The Aquinification of MBTS, Philosophical Trinitarianism, Responses to Soteriology 101

All right, well, we're getting started a little bit late. Well, let's cut that part off Rich is gonna have to do the editing on that one.

I was watching I was actually watching some friends of mine talking about Islam on while I was riding today and it's a video series and They start having problems with one of the slides and I could start hearing

They're rich, you know the guy behind the camera talking, you know, and Not saying that that one's not that one's messed up.

I can guarantee you that one's messed up Because the light is ten times brighter than it's supposed to be

So that's that's really in fact, it's so bright. It's annoying So you might want to switch whatever you just did that made that the

ISO Or the next one up turn it back off. I don't that light is literally bright.

Thank you You gotta fix that one before we use it again anyway

So the guy's sitting there talking to them and says, okay. All right. I'll do these slides. Okay ready action

And they forgot to edit that part out. So hey It happens and we're live.

So it just works that way. So welcome to 2024 Something tells me that is somewhat of an indication of what's coming in 2024 just sort of generally

I mean, I mean Japan has a huge earthquake and then they They're live with a plane landing in an airport.

Did you see that? It only happened a few hours ago There's a plane landing in Japan and they're for some reason to have live coverage and it explodes upon landing

I mean just boom. I mean Okay Yeah Welcome to welcome to 2024

You know people reminded me back, you know in late 2019 I had said

I foresaw 2020 was going to be a weird year and I'm not talking about any type of prophetic thing or anything like that.

It just seemed like There were a lot of people saying the same things and of course 2020 ended up being one of the weirdest years ever

And now we got 2024 it does not take a profit

To go Oh presidential election year in the United States, okay

All this wild insane crazy stuff about You know carbon neutral by 2030 and all this utterly impossible stuff that cannot possibly be done

That will Destroy the United States economy and hence the world's economy

Because you know, it's it's real easy for us to hear and go well, you know, our economy could collapse our money's worthless, it's true

That's true If China wanted to collapse our economy they could Tomorrow only problem is there's no way for them to do that without taking themselves out to And everybody else along with it.

I mean They are they're in no better shape than we are

I mean we owe so much more but They're very weak

And a lot of its demographics. They just they're aging just like the

Koreas are in Japan and everything else and so there's just there are so many trends and and so many things going on in the world right now and Most of us don't have any clue

What's really going on we we think we do because we have our

Sources that we that we trust and that we look at Manas, I just want everybody to know by the way.

My sweater is not nearly as bright as It looks like on On the what

I can see anyways, it's it I mean it's three times brighter on the screen then then

This actually is this actually I? Mean, it's it's bright, but it's not that bright I can't even look at myself up there right now.

It's just Wow anyway 2024 it's starting off great and We all

Live in our own little echo chambers and we choose what we'll hear and what we'll not hear in And the fact the matter is

I do not have any Trust whatsoever any longer in almost anything that can be called media

There aren't any journalists left Except outside the mainstream media and even then you know, just because it's outside the mainstream doesn't make it accurate or truthful or right

I Don't trust what my eyes see on the internet Because I Can watch entire movies with CGI characters and I Mean I was

I the wife was watched something. I walked in I think it was New Year's night because we were New Year's Eve.

We were I'm ready to I'm ready to vote against fireworks from now on to be perfectly honest with you

Or at least limit them to a couple of hours but New Year's Eve I had to go shooting home right after church because You know think it sounds like downtown,

Hanoi in my neighborhood and and our cats are gonna end up, you know, 10 miles away running away from all this stuff and My wife was watching something and honestly,

I'm watching I'm going is this CGI no No, those are real actors. Are you sure?

I mean, I just honestly could not tell it just Something didn't seem right to me

And that's where the technology is. So You know, we see videos of things that have happened overseas of like that I do

I know that that that it actually happened that way. Well, I Don't I come from a from a generation where you could trust that what you were seeing

Generally had to have happened at least Somewhat the way that was being portrayed, but that's not the case anymore and Do I have what level of confidence do

I have that the 2024 election will be fair and Unhindered and unrigged zero

We already see it happening Colorado was it Maine or it was me?

And I think there's like 14 other states that you know, this could all happen. I think they're all gonna get quashed by the

Supreme Court, but That's only for now The very fact that they're willing to do what they're doing

Certainly And I live in Maricopa County Which I'll just be honest with you

I would say we have just as much chance of a fair counting of the ballots in Maricopa County as in Chicago Which means everybody in any of our cemeteries will be we'll be voting to Our borders are wide open we have

Military age we have we have it. We have an army invading and I said on Twitter our nation's been taken over by traitors

That's where we are So you look at 2024 and I said yesterday morning.

I just Got got the idea and I posted something on Twitter got a lot of in matter of hours.

He got like 30 ,000 views and things like that Basically talking about what

I could what I would predict for 2024 and What I said was

I I just have a feeling That things will be

More different For everyone in the United States a year from now than during any similar period of time and people said

Oh, you're forgetting about the Civil War. It's like that. No that the the culture in 1859 and 1866 really wasn't all that changed.

There were a lot of dead people a lot of maimed people cities lying in ruins But the culture the the

That really didn't change in that time period The war was a huge upheaval but to have the kind of change

I'm thinking about it requires tremendous amount of technology and They didn't have that type of technology at that time period.

