March 9, 2021 Show with Dr. Joe Morecraft on “The Forgotten Biblical Principles of Interpretation in the Westminster Confession & the 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith”

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Live from the historic parsonage of the 19th century Gospel Minister George Norcross in downtown

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next two hours, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions, and now here's your host,

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon,

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this ninth day of March, 2021.

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First of all, I just want to let our listeners know, those of you who don't know already, that I am celebrating entering into my second week of being insulin -free.

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I went to a new doctor last week, Dr. Joel Yeager. Many of you may remember that I've interviewed

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Dr. Yeager twice on this program, along with Daniel O 'Rourke, another physician, and Ernie Springer, a

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Christian publisher, and they all together were on my program twice to discuss a book that they co -authored together about the coronavirus and how they believed that the church was behaving in an unbiblical and irresponsible manner by shutting down and remaining unopened for months and months and months, and some still are, and excellent book and excellent interviews.

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I'll be having them back on again, but Dr. Yeager at Heritage Family Health in Newmanstown, Pennsylvania, has told me that my blood sugar levels are not high enough for me to be taking insulin, and he said that I never should have been prescribed it at all to begin with.

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So I am rejoicing that the Lord in his providence directed me to this excellent physician, and I highly recommend any of you who may live in Pennsylvania who want to travel there.

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I traveled an hour there, and I think it's worth it myself, definitely worth it being off insulin, but the website is heritagefamilyhealth .org,

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and I hope that many of you who live in Pennsylvania will seek him out and pay him a visit, and who knows, maybe that will become your permanent general practitioner as far as a physician is concerned.

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But we are now welcoming back to the program my dear friend

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Dr. Joe Moorcraft, one of my favorite guests to interview. He is on quite often on the program because I love his interviews so much.

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He's an author and pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and today we are discussing the forgotten biblical principles of interpretation in the

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Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, also known as the 1689

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London Baptist Confession of Faith. And it's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Trumpet's Iron Radio, Dr.

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Joe Moorcraft. It's an honor to be here too. Well, as we always do when we have you come back on, for the sake especially of those who have not heard you on the program before, or even those of our listeners who have but they just forgot the details on your church,

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Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia. Why don't you tell us about that fine congregation? We are a small congregation of about 60 members in Cumming, Georgia, which is a bedroom county north of Atlanta, and we are in the

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Reformed Presbyterian Church, Hanover Presbytery. Let me just say something about Hanover Presbytery that I haven't said on your program before.

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There's been a Hanover Presbytery since the middle 1700s, and it has started churches all over the

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South over those 200 -year period, all over the place. And then the denomination of which it was a part became liberal, and so in the 80s they changed the name of Hanover Presbytery for Samuel Davies Preached.

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Patrick Henry went to a church there in Hanover Presbytery and many other great men and women of God.

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And then in the 1990s, a group of conservative preachers recreated

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Hanover Presbytery, and now we have churches, less than 20, but churches from California to New England.

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We believe the original Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms. We believe in the infallibility of Scripture and the sufficiency of Scripture.

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We seek to carry out the Great Commission of bringing the discipline of the Word of God upon the nations themselves all over the world until that day when the knowledge of the

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Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. Amen. Well, if anybody wants to find out more about Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, go to HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com,

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HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com. And by the way, I'm getting people asking me, what is the title of that book that you mentioned that your new doctor co -authored?

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Okay, well, I forgot to mention the full title of the book, Coronavirus and the Leadership of the

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Christian Church, A Sacred Trust Broken. That is by Dr.

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Ernie Springer. I'm sorry, not Dr. Ernie Springer. By Ernie Springer, who is the publisher and co -author of the book.

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Dr. Joel Yeager and Dr. Daniel O 'Rourke. So those three wrote the book together,

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Coronavirus and the Leadership of the Christian Church, A Sacred Trust Broken. And I will keep you updated as to when the three of those gentlemen will be back on the program.

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Well, I am delighted to be interviewing a Presbyterian who has a very high view of the

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Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. And obviously every Presbyterian should, but since it's nearly identical, the framers of the

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Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, also known as the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, intentionally duplicated their confession from the

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Westminster Confession, with the exception of issues regarding church polity and the ordinance of baptism and perhaps a couple of other things.

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But they are nearly identical purposely. And I know that some have jokingly said that it was one of the greatest examples of plagiarism in the history of the church.

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But it's not really plagiarism because it was open and out front what they were doing.

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They weren't taking credit for work that wasn't theirs. But one thing that I really enjoy about you,

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Joe, and I would say this is true for most of my Presbyterian friends and brothers, but there is an element of snobbery,

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I've got to admit, amongst many of the Presbyterian folks, some of whom refuse to even call us

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Reformed Baptists. They will say we have no right to that title, Reformed. And the irony is they'll say, well, you can call yourself

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Calvinistic Baptists. I always find that odd because we have more disagreement with John Calvin's personal views than we do with historic

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Reformed theology, which is much broader. So that doesn't make much sense to me.

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But I believe that if our confessions are nearly identical, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using a helpful nickname like Reformed Baptist.

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What are your thoughts on that? Well, it is amazing how much alike they are.

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The London Baptist Confession is an abbreviated form of the Westminster with differences in baptism and in church government, as you said, and a couple other places that are very minor.

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But the history of the Second London Baptist Confession is a fascinating one.

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I would recommend to your hearers a guy named Renahan. Go to Google.

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Oh yeah, Jim Renahan. Yeah, I don't know who he is, but I read his article. He's a friend of mine, actually.

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I've interviewed him many times, and he is the president of the IRBS Theological Seminary in Texas.

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He wrote a great article on the Second London Baptist Confession. Baptists have left their foundation just like the

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Episcopalians and the Presbyterians. We all started out as confessional churches, in which we were committed to the

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Reformed faith and committed to a written standard of doctrine that we held our elders and deacons and pastors to.

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And now we take great pride in the fact that we have no creed but Christ, no law but love.

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Well, I hate to tell people, but that is a creed, and it's a pathetic one at that. Yes, anytime you have either spoken or especially written down what you believe, it is a creedal statement, no matter what you call it.

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To say that we only have the Scriptures as our one and only creed, that is a creedal statement.

