Radio Free Geneva

You can constantly hear people that are Calvinist harp on this.

Bah! Bah! God's sovereign! God's sovereign! Bah! Sovereign! Sovereign! Sovereign!

They just keep repeating it, and they repeat it so much you start to think it's a Biblical truth.

...stands outside the tomb of Lazarus, she says, Lazarus, come out! And Lazarus said, I can't, I'm dead. That's not what he did. Lazarus came out. She didn't mean to tell me a dead person can respond to the command of Christ.

You take lessons from Judas White and Jeff Durbin. It shows in this kind of sequential format and...

Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things? Um, no.

Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.

Then Jesus cannot override your unbelief.

...sent that verse like that to Him... Do you know what He would sound like if He were listening to it?

Blablablablablablablabla, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. It wouldn't make any sense to Him. A self righteous, legalistic, deceived jerk.

And you need to realize that He's gone from predeterminism. Now He's speaking of some kind of middle knowledge that God now has to...

I deny and categorically deny middle knowledge.

Don't beg the question that would demand me to force you to embrace it.

You're not always talking about necessarily God choosing something for no apparent reason, but you're choosing that meat because it's a favorable meat. There's a reason to have the choice of that meat.

The Reformation Issue Is the Sufficiency of Grace

From our underground bunker deep beneath the faculty cafeteria in New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, safe from all those moderate Calvinist Dave Hunt fans and those who have read and reread George Bryson's book, we are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for his own eternal glory.

Yes, indeed, welcome to Radio Free Geneva. And it was, I don't know, it was something almost prophetic about, you know, the last voice you hear is Layton Flowers, and then we're under the staff cafeteria at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

And so, hey, we knew what was coming, I guess. Welcome to Radio Free Geneva. We have a lot to cover today. And the reason that I have chosen to, and we will not finish today, there's no way, given that, for example, we need to read original sources and do things like that to provide the fullest possible refutation of the claims that have been made.

I actually only have the first 20 minutes finished as far as indexing is concerned. And so, there are future Radio Free Geneva's to be done. But why bother, many people would say. As you will discover, this particular refutation will allow us to address, well, first of all, it will allow us to address the issue of the Reformation.

And we are, for example, Thursday night, I'll be doing a podcast, somebody else's podcast, on the relevance of the Reformation today. And why it's still important, and what it was about, things like that.

I've taught church history for many, many decades. And so, that's a particular focus of mine on the subject of the Reformation. And so, that's important. But you will also discover that we will be talking about such things as textual criticism.

How did that, how'd they get into Radio Free Geneva? Well, you will discover that in his amazing attempt to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at a basic issue. And that is that we documented, we demonstrated that the viewpoint of the provisionists as represented by Leighton Flowers, that the viewpoint of the provisionists on the issue of the nature of grace and the will of man.

That's what we were talking about. Now, Leighton wants to talk about almost anything but that. But on the issue of the will of man and the nature of God's grace, that he is on Rome's side, not on the side of the Reformation, as defined in the first written debate of the Reformation between Martin Luther and Desiderius Rassus.

Now, of course, he doesn't touch any of that stuff. That's just like, he can't. And I think he probably knows that. I don't know if he's ever read that debate. I don't know if he's read either of the books.

Don't know if he'd know where to find them. But the reality is, our point was straightforward and simple. That when it comes to the will of man and the ability of the will of man and to the intention of God's grace, his provisionism is no different than the sacramentalism of Rome on those issues.

Now, he's going to go off and he's going to talk about Luther's language, just all sorts of stuff. He's going to try to make it look like he's just throwing the facts out there and I don't take the time to do my homework and all the rest of the stuff.

But if you keep your eye on the ball, and if you listen carefully, you discover that our assertion was not only substantiated, but that when you produce an answer like this, where you just throw dust in the air and make lots of noise and hope that people are convinced by that kind of activity, you're really actually saying a lot about where you're coming from and what your position is really all about.

So we wanted to do this. Also gives you an opportunity to, for a couple hours, stop thinking about hypersonic Chinese nuclear weapons, Jen Psaki and the face of Big Brother. I mean, that's really who Jen Psaki is, the face of Big Brother.