So I Could really foresee January 1st 2025 being a period of Incredible upheaval

Martial law, maybe constitution suspended Violence in the streets depending on who's quote -unquote won the election or Didn't win the election or obviously didn't win the election, but it's going to be said to have won the election.

Anyways, I Don't know. I don't know but I could certainly see it happening

I can't I can't understand how anybody would say no. No. No, you're just You're you're getting too excited again

That could never happen. I could never happen after after After kovat in 2020 and 2021 that could never happen

Yeah, no Anything can happen as far as that's concerned so yeah,

I I Closed it off by saying hey Same thing I've been saying

I was saying during 2020 2021 when vaccine stuff's happening and You know, the seals are getting kicked out and all that stuff that was going on I said then it's it's all a matter of The world having its hooks in us because of our stuff because of our love of the things of the world and If we don't have that love of the things the world then the world won't have any control over us

And we will we will find the secret of being content Even if we lose most of our earthly possessions

So, yeah, I'm not sitting here saying that I know all this type of stuff's gonna happen I Just know that it seems to me

That the people who want to make fundamental change in Vastly diminishing freedom and liberty in the world

Initiating a massive wealth transfer from the West outside to something somewhere

That these individuals have the power They're in the positions to do this and they will not allow anyone to take that power away from them

They are entrenched and they're going to do what they need to do Likewise did you see what happened with what's a bankman freed?

Is that the guy's name? You know the guy who stole billion billions of dollars from people

Defrauded them and Use that money to buy political influence he donated over a hundred million dollars to Democrats I believe in 2020

Might have been 2022, but I believe it is in 2020 over a hundred million dollars and It was all a

Ponzi scheme it was all fraud and the government the regime

Has dropped the election fraud charges against him

Because the government's run by the same people who benefited from the hundred million dollars that he gave them

I mean the level of Not incompetence, but just straightforward.

We don't care We are corrupt. We have been purchased and And We we we used to look at Banana Republic's and go

You should be like us and now the Banana Republic's are looking at us cooking. We never dreamed up what you've come up with It is truly disgusting.

Yes, sir. Oh, you just reminded me I've been asking the question of some of my well you know, we're all spending time with family members that we don't spend a whole lot of time with and I've just been spending time with my wife and my cats.

Yeah And I asked the question, you know, it's like oh you so you think that was an insurrection

So what do they call it when Democrats do it? Yeah, you know I mean, that's the double standard is is tremendous because as I recall we've only had maybe two true insurrections in this country

That's the one that founded it and then the one that caused the Civil War and that's at best Because you know arms and fighting and people a lot of people dying is what that is

But no, but same goes here. It's like, you know what? If it's the Democrats doing it, it's fine.

Nothing to see here. Move along. Yeah There's there's absolutely no question that the the rule of law has ended and You know, what's that going to mean and and who are the people in charge now?

it's the wheels are coming off fast and Once the once that first wheel comes off It's gonna get it's gonna get ugly.

It truly truly is and I Be I had people saying yesterday. Well, so what do we do?

And You know Since none of us know exactly how you know

Which direction is gonna go first and and things like that. No one can answer that question until things start actually happening and then

We're gonna have to be somewhat Doesn't seem to be a lot of people willing to do be this way but somewhat gracious at that point in time because We've never faced this in our lifetimes

Nobody nobody in the generations before faced this type of Societal meltdown to where you have the video that we all saw yesterday of a

Lieutenant -colonel in the Space Force. I have not met anyone in the Space Force personally.

First of all, I Suppose they're out there somewhere But a lieutenant -colonel and there's the picture two pictures, dude chick

Well, actually dude and ugly fake chick In drag, yeah

And we're all supposed to just salute and and say this is wonderful and that this sad thing is

Christians in the military are told to salute and to lie to that person and To say ma 'am

When it's a dude you know, you're just supposed to and I can't help but think of social needs and live not according to lies and that's

That's what's going on. And so 2024 is is going to Challenge the stability of our foundations of faith.

Let's just put it that way And We are going to have to be thinking about things and and facing issues that we've just never never thought we'd be facing in the context that we are and It's gonna be a challenge it's gonna be a challenge so Yeah, there we go

Okay Where do we go first I'll go ahead and Talk about this first.

Well first we're 20 not quite 20 minutes in Because I'm not counting the first few minutes.

We have to cut off. I Reposted a

I Don't know if there's a tweet or a Facebook thing. I can't always tell the difference from Matthew Barrett from December 27th as normal, he is promoting a

Book by a Roman Catholic Matthew Levering. I remember Boy it was it was two years ago this

January When Levering his name came up in the

Reform Baptist conversations That were being that were going on sort of started all this stuff for us anyways a

January of 2021 and Now Matthew Barrett obviously teaching at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary I'll get to this in a second, but it was interesting

Might even been this morning. I saw a tweet Or last night forget which one it was where someone was saying, you know,

I've read your book scripture alone I've heard his book on solo scriptura,

I Think it's God's Word alone and I just don't see that you all are in disagreement at all and I said you'd be right because in 2016 we're on the same page

You read that book his book and There's two references of Thomas Aquinas and they're basically neutral they're just in passing

I Don't believe Matthew Barrett would write that book today. It would be very very different there would be a at least an entire chapter on Aquinas and Aquinas's Contributions to the understanding of scripture and blah blah blah blah.

