Perseverance (White vs Akin)

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This evening we will be debating the proposition that all true believers are predestined by God to persevere in their faith to the end and be saved and we have two very able gentlemen to be debating that.
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Taking the affirmative position is James White who is a scholar in residence in the
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College of Christian Studies at Grand Canyon University. He holds a master's degree in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.
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He is an ordained Baptist minister and he is the author of seven books including
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The Fatal Flaw, Answers to Catholic Claims, Justification by Faith, Letters to a
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Mormon Elder, and The King James Only Controversy. As director of Alpha and Omega Ministries which is a
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Christian apologetics ministry based in Phoenix, James has engaged in numerous public debates against the leading
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Roman Catholic apologists all across the nation on subjects such as sola scriptura, the mass, the papacy, and justification by faith.
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In fact he has been identified as the best critic of Roman Catholicism in the
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United States today by none other than Patrick Madrid of Catholic Answers. James how are you doing today?
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I'm doing just fine how are you guys doing? Taking the negative position is
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James Aiken, now James Aiken is an apologist for Catholic Answers and is a contributor to This Rock magazine and he is also a convert from conservative
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Protestant Calvinism. James how are you doing this evening? I'm doing just fine.
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We've got two James that are going to be discussing this subject tonight and the format is as follows.
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We're going to give James White the first 12 minutes to present his position and then we're going to take a break and that will be followed by James Aiken will be taking the next 12 minutes to present his position and with no further ado we'll go ahead and get started with the first of our debaters this evening,
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James White. James you have 12 minutes from right now. Thank you Lee. Thomas Brooks once said
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Christ is to be answerable for all those that are given to him at the last day and therefore we need not doubt but that he will certainly employ all the power of his
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Godhead to secure and save all those that he must be accountable for. Our debate today will be
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I'm afraid a little difficult to follow. The reason for this is twofold. First we have little time and hence can hardly present a full defense of our positions in the time allotted but most importantly the issue has had to be framed in such a way as to allow for the
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Roman Catholic position to be fairly represented. When I was first contacted regarding this debate the desire was to debate the topic of free will versus predestination however as we could not find a
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Roman Catholic who wanted to defend that particular perspective we have had to narrow the focus a good bit. Mr.
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Aiken was the fourth in a series of individuals we contacted and he agreed to discuss the issue with us today. Mr. Aiken wrote an article for This Rock magazine entitled
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Uprooting Calvin's Tulip or its other title of the magazine was A Tiptoe Through Tulip. In either case the article was designed to explain the famous five points of Calvinism and to help prospective converts understand what of their former faith can translate into Roman theology.
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The immediate problem one encounters is the fact that Mr. Aiken acknowledges that a Roman Catholic can believe all sorts of different things in this area.
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Thomas, Molinus and Augustinians can argue with one another all seemingly with the blessing of Rome which though an allegedly infallible guide can't seem to make up its mind on such important issues as this.
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One might well consider the worth of infallible guide who upon coming to a fork in the road that leads in two completely different directions tells you can go either direction with impunity and arrive at the same place.
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The fact that Mr. Aiken asserts that Roman Catholics can indeed believe in unconditional election forced us to get a little more specific.
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The listener may well ask if a Roman Catholic can believe in unconditional election how do sacraments, penance, purgatory and all the rest of the
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Roman sacramental system fit in? These things sneak in I would say through Mr. Aiken's assertion that while one can be predestined to initial salvation this is not the same as saying that one is predestined to final salvation.
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I quote from Mr. Aiken's article in the September 1993 This Rock magazine pages 11 through 12 quote,
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Calvinists assume perseverance of the saints is entailed by the idea of predestination. If one is predestined to be saved does it not follow he must persevere to the end?
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This involves a confusion about what people are predestined to. Is it predestination to initial salvation or to final salvation?
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The two are not the same. A person might be predestined to one but this does not mean he is predestined necessarily to the other.
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One must define which kind of predestination is being discussed end quote. Now as in so many other areas
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Rome has come up with various ways of complicating the issue here by introducing different kinds of predestination.
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This opens up a huge chasm where the sacramental system of Rome can exist while paying lip service to the biblical teaching of predestination.