How to lie with a serious look on your face. It's amazing. We get to forget all of that for a little while, as we think on these rather important things that will still be important after this regime has come and gone.

These things will still be important. So we will be using my Notes Studio software here to be able to pop around. Actually, we're going to be going straight through, but look at the various segments. And so let's start with a new title.

I have a new title. Didn't know I needed one, but we have a new title and here it is.

Provisionism, Rome, and the Reformation Divide

Hello and welcome back to Sitcheology 101. As you all know, when we play our Why You Gotta Be So Rude song, it's probably about our favorite.

Anti-provisionist apologist. So I'm now their favorite anti-provisionist apologist. Now, I've never thought of myself that way. I defend reformed theology. These guys are the new kids on the block. You can't find anybody who believed what they believe all down through church history, really, until the modern era.

So yeah, whatever. If you want to go there, you can call me whatever you want, but anti-provisionist apologist doesn't sound like it makes a whole lot of sense, to be perfectly honest with you, but that's okay.

We press forward with the first thing. Now, again, my assertion had been, in what was being responded to, that at the time of the Reformation, Rome's understanding of the will of man and the nature of the grace of God, which is channeled through the provisions God has given, called the sacraments, is the same perspective as the provisionists.

Now, I was debating Roman Catholics before anybody ever even heard of Leighton Flowers. My first debate with a Roman Catholic was, no, no, no, no, no, it was August 1990, but I'm doing the math, 10 to 25 years before Leighton and I did our debate on the Roman side.

So we've been dealing with Roman Catholicism, published a number of books on the subject of Roman Catholicism, and so it's not just, oh, look, they're like Rome. No, oh, look, they have the same view as Rome does on the matter of the will of man and the grace of God.

That was the assertion. And so we've already dealt with Rome's arguments on that. Don't need to go back over that. But the point is that they stand on the other side of the divide. And what they want to do is say, oh, you're just trying to use the guilt by association argumentation, and so that's what we get right here.

Wanted you to recognize that when someone stands with Rome on any particular issue, the first thing you should do is attach them to Rome. In fact, any Unitarians out there who don't believe in the triune nature of God, the first thing you should do is put James White in a Cardinal's uniform and say, he might as well just move into Rome.

In other words, he might as well just be there in Rome if he's going to hold to a Trinitarian doctrine, because after all, if I can attach them to Rome, then that must make them wrong, right? Because that's what all Protestants want to do is try to attack their opponent within Protestantism.

If I say words slower, sometimes they come out better. As you all know, I have fun pronouncing fun words sometimes. All Protestants, of course, if you just want to attack another Protestant, you put them on the side of Rome.

I mean, it's just simple guilt by association. Most of you all who know anything about logic and debate fallacies and tactics, you see through this kind of stuff.

Okay, so you're supposed to see through this kind of stuff, but what are you supposed to see through? The historical reality that the position of Rome on the issue of the will of man and the grace of God is the same.

That's not a logical, there's nothing fallacious about pointing out the historical reality. Now, since I have done far more debates than Leighton Flowers has down through the decades, that very argument that he just propounded was used against me by Dr. Sabin in 1999 on Long Island.

He is a oneness advocate, and so he was saying exactly that. The Trinity is a Roman Catholic doctrine. There is one problem with that. The doctrine of the Trinity is a biblical doctrine that long pre-existed the rise of Roman Catholicism.

The observations that I made were based upon the views of the Roman Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation as represented by Desiderius Erasmus in his debate with Luther. So my observation with historical and contextual, and I'm not sure Leighton Flowers understands what historical and contextual actually means because he didn't provide a counterexample that would be relevant.

And so on the logic basis and argumentation basis, minus one for Leighton on that one, because that isn't the point. The point is the observation, which we will have to make a number of times over the course of our time together, that the issue was very narrow and very focused, and Leighton wants to avoid it as much as he possibly can, which only gives us the opportunity of emphasizing once again, something that I remember very clearly emphasizing in 1999 on KPXQ Radio, when I did a series, this thing keeps moving.

