June 12, 2025 Show with Anthony Rogers on “Defending the Essential Truths of Christ and His Gospel” (Part 2)

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Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer

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George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend

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Jim Thorpe. It's Iron Sharpens Iron. This is a radio platform in which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs chapter 27 verse 17 tells us iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com.

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This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 12th day of June 2025.

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For those of you who missed my first interview a couple of days ago with Anthony Rogers, today is part two of that discussion.

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We had Anthony Rogers on the program a couple of days ago to begin discussing with us the theme,

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Defending the Essential Truths of Christ and His Gospel Against His Primary Opponents Today.

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I knew full well when conducting that interview that there was no way we could fit all of the vital content of that weighty theme into one two -hour program.

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So today, we have Anthony back on the program for part two of that same theme.

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Anthony Rogers is a Christian apologist, debater, ordained minister in the

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Presbyterian Church in America, also known as the PCA, and regional director for Metanoia Prison Ministries.

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It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Anthony Rogers.

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Thanks so much. I am delighted to be back on with you. And by the way, folks, for those of you who did not hear

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Monday's program with Anthony Rogers, after this live show is over,

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I urge you to look that up in the archives of IronSharpensIronRadio .com. And that program was

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Monday, June 9th. And just type in Anthony Rogers in the search engine, and that will come up.

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But Anthony, when we had you on the program on Monday, we were primarily having you articulate a biblical defense of the deity of Jesus Christ, and also a biblical defense of the

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Trinity. And we never really got around to having you defend the gospel of Jesus Christ, because there are just as many, if not more, people out there who have a false understanding of the gospel as there are people who have a false understanding of Jesus Christ.

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Because on top of those who deny His deity and deny the

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Trinity and deny the gospel, there are many who profess belief in the deity of Christ and the

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Trinity and yet deny the gospel nonetheless. So, is there anything that you care to wrap up from Monday's program, where you were defending the deity of Christ and the

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Trinity? Sure. So, one of the things

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I was pointing out there, and I really hope Christians get a good handle on, is the

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Old Testament witness to the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of the coming Messiah, and so forth.

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Because, as I said then, the attack of non -Christians often gets much of its impetus from the assumption that the

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Old Testament is bereft of a revelation of these things. And so, when you point to a text in the

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New, it's often rebuffed by saying, well, such an understanding is contrary to the

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Old Testament. And so, either the New Testament is false, which is what contemporary Jews say, or you're misinterpreting the

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New Testament because your interpretation would bring it into conflict with the Old. And yet, again, as I said, the

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Old Testament isn't silent with respect to these things. The New Testament certainly enhances our understanding, but that doesn't mean that the

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Old Testament in itself is not a bright light with respect to them. I don't know how much

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I can't recall now I mentioned back then, but just think of a smattering of passages in the

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Old Testament. Isaiah 7 speaks of the coming Messiah, the virgin -born child, as Emmanuel.

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When Matthew cites this passage and says it was fulfilled in the angelic announcement of Mary's conception, he tells us that this was to fulfill what was written in Isaiah the prophet, and he quotes the statement that his name would be called

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Emmanuel, and then he interprets it, he says, which means God with us.

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The fact that Matthew stops to interpret it shows that it's not just accidental or for some lesser reason that the child would be called

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Emmanuel. In other words, there are people in the Old Testament who have what are called theophoric names, that is, names with the name of God embedded in them, like Elijah means

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Jehovah is my God or Yahweh is my God. Elijah's name points to God, but this child is called

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God with us, and Matthew stops to tell us that's what this name means, precisely because he doesn't want us to miss the significance of it.

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In fact, he says something else there that I think is often missed.

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In Matthew 1, they're told, Joseph is told, you're to give him the name

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Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. There's a connective there.

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Matthew is giving us the reasons or reason why he's supposed to be called Jesus, but if we're not familiar with the fact that names have meaning in a

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Hebrew context or with the Old Testament pattern of people naming people according to some trait or some hope they have for the person or what have you, we would miss entirely what's going on here.

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The angel is telling Joseph this is the right name for him, precisely because he's going to save his people from their sins.

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So when you look at the meaning of the name Yeshua, which is Yahweh saves, you now understand the connection.

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You're to give him the name Yeshua, which means Yahweh saves, for he will save his people from their sins.

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So we're explicitly told this is why he's named Yeshua, because he's going to save his people.

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Whose people? The people of God. And that means, therefore, that he is God. He's the one he's going to save. And so the

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Old Testament already anticipates this in the prophetic announcement of the virgin born child, it would be

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Emmanuel. Only a chapter later, the prophet is talking about the land of Israel, and he talks about how the land is going to be devastated, and he directly addresses

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Emmanuel. That is the prophet seven centuries before Jesus. In Isaiah chapter 8, this again is a statement

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I think people probably missed. But here's what Isaiah says.

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It will sweep on into Judah. That is this thing that's going to happen. It will overflow and pass through.

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It will reach even to the neck, and the spread of its wings will fill the breadth of your land,

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O Emmanuel. Notice the prophet is directly addressing this figure already before his conception, which already indicates his deity, but then he heightens it by directly addressing him long before his birth.

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Then the next chapter, Isaiah 9, tells us that the child who would be born would be mighty

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God, prince of peace, and so forth. This is just a very small subset of passages talking about the deity of the coming

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Messiah. And I think Christians should really spend time familiarizing themselves with it.

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And that's why when you get to the New Testament, you notice if you're reading carefully, the writers of the

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New Testament don't present this as though it's an innovation into the truth of God.

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They argue for this on the basis of the Old Testament. The author of Hebrews in Hebrews 1 cites a litany of Old Testament texts proving the deity of Christ, all from the

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Old Testament. And on and on this could go. One more example I would give here that I greatly delight in, and it's what we see in Philippians 2.

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And this observation that I'm about to make is one I learned a long time ago from the Lion of Princeton, B .B.

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Warfield, a giant of theological acumen. In Philippians 2,

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Paul is exhorting the Philippians to humble themselves before each other and esteem others greater than themselves.

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And the idea is, though you guys are on an equal plane, if you will, you're fellow human beings, you are in Christ, you're brothers and sisters, nevertheless, you are to esteem the other as better than yourselves and humble yourselves to that person's betterment, for their service and so forth.

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And then to bring to bear an example that should rouse them up to this,

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Paul marshals forth the example of Christ himself. He says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who, although existing in the form or the very nature of God, did not consider that equality something to be used to his own advantage, but humbled himself, taking the form of a servant and being found in human likeness and so forth.

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What's interesting about this is we often point to this as proof for the deity of Christ, and it is, but what we miss is that Paul's not here trying to prove the deity of Christ.

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He's taking it for granted. This is the genius insight of Warfield. He mentions that Paul just takes it for granted, and he uses that as a basis to make his exhortation strong.

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He takes as a given that Christ is God, humbled himself and so forth. So most of what you see in the

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New Testament, in the epistles and so forth, is not the apostles arguing for the deity of Christ, but taking it for granted.

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Now, to be sure, in the gospels, there are people that challenge the idea that Jesus is

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God, but it's not because they're challenging the idea so much that the Messiah could be or would be

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God, for there were many Jews that believed this, as I mentioned last time. But what their problem was is the claim that Jesus, this guy from Nazareth, this carpenter from the backwaters of Galilee, was claiming to be the

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Son of God and divine. And so I really think this is momentous.