I just don't think he could write a book on That subject without including that But 2016 was prior to his

What do we need to come up with a word? What what terms should we use for when you you don't

Pope? you and And you know, you don't Aquinas You don't

Thomas I Don't know. Well, we'll think of something but it's when you fall in love

With scholasticism and The whole idea that if you're really going to be a

Good Christian scholastic then you need to you need need to have your pictures of Thomas Aquinas on your wall and maybe your students will be drawing you pictures of Aquinas and and Giving you little

Aquinas bobbleheads and and stuff like that But there's this, you know when you ask

Thomas into your heart and and become a a true Born -again scholastic it changes everything and it changes how you look at things and and Thomas all of a sudden finds a way into everything and So yeah there there wasn't much of a difference in the

Perspectives and things like that in 2016 Same thing with the large majority of my reformed

Baptist brethren. We were We were pretty much on the same page, I mean 2015 is where you can mark the

Southern California pastors conference thing and that's when a lot of stuff was going on but yeah, we were still pretty much going the same direction at that point and So Matthew Barrett is promoting

Matthew Levering's book Reconfiguring Thomistic Christology Thomistic Christology It's isn't it funny

At first, you know, well, it's it's Thomas's theology proper It's Thomas's understanding of simplicity

It's Thomas in these areas and now it's now it's Thomistic Christology so now there's a specific

Christology that you and if you know anything about Thomas and and the problem is even if you do if You don't agree with the scholastics on everything

Then you just haven't read enough Thomas. No one could ever read enough Thomas for the

Thomas but It doesn't take a degree in Scholastic history to recognize that Within Roman Catholicism once you start talking about Christology Um The the pathway is clear and inevitable

Into a discussion of Eucharistic theology and if you know anything about Thomas Then you know

He has a deep mystical Eucharistic theology that is

Inevitably connected to his Christology. You can't you can't escape it and So what this does again is raise the reality that a person who mocks

Biblicism and Who mocks the idea of the sufficiency of Scripture?

to function as the norm by which we measure everything including

Thomas's metaphysics his theology proper and the entire realm of his theological perspectives

You you Where where do where do you draw the line where where does this stop?

So I'm sure that if you go to The Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary bookstore, you're gonna find copies of reconfiguring to mystic

Christology because It says here this book has won one of Credo magazine's book awards

And so I I mentioned on So it what it said was this book is the most important contribution in years

For too long Dogmatics and biblical theology our worlds apart

But this is not necessary we can bring the good work we are doing we are doing

Retrieving Aquinas Into orbit with the findings of evangelical biblical theology

Now again, good luck Meaningfully in application differentiating between biblical theology and being a biblicist conversant with both fields levering

Roman Catholic is Hope that we will one day move past naive biblicism

To a land where the lamb of biblical theology in the line of dogmatics dwell together to learn more see why this book was one of the

Credo magazine book awards and then you've got the link to the book awards you can go read from Matthew Barrett and I Reposted I reposted this graphic and I said

I just I just want to make sure That the board of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Whoever they may be.

I don't even know who they are. I haven't taken the time to look him up I'm not contacting him. I Don't have any connections.

I mean, I just happened to speak in Kansas City and had hence met Graduates of MBTS who attended my talks and we had some interesting conversations about this stuff, but I Don't know anybody at MBTS but I do believe that the board should be aware of where the the school is headed and what this what all this means and that people like Levering And white different white obviously

Roman Catholic Priests and monks all

That their their books and their writings are being mainstreamed mainlined right into the classrooms at MBTS And in this context

They obviously Barrett obviously feels like He is a part of this

Resourcement movement, which obviously these guys feel like we are doing something for the church you you just can't appreciate

How much we're doing for the church? In helping to move us past naive

Biblicism And that's how they you wonder why these guys are so brittle so easily offended why they block everybody right left and center

Because they really think that we are a bunch of naive biblicists that we just have the

IQ of what surely and so They really do believe

I mean scholastics I've told you about the Horrible feeling that I got at the 1998

ETS meeting of The Academy and its infinite wisdom

The guiding lights to the benighted church the idea of Academics in in service to the church in humble

Service to the church. No, no that wasn't and It it really turned me off.

It really really really did But yeah, they they do believe that Anyone criticizing them?

It's just it's just a naive biblicist. So what that?

Very interestingly leads me to Is Oh, I just I just hopped in there can't talk about that in the air, but that'll be interesting to see

We've got a word a quinnification Okay, look guys look

Who oh, well, I'm not in the chat. Okay, so we gotta give credit to Nick Riker for that one in the chat

I gotta make sure we give him a shout out. Okay. Hello Nick He said Nick. Okay Nick Nick, let's listen me now.

Okay When we're when we're trying to find pithy little terms for like, oh he poped

You know that that it rolls off the tongue, you know poped is easy. Let's see if you if you have to quinnification

Okay, six syllables is about four and a half syllables long

For something like that, but Yeah, I I'm not sure

I could say that three times fast so yeah someone in chat says a quinnification Yeah There you go.

That does work. I mean Obviously Matthew Barrett experienced a quinnification.

Yeah, we may be stuck with it. Yep. We may be we may be stuck with it It Yeah, now we have to start talking about is there a cure for a quinnification

Yeah, okay we might roll with it we might roll with it so yeah, there you go

How did I get to that? I don't know I Have the file up But I didn't get to the point in it that I wanted to play so it would take too long to find that I Listened to a

Discussion a Word to go. Well, maybe

I don't have it up. Oh, never mind use a different program I listened to The man that I'm gonna be debating one of the men

I'm gonna be debating One of four men I will be debating once I'm one

I'm debating twice In the upcoming marathon trip is dr.