I don't think it's its fault, it's my fault. Keep leaning into it and it moves. We did a series in response to Norman Geisler on the subject of Chosen But Free. And one of, now in 1999, Chosen But Free came out after that, but in 1999, we did a response on the radio program to comments he made on the Bible Answer Man broadcast about the nature of grace.

And what Dr. Geisler said was that you need to remember that Roman Catholicism affirmed at the Council of Trent, which it did, that anyone who says you can be saved outside of the grace of God should be anathematized.

That was their anti-Pelagian statement. Now, no one's arguing that Rome says that grace is unnecessary, but what we emphasize then and have emphasized consistently ever since then is the Reformation was not about the necessity of grace.

The Reformation was about the sufficiency of grace. You can go back, the archives are up there. I think we go back to 98, don't we? Somewhere around there. Okay, so you can go back and we can document that for almost a quarter of a century on this program, we've been saying the same thing, that the issue is not the necessity of grace, it is the sufficiency of grace.

We've been very, very consistent and it's just a reminder to everyone, this whole thing will remind us, and I appreciate this Harvard to do so, that that is a dividing line. That the position being presented by Layton Flowers is of a grace that can not save.

It cannot save in and of itself over against sola gratia where you have efficacious grace. Because remember the whole argument was, well, this isn't an issue, because he was talking about Titus 2 and stuff like that.

This is an issue unless you, remember, actually it was Revelation chapter 22. Remember he mentioned that, I mentioned there was a textual variant there, this wasn't really good text to use for something like that because there was a textual variant there.

And then we talked about, he says, well, if you're going to say that I'm presenting universalism then the only problem is if you project efficacy onto grace, the provision of grace. So this is a dispute between two sides, both say that grace is necessary.

Only one side says that grace is sufficient without whatever you put on that list. We have been consistent in saying this for a very, very long time, very, very long time. Okay, so we continue with the next section.

Reformed Theology, Calvinism, and the Hinge of the Will

That being reformed is not equivalent to or tantamount to being Calvinistic. In fact, we've looked at this before, but here is the question, is being reformed synonymous with being Calvinistic?

Okay, now what he's going to do now is he's going to start the dust throwing. And so instead of responding to what was actually said, and that is the reformed are consistent in the presentation of God's grace, being efficacious, being powerful.

God's grace actually saves. It does not simply make salvation a possibility. It does not provide a possibility of salvation. It actually saves versus absolutely necessary, but in and of itself insufficient to bring about salvation.

That's what the issue is. We're not going to deal with that from Layton's side. Instead, he's going to try to bring in all the five points of Calvinism now. Did I bring in the five points of Calvinism?

No, I didn't. I was talking about the specific issue of the reformation, an issue that I've lectured on and taught on and written about for about 30 years. So rather than focusing upon that, he's going to start going this direction, that direction, and we're going to respond to some of those things because it's useful to do so.

It's the well-known teaching moment type of a situation, but just keep in mind the reality of what's really going on here. And so if he wants to argue, well, being Calvinistic wasn't the issue. That's not what Luther was.

Luther certainly wasn't arguing that against Erasmus, was he? No, he wasn't. Luther identified something that was the hinge upon which it all turned. What was it? The will of man. The bondage of the will versus the freedom of the will.

So his argument is with Luther, and if he wants, he's going to dismiss Luther as a foul-mouthed anti-Semite, et cetera, et cetera, which again, it is interesting to note that the stuff that he drags out sounds like the same stuff that the Roman Catholics bring out all the time too.

I wonder why that is. I mean, for years, I've been hearing the same stuff thrown at Luther by Roman Catholics, and here Leighton Flowers is doing it, but there's no connection. No, there's no connection between the two at all.

Now, the next one, I just want you to hear something because I am going to have to make an observation, and this is all some people can hear because there are some people today that are such snowflakes.

Remember when, I guess we don't use snowflakes anymore, but there was a period of time when we were talking about snowflakes. Such, you can't criticize anyone without I'm the big bad meanie, et cetera, et cetera.