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It is. In fact, the Church in both the Old and New Testament were confessional. There are examples of confessions of faith in both the

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Old Testament, like in Deuteronomy 6, as well as in the New Testament, like Romans 10 .9,

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and various other places. A confessional church is not a church that puts a book written by men on par with the

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Bible. I don't know any Presbyterians that put the

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Westminster Confession of Faith on par with the Bible or Baptists that put the London Baptist Confession on par with the

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Bible. These are secondary instruments. We believe as Presbyterians that the

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Westminster Confession of Faith is the most faithful summary of Christian doctrine ever written by men, just like a

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Reformed Baptist would think that the London Baptist Confession is the most faithful expression of biblical doctrine written by man.

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And both of those confessions make it clear that they do not believe those writings in the confessions are on par with the

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Bible. No, they do. In fact, I don't think you can have a faithful church and you can protect your preacher and your congregation unless your church is committed to a confession of faith.

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It is the basis of unity. Truth is the basis of fellowship.

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And where everybody agrees on what the Bible teaches, you can have a far deeper fellowship and unity than you can otherwise.

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A confession of faith is also a protection to people from false doctrine. Churches that require those who preach in their pulpit to believe a certain standard of faith, a confession of faith, so they can't preach in their pulpit unless they believe it.

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An ordained man, you don't ordain a man unless he's examined thoroughly in the confession of faith to which your church is committed.

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And you require him to publicly say that it is his confession of faith.

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Churches have no protection against false doctrine, against preachers coming in and preaching whatever they want.

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It's also a great tool of education. You can educate your children and yourselves in the

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Word of God far more deeply and more comprehensively than if you just did it on your own.

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It is a real confession of faith, and the Church of God has always had a confession of faith.

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In fact, I have heard it said, and I believe it is very true, that if you are going to be logically consistent in condemning confessions, then your pastor, or if you are a pastor, when you ascend into your pulpit, you should just open up the

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Bible, read it, and then sit down without any further commentary. I wish some preachers would just do that.

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In fact, he is still my friend, but we disagree on matters like this.

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He is also anti -Calvinist. But he was mocking the fact that the congregation where I am a member is a

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Reformed Baptist church who adheres to the 1689 London Baptist Confession. And he said, we don't need any man -written books like your confession of faith.

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We just have the Bible. And I said to him, I was your advertising agent for the radio program that you host with about ten other independent

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Fundamentalist Baptists. The Fundamental Baptist Forum was a radio program that I actually helped create, and I was the advertising rep that placed that program on a radio station where I worked.

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And I said, you have a manual that is very detailed in things that must be believed by any pastor that participates as a host.

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They had revolving hosts that would take turns hosting the program.

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And I said, you have a very detailed manual on who is qualified to be a host of the independent

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Fundamentalist Baptist Forum. And this book of yours, this manual, is about 20 times the size of the second

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London Baptist Confession. I said, this is your confession of faith, whether you call it that or not. And I even was at, years ago,

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I was at a Church of Christ congregation that was having a Bible conference, and the speaker was saying that we here at the

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Church of Christ, we have no creed but Christ and no confession but the Scriptures.

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And I said, excuse me, during the question and answer session, I said, excuse me, I picked up a tract in your lobby, in your tract rack, and it lists a whole bunch of things that you believe, that you believe in exclusive acapella worship, that you baptize by immersion of believers only, that your ministers do not wear clerical robes and collars but only wear business suits, and that you only have men in the ministry, and I could go on and on and on.

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I said, I don't know if you folks realize this or not, this is your confession of faith. It's exactly right, and it's got to be clarified that our confessions are not adding to the

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Scripture if, in fact, our confessions of faith and catechisms are in strict accord with what the

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Bible teaches. So that we're not adding to the Scriptures, we're simply explaining in black and white what we, in this particular congregation or this particular presbytery, believe the

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Bible teaches. And we don't want anybody teaching anything else. It will enhance the unity of the

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Church. It gives us a document by which we can educate ourselves and our children in the great doctrines of the faith and the doctrines of the

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Church which didn't begin in our lifetime. That the great doctrines of the

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Church have been believed for centuries. In fact, the doctrines that are found in the larger, in the

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Westminster Confession, the Second Lent and the Baptist Confession, they didn't begin in the 1600s.

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You can go back through any age in the history of the Church, number one, for the past 2 ,000 years, and you can find people preaching these same doctrines, believing them, even during the

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Middle Ages when the Roman Catholic Church was so powerful. There were still people in the Middle Ages that believed these great truths, and I think particularly of Augustine and others.

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And then you see them in the New Testament. And you see them in the Old Testament. So these aren't doctrines created by man.

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If your confession of faith is created by man, you're still thrown in the trash. It's not worth two cents.

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But if it's based upon the word of God and in strict accordance with it, I like to say that the

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Reformed faith is biblical Christianity in its purest human expression.

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And so in 1644, the

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Baptists, there were very few Baptists in England, the Baptists wrote a confession of faith.

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In 1646, at the Westminster Assembly, the

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Presbyterians, with a few Anglicans and a few Baptists and a few Independents, mostly Presbyterian.

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And Congregationalists. Sir? And Congregationalists. Yes, sir, wrote the

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Westminster Confession of Faith. And then the reason for the

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Second London Baptist is an admirable one. Just like the

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First London Baptist Confession, the Second London Baptist Confession had as its purpose to distance

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English Baptists from the Anabaptists of Europe. I cringe every time

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I hear a Baptist preacher try to replace his roots back to the Anabaptists. The Anabaptists were everything.

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The Anabaptists in Europe in the 1500s were everything from anti -Trinitarian to Mennonite to Quaker to Communist, actually.

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Everything. To antinomians. It was a mixed lot and it was not marked overall by orthodoxy, although some of them were faithful Christians.

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But by and large, had they been allowed to grow, they would have dismantled the effects of the

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Protestant Reformation. So the Baptists who were in a minority in England and who were being slandered by English Puritans trying to identify them with the

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Anabaptists wrote the Confession to say we are not the Anabaptists.

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We're different. We're orthodox. We're mainstream Reformed orthodoxy. And the reason,

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I always wondered why there was a Second London Baptist Confession, and the reason, as you know, that they wrote the

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Second London Baptist Confession is to remove, was to remove from the First London Baptist Confession any words that would unnecessarily cause division or misunderstanding with the

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Presbyterians and the Puritans. And so they, as you said, they wanted to as closely as possible frame the

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Baptist Confession like the Westminster to show the world that they were genuine

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Puritans. They were nobody to be afraid of. That they were mainstream

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Reformed orthodoxy. And that's why you see so much similarities between the

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Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession. And one thing that, and I went back and studied the

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Baptist Confession just to make sure again that I was doing the right thing, is that one place where this unity is extremely clear between the historic

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Baptists and the historic Presbyterians is their understanding of the principles of Bible interpretation.