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I offer one more quote from Mr. Aiken to make sure we understand his position quote, if one is talking about predestination to initial salvation then the fact that a person will come to God does not of itself mean he will stay with God.
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If one is talking about predestination to final salvation then a predestined person will stay with God but this does not mean the predestined are the only ones who experience initial salvation.
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Some might genuinely come to God because they were predestined to initial salvation and then genuinely leave because they were not predestined to final salvation.
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Either way predestination to initial salvation does not entail predestination to final salvation end quote.
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Later in his article Mr. Aiken identifies those who are predestined to persevere as the elect hence you have the elect who will persevere but you also have this other class of true
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Christians who are not predestined to persevere. These individuals may or may not make it their fate is in their own hands or so it would seem.
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Now given this scenario we must focus not upon the classic passages that are used either to assert the perseverance of the saints or eternal security nor upon those that allegedly prove the opposite.
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Instead two issues must be addressed. First what does the Bible say God's purpose is in predestination?
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Included under this topic must be an identification of the goal of predestination as well as the question does the
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Bible differentiate between predestination to initial and final salvation?
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The second issue that must be looked at is this. Is there such a thing as a true Christian who is not of the elect?
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Are there those who sort of stumble into a saved state or who may or may not remain in it?
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These are the questions we must answer. There are a number of passages in the Bible that speak of God's predestining men unto salvation.
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The two clearest are found in Ephesians 1 and Romans 9. Time of course precludes our reading of these passages but we must note with respect to our first issue that Ephesians 1 plainly asserts that God's ultimate purpose in predestination is the praise of his glory.
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But the passage is also plain in asserting that he predestines the elect unto full and complete salvation.
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Verse 4 says that those who are predestined will be holy and blameless before him. Verse 5 says they will be adopted as sons.
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Later in verses 13 -14 the Spirit is given to them as a pledge and as an indication that they belong to God.
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Obviously the predestination under consideration here is only to final and full salvation. There is not the slightest hint of some other kind of predestination, a partial predestination to partial holiness or partial salvation.
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In fact of course one will search in vain throughout the whole Bible for any reference to predestination to only initial not final salvation.
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How else could it be in light of the fact that the one saved is united with Christ and the salvation which is his is complete, full and infallible for its author is none other than Jesus Christ.
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But here we enter into one of the many areas where Rome's view of the gospel differs markedly from our own. For let us always keep in mind that from Rome's view one can be in Christ, justified and yet die impure having to suffer the temporal punishment of one's sins in purgatory for an indeterminate period of time prior to gaining entrance into the presence of God.
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Such a concept is far removed from the biblical viewpoint of the full and sufficient salvation made available for God's people by the sufficient
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Savior Jesus Christ. Now with reference to the idea that we have two different kinds of Christians, the elect and the non -elect, the
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Bible knows nothing of such a concept. Paul uses the bare term the elect or the chosen as a description of all
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Christians in such passages as Romans 1, 7, 1 Corinthians 1, 2 and 24 and Jude does the same in his epistle.
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The idea of a non -elect Christian is simply an oxymoron. When Paul wrote to the Thessalonians he could assume their understanding of this issue.
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In 1 Thessalonians 1, 4 Paul writes, For we know, brothers loved by God, that God has chosen you.
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Are we to assume with the Jehovah's Witnesses that Paul was writing only to the upper class of Christians here and that his words were not to be applied to the lower class of uncalled, unelected
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Christians? One would hardly think so. But of all the passages in the New Testament that lays to rest the idea presented by Mr.
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Aiken, Jesus' own words in John 6 and 10 are the most striking. Mr. Aiken is well aware of these passages as he attempted to get around them in his article through the use of the old out -of -context argument.
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Such simply will not avail, however, in light of the plain meaning of the words of the Lord himself. In John 10, 26 we are told that certain of the
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Jews did not believe because they were not of Christ's sheep. It follows, then, that only
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Christ's sheep will truly believe in Christ. Are Mr. Aiken's non -elect Christians Christ's sheep or not?
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If they are Christ's sheep, then Christ himself says that he gives eternal life to them, and they shall never perish, nor shall any man snatch them out of his hand.