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I think Christians should really get a handle on this. There are a lot of good books they could get. One book I really like, would recommend to people, is by Robert Raymond, and it's called

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The Divine Messiah, The Old Testament Witness. He also wrote another book called

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The Divine Messiah, New Testament Witness. I think those might be sold together now as one book.

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But either way, as far as the Old Testament, I especially recommend his book on that.

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It's got like seven chapters where it deals with seven basic arguments for this, and that's only scratching the surface.

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So that's what I would say as far as wrapping things up. And then as sort of a segue into our discussion of the gospel,

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I would point out that this is critically important to a right understanding of the gospel and to warding off misrepresentations of it.

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In Psalm 49, it says, Nobody can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever, that he should live on eternally, that he should not undergo decay.

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What the psalmist is saying is, no person can provide a ransom, can redeem somebody else.

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And that's because our blood is not sufficient. We are fallen, finite and fallen human beings.

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And as such, we can't pay the debt that sinners owe to God. And so we might ask, well, then what hope is there for anybody?

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Well, if no mere man can do this, that still leaves the door open for God doing this.

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And that's exactly what the psalmist goes on to say. He goes on to say in verse 15,

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God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol. He will receive me.

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And so the expectation of the psalmist is that what man can't do, God could and would do. And this we see fulfilled in the person of Christ.

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That's why Christ's death is sufficient to atone for the sins of his people. And that's why his people can have nothing but confidence that through faith in him, they'll be brought safely to God.

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As the author of Hebrews said, by the sacrifice of himself, he has saved to the uttermost those who come to God through him.

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So the issue of the deity of Christ is critically important to a right understanding of the gospel and of the atonement, which lies at the heart of the accomplishment of redemption.

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By the way, I'd like to plug a book myself on this issue written by my dear friend,

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Dr. William Webster. I don't know if you're familiar with Bill Webster. Yes, love his stuff.

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Yeah, well, he wrote a phenomenal book, Behold Your King, Prophetic Proofs that Jesus is the

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Messiah. It's quite a weighty book. And you could get that book from christiantruth .org,

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christiantruth .org, which happens to be the publishing ministry of William Webster, Christian Resources.

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420 pages of prophetic proofs that Jesus is the

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Messiah. So I guess we can move on now to something that we really didn't address last time, and that is a defense of the true gospel, because the true gospel is under attack even more than the person and work of Jesus Christ and his deity and so on, because many who profess his deity and profess to believe in the

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Trinity have a false gospel. And that would include, but would not only include, but it would include the

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Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church.

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They all claim many of the things that we do, but they have a false gospel.

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Before you even get into a definition of the gospel, Anthony, as you may have noticed, there is a growing trend among evangelicals that has been going on for decades, but it's even becoming more and more prevalent amongst

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Reformed Christians, Christians who share our soteriology, to welcome as brethren people like Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox individuals, solely on the basis that they believe in the deity of Christ, they believe in the

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Trinity, and they have some other important commonalities with us regarding biblical truth, but they clearly have a different gospel, which if they have a different gospel, we have to identify it as a false gospel.

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Do you believe that it is appropriate for Bible -believing Christians, regenerate

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Christians, to have Christian fellowship with people such as this?

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Now, I'm not talking about having loving relationships. There are many

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Roman Catholics that I know having been raised in Roman Catholicism. There are

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Roman Catholics in my family, but I even over the years have gained a number of close friendships with Catholics, ironically, because of the debates that I organized for decades with Dr.

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James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries predominantly. I had one debate I arranged with Dr. Tony Costa, but debates with Roman Catholic apologists,

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I've gained many friendships with Catholics, even though they know my position that I believe their gospel is false.

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But do you believe that we should be having Christian fellowship with these folks? Certainly not, and it's striking that anybody could entertain this idea who is at all familiar with the

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Scriptures, and not just Paul's writings, though that's a prominent place that we should turn to.

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Paul is the one who most frequently speaks to this sort of thing. But again,

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I mean, I just can't imagine Paul thinking, well, it's fine that you have a different gospel just so long as you believe in something like the

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Trinity, the deity of Christ, and so forth. In fact, before I get more directly on some of that,

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I think that we have to observe that while there is this formal agreement among us on the

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Trinity and deity of Christ and that sort of thing, there's a failure here to apply that.

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So there's a sense in which we could say that we have some difference with these groups, even on matters pertaining to the

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Trinity and the deity of Christ. Because after all, we think of the saving work that we put our confidence in as believers as a work of the triune

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God, and God reveals himself through his works. And so if somebody thinks of salvation as something wrought by some other creatures, whether in competition with God or in working with God, which is what

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Catholics and Orthodox would say, that mitigates what we're saying when we confess the

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Trinity as our God and our savior. And what I mean here, of course, is in the

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Roman system and the Eastern system, Mary is portrayed as having a part to play that Scripture does not give her.

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She is referred to in Roman Catholic and Orthodox literature in various ways.

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Among the terminology are terms like co -mediatrix, co -redemptrix, co -dispensatrix.

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That last one, many people probably have not heard. I haven't heard of it until just now. Yeah, well, it's found in a lot of the older Catholic literature and the concept is still very current.

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So if you look at Alphonsus Liguri, for example, the staunch defender of the

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Council of Trent, he has a commentary. It's behind me, in fact, on my shelf. He has a commentary on the

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Council of Trent and also wrote a bunch of books on Mary, like The Glories of Mary.

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A lot of people are familiar with that. But in there, he's addressing the

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Roman view of Mary. And by the way, he's a doctor of the Roman church. So he's not just another saint, which would already be significant enough in terms of representing what

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Rome teaches, but he's a doctor of the Roman church. And there's only about 36 or 38 of those.

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And it can't be just written off because of that as, oh, give the guy a break. He's got excessive piety in his poetic language.

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You can't write it off that way. Right. Well, so he uses this term dispensatrix to refer to the idea that Mary is the one who bestows the

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Holy Spirit. Wow. And all the graces that believers receive from God in Christ.

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And so nobody has the spirit or grace apart from Mary. She's the one who dispenses it. Now, all this sort of stuff should be, when

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I was talking just a moment ago about how Rome and the East undermine their Trinitarian confession, this also should be included in that because one of the chief examples or proofs of the deity of Christ is the fact that he is the one who pours out the

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Holy Spirit. Remember that all through the Old Testament, the promise made by the prophets, the expectation was that the spirit would be given by God.

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And this is what would enable them to put on immortality and corruption and so forth.

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This was a promise of the age to come. And so when you read in the prophet Joel, all who call upon the name of the

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Lord will be saved, it's in that context where he says that the Lord will pour out his spirit on all flesh. Same promises made in Isaiah 33.

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Many, many other Old Testament passages that God is going to do this in Isaiah 34. And so when you get to the

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New Testament and you read John the Baptist saying, I baptize you with water, but one who coming after me will baptize you with the spirit.

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He's showing the superiority of Christ in his ministry by saying, he's only baptizing with water, but this one is going to baptize with the spirit.

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It shows the superiority of Christ, but just how superior we know from the fact that this is ascribed to God in scripture.

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It's God who gives the spirit. And the same thing is true of grace. Think of all the apostolic salutations.

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I absolutely love the salutations. I mentioned Warfield a moment ago. This is another insight

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I gleaned from Warfield. Warfield has this excellent study of the salutations of Paul, in which he shows that they have an apparent formulaic character to them.