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What are the principles that a person has to keep in mind if he's going to understand the Bible correctly? I have nine or ten here that we can talk about today, and they're bound in both.

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The Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession, the Westminster Confession simply says more about these things.

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And the Baptist Confession is a little abbreviated, but nevertheless, the principles are there, and if Baptists and Presbyterians and Anglicans, because they had it,

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Anglicans had what's called the Thirty -Nine Articles, and it is generally

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Calvinistic, generally Reformed, not as much as Westminster and London Baptists. But when the

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Anglicans came to America and formed the Episcopal Church, they left their Thirty -Nine Articles in England.

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And when the Baptists started moving west, Presbyterians couldn't keep up with the westward movement because they required a great amount of education.

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But when the Baptists moved west in the United States, they left their Confessions in New England.

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And then in the 20th century, when the Liberals and the Modernists started taking over the seminaries, and from the seminaries, the pulpits of the country, the

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Presbyterians left their Confession in the dust, giving it only lip service, but no real commitment of the heart.

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In fact, there used to be a, there still may be as far as I know, but there used to be a course in one of the leading

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Presbyterian seminaries in America called, how to be, something like this, this isn't the name, but how to pass an ordination test without believing the

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Westminster Confession. And I went to school at a

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Liberal Presbyterian seminary, and I never had one course on the Westminster Confession, not one.

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But I do know a preacher, a Presbyterian preacher that wrote a book called John Calvin versus the

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Westminster Confession of Faith. So there have been neglect, everything from neglect to the assault on these historical

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Confessions. And so we see where we are today. Once you leave these

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Confessional roots, you go nowhere but down, and so we see all of this in America today, homosexual marriages, transsexual, political race theory, social justice, lawlessness, immorality, socialism.

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Who we have to blame for that are the Presbyterians and the Baptists, and the

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Anglicans and the Episcopalians, because they once were the bulwark and the foundation of social, political, economic, educational life in North America.

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As long as they were Confessional. I will tell you a funny story, but I better not, since we're on radio, tell you where this is.

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But there was a gigantic Southern Baptist church.

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And I do want to warn Southern Baptists about their President Greer. That man said in so many words that conservatives in the

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Southern Baptist Convention are the same thing as Pharisees, racists, and terrorists.

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In fact, could you pick up right where you left off there? Yeah. Because we have to go to our first break. I don't want to interrupt you mid -sentence.

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So if anybody would like to join us on the air with your own question about principles for Biblical interpretation that we glean from the

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Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

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C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence, if you live outside the

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USA. And only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

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Don't go away. We'll be right back with Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, right after these messages from our sponsors.

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We're now back with Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, pastor of Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, and we are addressing the forgotten biblical principles of interpretation in the

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Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. If you have a question, our email address is chrisarnzen at gmail .com,

37:29

chrisarnzen at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the

37:36

USA, and only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter.

37:47

Right before the break, you were warning Southern Baptists about their president, John Greer.

37:54

If you could continue. Well, I was talking, I brought him in on the side, but I was talking about a gigantic, to show how far we've fallen, a gigantic Southern Baptist church in Atlanta years ago.

38:09

They were Arminian, the pastor even preached a series of sermons over a period of weeks on how the five points of Calvinism originated in the pits of hell, and they were renovating sanctuary, and they found beneath the cornerstone a box that the founders of that a long

38:36

Baptist church from the 1800s had put there when they built the church.

38:43

And the church has a newsletter, and in the newsletter they published the letter from the founding elders of that church, and it said, we pray that the doctrines of sovereign grace will be taught in this church throughout all of history.

38:58

So I wrote the pastor of the church who didn't believe in the doctrines of sovereign grace,

39:04

I wrote the pastor of the church, and I said, well, I rejoice, brother so -and -so, that your church is going back and rededicating itself to the faith of your fathers.

39:17

He fired the editor of the church letter. I'm sorry for laughing at that, but I just...

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But that shows you how far... By the way, I need to make a very important correction.

39:29

I called the president of the Southern Baptist Convention John Greer.

39:35

That is not his name. It's J .D. Greer, which stands for James David Greer. That was a flub because I have a very good friend named

39:45

John Greer, who spells his name without the A in it, and he is a really fine man of God, an uncompromising man of God, who happens to be a pastor in the

40:00

Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster in Northern Ireland. Oh, yeah. And he's been on this show, and he's preached at my church on Long Island before I moved here to Pennsylvania.

40:11

And I don't want to get those two mixed up, and I apologize... Yeah, you don't want to do that at all. And I want to apologize to everybody in the

40:17

Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster and to Pastor John Greer himself for making that error.

40:23

Sorry about that. So all of our denominations have fallen from their base, and what's interesting is throughout the history of the church for the past 2 ,000 years, whenever there has been a great spirit -produced revival -reformation, there's always been the production of confessions and catechisms and creeds.

40:51

You have the great creeds of the early church, the Apostles' Creed, the Athanasian Creed, the

40:57

Diocesan Creed. In the Reformation in the 16th century and 17th century, you've got the great confessions we're talking about today, plus the

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Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism. And there's no creeds or confessions or catechisms, worthy of their name, that's been written since.

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Because, in my opinion, we haven't had a great revival in this country. Whenever you see a spirit -brought revival, you will see the rededication of themselves, of the church, to the historical creeds and confessions and catechisms of the church.

41:37

And people often tell me, well, why go back to the 17th century to get our doctrinal statements?

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Why don't we write something today, our own confession? Well, that is a very good question, and I will say two things about it.

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Number one, truth never changes. That whatever was true in the 16th century is true today.

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And number two, I think the church is in such bad shape that we could not put together 120 men, the caliber of the men at Westminster, or the few men that wrote the

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London Confession. We couldn't get that many people together. And so, as a result, what we pray for is a renewed work of the

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Holy Spirit, reviving the church, reforming her, renewing her, bringing her heart to repentance.

42:30

And with that, we will see a recommitment of the church to the historical faith of the church, and then possibly be able to restate it in even more effective language without changing any of the doctrines that God's people have believed through the century and shed their blood for.