As we will see in the course of today's program, Dr. Flowers utilizes a tremendous amount of secondary sources and materials. And I'm just going to be very, very blunt. I don't think he understands most of what he's citing.

He lacks the background, the reading, the scholarship to be able to handle the sources that he then brings to the table. We saw this, for example, when he confused the various clements and made just utterly absurd statements about church history last year, and then didn't really want to admit it, but had to, was sort of forced to at some point.

And one of the ways in which this is illustrated is the fact that Dr. Flowers struggles to enunciate basic words that if you had ever sat in a class with a professor and had studied the subject, you would have heard the words used over and over and over again.

So it would be fairly simple to understand how the words should be pronounced. And we will see that this becomes relevant for two reasons. First, what I just said, this is evidence of secondary source utilization, not primary source utilization.

And this then illustrates, we're going to see at the end of our analysis today, at least the 20 minute mark, that Dr. Flowers will utilize anything to attack Calvinism. Just look at his website, look at YouTube, you can figure that one out for yourself, but he'll use anything, even when it's just simply his own horrific misunderstanding of the field.

We'll see that in regards to textual criticism. And so this utilization, this, I have a priority. My priority is I'm going to attack this. And then I'm going to use anything I can get hold of. And oh, that looks good over there.

Well, that looks good over there. But the problem is that over there is in a different context, and that over there is a different context. And if you use them, you may be impressing some people, but you're actually producing fallacious argumentation.

So for example, he's reading from his own document, which is interesting enough.

But notice something here. Could gladly affirm the Heidelberg Catechism. What is the Heidelberg Catechism? There is no Heidelsberg,.

And it's right on the screen. It's right there. You can see it. There's no S in there, but I really wonder, I'm just going to be honest. Has he ever read the Heidelberg Catechism? Does he know anything about its history, its background, its relevance, who produced it, how it was related to other catechisms and declarations of the time and any of that?

I don't know. I don't know. Well, that's just one. As we're going to see, it's not just one. In fact, we're going to see one name that will be mispronounced minimally 10 times. I think it may be as much as 15 times.

And again, it just means that this man has not sat in a classroom with a professor so as to learn. And that explains some of the just really horrific argumentation that normally marks Leighton Flower's materials.

Now, so again, let's go back to the kind of argumentation that many, many Roman Catholics use regularly.

That ended up here. It's especially true, by the way, given the fact that some of these well-known Christian leaders throughout human history were known for also burning their dissenters and their books, okay?

So keep that in mind. It may look like your particular favorite theologian of the past is the most popular because he won in the war or whatever.

Okay, so now we're going to the, you know, they just burned the heretics as if the argument was, we're talking about the most popular people. This is a popularity that the majority, as if my argument was the majority of reformers are on my side, therefore Leighton Flowers is wrong.

My argument was and remains that in the issue that Martin Luther himself identified as the central issue of the Reformation, Leighton Flowers agrees with Erasmus against Luther. That really isn't a disputable point.

If, you know, Leighton likes to talk about, well, I just don't think that he's a proper person to have a dialogue with. He's not really an honest interlocutor, so on and so forth. Well, if Leighton was an honest interlocutor, then what he would have done is actually responded to the assertion that was made.

And the assertion that was made was not even touched. Should have just simply been admitted, that's true. And here's why. I think Luther was wrong in what he said about individual election. I think he was wrong in what he said about the bondage of the will to sin.

And I think Erasmus was right on these issues. Just be straight up front. Instead of throwing sand in the air and going all over the rest of this stuff to try to find a way around it, it just simply doesn't actually accomplish anything.

And so, again, just demonstrating how far we've gone from the original subject.

Granted, I write, Martin Luther, Zwingli, Calvin were all highly influential leaders of the Reformation. However, their views more closely aligned with Tulip sociology. They're a far cry from the five-point Calvinistic views resurging today.

Okay, so once again, was my assertion that the five points of Calvinism defined the fundamental division at the beginning of the Reformation between the Reformers and Rome? No, that's not what I said.

What we said and what is true, what remains true is that when it comes to the issue of the Reformation, it was whether grace is necessary, but insufficient, or both necessary and sufficient. That's the issue.