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They're very similar, yet there is some variation. And that variation, given the remarkable uniformity of these salutations, whenever there's some slight difference, what

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Warfield points out is they're probably not inconsequential, these differences. But one of the observations he makes about what's common to them is this statement, grace and peace to you from God our

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Among the variations are things like grace and peace to you from God the

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Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, or God our Father. Those are one example of the difference.

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But what he points out here is that Paul uses a single preposition when speaking about that grace and peace which we receive, these twin divine blessings, he says, are alike from Father and Son.

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It's not merely through the Son, though that's true too. We have these things because the

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Son became incarnate and we participate in Him through faith and so forth. But it's because the

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Son is not merely a human being and Messiah and so forth, but God incarnate, one with the

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Father is to His deity. He also is the source of those two divine blessings, grace and peace.

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And so when somebody takes these things and assigns them to Mary or the saints and then on top of it begins to talk about things like a treasury of merit so that if your own works are insufficient to add to the work of Christ, supplement the work of Christ and save you, well, good news,

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Mary has some excess merit, so do the saints and so forth. That's the Roman system, but it has nothing to do with the

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Bible. And so I think that it compromises Trinitarianism because, again,

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God is known through His works and the chief work that Scripture sets before our eyes is the work of redemption.

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If you go back to the Exodus, for example, when God is bringing about the salvation of Israel, which is a temporal deliverance,

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He constantly says He's doing these things so that they will know that He is the

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Lord. In other words, these saving actions are revelatory of Him. And then that means if we take these deeds and we parcel them out to others, we are compromising our confession of God as our

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Savior. And so also obscuring the picture that He presents of Himself in Scripture.

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So I think it's a big problem. A false gospel proves to be a big problem, even when it comes to those apparent similarities between us and them when it comes to the

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Trinity and the deity of Christ. Okay, we're going to our first commercial break, and when we come back, we will have

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Dr. Rogers define the gospel, and then we will move on from there.

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If you have any questions about anything that we brought up in the first discussion of this issue on Monday, or if you have any questions about what we're discussing today, that is the person and work of Jesus, which we primarily addressed

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Monday, and today we are looking more specifically at the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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and mention Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. We're now back with Anthony Rogers, Christian apologist, and we are primarily discussing the true gospel today and defending the true gospel, the true biblical gospel, against the counterfeits of Christ's opponents, some of whom have been

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Christ's opponents for centuries and some of them have risen up on the scene more recently in time.

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But I'd like to once again give our email address if you have a question for Anthony Rogers.

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It's chrisarnson at gmail .com chrisarnson at gmail .com Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

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So Anthony, if you could, give us a biblical definition of the gospel. Sure. So the late

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John Murray, another towering giant of a theologian, wrote a book once called

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Redemption Accomplished and Applied. And what he was referring to, of course, is to the foundational work that we call the gospel that is a work of the triune

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God and then the application of it to us by the Spirit. And these two ways are ways in terms of which we can speak of the gospel.

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So in terms of the accomplishment of those things that were necessary in order to procure redemption for us, one of the things that we should do is always see it in the larger picture of the work of the triune

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God. And I think Paul gives that to us in many places, but one place where he gathers up many things relevant to this is in Ephesians 1, 3 and following where he speaks of the

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Father, of the Son, and the Spirit and what each person has done and is doing pursuant to our salvation.

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So he begins by blessing the Father who chose us in Christ, then proceeds to praise the

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Son in whom we have been redeemed, that is by his blood, and then it speaks of the

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Spirit by whom we are sealed unto the day of redemption. And one way that Christians have sometimes expressed this is they've said, we are chosen by the

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Father, purchased by the Son, sealed by the Spirit, blessed God, three in one. So that's sort of the larger picture of what the gospel is, the saving work of the triune

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God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And there's much more that could be said to fill that out. The Father doesn't merely plan and then watch as the

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Son carries it out. As Jesus said, the Father is always with me. So there's an action of the

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Father in the activity of the Son as well. And I could go on too to show how this is true of the

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Spirit. But, well, one thing, let me point this out, when it talks about the incarnation, the virgin birth of Christ, remember we often think of the

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Spirit as the agent by whom the virgin birth came about, the Spirit came upon Mary and she conceived.

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But it's also true to say that the Father was involved in this and that the

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Son was involved in this. And, again, not merely in some sort of spectator sense.

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The statement I read earlier, for example, in Philippians 2, it says that the

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Son took upon himself the nature of a servant. That's an active term there, as Paul uses it in the

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Greek, showing that the Son himself was involved in his own incarnation. In Hebrews 10, the

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Lord Jesus is quoted from the Psalms saying, Sacrifice an offering you didn't desire, a body you prepared for me.

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Notice all three persons here are viewed as involved in the virginal conception of Christ.

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And so the point that I'm making here is just the actions of the Triune God, though we normally focus on each person in a special way in relation to some of these actions, it's a work all the way through of the

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Triune God. And to be more specific, it centers on what was done by our

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Lord Jesus Christ. According to Scripture, the Lord Jesus came into the world, he lived a life of perfect obedience, and then he yielded up that life of perfect obedience on the cross to endure the just judgment of God due to us, and rise again from the dead, showing that his death paid the penalty for sin, and in order to communicate the benefits of all of that to us.

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So he is the one who pours out the Spirit, he is the one who does everything to put us in possession of the benefits that he procured for us.

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Now, very clearly, I think Paul speaks to this, and he's just giving us a summary here, but it's the heart of this in 1

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Corinthians 15, where Paul says, I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the

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Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that on the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to seep us, and so forth.

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Now, here, as I said, I'm referring to the objective side of the

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Gospel. It's objective accomplishment. It's the Father who planned and purposed and chose, and the

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Son in whom we were chosen, by whom we are redeemed, and the Spirit who brings us to the

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Father through the Son and gives us faith and regenerates our heart and all that. But that last part where I was talking about the

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Spirit pertains to the subjective side, where these things are applied to us. And when we look at a passage like Romans 8, there it explains to us what the

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Gospel is in terms of its application to us. It speaks of God the

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Father calling us in time, after having already predestined us, of course, in Christ, but calls us in time by the

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Spirit, justifies us, and what's presupposed here in between calling and justification is what

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Paul has spoken of elsewhere as conversion. We are called and justified. Those that God calls are called to repentance and faith in the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and those who believe in Christ are justified, and then those who are justified are adopted and set apart and are being renewed day by day.

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But one area that we really need to get right that so many people stumble on and confuse, which is, again, central to this aspect of things like some of the other points

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I made were central in those connections, but justification. When Scripture speaks of the believer being justified upon believing in Jesus, what it means is that the believer's sins are pardoned, they are remitted, forgiven, and that's because the

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Christ in whom we are trusting in conversion took them upon himself.

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He took the responsibility for them. He bore the liability for them. He died on account of them, so they're no longer imputed or credited to us, and then, in turn, he also imputes to us his life of perfect obedience, so that we are now clothed in the righteousness of Christ and reckoned by God in light of that imputed righteousness as though we had kept his whole law perfectly.

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So, in terms of justification, we are pardoned and declared righteous by God, wholly on account of Christ, not on account of anything that we have done.

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One of the clearest passages where Paul speaks this—I always hate limiting it to one thing, but this is a clear passage, nonetheless, among a myriad number of others—but in Ephesians 2,

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Paul says, By grace you have been saved through faith, and that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, lest any man boast.

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For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God prepared in advance for us to walk in.

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Here, Paul makes it clear that the moving cause of salvation is the grace of God, nothing else.

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This is what the Reformers were referring to when they mentioned grace alone. So, it's grace alone that puts all this in motion, makes it all a reality.