42:50

Now, when you say, and we will go into these principles any minute now, but when you say that these principles of biblical interpretation in both our confessions have been forgotten or largely ignored by many, if not most,

43:08

Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists, are you actually speaking about those that openly affirm the confessions, or are you speaking about the general population?

43:20

A general and popular way. You know, we've been talking about how to read the Bible biblically for the past several months on your show, and some of these things we will have mentioned, some we have not mentioned, but I think in the general population of evangelical denominations and liberal denominations, no longer emphasize these truths, in fact, believe exactly the opposite.

43:48

And you cannot accurately understand the Word of God unless you use these old

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Reformed principles of interpretation. As we said last month, we have the

44:00

Reformers of the 16th century to thank, Calvin, Knox, and the rest.

44:06

We have them to thank, not simply for the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ alone, but we have them to thank for teaching us how to read the

44:17

Bible, that the church had a mistaken understanding, by and large, of how the

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Bible is to be read for a thousand years. It's called an allegorical interpretation, always looking for some secret meaning that only the priests and the bishops would know, and the common man could not study the

44:34

Bible for himself without being subject to the tyranny of the experts. But then the great

44:41

Reformers of the 16th century said, oh, here's how you interpret the scriptures. We have the priesthood of all believers, that all believers are accountable before God to read and study and apply the

44:53

Word of God, and with the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, and considering the grammar and the biblical meaning of the words, and how the words relate to each other in a particular text, and the historical context of those words,

45:10

Tyndale said, I'm going to translate the Bible into English so that a plowboy will know more about the Bible than an archbishop.

45:18

And that's what happened in Protestantism, is the average man was taught he doesn't have to depend upon the priest, and the declarations ex cathedra of the

45:29

Pope, that he has the Holy Spirit in his heart, and the Holy Spirit can guide him and enlighten him as he uses his intelligence and biblical principles of interpretation, and consider how the church has interpreted a text throughout the ages, and he can come to an understanding himself and teach his children that understanding down through the generations.

45:57

So that's one of the greatest contributions of the Protestant Reformation to the church, was to teach us, give us principles how to interpret the

46:08

Bible, so that we're not reading into the Bible what we want it to say, or we're not blinding ourselves from seeing what the

46:15

Bible in fact does say, but we're interpreting the Bible in a way that is

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God honoring, and it's the way God interprets the

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Bible. So in the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession, both begin with the same subject, both begin with the chapter on Holy Scripture, which is what you would expect a

46:44

Protestant to do, because a Protestant who's a genuine Protestant, he gets all of his doctrines from the

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Scriptures, not from any man, not from any institution, but from the

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Scriptures, and that's why both in the Second London Baptist Confession and the Westminster Confession, the very first chapter is on Holy Scripture.

47:05

And I would encourage your listeners to go to Google, and to look up the

47:11

Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession, they're there, and read particularly the first chapter of both, and compare them.

47:23

And I mean, it's a marvelous chapter, and so in that chapter, we can draw several principles that will encourage us in our

47:35

Bible studies, because the Bible will be an open book to us once we're able to read it, the way

47:42

God intended for us to read it, and it's not just the liberals that have forgotten how to read the

47:48

Bible, but fundamentalists and evangelicals have forgotten how to read the

47:53

Bible too, because they presuppose several things that are not found in historical

48:00

Christianity. But I praise the Lord that beginning in the last part of the 20th century, there has been a great revival in many of these old historical doctrines, and these old historical principles.

48:16

In my lifetime, and I was born in 1944, in my lifetime, particularly after the mid -1960s, there has been a great revival, not any glitz or glamour or flash, but a genuine in -depth revival of Bible reading and Bible preaching from the perspective of the ancient creeds and confessions.

48:43

I think right now, particularly beginning in the late 20th century,

48:49

I believe there are more churches committed to the

48:54

Reformed faith and more preachers preaching the Reformed faith than at any other time prior to the mid -1960s for the previous hundred years.

49:08

And I have young men who come to see me from various places in the country. I've had two that I've been with this weekend, one from Indiana and another from,

49:20

I've forgotten where, but they want to know what the Bible teaches. They want to teach the

49:25

Bible. I asked them, this one young man from Indiana, what books have influenced you? And they're the great books of the past.

49:33

They're the great books based on the Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession and the Belgic Confession and the

49:39

Heidelberg Catechism. And so there is a revival going on.

49:45

I mean, there's not a lot of lights and cameras and everything, but it's out there. It's flying under the radar, but it's gradually making its way and more and more people are learning how to read the

49:57

Bible. And once people learn how to read the Bible, watch out. Once preachers preach the

50:05

Bible, once the man in the pews starts reading the Bible, there will be reformation.

50:11

I think one of the most encouraging things the Roman Catholic Church did in the late 20th century, and I believe the

50:18

Roman Catholic Church is a threat to Christianity, but it made the mistake of encouraging

50:26

Bible study groups in the Roman Catholic Church. Brother, that's what

50:31

I want more than anything else, is for Roman Catholics to start reading the Bible. You see what happened in the 16th century when they did.

50:40

And so I'm not a pessimist in any way, shape, or form. I have no confidence in man, but I have every confidence in the power of the

50:49

Word of God to spread and to conquer and to persuade.

50:55

And once God leads us and the church and preachers into knowing how to read the

51:03

Bible and preach the Bible, things are going to happen. The first principle is one that has been recaptured since the late middle 20th century.

51:15

Christians have always believed it, but it diminished in its popularity in the 20th century until the late 20th century.

51:24

And yet if we don't begin with this principle, we're not going to get anywhere with the Bible. And that is that the

51:30

Bible is inerrant. Now, that's a new word.

51:38

The old words in the London Baptist Confession, the Westminster Confession, were things like infallible or describing one of the reasons to believe the

51:50

Bible is, quote, the entire perfection thereof. But I was taught in a liberal seminary that the

51:57

Confession of Faith didn't teach the inerrancy of Scripture because the word inerrant is not there.

52:03

Well, that's a pathetic way to reason. Inerrant is a new word. It means without error.

52:10

Just like infallible means without error. Just like the entire perfection thereof means without imperfection.

52:20

And what do we mean when we say that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God? We have to presuppose that if we're going to understand it.

52:28

Whatever the Bible asserts to be true on any subject is true. Let me say it again.

52:37

Whatever the Bible asserts to be true on any subject is true. Not just on theology, but science, agriculture, commerce, banking, whatever.

52:51

It is the Word of God, and whatever it asserts is true is true.