Dale Tuggy now we have played Tuggy's discussion portions of Tuggy's discussion with William Lane Craig We've read some of his

What he obviously thinks are his best arguments against the Trinity he is a Unitarian He is a philosophical

Unitarian analytical philosopher He's not theologian. He's on exegete and So we've engaged

With him we're gonna be debating the last debate of the five that we're gonna be doing in February March on The same trip and so I was listening to he has something called the

Trinity's podcast and His whole thing is about all the differing

Trinitarian theories that exist out there really, I think one of his arguments would be there are so many that it renders the whole subject as nothing more than the speculations of philosophers and There's there's some level of truth to that If you if you approach the doctrine from the wrong perspective and that's

What we're talking about when we talk about Grounding our

Christian understanding of the doctrine the Trinity in Thomas and in Thomas's theology

We put ourselves in this boat We we put ourselves in this situation, there's nothing we can do about it and He is in this particular episode that was listening to episode number 370

He is interviewing dr. Stephen Nemesh Who's a graduate of Fuller Seminary fairly recent graduate of Fuller Seminary Who is clearly wildly unorthodox?

He's cranking books out right left and center and it's all Analytical philosophical

Analysis of post Catholic theology and he's not using term

Catholic as in Roman Catholic at all but basically fourth century onward and so he's making objections to the doctrine of Trinity That are directly relevant,

I mean that the Conversation starts off and I may play portions of this. We'll see at least it's

One of the topics I'm dealing with I only have a month. I leave in one month and six days and I Have to have my opening statement for that debate done in less than a month because part of the contractual obligation to get

Dale Tuggy to even debate was that I provide him with my opening statement as he'll provide me with his and No, that is the only time

I've ever done that and he demanded it. So As I said, dr.

Tuggy is extremely textually oriented not textually as in scripture textually as in a manuscript as something is written out and so he wants that He wants to know where I'm going from the start so he can respond to it and since I'm Doing the positive that's a huge advantage to him, but that's fine.

We'll do it so I have to be very much focused on the content of those five debates and presentations that I'm making

And I have a Baptist Church history class to teach in the process which Don't know how

I'm gonna get to all that. In fact, I just realized I need to send an email to the seminary

That I was supposed to get to today and I didn't anyway This conversation starts off by defining particular

Aspects of Trinitarian theology focusing upon The doctrine of simplicity

Interesting some of the comments that he has on that Recognizing that there are strict forms of simplicity and less strict forms of simplicity and by the way,

I am hoping that Dr.

Jeffrey Johnson will be able to join us on Thursday. I Don't know that right now

He Hit the brakes wrong on a mountain trail on a mountain bike and went over the handlebars and did what most people most cyclists when you crash there is one injury that you will sustain when you crash on a bike and That is you'll break your collarbone

Lance Armstrong had a had a carbon fiber collarbone Installed at one point he had broken it so many times and So he broke his collarbone and he likewise broke three ribs

And here's the problem, I'm sure brother Johnson is Will do his best to join us.

I just don't want to be on drugs when he comes on And I don't know about you

Um, but if I had three broken ribs for only a few days later

Yeah, yeah. Yeah We don't and besides that when you've got three broken ribs.

Last thing you want to do is laugh And I suppose we could try to keep things as serious as possible but still

When you're on pain meds things become happy and funny so you never know So right now the the the plan is that I will contact him tomorrow and We'll make a decision as to whether we want to put that off Or just what it it takes a while to recover from something like that, that's a

That's a big bang bang so We will we will see But what made me think about that was one

Element of the conversation that we will be having with dr. Johnson in light of his book His book is out for delivery for me today.

It's not that I haven't already read it. I have Read it more than once but the physical copy is is due at my house.

I believe this afternoon There is discussion a fair amount of discussion in the book on a

Philosophical classical theism versus a biblical classical theism and it has to do with origins

Where do you where do you derive? your fundamental categories of thought and expression and There are people who fundamentally derive their

Trinitarian theology from a form of philosophical Speculation and That's problematic and so this conversation with Stephen Emmish Starts off talking about simplicity and The processions divine processions the father begets the son is begotten.

The spirit is spirated and the idea that the only way you can distinguish between father son spirit is

By the divine processions, and we've heard a lot of people saying that as well post

Nicene Orthodoxy I do not recall in the hour and six minutes of the

Episode that I listened to the citation of a single text of scripture What was very very obvious when you listen when you get at least two analytical philosophers together and Listen to them talking with one another

They all end up sound the same. I remember listening to a Roman Catholic Interviewing James Dolezal on similar issues and There were a couple

Bible verses cited but they were never exegeted it was just mentioned in passing for the language But much of the conversation was very very very very similar

As far as the categories of thought they were being utilized anyway Nemesh provides four

Arguments That he says Fundamentally make the

Catholic Doctrine the Trinity which he's just using that again as a very vague post or century

View of the Trinity Incoherent and he basically bases this on the difference between ujiah the essence of God and hypostasis

The divine persons and What is prior to what now in?

analytical philosophy Priority doesn't mean temporal priority but that which explains the existence of something else and so He makes the argument that you know if If the ujiah

If the essence now There was development Historically in the understanding of those terms ujiah hypostasis there was

There was confusion between East and West the East had had fought against modalism and monarchism and had developed language to do that and unfortunately that language runs into Translational issues in the