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By grace you have been saved, and he says, through faith—so, here's the instrumental cause—we receive this grace through faith.

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And then, Paul, lest we miss the grandeur of these words, he says, not as a result of works.

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And he also says, this is not of yourselves. None of this is of ourselves. The grace of God, the faith that we have, none of these things can we claim credit for or boast in.

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And yet, Paul doesn't say, then, as some people slanderously accused him of saying, and still slanderously accused

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Protestants of saying, he didn't say that this means, therefore, you can live wretched lives.

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What he says is, these people that are justified through faith in Christ are people who go on to live new lives.

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They're new creatures in Christ Jesus. So, those works that flow from a new nature don't save—after all, it's by grace, not by works, lest any man should boast—but they are the fruit and the proof of that salvation.

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Yeah, that would be how you and I and those in our circles of fellowship in the

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Reformed Faith, how we would differ from those evangelicals and fundamentalists and, you know,

47:18

I use those terms not to say that everybody in those categories believes in the heresy that I'm about to say, but there are many within those categories that do.

47:31

They will say that all that is required of God—or should

47:38

I say, all that is required by God for someone to receive the gift of eternal life is to recite a prayer at any point in your life and really mean the words that you pray.

47:56

And so, people will say, yeah, I know I'm saved because at Bible camp when

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I was eight, I raised my hand when the preacher asked everybody who was believing in Jesus Christ as their personal

48:10

Savior. I raised my hand and then I went forward, so I know that I'm saved, even though I haven't darkened the door of a church and 40 years, in fact, have been living a life of sexual promiscuity and have been a drunkard all these decades and so on.

48:31

There will be pastors and theologians who will further ensure those individuals.

48:41

Yes, you are saved. Charles Stanley, in his book on eternal security, even said that one could truly be born again, and even moments later deny

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Christ and become an atheist for many years to come, for the rest of their lives, and they will still be in heaven.

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This is an abomination, isn't it? This is nothing like what the

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Reformers intended by their pillar doctrines of grace alone and faith alone.

49:20

Yeah, so in fact, I like an observation that Calvin made, and he's not the only one, but he expresses this in what has been to me a memorable way, but he points out that Scripture locates all the benefits that we receive from the gospel in Christ, and it's in the whole

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Christ. That is, there's no idea of having part of Jesus and not another part.

49:57

It's never presented to us that way. And what he has in mind here is the statement of Paul in 1

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Corinthians 1, where it says that Christ has become for us wisdom from God, that is righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, let him who boasts boast in the

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Lord. In other words, in Christ are found righteousness and sanctification.

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Righteousness is another way of referring to justification. Sanctification is that word that refers to the ongoing growth that we have in the

50:35

Christian life. But the whole point is it's all in Christ. It's a package deal. Those who believe in Jesus, you can't believe in Jesus and have one thing and then reject the other.

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It's not presented to us that way. It's presented to us in Christ. And so those who take hold of Christ for righteousness are at the same time taking hold of the

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Christ who sanctifies. You just can't have this idea of somebody who believes in Jesus to be saved and is saved, and not also as somebody who, by virtue of being united to Christ through faith, is being sanctified.

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Another thing to bring in here is the promise of the covenant. In Jeremiah 32, this is a much neglected passage,

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I think, when it comes to the new covenant promise. Everybody goes to Jeremiah 31 or Ezekiel 36, but in Jeremiah 32 40 it says,

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I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good and I will put my fear into their hearts so that they will never turn away from me.

51:48

Notice that God not only commits himself to us but he also commits us to him. He ensures that we are going to trust in him, fear him, and serve him.

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This is a blessing of the new covenant. While salvation is properly spoken of in terms of justification, justification is not the whole of salvation.

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It's a critically important part of it. But God not only delivers us from our guilt and condemnation and assures us of eternal life, he also promises to deliver us from our corruption, from our inborn sinfulness and to make us holy.

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That's the goal. Think about it. God is holy and he is the end for which all things were made.

52:34

Everything was made to redound to his glory. He is holy and everything was made for him as its end. So how in the world can we imagine

52:41

God being satisfied with the end of our salvation merely being that we aren't going to go to hell and has no concern that we be made holy?

52:54

That's not consistent with God's character. That's not what's found in the promises. And the New Testament bears that out over and over again when it talks about how those who are in Christ should therefore walk.

53:05

In fact, pick up where you left off when we come back from the midway break. Don't go away folks, we're going to be right back after these messages.

53:18

I'm Dr. Tony Costa, professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary. I'm thrilled to introduce to you a church where I've been invited to speak and have grown to love,

53:29

Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, Long Island, New York, pastored by Rich Jensen and Christopher McDowell.

53:36

It's such a joy to witness and experience fellowship with people of God like the dear saints at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Coram, who have an intensely passionate desire to continue digging deeper and deeper into the unfathomable riches of Christ in His Holy Word and to enthusiastically proclaim

53:54

Christ Jesus the King and His doctrines of sovereign grace in Suffolk County, Long Island and beyond.

54:01

I hope you also have the privilege of discovering this precious congregation and receive the blessing of being showered by their love, as I have.

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For more information on Hope Reform Baptist Church, go to hopereformedli .net that's hopereformedli .net

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or call 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 631 -696 -5711 ...you

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heard about them from Tony Costa, on Iron Sharpens Iron. Puritan Reformed is a

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Bible believing, kingdom building, devil fighting Church. We are devoted to upholding the apostolic doctrine in practice, preserved in Scripture alone.

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Puritan Reformed teaches men to rule and lead as image bearing prophets, priests, and kings.

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We teach families to worship together, as families. Puritan is committed to teaching the whole counsel of God so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

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We sing the Psalms, teach the law, proclaim the gospel, make disciples, maintain discipline, and exalt

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Christ. This is Pastor David Reis of Puritan Reformed in Phoenix, Arizona.

55:29

Join us in the glorious cause of advancing Christ's crown and covenant over the kings of the earth.

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Puritan Reformed Church. Believe. Build. Fight. PuritanPHX .com.

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I'm Pastor Bill Shishko of The Haven, an Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Comac, Long Island.

56:01

I hold the Iron Sharpens Iron radio program hosted by my longtime friend and brother

56:07

Chris Arnzen in the highest esteem, and I'm thrilled that you're listening today.

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I'm also delighted that Iron Sharpens Iron is partnering with one of my favorite resources for Reformed Christian literature for decades now,

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Oh, and make sure that you tell them you heard about them on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio. This is

57:44

Pastor Bill Sassu, Grace Church at Franklin, here in the beautiful state of Tennessee.

57:50

Our congregation is one of a growing number of churches who love and support Iron Sharpens Iron Radio financially.

57:59

Grace Church at Franklin is an independent, autonomous body of believers which strives to clearly declare the whole counsel of God as revealed in Scripture through the person and work of our

58:11

Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, the end of which we strive is the glory of God.

58:18

If you live near Franklin, Tennessee, and Franklin is just south of Nashville, maybe 10 minutes, or you are visiting this area, or you have friends and loved ones nearby, we hope you will join us some

58:31

Lord's Day in worshiping our God and Savior. Please feel free to contact me if you have more questions about Grace Church at Franklin.

58:41

Our website is gracechurchatfranklin .org. That's gracechurchatfranklin .org.

58:49

This is Pastor Bill Sassu wishing you all the richest blessings of our sovereign

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Lord, God, Savior, and King, Jesus Christ, today and always.