52:57

If the Bible says that the world, the universe, was created suddenly with the appearance of age out of nothing 6 ,000 years ago, it did.

53:08

And for us to have confusion about the doctrine of creation means that we will have confusion about the doctrine of redemption because the

53:18

Creator is the Redeemer. So the place we have to start when we study the

53:24

Scriptures is this is a book unlike any other book. And we have to pick up right where you left off there because we have to go to our midway break.

53:32

And remember, be patient with us folks. It's a longer than normal break in the middle of the show. Please write down as much of the information as you can provided by our advertisers so that you can respond to our advertisers even if it just means thanking them for sponsoring the show because we want them to remain our advertisers.

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And write down questions for Dr. Joe Moorcraft to chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com.

53:55

We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors. As host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, I frequently get requests from listeners for church recommendations.

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If you'd love to advertise with us, we would love for you to do that. As long as whatever it is you're promoting is compatible with what we believe.

01:12:57

You don't have to believe identically with me, but you need to be promoting something that's at the very least compatible with what I believe. So send me an email to ChrisArnson at gmail .com

01:13:06

and put Advertising in the subject line. I would love to hear from you and love to help you launch an ad campaign quickly because we are in urgent need of your advertising dollars.

01:13:16

Please start to remember, folks, I don't want my listeners siphoning money away from their regular giving that they're accustomed to to their own local church where they are a member in order to give to IronSharpensIronRadio.

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In other words, don't punish your own church financially by blessing us financially.

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Also, if you are really struggling to survive, don't put your family in financial peril by giving to IronSharpensIronRadio.

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Those two things are commands of God in Scripture providing for your church and your family. Providing for my radio show is obviously not a command of God in Scripture.

01:13:53

But if you love the show and you're financially blessed above and beyond your ability to obey those two commands, you have extra money that you use for recreational purposes, well, please share some of that money with us so that we can continue to exist, if indeed you love the show and you don't want us to go away.

01:14:11

That's IronSharpensIronRadio .com. Click support, then click, click to donate now. And also, if you are not a member of a local

01:14:19

Bible -believing church like Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia, no matter where you live on the planet

01:14:27

Earth, I may be able to help you find a church. I have lists, very extensive lists, of biblically faithful churches all over the world, and I have helped people in our audience from all parts of the planet

01:14:39

Earth. I may be able to help you find a church as well, no matter where you live. Sometimes I've helped people find churches right around the block from where they live.

01:14:48

They didn't even know that the churches existed or they didn't know that the churches that they passed by every day were biblically sound.

01:14:55

So I may be able to help you too. Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put,

01:15:00

I need a church in the subject line. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com, I need a church in the subject line.

01:15:06

That's also the email address where you can send in a question to Dr. Joseph C. Moorcraft III, and we are talking about the forgotten biblical principles from the

01:15:18

Westminster Confession of Faith and the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith. That's chrisarnson at gmail .com.

01:15:25

Give us your first name at least, your city and state of residence, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA. And, Dr.

01:15:31

Moorcraft, you were just concluding your first principle that you wanted to mention before the break.

01:15:39

Yes, sir. We must approach the Scriptures believing that it is full of thoughts that originated in the mind of God written in words that originated in the mind of God and therefore incapable of error.

01:15:57

That means we take every word seriously. We don't play fast and loose with any verse, any word.

01:16:06

We take every and, the, therefore seriously because it is the inherent word of God.

01:16:14

The second principle of interpretation from our confessions is something that a lot of people have forgotten and get confused about.

01:16:25

And that is the Bible teaches us reveal truths from God by express statements and by necessary deductions from the

01:16:36

Bible. The words of the Bible and the meaning of those words comprise the word of God.

01:16:45

So when it comes to saying the Bible there's two ways that the Bible teaches us things. Express statements in black and white.

01:16:53

Chapter verse. But then there are other great truths that we don't have a chapter verse for but we have inescapable deductions from other verses like for instance there is no chapter verse anywhere in the

01:17:11

Bible that says this that God is one God that exists simultaneously in three persons

01:17:18

God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

01:17:25

And yet that is the most foundational fundamental truth of the Christian faith. Is it less true because it is deduced from various other doctrines?

01:17:37

Would it be more true if it was an express statement? No. The Bible tells us that there is one

01:17:43

God. The Bible tells us that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are equally

01:17:49

God and yet the Bible tells us they speak to each other that they are three distinct persons.

01:17:56

So when you put all of these verses together the only conclusion you can come to is that there is only one

01:18:04

God and he exists simultaneously in three persons. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit the same in substance, equal in power and glory.

01:18:13

So when we study the scriptures a lot of people will say, well give me a chapter verse. If you don't give me a chapter verse,

01:18:19

I'm not going to believe it. You say, well okay, then you must not be a Trinitarian. Or effectual calling.

01:18:26

That's a great reformed truth. Can you give me a chapter verse in the Bible that says that effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit whereby he convicts us of our sin and misery and enlightens our mind in the knowledge of Christ and set free our will to receive

01:18:43

Christ as he's offered in the gospel? No. But when you put various verses together that teach us a piece of that that's the only thing you can come up with.

01:18:52

So we've got to understand how God reveals his will to us in the scriptures. Not only in expressed statements but also in necessary conclusions and deductions.

01:19:04

And you see Paul doing this particularly in Romans when you see Paul say so then, so then.

01:19:14

That means he's drawing a conclusion from something he has just said.

01:19:20

So the words of the Bible and the meaning of those words comprise the word of God.

01:19:27

And there's a third principle. And I'm going to read something I wrote on this. The third principle from our confessions is that the

01:19:35

Bible is the clear and plain revelation of God. Although not all passages are equally clear to all people.

01:19:45

But those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of scripture or other that not only the learned but the unlearned in a due use of the ordinary means may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

01:20:09

This due use of ordinary means includes a careful study of the grammar and meaning of the words in our text along with a study of the context of our text.

01:20:21

So the Bible is not equally clear. In fact, Peter brings that up. He actually says in the last chapters,

01:20:28

I forget it, I think it's 2 Peter, where he says that some passages are more difficult in Paul than other passages.

01:20:37

That there, the Bible's clear. Some passages are less clear than other reasons for a lot of reasons.

01:20:45

One, because it may be dealing with a situation that is unlike anything we've experienced in our modern world.

01:20:54

Or maybe it is because of the complexity of what's being presented or the profundity.