Latin for the West and there was a lot of confusion at that particular point in time and There was development even between 325 and 381

That's something I want to bring up at another point in time and and talk about you know Even what that means to us as well but He makes the argument that if the ujiah comes first and there's a

Contradiction with the priority of the father if the hypostases come first and you end up with four things and all the conversation all the four different arguments are based upon Philosophical categories

And If you listen if you remembered listening if you Remember back during the summer when

I played Portions well, actually, you know what I Just realized

I didn't play these portions I directed you to them, but I didn't play these portions of the conversation between William Lane Craig and Dale Tuggy in the first half

Where Tuggy is going after? Craig The the conversation is well, you know,

I am NOT convinced of that argument I do not necessarily utilize that category

I don't necessarily believe that term means this and that's how that that's all that philosophers do is

Have arguments like that that never end up coming to any type of conclusion Because if you did then they they'd have to stop publishing and that's death.

So That that was it was the same kind of Round and round and I'm not sure that I necessarily accept that definition and that that at the end and everybody gets to just sort of accept what they want to accept and the idea is to try to push the other guy into making contradictory statements, but Once you claim the right to sort of define everything as you feel like defining it

You're never really gonna be pushed into that position. Anyways, so That's the stuff that's going on and I I'm still might do this, but you you play something like this for most people and what it did for me was to Verify once again

The importance of recognizing from whence the Doctrine the Trinity comes if The Doctrine the

Trinity is an a priori Credal reality That Must be held so as to properly interpret

Scripture then you cannot say that it's coming from the witness of Scripture Right if you say you have to start with our conclusion

To be able to rightly handle Scripture now, you're gonna have to explain

Where your conclusion came from and it can't be from Scripture because it can't rightly handle Scripture without your conclusion see

So I was gonna grab this But Still smells good.

I still seem to Yeah, see the page edging still looks good. I Died the page edges on this one.

This is the ESV Creeds and confessions one that I got from Jeffrey Rice and I did the page edging

Myself, but um, it all comes down to What I've said before I have

I've used illustration. I've shown it to you, you know sitting here in this very seat and I've said where is

Where is the revelation of the Doctrine of the Trinity? Well, it's right there In the gutter between Malachi and Matthew It happened in history and This is the

God -breathed Testimony to it so that what you have here is

You have The and actually the only

You know Smaller portion that it's only about a much that's revelation. What you what you have are

Trinitarians teaching Trinitarian Lee in the

New Testament and so the the doctrine becomes a biblical doctrine

Because the historical revelation of it is only revealed to us

Prophetically in the Tanakh what we call the Old Testament and then

Lived out in the new and so if that's the source and origin of the doctrine

Then anything that comes after this we can We can be thankful,

I'm very very thankful for the insights into the doctrine the Trinity Provided by B .B.

Warfield Okay, doesn't make B .B. Warfield inspired. It doesn't make him a standard outside of scripture

But we can be thankful for those who in the past either recent or ancient

Have reflected properly Upon what is found in scripture and we can you can look at a at a

Gregory of Nyssa Gregory Nazianzus You can look at Basil or an

Athanasius or an Augustine And in each one you are going to have to Wrestle with the reality

That you can learn things from them without accepting everything they have to say because almost no one today does accept everything that they have to say so I Can't think of a single one of those men that I just mentioned including

Warfield that I would not have biblical disagreements with Warfield was a

Presbyterian obviously so and on matters of church governance and sacraments and even an understanding of justification

I Would have differences with every one of the ancient man that I mentioned.

I've talked about Augustine and his I think self contradictory view of justification and the contradictions that exist in his theology due to the

Donatus controversy the plaguing controversy that the context in which he lived and I apply the same standards to Augustine or to Gregory Either the

Gregory's or to Basil or whatever Ambrose and everybody and That makes me a biblicist

I I think any Baptist is a biblicist because my final authority is scripture

And Ontologically as to the nature of Scripture it has a unique Essence it is the it's the

Word of God written It is given to the church to have a specific function and purpose

That nothing else is in the same class and category as what you have in Scripture Mm -hmm

Now for some reason when it comes to those post

Nicene writers Or even Contemporaneous with Nicaea Athanasius When it comes to theology proper

You just simply have to accept whatever they had to say that then the problem is there was as I said, there's development from Athanasius to Gregory there's development in this in the decades after Nicaea and What's the standard by which development must be tested

Scripture and so What I would love to do is

I would love to Challenge our Our Classical theism and of course that's

Term Created by the open open theist to describe all of us, but our

Philosophical classical theists I Would like to challenge them to listen to that podcast and To tell me how would you respond?

To Stephen image, how would you respond to his arguments where he says look them if you try to hold on to Divine simplicity and Processions and the distinction of Usia and Hypothesis you can't do it

You have to give something up To come up with any type of workable

Conclusion I'd like to know how you respond because I know how I respond to that and since I'll be debating him

I would assume some of this is going to come up and so I know how

I would respond the problem is You all don't seem to think that My grounding the

Trinity as The biblical Trinity as a biblical revelation is a

Coherent or possible thing to do So we're not gonna respond the same way

You you've accepted The validity of the categories that he is utilizing.

So, how do you get around the resultant objection? I'd really love to see how that would be done.

I Really would Because this is this is one of the issues

I I'm debating him. I'm not nemesh, but Tuggy in March and It's on a very closely related topic and so it's something

I'm definitely thinking about and so my question is how would the rest of you do it Since you have such insights.