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I'm Dr. Joseph Piper, President Emeritus and Professor of Systematic and Applied Theology at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

59:22

Every Christian who's serious about the Deformed Faith and the Westminster Standards should have and use the eight -volume commentary on the

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Theology and Ethics of the Westminster Larger Catechism titled, Authentic Christianity, by Dr.

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Joseph Morecraft. It is much more than an exposition of a larger catechism. It is a thoroughly researched work that utilizes biblical exegesis as well as historical and systematic theology.

59:50

Dr. Morecraft is Pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, and I urge everyone looking for a biblically faithful church in that area to visit that fine congregation.

01:00:01

For details on the eight -volume commentary, go to westminstercommentary .com, westminstercommentary .com.

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For details on Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, visit heritagepresbyterianchurch .com,

01:00:18

heritagepresbyterianchurch .com. Please tell Dr. Morecraft and the saints at Heritage Presbyterian Church of Cumming, Georgia, that Dr.

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Joseph Piper of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary sent you. When Iron Trump and Zion Radio first launched in 2005, the publishers of the

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01:02:36

Hello, my name is Anthony Uvino, and I'm one of the pastors at Hope Reform Baptist Church in Quorum, New York, and also the host of the reformrookie .com

01:02:45

website. I want you to know that if you enjoy listening to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show like I do, you can now find it on the

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Just subscribe on the iTunes app and listen to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio show at any time, day or night.

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Subscribe to the Iron Sharpens Iron Radio podcast right now. And while you're at it, you can also sign up for the reformrookie .com

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podcast and visit our website and the YouTube page. We're dedicated to teaching Christian theology from a

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01:04:04

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Invinio, and thanks for listening. Hi, this is

01:04:10

John Sampson, pastor of King's Church in Peoria, Arizona. Taking a moment of your day to talk about Chris Arnzen and the

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Iron Sharpens Iron podcast. I consider Chris a true friend and a man of high integrity. He's a skilled interviewer who's not afraid to ask the big penetrating questions while always defending the key doctrines of the

01:04:30

Christian faith. I've always been happy to point people to this podcast, knowing it's one of the very few safe places on the

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Internet where folk won't be led astray. I believe this podcast needs to be heard far and wide.

01:04:41

This is a day of great spiritual compromise, and yet God has raised Chris up for just such a time.

01:04:48

And knowing this, it's up to us as members of the body of Christ to stand with such a ministry in prayer and in finances.

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I'm pleased to do so, and would like to ask you to prayerfully consider joining me in supporting

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01:05:21

Before I return to Dr. Anthony Rogers and our defense of the person and work of Jesus Christ and his gospel,

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and put I need a church in the subject line. That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr.

01:08:40

Anthony Rogers, chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com gives the first name at least, city and state and country of residence.

01:08:49

Before we go to any listener questions, I want to go to a very important book in the

01:08:58

New Testament, which is Paul's letter to the church in Galatia.

01:09:05

And in this letter, Paul is referring to a cult that rose up during Paul's day of Jewish believers,

01:09:20

Jewish Christians, who seemed, as far as we know, agreed with Paul on nearly every important issue.

01:09:30

But they demanded that Gentiles who were coming to Christ be circumcised.

01:09:38

That one thing sent the apostle

01:09:44

Paul into an outrage or into a rage, and he identified these false

01:09:54

Christians as possessing a false gospel that is no gospel at all.

01:10:04

These Judaizers, from everything we know, were not denying

01:10:10

Jesus Christ as being the Messiah. They were not denying that he was God. You never hear the apostle mention anything else other than the fact that they were demanding the addition of circumcision to belief.

01:10:27

And that was enough for Paul to just say, that's a false gospel, it's not even a gospel at all, and that if you believe that, you are accursed.

01:10:40

And so, Anthony, how is it that we have so many evangelicals and even

01:10:49

Reformed Christians and even Reformed theologians and seminary professors embracing as brothers people who insist on a lot more than just circumcision to be added to the faith in order to be saved and then to maintain salvation, and yet they don't seem to have that fury, that rage that Paul had against the false gospel of the

01:11:16

Judaizers. Can you explain that? Yeah, number one, in some cases, it's a lack of knowledge.

01:11:25

People don't know what the gospel is, even if they're in these churches where this is the confession of the church.

01:11:33

And that's due to the fact that people aren't preaching it. I once was reflecting on this in light of some statements that I read from various Reformed figures where they were talking about the necessity of the gospel being preached to us and being preached regularly.

01:11:54

The observation is made is that people by nature, and you've probably heard this or something along these lines, people by nature are

01:12:02

Pelagian. That's just built into us as fallen creatures. We think that we can save ourselves.

01:12:10

The Pelagian heresy in the past during the days of Augustine was this idea that man has sufficient resources to save himself.

01:12:18

Augustine said, absolutely not. Scripture says God is the only Savior and is the one who saves us entirely by himself and for his own glory.

01:12:28

But some people wanted to water this down and say that God is partly responsible and we're partly responsible.

01:12:38

And that also reflects, as somebody has said, that when people become born again, on the one hand, they have this inborn recognition of the fact that God is the one who did it.

01:12:54

But at the same time, they remain sinful. They're not yet perfected. And so some of the old man rises up and that brings about a kind of unstable understanding of things that needs to be constantly fought against with the clear teaching of the gospel so that we don't try and mix our works in any way with it.

01:13:16

So one thing I would say is just that it's not being preached consistently and so people don't recognize error when they hear it.

01:13:24

Secondly, I would say that it's because of certain inroads that other ideas have made into otherwise sound churches.

01:13:34

You have the errors of N .T. Wright, for example. My goodness, it's interesting.

01:13:42

Obviously, people who know their Bible, know the gospel, know their theology, were alarmed at things

01:13:47

Wright was saying before. We knew that he was compromising on the gospel and on specifically justification.

01:13:57

That was one place where it was really clear and people were sounding the alarm. A lot of people were capitulating to it, but other people were sounding the alarm.

01:14:07

For a while, he was keeping up appearances a bit better. I don't know if you've seen recently, but it's sort of run its course.

01:14:15

The other day, he was on a video where he was talking with somebody.

01:14:21

I can't remember who it was now, but he was talking about his good friend, John Dominic Crossan, who, as you know, is one of the members of the

01:14:30

Jesus Seminar, a notorious compromiser when it comes to Scripture. He doesn't believe in the resurrection of Christ, and N .T.

01:14:38

Wright was saying that he has no doubt about the genuineness of this man's faith, and it's not altogether consequential that he doesn't believe in the resurrection.

01:14:52

Isn't he an agnostic? John Dominic Crossan? I mean, he probably...

01:15:00

See, some of these guys are so squirrely with their language, like...

01:15:05

Oh, yeah, so I remember Crossan once in a debate with somebody saying that he believes

01:15:15

Jesus rose from the dead, but what he meant is more as some sort of idea, right?

01:15:21

This idea is a great idea, and it's ennobling or something. It was really weird, but he certainly wasn't affirming an actual resurrection.

01:15:31

So I wouldn't doubt that if he says he believes in God, that just means he believes in a higher power or he believes the universe is greater than us or whatever he could possibly mean.

01:15:47

But in any case, I mean, with Wright, he's basically saying that Crossan is a genuine believer even though he doesn't believe in the resurrection of Jesus.

01:15:56

So this is where his compromise on the gospel eventually landed him. Because if you don't think of justification the way

01:16:03

Scripture presents it, well, then you can't have that same zeal that Paul was characterized by.