01:21:01

Or maybe it's because of something in us that makes the verse less clear.

01:21:08

But when it comes to the basic ingredients about what you have to know and believe and observe for salvation, they're so clearly revealed in the scriptures that anybody, whether he's a college graduate or not, can have a sufficient understanding of them by a due use of the ordinary means.

01:21:34

Now that's a conventional statement. A due use of ordinary means means that if you're going to understand those things that are clearly revealed in the scripture and that are necessary for understanding of salvation, you've got to use your intelligence.

01:21:51

You've got to think. You've got to concentrate. You've got to know the rules of English grammar if you're an

01:21:56

English -speaking person. You've got to know something that's going on in the book. You just can't take a pill and all of a sudden you know the

01:22:03

Bible. You just can't understand the Bible by a superficial quick reading of it. It takes work.

01:22:10

There are no shortcuts. You have to pay the price. You have to put in the effort. Because if you don't put in the effort of seeking to understand it and concentrate, then even those passages that are clear in the basic ingredients of the gospel will be unclear to you.

01:22:28

And it's so difficult for Americans today to have a sustained concentration on the

01:22:36

Bible. We're only taught to think and focus on things between commercials.

01:22:44

Just a few minutes, then we have a commercial break so you don't have to think again until after the commercial's over.

01:22:52

The Bible takes more thought, more concentrate and sustained concentration. But by due use of ordinary means, whether you're a college graduate, a high school graduate or not, if you know grammar and you know the

01:23:08

Bible, what is the situation, by exerting the effort, you can understand it with the help of the

01:23:14

Holy Spirit. And then fourthly, this is well said.

01:23:21

It's in both confessions. The only infallible interpreter of the Bible is the Bible. The only infallible interpreter of the

01:23:32

Bible is the Bible. That is, when you come to a text in the

01:23:37

Bible, you want to understand it. You read commentaries. You try to find out what other great

01:23:44

Christian scholars have believed. But ultimately, you look and see how the Bible interprets that text elsewhere.

01:23:51

Because Matthew Henry is not infallible. John Calvin is not infallible.

01:23:59

And John Gill is not infallible. But the Bible is.

01:24:04

So the final word on how you interpret a particular verse is not some human commentator as important as they are.

01:24:13

But it's how the Bible interprets that elsewhere. For instance, in the Old Testament, in the

01:24:19

Messianic prophecies of Isaiah and other books, it talks about the rebuilding of the tabernacle.

01:24:26

And so as a result, some people have expected the tabernacle of Temple is going to literally be rebuilt in Jerusalem.

01:24:35

But in Acts 15, at that great meeting, it says that the rebuilding of the tabernacle of David is the bringing of the

01:24:48

Gentiles into the Christian church. So it's not literally rebuilding the

01:24:55

Temple. And so that's the way you let the Bible interpret the

01:25:01

Bible. The only infallible interpreter of the Bible is the Bible. And then fifth, the less clear texts of the

01:25:13

Bible are to be interpreted by the clearer texts.

01:25:20

The less clear texts of the Bible are to be interpreted by the more clear texts.

01:25:28

So a lot of the cults and a lot of false doctrines begin when people take an obviously difficult passage of Scripture that is not as clear as other passages.

01:25:44

And then they begin with that and they interpret all the clear passages in the light of the less clear and misinterpret the more clear passages.

01:25:53

I'll give you an example. When you start with Hebrews 6, that appears to say on the surface that a person can be lost after he's been saved.

01:26:09

Hence, allegedly a denial of the Reformed doctrine of the perseverance of the saints and eternal security.

01:26:16

Well, we don't have time to go into it, but it doesn't say that at all.

01:26:21

But everybody has to agree that is a difficult passage to interpret. But it can be interpreted with works.

01:26:31

So where do you start in interpreting something like Hebrews 6 that is very difficult in understanding?

01:26:40

You start with the clear verses on eternal security. Like in John 10.

01:26:47

My sheep is a paraphrase. Jesus said, My sheep are in My hand.

01:26:53

I give them eternal life. And they're in My hand and no one can snatch them from My hand.

01:27:01

Now that's as clear as anybody would want it. That once God claims you and once Jesus saves you,

01:27:07

He keeps you saved. And you're in His hand and nobody can snatch you from it. So whatever

01:27:12

Hebrews 6 means, it's not going to contradict what

01:27:20

Jesus said in John 10 in the clear passages. So basic principle of interpreting the

01:27:26

Bible is that the less clear texts of the Bible are to be interpreted by the clearer texts and not vice versa.

01:27:38

And then sixth, and I love this one, and I mean you have evangelicals, you have reformed people that are confused on this.

01:27:47

Semi -reformed people. Each Bible text has one true and full sense.

01:27:58

That is one interpretation, not many. Therefore, in interpreting biblical texts, we must search for the original intent of God and of the human author.

01:28:13

Now let me say that again because that goes contrary to the philosophy of this world. Each biblical text has one true and full sense.

01:28:24

That is one interpretation, not many. Therefore, in interpreting biblical texts, we must search for the original intent of God and of the human author.

01:28:40

Yes, the average person today that really doesn't want to deal with the scripture does the

01:28:46

Bible have this particular verse? Does this verse have more than one interpretation? They would say, of course, there's all kinds of ways of interpreting it.

01:28:54

Don't you believe that? Don't you believe that this verse has many interpretations and your answer must be forthright?

01:29:00

No, I do not. God's not irrational. That when

01:29:06

God speaks, He has a particular point He wants to make by those words and He doesn't want you to take

01:29:13

Him any way you want to. When I was teaching that to a high school Bible class one time and I asked a young man in the class,

01:29:21

I said, Michael, would you please go get me a drink of water? Well, I wasn't thirsty.

01:29:27

I was making a point. So he goes out of the class and he brings me a glass of water and I said, thank you.

01:29:35

I was just trying to teach you something. I'm really not thirsty. I wanted to see what you would do when

01:29:40

I said, please bring me a glass of water. I wanted to see whether you would go buy me a hamburger or whether you would wash my car.

01:29:52

I wanted to see what you would do. So I said, what you did was you heard these words that I spoke to you and you sought to interpret them according to what

01:30:04

I intended and so you knew when I said, please bring me a glass of water, that didn't have more than one meaning.

01:30:11

There's one way to interpret that. Mr. Moorcraft wants a glass of water and so when it comes to scripture, we just don't interpret.