That's not the five points of Calvinism. And so what he's done is he's gone back to an old article that he wrote, and he's thinking, well, this is a good response. Let's throw this out there. It's actually not a response to what was said.

Now, he has plenty of followers who will just go, oh, there you go. Blew White right out of the water again without ever stopping and going, well, yeah, if I'm honest, that was what White said. That was his point.

And yeah, I looked up some stuff, and yeah, he's been saying the same thing long before Leighton Flowers got started doing anything. So why is Leighton responding this way? Some of the questions that must be asked.

Calvin, the Heidelberg Catechism, and Misreading the Reformation

Now, in the process, here's where our speed in covering, because I've covered half of the material as far as the video goes already that I've already gotten indexed. But this is where we slow down. But it's worthwhile because when I heard this section, I was offended.

I am offended as a professor of church history. I'm offended as one who honestly believes that we as Christians should be very, very intent upon recognizing that we should not place a standard upon those who went before us that we would not want placed upon ourselves.

And it just seems that the anti-reformed are willing to massacre church history, sort of like King James only are willing to massacre church history too. They really, really are. And it's a sad thing to observe.

It really is. But let's listen to it, and then you'll see what he's doing here is, notice on the screen, these three well-known reformers held some very questionable beliefs and practices. So we're going to have questionable beliefs and practices.

And the first instance that is given, here's the quote, you can see it on the screen. I'll have him read it. But for instance, Calvin believed the sacrament of the Eucharist provided the quote, undoubted assurance of eternal life to our minds, but also secures the immortality of our flesh, comma, close quote.

That's only part of the sentence, because then he goes, well, Luther condoned bigamy. So you see the context. This is his article. He is accountable for this. So the question we have to ask is, did Leighton Flowers come up with this quotation from a careful and fair reading of the Institutes of Christian Religion, or is he getting it from secondary source and hence has no idea what the context is, what the arguments were.

Does this man have the historical background knowledge at the time of the Reformation to be able to meaningfully critique Calvin's view of the supper? And I'd like to know where he got that ability, but here's what he has to say.

For instance, Calvin believed the sacrament of the Eucharist provided quote, undoubted assurance of eternal life to our minds, but also secures the immortality of our flesh.

Okay, so there's, he read it. It's his article. And so I stopped. And even though later he is going to say that I would not take the time to do original reading or research or to represent them or all the rest of this stuff, even though I'm playing their own videos as I normally do, there's some amazing hypocrisy later on expressed.

But despite that, I took the time, I stopped, and I started looking for the citation. So I had to go over to his website and look around and find the material and then find the article. And eventually I found the footnote, which gave the reference for the citation to Institutes of the Christian Religion, book four, chapter 17, paragraph or section 32.

Yesterday on Twitter, I invited people if you wanted to have a little deeper experience of Radio Free Geneva today to take the time to read anywhere beginning in chapter 17, but specifically section 32 yourself.

Again, my personal feeling is I doubt very, very much that Leighton Flowers was sitting around reading the institutes one day and went, wow, look at that. I'm going to mark that and use that in the future because that's an amazing assertion on Calvin's part.

It sounds because it's a highly questionable belief and practice. The reality is that if you read this section of the institutes without a knowledge of the schoolman, without a knowledge of Aquinas, without a knowledge of the current debates going on, even within the Reformation.

Now I have stood four years ago, I stood in the room where the Marburg Colloquy took place and I lectured to our people at that place concerning the dispute that took place between Luther and Zwingli.

Phillips deep desire to bring the Reformation together and they agreed on 14 out of 15 points, but they couldn't agree on this one and there was no Concord arrived at. And this is where there's the famous painting of Luther and he's written on the table, whether that was a table that had a nice cover on it or whatever, he's written on the table.

The Latin is hoc est corpus meum, this is my body, this is SD in the Greek, this is my body and he's pointing to it. And I lectured on the reality of the fact that historically, the majority of those at Marburg were convinced by Zwingli's arguments over against Luther's that Zwingli was significantly more respectful toward Luther than Luther was towards Zwingli by a long shot.