01:16:09

Paul recognized that human beings have no hope before God apart from the doing and dying of Christ, Christ's active and passive obedience, that is, his perfect obedience to the law of God and everything enjoined upon him for our salvation and everything he did to endure the judgment of God for our sins.

01:16:31

If you say it's not that, well, then it's hard for you to really put your foot down anywhere else because, you know, honestly, if that isn't the one true gospel, then

01:16:45

I couldn't imagine taking the hard -nosed stance that Paul did against everybody. You know, that's a pretty strong stance.

01:16:52

He's basically saying the whole world outside of those who believe this are perishing. You know, and I can't imagine another message that would of itself command that kind of antithesis.

01:17:06

So Paul minces no words when it comes to this. He says that the Judaizers were anathema, those who were peddling this other gospel.

01:17:15

In fact, not sure if you've noticed this, but it's interesting how Paul characterizes this.

01:17:21

Notice the language here because it will tell you just how bad this is. Paul says in Galatians 1,

01:17:28

I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

01:17:42

He goes on to say twice that those who preach this other gospel are cursed.

01:17:51

But the language that I was emphasizing there, so quickly deserting him who called you is actually a echo of the golden calf incident in the

01:18:01

Old Testament, where Moses refers to the people as so quickly turning aside.

01:18:07

God had revealed himself to them at Sinai. He entered into covenant with them. And before Moses even came down the mountain with the tablets, they were already turning aside from what they had heard.

01:18:18

And so Paul is likening the Judaizers and those who follow them to calf worshippers.

01:18:24

They're turning away from the true grace of God. So it's no slight matter.

01:18:31

Yeah, in fact, from what I recall about N .T. Wright, he diminished the meaning of Paul's warnings in the book of Galatians.

01:18:48

He diminished the meaning to refer to and solely to his rebuke of the

01:18:57

Judaizers for forming a Jewish club where Gentiles weren't allowed unless they were to jump through the hoops to become

01:19:13

Jewish and get circumcised. And that it had nothing to do with adding works to faith.

01:19:21

So therefore, typically, the disciples of N .T. Wright will be very ecumenical with Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox.

01:19:29

Am I correct on that summary of his— Yeah, he thinks that, yeah, it was a dispute about how people enter the covenant kind of thing.

01:19:44

There's so many problems in Wright's theology. And by bringing up Wright, I didn't mean to limit it to that, as far as your question went.

01:19:52

These are examples. You have people that have lost sight of the gospel. It's not being preached to them.

01:19:59

Their nature is naturally oriented towards ascribing credit to themselves. And so this failure to know the true gospel or keep it clearly in sight allows them to see little difference between what they're believing and what

01:20:14

Roman Catholics are saying. In fact, that's why so many so easily go into Roman Catholicism. They're functionally

01:20:20

Roman Catholic, even in Protestant churches. When they embrace what Rome is saying, it just looks like the more consistent way of believing in your own ability to help

01:20:30

Christ save you, right? Bellarmine, in his book on Purgatory, mentions that we are co -saviors with Christ.

01:20:39

Most people won't be that bald. They won't use that language, but that's how they're thinking, because the gospel isn't being clearly preached to them.

01:20:46

And so then I also mentioned the pastors imbibing Wright's theology.

01:20:52

In fact, just the other day, I was commenting on a book written by a Roman Catholic called The Obscurity of Scripture.

01:20:58

It's written by Casey Chalk, and he became a Roman Catholic. And one of the things that he mentions over and over again in the book is how much he thought the matter was obscure, with respect to salvation.

01:21:12

And I'm thinking, how's the Bible obscure? It's not obscure at all. And then he eventually lets his slip show, and he keeps mentioning

01:21:20

N .T. Wright. N .T. Wright was somebody who was throwing confusion into his mind.

01:21:27

And so he didn't have clarity on what the gospel was, even though sitting in Christian churches, and he's apparently spending a lot of time in Wright, perhaps not so much in the

01:21:39

Bible. And in his confusion, he heard Romanism presented to him, and he leapt at it.

01:21:45

Well, he was already pretty much a Romanist in his thinking before that, because he's listening to Wright, and his mind is clouded.

01:21:55

He can't see the clear teaching of salvation in scripture. So again, that's just sort of a, these are examples of things that I think account for the problem that you were asking about.

01:22:09

Yeah, and you know, it's ironic that he would extend the arms of fellowship to John Dominic Crossan, even though Crossan denies the resurrection.

01:22:20

When N .T. Wright claimed to hold the resurrection of Christ as such a vital doctrine and pivotal doctrine, in that since he misunderstood what the first fruits of the resurrection meant, he didn't even believe that Lazarus was raised from the dead.

01:22:45

I saw him in an interview with a liberal theologian, and he was basically saying that the reason why

01:23:00

Jesus ignored the warnings of those around Lazarus' tomb, that he stunk, you know, you're going to open that tomb, it's going to be a vile odor that emanates from it.

01:23:18

Well, Jesus commanded that the tomb be opened because he knew that Lazarus didn't stink because he wasn't dead.

01:23:27

I mean, really crazy stuff. Oh, my.

01:23:34

So, there you have that. We have Kirsten in Grand Haven, Michigan, and Kirsten asks, what are the summed -up vital truths of the gospel that cannot be deviated from in order to remain as a true gospel, in your opinion?

01:24:01

Yeah, so first of all, there are those historical facts, those things accomplished by Christ that are foundational to the gospel.

01:24:09

Scripture gives these to us all across its pages, but sometimes also gathers them together in certain places, in some clusters.

01:24:19

I mentioned 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul says, I deliver this to you as of first importance.

01:24:25

That doesn't mean Paul started with this, although he may well have, but he's talking about its priority.

01:24:33

He says that Christ died. He also mentions that he was buried and that he rose. Now, that's not all

01:24:40

Paul says there. Notice I've sort of truncated this. Paul's not just saying these events are important, but their meaning.

01:24:51

What he says is Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures.

01:24:57

He was buried and he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures. So these things scripturally interpreted are foundational to the gospel.

01:25:07

It's not enough to just believe that Jesus died physically, was interred in a tomb and then came out of that tomb alive.

01:25:14

We have to see it in terms of the explanation given in scripture, God's explanation of it, that his death was for the forgiveness of sins.

01:25:25

And as Paul says elsewhere, he rose for our justification. That is, his death demonstrates that he paid the penalty for sin.

01:25:34

Death couldn't keep its hold on him because the penalty had been paid. And this all bespeaks our justification in him through faith in him.

01:25:44

We are delivered from guilt and assured of eternal life. So these are foundational truths.

01:25:50

Also is the necessity of believing in who Jesus is, the Jesus who died and rose. This is writ large across the pages of the

01:25:57

New Testament. Jesus said in John 8, 24, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

01:26:05

Now, some translations obscure this and put a pronoun there. Unless you believe

01:26:10

I am he, you'll die in your sins. And then that opens the door for people to sort of supply what he means by I am he.

01:26:17

But the literal Greek is just I am. And it's echoing a phrase that recurs throughout

01:26:24

Isaiah, especially Isaiah 40 through 55, where God distinguishes himself from all false gods by saying

01:26:33

I am. So look, for example, at Isaiah 43, 10 or 43, 13. These are among the

01:26:38

I am sayings of those passages. This saying in the Old Testament is exclusive to God.

01:26:44

And in the New Testament, when Jesus uses it, it's very distinctive. The most well -known example is when he said, before Abraham became,

01:26:53

I am. Here, there's a pointed contrast between the becoming or coming into being of Abraham and Jesus as the one who is, not the one who became.