01:30:22

I used to be, oh, 35, 45 years ago, I used to ask people in Bible studies, how do you interpret this text?

01:30:29

But I quit doing that. I really don't care how people interpret it. I want to know how

01:30:35

God interprets it because we can come up with all kinds of interpretations. So when you study a particular text, you've got to ask yourself, all right, now what's

01:30:45

God saying here? God's not irrational. God's rational. He has a particular point he wants to make by the words that he uses and I must seek to understand the point of those words and not impose my own meaning on them.

01:31:06

And that's where we use the grammatical historical hermeneutic. We look at the biblical meanings of the words.

01:31:13

When I taught that Bible class, I would assign papers on particular biblical themes.

01:31:19

If somebody began his paper by saying, now, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines this word as,

01:31:27

I would probably give him an F right off the bat because I don't care what

01:31:32

Webster's Collegiate Dictionary says. I want to know how the Bible defines biblical words and the grammar, how the words are related to each other and the historical context and it is not impossible at all to figure out what

01:31:52

God means by the words that he uses if we use these biblical principles and these reformed biblicals of hermeneutics, principles of hermeneutics, so that each text of the

01:32:03

Bible has one interpretation and therefore in interpreting biblical texts we must search for the original intent of God and of the human author.

01:32:20

And seventh, although in the Bible God gives an objective self -evident testimony to his divine authority, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof is from the inward work of the

01:32:48

Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts. Let me say it again.

01:32:56

Although in the Bible God gives an objective self -evident testimony to his divine authority and we ought to believe that for no other reason than the fact that he claims to be the word of God.

01:33:07

Our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority of the

01:33:13

Bible is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the word in our hearts.

01:33:21

I'm going through the book of John and I'm preaching through John 7, 8, 9,

01:33:28

I preach through those. Let me encourage you to, your listeners, to study those carefully because they tell us that Jesus is asked by the

01:33:39

Pharisees who hate him at this point. Why should we believe your testimony? They said, doesn't the

01:33:47

Old Testament require two testimonies? Why should we believe you? And why should we believe your claims that you're the

01:33:55

Son of God incarnate and the Messiah and the Savior of the world? And Jesus answers to them is,

01:34:01

I'm not an ordinary man you're talking to. That in human relationships it takes two witnesses that can corroborate each other to establish something as truth.

01:34:11

But I'm not your ordinary man. I'm God in human flesh. So my testimony is sufficient.

01:34:18

But nevertheless, if you want credentials, I'll give you credentials. God the Father witnesses to me.

01:34:25

God the Father is born witness to the world from the beginning of time in every blade of grass, in every page of scripture, in every conscience of man.

01:34:34

Jesus is what he claims to be. So you want your two witnesses? You have me,

01:34:40

Jesus said. And you have my Father. Now, that is so important, particularly today when we have such a high confidence in human reason.

01:34:59

Why do you, we ask, or we should ask ourselves, why do we believe the Bible? Do we believe the

01:35:05

Bible is the word of God and Jesus is the Savior because the Westminster and the London Baptist, they should tell us it is?

01:35:13

Well, if that's the only reason you believe in it, it's not enough. Do we believe that the

01:35:21

Bible is the word of God and that Jesus who he claims to be because of great men whom we respect like Spurgeon and John Gill and Calvin and Knox and the other believe it?

01:35:33

Well, if we do, then our faith rests on man. So when you really get down to the bottom line, the two witnesses to the authority of the scripture upon which your faith in the word of God rests are the objective witness of God in the

01:35:55

Bible. This is my word. And the subjective work of God the

01:36:05

Holy Spirit in your conscience persuading you of the divine authority of that word.

01:36:18

That's all the evidences. That's all the proof. Any real Christian needs.

01:36:26

Why do you believe the Bible is the word of God? God says it is in the Bible and by his spirit in my conscience.

01:36:32

He has divinely persuaded me of the divine authority of scripture by the power of the

01:36:42

Holy Spirit. The last part of John 8, Jesus says to the

01:36:48

Jews who thought they were Christians. He said, you know why you don't really believe in me?

01:36:57

You can't hear me. He said. Oh, you can listen to my words, but you can't hear me.

01:37:06

And the reason you can't hear me because it is those who are of God who hear

01:37:14

God's words. Now brother, that is strong language.

01:37:23

The Bible says the dead men can't hear Jesus. They're so filled with darkness and hostility toward him.

01:37:33

So dead in their trespasses and sins. They cannot hear him. You can give them every good argument till you're blue in the face and they can reject those arguments even though they might see their legitimacy.

01:37:51

They're going to suppress the truth of unrighteousness because they prefer to believe that they are the final authority and not the

01:38:02

Bible. But when the Holy Spirit of God takes the witness of Holy Scripture and bears it down on a man's conscience, he will believe and he will be persuaded that the

01:38:23

Bible is in fact the word of God. So when we study the

01:38:29

Scriptures and when we teach the Scriptures as preachers, it's not our eloquence. It's not our passion.

01:38:38

It's not our personality. We can give every good reason under the sun as to why a person should believe the

01:38:46

Bible. And those people will turn us down until the

01:38:54

Holy Spirit of God bears witness to the divine authority of Scripture by and with the word in their hearts.

01:39:05

Charles Spurgeon was preaching a sermon one time on the necessity of effectual calling on the work of the

01:39:11

Holy Spirit and that the work of the Holy Spirit in convincing us of biblical authority is ultimately irresistible.

01:39:21

And as always at the end of his sermon he called people to come to Christ. And he said, now there's some of you out there that hear me say come to Christ, repent of your sins and believe in Him, and in your dead and depraved hearts you are saying under your breath,

01:39:39

I will not, I will not, I will not. But Spurgeon said, when the

01:39:47

Holy Spirit presses this gospel upon your heart and enables you to see its divine authority, yes you will, yes you will.

01:39:58

Amen. In fact, we've got to go to our last break right now. And if anybody wants to join us, send in your question immediately because we're rapidly running out of time.

01:40:07

ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. ChrisArnzen at gmail .com. We'll be right back after these messages.

01:40:21

I'm James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries. My friend Chris Arnzen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and I are headed down to Atlanta, Georgia once again for the

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G3 Conference. This year's G3 will be held Thursday, September 30th through Saturday, October 2nd on the theme,

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Christ is Supreme Over All. I'll be joined by over 20 other speakers and musicians to lead in the worship of God through preaching, teaching, and singing, including

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John MacArthur, Phil Johnson, Conrad M. Bayway, Daryl Bernard Harrison, and Virgil Walker.