But Luther is much more of a theologian of the heart than he is the theologian of the mind, he is not nearly as consistent as Calvin is and it's a fascinating area of study and it's an important area of study.

To recognize the mediating influence that John Calvin had, John Calvin could probably have accomplished what Philip wanted to have happen to Marburg in the sense that his position is not a fully Zwingli in position, his position is one that affirms a real presence of Christ but not in a materialistic sense and not in the sense of ubiquity that began to develop in defense of Luther's position.

So the point is there's a lot here and I see no evidence, I have no evidence that Leighton Flowers has any idea what the issues were nor would I, I would be shocked if he was even aware of the fact that the section of the Lord's Supper in the London Baptist Confession of Faith 1689 is deeply influenced by Calvin and is pretty much Calvin's position.

So there is a bunch of background and it offends me when people who are trying to promote a new position, they've come up with their own name and all the rest of this stuff, pull this kind of stunt with church history.

It's cheap, it's easy to do, but it misrepresents history, it misrepresents those who've gone before us and it's simply dishonest. So I'm going to read section 32 because I don't like being told that you don't do your homework first of all when over the years we've demonstrated this exact opposite of that, but I want people to hear what was actually being said.

So after having spent numerous paragraphs, this is a fairly lengthy section, disputing transubstantiation and the idea of what would eventually be called consubstantiation, ubiquity of the body of Christ and all the rest of this kind of stuff, having refuted all that, now Calvin comes to a positive statement.

Now, should anyone ask me as to the mode, I will not be ashamed to confess that it is too high a mystery either for my mind to comprehend or my words to express. And to speak more plainly, I rather feel than understand it.

The truth of God therefore in which I can safely rest, I hear embraced without controversy. He declares that his flesh is the meat, his blood, the drink of my soul. I give my soul to him to be fed with such food.

In his sacred supper, he bids me take, eat and drink his body and blood under the symbols of bread and wine. I have no doubt that he will truly give and I receive. Only I reject the absurdities which appear to be unworthy of the heavenly majesty of Christ and are inconsistent with the reality of his human nature.

Since they must also be repugnant to the word of God, which teaches both that Christ was received into the glory of the heavenly kingdom so as to be exalted of all the circumstances of the world and no less carefully ascribes to him the properties belonging to a true human nature.

So this is again, argumentation specifically here about the ubiquity of the idea and certain Lutheran theologians develop this, the idea of the fact that some of the divine attributes are actually communicated to the physical aspect of Christ.

So his physical body becomes omnipresent and that's how he's in the supper. And Calvin following Augustine is saying, no, he's at the right hand of the father. He will return someday, but he's not here in that sense.

And this is a fundamental denial of the reality of his human nature. That's what he's saying. This ought not to seem incredible or contradictory to reason because as the whole kingdom of Christ is spiritual, so whatever he does in his church is not to be tested by the wisdom of this world or to use the words of Augustine, quote, this mystery is performed by man like the others, but in a divine manner and on earth, but in a heavenly manner, end quote.

Such I say is the corporeal presence which the nature of the sacrament requires and which we say is here displayed in such power and efficacy that it not only gives our minds undoubted assurance of eternal life, but also secures the immortality of our flesh since it is now quickened by his immortal flesh and in a manner shines in his immortality.

That's where the quote came from, by the way. Those who are carried beyond this with their hyperboles do nothing more by their extravagancies than obscure the plain and simple truth. If anyone is not yet satisfied, I would have him here to consider with himself that we are speaking of the sacrament, every part of which ought to have reference to faith.

Now by participation of the body, as we have explained, we nourish faith and not less richly and abundantly than do those who drag Christ himself from heaven. Notice he's not dragging Christ from heaven.

Still, I am free to confess that that mixture or transfusion of the flesh of Christ with our soul, which they teach, I repudiate because it is enough for us that Christ out of the substance of his flesh breathes life into our souls, nay, diffuses his own life into us, though the real flesh of Christ does not enter us.