01:27:06

So this is a necessary article of the true faith, the true gospel, to believe that he is a divine person, that it was this person who died for our sins and rose again.

01:27:20

And then as we were just talking about, it's necessary to believe that it's through faith in him alone and not in ourselves or in angels or saints or anyone else that we are saved.

01:27:33

Paul speaks to this clearly in Romans 3 and 4, in Galatians 2 and 3,

01:27:41

Philippians 3. Let me just read a couple of these.

01:27:46

This is Romans 3. This is verse 21, one of my favorite texts. Paul is doing something very deftly here.

01:27:56

He says, Now apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets.

01:28:05

This is an interesting statement because he, on the one hand, is saying this righteousness is revealed apart from the law.

01:28:10

What he means is, apart from the commands of Scripture, the different things that are laid out in Scripture as our duty under the old covenant, he says it's apart from this that this righteousness in the gospel offered to us is revealed, but it's witnessed to in the law and the prophets.

01:28:32

So the statement that it's made known, it's manifested apart from the law doesn't mean it's not foretold in the law.

01:28:43

The law also points to this. And then he goes on to say, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe, all those who believe, that's where Paul stops the matter.

01:28:59

It's to all those who believe. And then he goes on to explain, for there's no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom

01:29:11

God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith.

01:29:17

This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration,

01:29:25

I say, of his righteousness at the present time so that he would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

01:29:32

Now, notice all that Paul says here. He's telling us what the gospel is. He's not leaving anything out.

01:29:37

He tells us that it's founded upon the work of Christ, propitiating the wrath of God for us, that is, satisfying it and turning it aside, and we receive the benefits of it through faith.

01:29:51

He repeats this over and over again. Verse 22, even the righteousness of God through faith, or again in verse 22, in Christ Jesus for all those who believe, or again in verse 25, where it says that he's a propitiation and we receive this through faith.

01:30:13

Over and over again, he mentions that it's through faith, and then at the end, he says that God is just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

01:30:20

There's no mention here of our works, no mention here of the works of others, the supererogatory works of Mary, angels, the saints, or who else you might want to imagine.

01:30:32

It's only Christ, and it's only faith in him. And then he goes on to illustrate this with the example of Abraham in Romans 4.

01:30:40

So I think that pretty well spells out what's essential to the gospel.

01:30:49

I don't think I left anything out, but it's possible. You'll remind me, Chris, I'm sure. Rusty in Sanford, Maine, wants to know, why is it such a horrendous thing to add works to faith for salvation?

01:31:07

Well, because the passage I just read goes on to say this, where then is boasting?

01:31:14

It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

01:31:21

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law. And then he goes on to talk about the fact that this doesn't contradict the law.

01:31:34

Rather, this is exactly what the law is talking about. But this is a constant refrain in Paul's writings that this is the way of salvation because it removes all grounds for boasting and therefore ensures that God alone would get the glory.

01:31:50

The chief end of man, according to Scripture, is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

01:31:57

In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul says, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

01:32:03

In Romans 11, it says, who is first given to God that God must repay him?

01:32:08

And then he says, for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom belong the glory forever and ever.

01:32:16

These statements about all things being created for God's glory and so forth show us our end.

01:32:25

This should be our goal, but it also shows us, as Jonathan Edwards pointed out, the glory of God is also

01:32:31

God's chief end. God created the world to glorify himself. How could he create it for some other end?

01:32:36

How could he create it for some lesser end? There's none greater than God, and if it's going to have that end that is of greatest worth, then it's going to be the end that brings about his glory.

01:32:50

I'm talking here by end in terms of goal. This is what it's all driving towards. And so any gospel that ascribes salvation to any creature derogates from the glory of God, and God is jealous for his own glory.

01:33:03

Look throughout Scripture and see how seriously God takes it. We might think it a trifling thing to insult or diminish the glory of God, but God doesn't, and we learn from Scripture that he's not going to wink at that.

01:33:20

He's going to deal with it in his justice. Okay, we have

01:33:25

Keith in Morgantown, West Virginia, who says,

01:33:31

I have been very confused by different advocates for the federal vision theology.

01:33:39

Some of them claim they are not adding works to faith and share our abhorrence for that kind of a teaching, while others seem to be clearly teaching that what is your understanding of the federal vision theology?

01:33:58

And is it monolithic enough where some of those folks are wrong who claim to represent it?

01:34:07

Yeah, so that's part of the problem is that there have been many names associated with it, and some of them have not been altogether satisfied with what the others in that movement have said.

01:34:19

And yet part of the difficulty in being happy about them distancing themselves in these mild ways is that they're not willing to say in some of these cases that these people that they disagree with in that movement are advocating a different gospel.

01:34:39

So it makes it sound, in the case of some of them, like they're really not affirming the same gospel.

01:34:47

So there's just far too much difference among all these guys to be able to make a blanket statement.

01:34:54

One thing I would say is those who formally confess justification by faith alone inspire some courage,

01:35:02

I mean, or some confidence. I pray by the grace of God that that's really what their conviction is.

01:35:14

And those who say that they're not affirming that, well, they make it easy for us too.

01:35:20

Yeah, but again, so I mean the difficulty is those people who will affirm with their mouths justification by faith but won't clearly condemn what others are saying that is a direct contradiction of it or who also turn around and say other things that seem to be incompatible with justification by faith.

01:35:43

For my part, I've just been content to say that number one, the gospel is being justified by faith alone.

01:35:52

And I hope those who say that that's what they believe really do. And, you know,

01:35:57

I don't read a whole lot of their literature, so I don't really need to take it much further personally.

01:36:04

Yeah, years ago on the old Iron Trip and Zion Radio program when I was broadcasting it at WNYG radio in Babylon, Long Island, I had a debate on the show between a longtime friend of mine,

01:36:22

Steve Schlissel, who became an advocate for federal vision, and he was debating another friend of mine,

01:36:31

John Otis, who wrote a book refuting federal vision called

01:36:36

Danger in the Camp. And it was very clear, vividly clear that in that debate,

01:36:44

Steve Schlissel was opposing the notion that we are saved by faith alone.

01:36:55

And it was no mistake in what Steve was saying.

01:37:01

Steve passed away a number of months ago due to a horrible accident, fell down a very long flight of stairs.

01:37:09

In fact, I don't think it was ever determined whether his heart attack came first or after that fall, but I just hope that he did repent of the view before being called home or before leaving this earth, departing this earth.

01:37:31

I really loved Steve and was always severely troubled by his views in that area.

01:37:42

But we have to go to our final break right now. And if anybody has a question of your own, please submit it immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:37:53

ChrisArnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least, city and state and country of residence. Don't go away.

01:37:58

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James White here of Alpha Omega Ministries announcing that this September, I'm heading out to Pennsylvania to speak at two events that my longtime friend,

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01:47:25

Welcome back and we have Rory from Uniondale, Long Island, New York, who has a question for you.

01:47:38

Rory asks, How prevalent do you believe it is from your observation the denial of the true gospel even within Calvinistic and Reformed churches and denominations and ministries?

01:47:59

Well, that's not an easy question to answer. Certainly, if we're talking about confessional

01:48:08

Protestant, Reformed Protestant denominations, you know, the

01:48:16

PCA, the OPC, these are officially affirmed other Reformed bodies, ARP, the

01:48:23

RPCNA, so on an official level, this is affirmed.