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For details, visit g3conference .com. That's g3conference .com. Chris Arnzen and I hope to see you

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Thursday, September 30th through October 2nd at G321. This is James White reminding you that Christ is

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Supreme Over All. I'm Dr.

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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,

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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

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

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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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01:50:23

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

01:50:35

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

01:50:42

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

01:50:55

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.

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

01:51:13

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

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

01:51:26

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

01:51:35

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

01:51:42

Apple's iTunes app by typing Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio in the search bar. You no longer have to worry about missing a show or a special guest because you're in your car or still at work.

01:51:52

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

01:51:59

Please be sure to also give it a good review and pass it along to anyone who would benefit from the teaching and the many solidly reformed guests that Chris Arnson has on the show.

01:52:08

Truth is so hard to come by these days, so don't waste your time with fluff or fake news. Subscribe to the

01:52:14

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

01:52:21

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

01:52:27

Reformed Baptist perspective to beginners in the faith as well as seasoned believers. From Keach's Catechism and the

01:52:33

Doctrines of Grace to the Olivet Discourse and the Book of Leviticus, the Reform Rookie podcast and YouTube channel is sure to have something to offer everyone seeking biblical truth.

01:52:43

And finally, if you're looking to worship in a reformed church that holds to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, please join us at Hope Reformed Baptist Church in Corham, New York.

01:52:53

Again, I'm Pastor Anthony Avino, and thanks for listening. Welcome back, and we have an anonymous listener who has a question for Dr.

01:53:01

Joe Moorcraft. And he says, or she, Dr. Moorcraft, I have become more and more in disagreement with my own pastors at the church where I am a member, especially in the area of eschatology.

01:53:19

But if what you have been saying is true, that there are not many different interpretations of any text in the

01:53:26

Bible, if we all have the same Holy Spirit indwelling us, and we are all truly seeking after truth, why do these divisions exist?

01:53:36

Why are there Presbyterians and Reformed Baptists? And why do there exist, between even

01:53:43

Presbyterians, disagreements, and even amongst Reformed Baptists themselves, disagreements of their own?

01:53:50

Why is it, that the perpiscuity of Scripture is really true, that those who are truly born again and led by the

01:53:58

Spirit are still coming up with different conclusions? That is a gigantic question, and a good question, to which there are several answers.

01:54:11

One is that there are a lot of differences between Christians today.

01:54:19

Denominationalism, Spurgeon said denominationalism is a way of preserving the unity of the church.

01:54:26

He said, can you imagine all of us being Presbyterians, Baptists, and Anglicans all being in the same church?

01:54:34

We would all be fighting all the time about Baptist baptism. So he said denominationalism is

01:54:42

God's way of preserving the unity of the church of God. I think he is being a little bit facetious.

01:54:50

But anyway, the other reason is that the

01:54:56

Holy Spirit of God brings unity. And wherever the Holy Spirit works in revival, there is unity.

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That's why in the 16th century and the 17th century, you had the

01:55:10

Baptists and the Congregationalists, the Independents, the London Baptist Confession, the

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Westminster Confession, the Savoy Declaration, the 39 Articles of England.

01:55:22

Basic doctrinal unity because of the work of the Holy Spirit. So where the

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Holy Spirit is at work, where there is revival, where there is broken and convicted hearts that want

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God to work in them, there is going to be a revival of doctrinal unity.

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And so we see this fragmentation and division in the church today for which we ought to be ashamed.

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Because there were disagreements of course in the 16th and 17th century, but not the divisiveness that came a little later, that came in the 1650s and beyond.

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And why is that we disagree? I think we disagree because we're not perfect.

01:56:12

I think today people disagree on doctrine because they don't know English grammar. There'd be a lot more unit doctrinal unity if people knew

01:56:22

English grammar. There would be more unity if we had the courage to examine the presuppositions that we bring to the scriptures when we study the scriptures.

01:56:35

And that if we view more agreement also if we view what we believe in the light of what the churches believed for thousands of years.

01:56:44

I'll give you a quick example since we're, do you have any more questions Chris before I finish? Oh we do, but we're not going to take them.

01:56:51

We're going to have to wait until the next time you're on because we just don't have time. Okay, so we've got to view what we believe in the light of history.

01:56:58

One of the things that is so encouraging to me and more so after I've studied the

01:57:06

London Baptist Confession today is the unity of the

01:57:12

Presbyterians and the Baptists on covenant theology.

01:57:18

There are some disagreements of course with reference to baptism, but basically you read the

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Westminster Confessions chapter called the Covenant of God and you read the

01:57:31

Second London Baptist on the Covenant of God and though the Second London Baptist is brief, more brief than the

01:57:41

Westminster Confession, that is more complex, the basic main strokes of covenant theology are there in both.

01:57:51

And you asked me a question that I never answered at the very beginning of the program and that's about some of our brethren who don't like to call

01:57:59

Baptists Reformed people. Well, I have no hesitation of calling

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Reformed Baptists Reformed if they believe more than the five points of Calvinism.

01:58:13

You have people out there today who believe the five points of Calvinism and all kinds of other false, all kinds of false doctrines to go with it.

01:58:22

Dispensationalism, all kinds of things, antinomianism. But the one thing that makes

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Presbyterians and Baptists Reformed is not saying and simply believing the five points of Calvinism, but it's understanding the theme and the structure of the covenant of God in Christ that unifies all of scripture.

01:58:47

That in my opinion makes Presbyterians and Baptists Reformed. So if I know

01:58:54

Presbyterians, they believe five points of Calvinism, but that's all they believe. I don't call them Reformed. And obviously you love the five points of Calvinism, but you're saying...

01:59:03

Oh, I love the five points of Calvinism. Yeah, that refuted Arminianism. Right. Five points of Calvinism is simply the

01:59:10

Synod of Dort's answer to the five points of Arminianism. But I love the 500 points of Calvinism.

01:59:19

Well, we're out of time, actually, and your website for Heritage Presbyterian Church in Cumming, Georgia is

01:59:25

HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com, HeritagePresbyterianChurch .com, and don't forget you can find out about where to purchase books that have been brought back into print by Dr.

01:59:37

Joe Morecraft at ComprehensiveChristianity .com, ComprehensiveChristianity .com.

01:59:43

I want you all to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater Savior than you are a sinner.