I may add that there can be no doubt that the analogy of faith by which Paul enjoins us to test every interpretation of scripture is clearly with us in this matter. Let those who oppose a truth so clear consider to what standard of faith they conform themselves.

Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come to flesh is not of God, 1 John 4, 3. These men, though they disguise the fact or perceive it not, rob him of his flesh. End quote. Now, to take Calvin's doctrine, which involves an understanding of the means of grace.

Now, it is quite probable that in the circles that Dr. Flowers is familiar with, there's probably very little discussion of the means of grace. That is a reformed concept. It is not a part of fundamentalism.

It's not a part of the, well, okay. Anabaptist is such a broad phrase that you can never, there's almost nothing you can say of Anabaptists that would not be easily refutable by reference to one or another.

So I won't even go there. But the idea that God has provided means by which, not his grace is controlled and channeled like sacraments, but he has provided ordinances, baptism and the Lord's supper. He has provided in the organization of the church, the eldership is a means of grace.

The diaconate is a means of grace. The worship, the reading of the word, the seeing of the hymns, these are means of grace. And the supper in a particular fashion is a means of grace because Jesus promised that when his people would be obedient to him, when they would observe this, which he had commands of them, that he would be with them, that they would be proclaiming his death until he comes.

And that's what Calvin's referring to. If you think that that portion of a sentence removed from all the paragraphs before and after, and all the section where Calvin talks about justification by grace alone, through faith alone, everything, somehow provides the idea that as is here, Calvin believed the sacrament of the Eucharist provide the endowed assurance of eternal life to our minds, but also secures the immortality of our flesh as if that's a questionable belief or practice, then you're only demonstrating that you only read sections of historical documents to try to find a way to impugn the author.

You have no honesty or integrity in your interpretation of those words, none, none. Shame on anyone who does it, shame on anyone who does it. So I wanted people to, and like I said, I said to everybody else, hey, you all go read it.

You read it for yourself, because if you read it, you're going to see that there's so much being, so much reference being made to what's come before it, you're going to have to back up and you're going to have to really see just how broad this conversation was and how taking a snippet out like this is just simply abusing the early church, not the early church, the Reformation church, church history.

Shame on everyone who does it. Now, Leighton Flowers, to my knowledge, has never taught church history, and that's a good thing for every student who has not been exposed to that kind of abuse of church history.

So there you go. Now, so Calvin is this big, bad person,.

And of course, so is Luther. He was known to be somewhat anti-Semitical too.

It's anti-Semitic, not anti-Semitical. I will just simply direct everyone. It's available online. You can go to the, I don't know why this thing keeps moving on here. You can go to the Sovereign YouTube website and you can look this up.

November of 2017, Washington, D .C., there was a conference held there. I spoke twice. My daughter spoke once. Dr. Peterson spoke there as well. And one of my two talks was called The Two Luthers. Everyone who was a part of our group that went on that trip where we had just gotten back in September from Germany and visiting the places of the Reformation will tell you that I made them extremely uncomfortable by how many times I pointed out the reality that starting the first night in Berlin, first night in Berlin, I said to everyone, now I know and you need to understand so that we do not create a caricature, a cartoonish view of the Reformation that most of the men that we will be studying in their lives, following their lives, following the places they went, visiting places in their lives, so on and so forth, that most of these men would not extend to us the right hand of fellowship and in fact would have banished us if not in some instances execute us.

And some people were just blown away. But I emphasize that throughout our trip because you want to know the truth about history. You don't want to have a cartoonish version of history. And there are a lot of people that present the cartoon version rather than the reality.

And so that presentation, you can listen to it. Once again, we'll provide original citations from Luther, especially from Eck, his greatest opponent in his life and yet one of the most anti-Semitic Roman Catholics of his day.

Fascinating that Eck and Luther were at absolute loggerheads, but they seemed to almost outdo each other in their expression of anti-Semitic statements. But I talked about the reasons for that. And I talked about the change in Luther.

Does Leighton Flowers have any idea? I think if you say someone is anti-Semitical, you probably haven't done a whole lot of reading. In Luther's life, what Luther said before 1525 and what Luther said after 1525.