01:48:31

Every once in a while, you'll get a pastor in one of these contexts who's saying something, but these sort of things happen here and there and then fizzle out.

01:48:43

So, I mean, I know this is by no means giving anything like a statistic here, but I don't think

01:48:51

I can do that. You know, every once in a while, I hear of an incident of apostasy or some group compromising in one way or another, but within these particular bodies,

01:49:04

I don't think there's any official problem along these lines.

01:49:12

Yeah, would you say that the problem really is involving something that we mentioned before when the

01:49:21

Reformed individuals who may be even seminary professors and authors, when they blur the meaning of even their own confessions by embracing

01:49:39

Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox as their brothers in Christ, that's when you start to say, well, how could this possibly be?

01:49:47

Do they understand the gospel? And I'm talking about brilliant men, not just average people who are somewhat confused or something.

01:49:59

Yeah, I think part of my problem is I'm kind of spoiled. I'm in a really good area. I live in Greenville County in South Carolina.

01:50:07

We have Reformed churches here galore. Very strong Presbytery in the PCA. OPC is well represented here too.

01:50:14

ARP. So, much of what I see here is very strong, and I don't have broad experience beyond this.

01:50:25

But I do see that in some of these other areas that you're talking about, like if you're talking about publishing books that people are putting out, some of this stuff,

01:50:36

I do come across it in those contexts, but I don't so often see it in the context of the churches that I'm a part of.

01:50:47

Yeah, I want to make sure before I take any more listener questions that you highlight some of the most important aspects of the gospel that our listeners need to know before we run out of time.

01:51:05

Yeah, well, basically that the Father sent His eternal

01:51:10

Son into the world. He assumed our nature. He acted as our federal head and representative.

01:51:18

He perfectly kept the law of God. He engaged in what

01:51:24

Robert Raymond called his receptive obedience, what others refer to as his active obedience, which simply refers to the

01:51:32

Lord Jesus keeping God's law whole and entire and thoughtward indeed throughout the whole course of His life.

01:51:41

And then He also yielded up that life of perfect obedience in a final act of obedience on the cross by which

01:51:51

He placated the wrath of God, turning it aside from us and procured for us the forgiveness of sins and a title to eternal life, all of which we receive through faith.

01:52:03

And also through that same faith, Christ pours out His Spirit upon us whereby we cry out

01:52:09

Abba Father, enabling us to confess Him and come to the Father through Him and also to grow in grace and knowledge until the final day when we stand before Him and are invited into the joy of the

01:52:23

Lord. Amen. Well, do you have any debates or speaking engagements that our audience should know about that are on the horizon?

01:52:36

Well, I'm going to Germany next week. I don't know how much that will be relevant to your audience.

01:52:44

Well, we do have listeners in Germany. We do have listeners in Germany. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Well, so I'll be in Germany.

01:52:51

I'm going to be meeting Dr. Dalkor there. You know Dr. Dalkor? Oh, yeah. Eddie Dalkor. So we're going to be doing a bunch of stuff there, speaking at churches, doing a conference, reaching out to Muslims, local

01:53:07

Muslims there. I'll likely be doing some debates this year.

01:53:12

I've already done some. I debated most recently in terms of a public formal debate, a

01:53:19

Muslim cleric in North Carolina at North Carolina State University. That debate can be found on my

01:53:26

YouTube channel, which is under my name, Anthony Rogers. I'm also supposed to be doing a debate with Shabir Ali.

01:53:33

These are supposed to be the last two debates of his debating career.

01:53:38

He intends to retire from debating and committing himself to writing. However, I'm not sure if that's panning out or not.

01:53:47

This was originally agreed upon, but he might be sort of pulling back from it.

01:53:53

I don't know. He might have gotten too resigned to the idea that he was retiring. And so the more that thought settled in, the less he liked the idea of having two debates.

01:54:06

I think he's worn out. Is he more of a theologically liberal

01:54:12

Muslim? Would you say? Yeah, definitely. So in a number of ways, it's interesting.

01:54:20

And I think one accounts for the other. So when it came to his attacks on Christianity, which he's been doing for decades, he would often, very often, lean and lean heavily on the work of liberal, critical scholars.

01:54:36

And so Christians that would go to these debates, at least for a good portion of this time during which he's debating, they would go expecting to be engaging somebody that is giving a robustly

01:54:52

Islamic approach to things. And so if he finds some area pastor, let's say, and challenges that person to a debate, and the person shows up, that person has probably been reading books on Islam, for example.

01:55:06

But when he gets to the debate, he encounters basically a liberal who is attacking Christianity from the perspective of liberal, critical scholarship.

01:55:14

And so the Christian is kind of stymied because that's not what he expected. He was expecting somebody who had a robust Islamic perspective that he was coming with, which showed a belief in God and miracles and everything else.

01:55:31

But Shabir would take this other attack. Well, what would happen is, as soon as Christians would challenge him, as they eventually started doing on his inconsistency, that he's not applying the same standards to Islam, what

01:55:45

Shabir did is not drop the liberal, critical attacks on the Bible. He simply incorporated these into his

01:55:51

Islamic position. So he started watering down what he believes the Islamic sources teach.

01:55:57

So he'll talk as if it's an open question whether Jesus was actually born of a virgin, according to the

01:56:02

Quran, whether Jesus did miracles in the way that the Quran says. A number of things just don't look like Orthodox Islam when they're in the hands of Shabir Ali.

01:56:12

Now, does he believe, unlike the majority of Muslims, that Jesus actually was crucified?

01:56:23

So, yeah, he would say that he was put on the cross, but it didn't terminate in death.

01:56:30

So he was crucified in the sense of being put on the cross, but not in the sense of dying by crucifixion.

01:56:37

Now, the word crucified, in the ancient world, those who crucified died.

01:56:43

They don't live through that experience. And so he has to do some pretty fancy footwork to try and get that.

01:56:51

But I think most people hearing it today might think it sounds plausible that you could say, oh, yeah, he was crucified, but that doesn't mean he died.

01:57:00

But that just assumes you're ignorant of the ancient context where this was designed to kill you. And that's what it did.

01:57:08

And most Muslims don't even believe that he was crucified, even if he, in their minds, lived.

01:57:15

They don't believe that that even happened, correct? Yeah, no. The standard Muslim view is that Jesus was not crucified.

01:57:22

He wasn't put on the cross, much less did he die. And some believe that it was Judas. Yeah. The Quran says it was made to appear to them as such.

01:57:32

There's a lot of debate on what this actually means. Some would say that it was made to appear to them like they crucified him, but it was really

01:57:40

Allah who's responsible. In other words, nobody really can destroy one of Allah's prophets, only

01:57:46

God can do it. But others would say it's saying it was made to appear that it was Jesus on the cross when it was

01:57:52

Judas or one of the other disciples volunteering or something like that. Well, Anthony, once again, you have blessed me, and I'm sure many people in my audience, through the brilliance and biblical wisdom and knowledge that the

01:58:09

Lord has given you. I look forward to your return to the program. I want to, once again, repeat the website for Metanoia Prison Ministries, metanoiaprisonministries .org,

01:58:21

and that's spelled M -E -T -A -N -O -I -A prisonministries .org.

01:58:29

And, of course, if you type in Anthony Rogers on YouTube, you will get

01:58:35

Anthony's YouTube page with a wealth of information there for you.

01:58:42

Thanks again. I want to thank everybody who listened today, especially those who took the time to write.

01:58:48

And I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater