah, so I I do apologize I'd have to eventually go to go nappy nap, but I think this would be a fun one in light of what you just said to end on Think ossifer says things the

01:16:15

Bible says we're saved by Christ blood Romans 5 9 baptism first Peter 3 21

01:16:21

Confession Romans 10 9 repentance 2nd Corinthians 7 10 preaching 1st

01:16:27

Corinthians 121 What is what is being assumed in this list? And why do you think he is off?

01:16:33

Yep. Yep Couple things are being assumed and people get mad when I say this but what's being done that it's our job to point out is there is a conflation of Justification and sanctification in these verses.

01:16:45

There's a conflation of faith in works And so I could do this quickly Romans 5 9 does talk about the objective reality that of salvation that Jesus is works

01:16:55

Accomplished perfectly right to tell us I it is finished and what's at stake?

01:17:00

I'm getting ahead of myself is when you start adding your works you're adding works to the already finished works of Jesus and so first Peter 3 21 baptism there is

01:17:10

For one there's they say and they use the King James to do this too, right? They were saved by water and I'm like, yeah

01:17:17

But they were brought safely through water when we understand the narrative of Noah and what many other translations

01:17:23

Easily point out but it was the Ark That's the anti type of What he's about to talk about in the next verse and Jesus is the

01:17:30

Ark of our salvation if we're in him by faith Having a a clear conscience earlier in first Peter 3

01:17:36

It talks about sanctifying the Lord in your heart in our favorite apologetics first. That's a reference to faith

01:17:41

And so that's what he means there Romans 10 9 confession I would encourage but I have a short video on this but if you look up the

01:17:49

Greek word for confess or Confession which is synonymous with calling we talked about this last time

01:17:55

This is referring to a transformed heart of worship And so when we see that if we confess with the mouth

01:18:02

Right the Jesus Lord and that God raised him from the dead then you'll be saved That's talking about a transformed heart that trust in Jesus and that's what the verses go on to say and yes, that's gonna express itself not only in words, but as a transformed life and then repentance is a heart category and then of Preaching preaching forth the word brings about salvation, but I will tell people

01:18:25

Preaching the gospel that's different than how do we receive the gospel? So I tell people the big thing that's at hand here is how do we receive the good news?

01:18:36

Because Church Christ a lot of times we'll talk about How water baptism is the gospel?

01:18:41

It's a part of the gospel. I'm like you're conflating other Categories you shouldn't be doing this because we differ on over that makes me think

01:18:48

Joshua I do Paul. I'm Joshua Jeremiah was talking my friend Joshua the other night. Apologize Jeremiah Paul says that I did not come to baptize

01:18:58

Let's preach the gospel and he makes a clear distinction between the gospel and baptism He's not minimizing the importance of baptism, but he definitely doesn't wrap it up in the gospel

01:19:06

Which he clearly says that is what he came to preach not to baptize So what we're doing here is we're doing exactly we said earlier.

01:19:14

We're defining terms We are looking at proof text in content I mean all these

01:19:19

I can almost see those verses what they say in my mind And we know it comes before it and after it sure.

01:19:25

We're gonna be consistent. So that's what apologists That's what Christians need to be equipped to do right?

01:19:31

Well, excellent, man. This is excellent stuff. I definitely want to have you on Apparently there's a lot of people who are interested in this at the school

01:19:38

I work at there's a teacher who used to be the Church of Christ. He's no longer And he really reached out to me we've had some good back awesome

01:19:45

Yeah, he's a great guy man, but it either these past episodes have really been a blessing to a lot of people

01:19:50

So I don't mind keeping them up because I don't know if there are other people doing it as much Maybe there is

01:19:56

I'm not aware of them. So I think you're doing an excellent job there. There's not a lot of people that Show how to do apologetics against and I'm gonna say this out of love

01:20:05

But the cult of the Church of Christ cult in the sense that they've deviated from the faith. They believe a wrong gospel

01:20:11

So when I say cult, I'm just thinking of Galatians 1 I'm thinking of they're under false teaching and we love them so much that we would actually share with them the truth

01:20:21

But always in love and so I just want to encourage our audience Look up me obviously with Trey Fisher because that's a big emphasis in our apologetics ministry

01:20:31

And we have a Facebook group group called the Church of Christ exiles Where we have over a hundred people since we've done we announced it on cultish

01:20:41

Joining sharing testimonies asking good questions and Eli you may be interested in this but We're doing interviews with people that want to share their testimony of what they experienced and how

01:20:52

God and his grace saved them out of it And there's a ton of interest in this area That's awesome, man.