How would the rest of you do it? I Will try to remember To blog the a link to it and see if anyone

I haven't heard anybody answering the other question I asked last week About how to respond to people regarding Matthew 24 36 haven't heard any answers to that but Anyway Okay Now we got started a little bit late and we'll go a few minutes over I Wanted to respond to and what we've done up to this point in time has been rather heavy and difficult to follow

Soteriology 101 Posted a Tweet and I just want to briefly respond to it says our father who art in heaven hallowed be that That's even that even spelled correctly hallowed be it says hallowed hallowed by thy name

Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Oh wait Your will is already always being done exactly as you determined.

So just keep doing that. Amen now there have been a number of times that I Have muted

Soteriology 101 fact I think it may have even blocked him for a while and Part of the reason is just the frustration.

I don't like to hear people constantly mocking God's truth Who clearly have no ears to hear no matter how many times they are corrected that they are mocking

God's truth no one who is ever any kind of Calvinist and again,

I've Met lots of former Calvinists and when you start pushing on him you discover I don't know what they think they were but they had no knowledge of the

Basics of the system and here's a good example But likewise the willingness to engage in this kind of thing this constant willingness to mock

God's decree Even if you come to the conclusion that the

Bible doesn't teach there is decree of God I think there I would think there would be some hesitation To engage in this kind of behavior it is

Childish and self -destructive But in this instance thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

As latent flowers should know but clearly doesn't or because if he does know then he's being dishonest and If we're going to give him the benefit of the doubt that he's not being dishonest then he just never knew but When we talk about the will of God We have over the years more than once gone rather in -depth into a discussion of the fact that there is in Scripture of necessity in the

Bible a A revelation of God's will

Expressing his character his holiness Expressing his law for mankind and This is his prescriptive will

So we know that in the law You are not to murder

We know that you are not to cheat others that you are not to lie and these represent the creators character and Hence impact how the creature is to live in God's world but we also know that there is a decreed of will that is the will that forms the very fabric of time when

God says he is going to accomplish his purposes. He's going to do as he pleases

In heaven on earth. We looked at only a few weeks ago at Daniel chapter 4 Nebuchadnezzar's Testimony to God's utter freedom to act not only in heaven but upon earth

So as to accomplish his purpose, there's no one who can ward off his hand say to him. Why have you done this and We recognize that the fundamental error of latent flowers over and over and over again is the same thing

He will not allow for these two Divine realities to exist side -by -side

So you listen to his attempt to deal with Genesis 50, for example, and it's it's incoherent.

It has to be because in Genesis 50 you have the prescriptive will

Don't kill your brother and The decreed of will your brother's got to go to Egypt and he's got to go there in a certain way and Biblically You accept both and You function in light of both but the provisionists can't do that and so they flatten it out and Get rid of one aspect of the biblical revelation

So as Christians who want to live in the light of all of the biblical revelation and not just the parts that make

Mankind feel good about himself We recognize that When we say your will be done

We are not playing Time games as little time -bound creatures so as to mock the eternal one

And We are not saying Well, we're gonna do our best to make God's decreed of will

Take place. Oh wait, you're too creative. Will is always being done exactly as you determined.

So just keep doing that Instead we are expressing

The reality that God works in his people in such a way that while the primary mechanisms of Sanctification is the forming of our will into conformance

With God's prescriptive will so think about it

We dealt with this last month in our Jared Longshore response, what's one of the

Key elements of the description of the New Covenant in Hebrews chapter 8. I'll write my law upon their hearts

I'll write my law upon their hearts and so The Regenerate believer longs to see

God's will done and that Includes around us in our society our family our nation and within us

So work your will in me Conform my will to your will that's that's really the the key to an understanding of Jesus is teaching on prayer

Because when Jesus says whatever you ask it will be done for you we see the perversions of that In the word faith movement and things like that the prosperity gospel but the reality is

That's that is a completely valid promise, but it's for those whose will has been conformed to his and so The whole idea is whatever you ask will be in accordance

With God's will Not yours and that may include your own suffering but it'll always be whatever makes me more like Christ and God will do that Because we have been aligned with his will in that process, but it truly is an element of Sanctification it truly is an element of what it means to be a follower of Christ To pray that in my life

God's God's will be done. I don't want to get in the way.

I Don't want to walk in in a way that will distract, you know

Peter should have been praying that prayer The the day of Matthew 16 and Jesus had to say get behind me

Satan because he wasn't doing the will of God he was putting his own will first and only the most

Childish and disrespectful attitude Can make you go well see

We should we should say, you know, oh wait, your will is always already always being done exactly as you determined Confusing the decretive with the prescriptive and the fact that God has decreed in his decree

Which the provision is just don't believe it. It's not accepted That he would work within us in time to conform us the image of Christ and So that is a daily reality of the

Christian experience is a desire for God's will to be done In this world in our society in our in our own lives

But that doesn't require you To deny the distinction clearly made in Scripture between the decree of God and and His law.

So one other thing to get to before we Close up shop here

Oh, and I we did not test this Great. We will see

If this is going to work But quick light and flowers

Thing here that again, I think that all Reformed believers should be prepared to rather easily respond to this kind of rhetorical thing

But if you've not heard it before Sometimes it can throw you off, but it shouldn't be something that causes us any issues, but let's

Well, first of all, let's just see if it's gonna work and that's why I think this is so important to highlight because ultimately what

Calvinists Have done unintentionally is they have made the gift of the gospel Insufficient for those who end up rejecting it.