01:20:58

Well, I'd like to First I'd like to thank you for coming on. I always enjoy when you come on.

01:21:04

I think you're awesome guy. You're sharp I learned as I'm listening and you're just fun to interact with And I think everyone who's been listening whether you are

01:21:12

Church of Christ and you completely and utterly disagree with everything that was said Thank you for being here.

01:21:17

That's part of the Conversations that we're supposed to have right we disagree.

01:21:23

We talk about it you know, we love you and hopefully you love us and hopefully that mutual love and respect can be things that lead to greater conversation so the way

01:21:35

I want to end this episode is Is Jeremiah I'd like you to take a few moments to just Present the gospel.

01:21:43

Yes, the biblical gospel and as you conclude and give our listeners something to think about We'll wrap it up there.

01:21:49

And so I think I think that'd be a good idea So why don't you take it away there and then and then we'll wrap it up brother Absolutely.

01:21:55

The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ saves and so to understand good news

01:22:01

That's a first understand the bad news that we are not good people. We actually have broken

01:22:07

God's law We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God And so we need

01:22:12

God to save us and he has so Jesus stepped down from his throne of glory

01:22:18

Took on flesh lived a perfect sinless life something that we could not do We don't desire to do but he did it on our behalf.

01:22:26

And so On Calvary God the Father poured out all of his wrath

01:22:31

Satisfying his wrath completely for the penalty of sin. And so Jesus didn't stay dead. He actually resurrected three days later

01:22:38

Proving that death has nothing on him. He defeated death. He defeated Satan And so if we look to the perfect Savior Jesus Christ in faith

01:22:47

And this is the type of faith that I'm talking about a faith that does not trust in yourself Does not trust in any of your accomplishments any of the works that you could do but looks to the one who did everything perfectly if you put your faith in Jesus, then all of your sin, not just your past sin, but present tense and future will be paid for in full because All that gets put on the

01:23:10

Calvary and I want our audience to hear this you get the perfect righteousness of God Accredited covering your account.

01:23:18

That's why even covers your future sins, and we don't abuse that grace But if you've tasted and seen that the

01:23:24

Lord is gracious Then now you desire to live your life to give God glory and I just want to encourage people that if that resonates with you if you want to follow

01:23:34

Christ and faith and be obedient to The life that he's called us to then please look for a healthy church to be discipled

01:23:42

And so if you live anywhere in Northeast Arkansas Specifically Jonesboro come look us up at 12 5 church where I serve as a pastor and elder

01:23:51

We'd love to get to know you and help you out any way that we can. That's awesome well, thank you so much

01:23:56

Jeremiah for that and That hopefully will give some folks some food for thought until next time

01:24:02

We're gonna try to cover more of this topic throughout the months. I'm definitely interested in it

01:24:08

I want to learn more about it myself and Maybe we'll cover another specific topic or maybe cover another debate.

01:24:14

I know you've done a bunch of them So I want to encourage you man. Keep up the great work and folks. Thank you so much for listening in I really do appreciate it whether you agree or disagree

01:24:22

I appreciate the respectful dialogue in the comments and things like that. That means a lot to me. So until next time guys

01:24:30

Take care and God bless. Bye. Bye So again one body, which is the body his body, which is his church the

01:24:38

Church of Christ I mean if you just had some a little bit of common sense you think he drove by these denominations where it says grandma's church

01:24:46

Baptist Church Methodist Church Life Church, I mean he drove an hour 20 minutes here and they act like they give

01:24:53

God the glory and Jesus I mean grandma's church, Baptist church, Presbyterian church,

01:24:59

Church of Christ Same thing, again they deny redemption Man, if you just had some a little bit of common sense