Okay The gift of the gospel, where do you get that from scripture? look up the term gospel and You will never find it described as a gift it is something that is proclaimed

It is something that is obeyed so it is a command

It's not a gift eternal life is a gift forgiveness is a gift

There's lots of things I mean the term grace chorus in Greek can be translated as gift and So there are places where it is appropriately translated that way.

So God is gracious in Proclaiming the gospel

But it is a powerful proclamation and it is a command to repent and believe

So by framing it well The gospel is a gift

No eternal life is a gift to repentant individuals Forgiveness is a gift you could describe every aspect of What God does in the salvation of the elect as Gracious and therefore a gift but the gospel is something is proclaimed and it's a command and once you

Change the very nature of what Evangelism is which is the proclamation of the good news

But you see from the provisionist perspective again starting with man as the defining element rather than The fact that Father Son Holy Spirit are glorifying themselves in the gospel

That's that's not Very often The way the gospel is presented

And you say well, yeah, because we're we're presenting it to people. So we have to start with the we've got to start with them

That's the problem Excuse me. That's the problem as long as you start with them

You will never be able to get beyond them What you win them with is what you win them to if you win them with a message that is focused upon them their control their importance their centrality

Don't be surprised if when you get to other passages of Scripture later on once they're baptized and in the church

That they're like, whoa, wait a minute. What do you mean? Deny self take up cross holiness of life what?

You see that's that's part of the issue there is a the gospel is

A divine proclamation and therefore when you proclaim it as Scripture presents it you do so with divine authority and when we

Abandon that divine authority By watering it down to make it more palatable to rebel sinners

We are demonstrating. We don't understand the gospel ourselves So first thing redefinition of the gospel as a gift

Rather than a powerful proclamation is to be obeyed Obedience the gospel that is a biblical phrase in other words.

It's not a sufficient means of grace there Okay, it's not a sufficient means of grace, what does that mean?

When the gospel is Joined by the power of the

Spirit To bring about the regeneration of one of God's people there's no power in heaven earth can stop so it is an absolutely sufficient means of grace

In the sovereign decree of God in the same way it is an absolutely sufficient

Message When it is proclaimed to all people To hold men accountable to it so in other words

What is the message that we are to deliver? God commands men God commands men ever to do what to repent to repent

We don't know who the elect are So we delivered a message to anyone The old

I think the old Puritans used the term proclaim it promiscuously to everyone without without limitation and God uses that God uses that either in his grace to quell the rebellion of sinful hearts and draw men unto himself or to exacerbate that rebellion to the just judgment of those who hate

God's message and Again from their perspective. Well, he forced them to no he didn't these men don't believe in Romans 5

They do not believe in federal headship. They do not believe in original sin They do not believe in total depravity

They do not believe the biblical description of the lost as rebel sinners in love with their sin in love with their rebellion and Utterly unwilling to submit

To the God who made them That's That's Romans 1 and that's why they have to try to Well, that was just particular group people or that was just had a historical context to it

Or you know any of the various ways that people have tried to get around it. The problem is

You make a complete mishmash out of the book of Romans and its presentation of sin and That becomes the foundation of this presentation of the gospel and that has a lot of impacts to Rejecting it because God didn't really love them there.

They're rejecting it because God didn't really love them No human being on earth

Has knowledge of God's Decree as to who he is going to express salvific love to over against those he gives common grace to Nobody on earth knows that so no

No human being could have knowledge of that and therefore reject

God Based upon his supposed previous rejection of them This is again pretending to have knowledge that Layton doesn't have and no one else has we don't know who the elect are

But we know one thing that every one of them is elect solely by grace and That no one

No one can say to God. Why did you make me like this? That's the foundation of You know again provisionism doesn't really believe acts for Daniel for any of these these texts that talk about God's sovereign grace and the reality of the justness of God's judgment of Sinners who love their sin.

They don't don't believe any of that. They've gotten rid of all that stuff They explain it explain away or make it only historically relevant or something like that It doesn't really have anything to do with anybody today

So We don't know who the elect are and It is not a matter of presenting the gospel as if Well, if you do you

Jesus has done this nice thing for you. Therefore you need to do a nice thing for Jesus That's how a lot of people present it.

I mean he was so nice to die for you Can't you just believe in him? I mean, it's it's just so little a little thing to do

That's not Bible You never find the Apostles talking like that at all

They're not really being offered the gift because Jesus didn't die for them They're not really being offered the gift and that's notice.

There's now been a shift Before at the beginning you had the gospel as a gift

But now what is being quote -unquote offered Well, I'm not sure but This is the and again, it's a standard objection.

There's numerous Articles books have been written on this particular objection that It's not a well -meant offer if you believe in particular redemption, but that assumes that somehow you can know

The identities of those who were united with Christ in his death and a lot of people are just willing to go well, hey

I'm willing to sacrifice the efficacious nature of Christ's death so as to avoid the conundrum

That comes from saying Christ died only for the elect since my gospel presentation is based upon Christ's death actually not saving but only making men savable then

I'm gonna have to alter my presentation of of the gospel and how

I how I approach people and I go no Um There is plain clear

Biblical teaching on what the death of Christ accomplishes and we have plain biblical teaching

That Christ's death Christ's people are united with him in his death his barrel in his resurrection that is vitally important and We can without question say that there has never been anyone

Who has turned to Christ and Repentance and faith and not found him to be a perfect Savior But we know the only people that are going to do it going to do that So the question becomes yeah, but what are you offering people?

We proclaim one thing to anyone who will repent and believe Jesus Christ to be a perfect Savior Yeah, but you don't think everybody can do that so I don't know who it is and who it isn't

I Don't know who he is going to have mercy on who he's not.

I don't know that and I don't have to know that and You're the one that has to explain how you have to have that knowledge for the message to be valid We've been told what message to proclaim

Okay, and as ambassadors you go and you proclaim your Lord's message You don't have the right to sit there and say and I get to ask all these other questions about what's behind all that You don't get to do that So it is a perfectly valid statement for me to say to anyone if you will turn in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ you will find him to be a perfect Savior and then you go but But you might say that to someone to Jesus didn't die for Well again,

I say if you will return to repentance and faith That act which is the result only in reality of this of the

Spirit of God is What will demonstrate that they are a part of those for whom

Christ died But I don't it's hyper Calvinism when you start running around thinking that you can look into people's hearts and figure that out on your own and There's no basis for doing that and therefore they're rejecting what they're rejecting a

God who first rejected them So again, there's there's no

Romans 5 in provisionism There is no Adam is not is not the head of these individuals

So they have not sinned in Adam. And so they're innocent

You see and as long as you have the idea That mankind is just this these poor innocent creatures and there's this big mean

God up there It's just forcing them to be bad and and they just don't have a chance and all the rest of this kind of stuff

Yeah, you know, there's there's there's a bunch of stuff in here. It ain't gonna make a lick of sense

In fact, I'd suggest you the vast majority of the Old Testament Does not make a lick of sense if you have that idea

I mean, that's why so many of these people, you know, turn the Old Testament into just, you know fantasy stories and didn't really happen and God wouldn't do that and blah blah blah blah blah because it's just so obvious that You know look at the

Philistines look at the Egyptians Sit doesn't fit into this. Oh God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life stuff.

Tell that to all of Pharaoh's army Yeah, ain't gonna happen Amorites or anybody else so Again the issue here is the provisionist focus upon God's rejection of them

Rather than what the Bible focuses upon and that is God made them

They are therefore under Obligation to be thankful to God and to worship in his

God, but they don't do it So Provisionist anthropology is 20 ,000 miles away from anything that would be derived from the consistent exegesis of Scripture.

It's Humanistic it really is They're pushing back against the

God who created them for destruction Back against a God who create as if they know this

They want to destroy God. They want to destroy God's creation But you actually think it's a valid argument that they're pushing back against the

God who wants who? Created them for destruction as if they know this they don't know this

It's it's just amazing the knowledge that these guys want to attribute to the lost

That spiritual knowledge it comes from Scripture No, they love their sin

They love their sin Well, I who wouldn't Who wouldn't reject that kind of a

God the fact is this is about the blameworthiness of the sinner How much more blameworthy is somebody who's rejecting a

God who loves and provides for him who actually wants them to come? Now to catch that so there you have

There you have It's it's more blameworthy if they're rejecting a

God who loves them So what you need is a is a

God Who must be able to be disappointed? So so he can provide them of life

He can provide them with a clear revelation of his existence he can provide them with the light of conscience and That's not enough

That's not enough He needs to have the same

Salvific love he needs to be bummed at their rejection that evidently is what makes them truly them truly blameworthy and you'll notice there wasn't a

There you know, it was just a short little clip but Where are you gonna? We're gonna pull that up from Scripture.

You're not going to you're not going to We've been saying for years

We've been saying since 2015 Man centered versus God centered

If you start with man, and you start with an unbiblical anthropology No, you're never gonna come to to the

Reformed Faith No question about it I agree and The only reason

I can't do that is because Got a Bible over here and the Bible tells me something very very different.

So there you go All right, well There you go

Don't know what Thursday is gonna look like yet well We'll let you know one way or the other.

I I hope brother Johnson will be Ready to go, but I'm gonna be honest with you.

I'd rather have a good Interview with someone who's comfortable and in their right mind

Because I I've never broken a rib but I think I bruised one once and I'm gonna tell you something

Yeah, and I'm older than than dr. Johnson But he ain't no spring chicken.

He ain't 30 years of age. He's he's old enough that I Just sort of figure in that first week is gonna be ugly and so I'm I'm just gonna

I'm gonna push him. I'll be honest when I when I talk to him tomorrow I'm gonna push on and say look we want this to be a good interview and And I'm gonna ask you some

We're gonna have to be talking about you know identity and Thomas and Simplicity and a biblical doctrine versus a philosophical doctrine and Look, you know

Maybe from your perspective, it's easier to understand Thomas while you are on drugs. I don't know.

It's Maybe it maybe it'll hurt less What you know when you've got a ton of volume going

I don't know so oxytomus no, I'm not good Oxytomus See I wouldn't have thought of that I I wouldn't have thought of oxytomus, but there you go

That came from the other side of the window. So We'll see We may be talking about because I there was a

I've got a bunch of other stuff to be talking about I Have come across some some great books

That I really I'm looking forward to diving into after The all the debates

I want to talk about some of the stuff that that's in there It's really really interesting because it's connecting together

My studies Roman Catholicism my studies of Islam, it's really really interesting. So We have other things we talked about.

So we'll see. We'll see we'll find out on Thursday I'll be watching the app for announcement on that and we'll see you next time.