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If they are not Christ's sheep, they will never truly believe in the first place. The listener should keep in mind a question for Mr.
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Aiken's position. Are, really, his non -elect, predestined only to initial salvation
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Christians, Christ's sheep or not? The Lord Jesus claimed in John 10, 14 that he knows his sheep.
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There is a personal relationship that exists between the shepherd and his sheep. Yet if Mr. Aiken says that these non -elect
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Christians are truly Christ's sheep, and yet they can cease being Christ's sheep and become his enemies, how can it be that the
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Lord Jesus, when judging them as seen in Matthew 7, 23, says, I never knew you? Obviously, then, one who is one of his sheep cannot be lost and hear the words of Matthew 7, 23.
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But if Mr. Aiken says that these non -elect Christians are not Christ's sheep, how can anyone think they are truly
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Christians to begin with? Jesus said that only his sheep hear his voice and follow him, and he specifically taught that the reason his
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Jewish enemies could not hear his voice was because they did not belong to God, John 8, 47.
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Just as striking are the Lord's words in John 6, for in both places, John 6 and John 10, the
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Lord addresses the same issue. John 6, 37 tells us that all that the Father gives to the
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Son will, in fact, come to the Son. Are Mr. Aiken's non -elect Christians given by the
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Father to the Son? Jesus says those who are so given to him and who come to him will never be cast out.
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This is the Father's will for the Son, and how can it be possible that the Son would ever fail to do the Father's will?
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Obviously, those who are under discussion here are those who are indeed predestined, and that obviously to final salvation, which is the only kind of predestination there is.
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But Jesus goes on to close the door on Mr. Aiken's position when he says, No one can come to me unless the
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Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day, end quote, John 6, 44.
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No matter which direction Mr. Aiken may wish to take this passage, it simply doesn't fit his system. Jesus says that no man is able, in and of himself, to even come unto
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Christ, so much for the much vaunted free will of man. The drawing of the Father is required.
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In the context, this drawing is exactly what Jesus had referred to as the Father's giving of men to himself in verse 37.
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Not all men are so drawn, only those who are given by the Father to the Son. We have already seen that these are the elect, those predestined to final and full salvation.
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But Jesus says these are the only ones who are enabled to truly come to him. It is these and these alone that he raises up at the last day.
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But where are Mr. Aiken's non -elects predestined only to initial salvation, yet true Christians?
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If he says they are here and were indeed drawn by the Father to Christ, then Christ promises to raise them up at the last day.
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But Mr. Aiken says that such a promise of perseverance isn't part of their package. What's more, we can plainly see that these who are drawn are those given by the
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Father to the Son, which are plainly the elect. So we can see that Mr. Aiken's position fails to survive the test of biblical exegesis.
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Now Mr. Aiken was quick to dismiss John 10 and John 6 by saying that the context of both passages is his particular understanding of John 15 verses 1 -6.
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How Mr. Aiken could take two passages from completely different contexts that come before John 15 and say that their plain testimony must be dismissed because of his particular misunderstanding of that passage,
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I don't know. But this is surely not a sound practice. While I can provide a meaningful and consistent interpretation of Jesus' illustration of the branches that does not violate the position
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I've presented thus far, can Mr. Aiken provide the same kind of exegetically based, contextually sound, and logically consistent interpretation of John 6 and 10?
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That's the question we must ask. So in summation, we see that here again we encounter a doctrinal belief in which
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Rome forces her apologists to engage in unnatural, strained, and acontextual interpretation to maintain what is, in fact, a traditional position.
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The Bible teaches that God predestines men unto full and complete salvation. So there is only one kind of salvation in the
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Bible. The perfect, complete, whole, and gracious salvation provided by the perfect Savior, Jesus Christ.
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Who is defending the Catholic position, which denies that such predestination is, in fact, what the
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Bible teaches. And we'll be taking calls during our second hour, so be listening and get your questions ready.
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You're listening to Christian Answers Live. I'm Lee Meckley, along with Jim Tungate. And right after this break, we're going to be hearing from James Aiken on the
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Catholic position of predestination, what Catholicism teaches.
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And by the way, James Aiken is a former conservative Calvinist, so certainly he will be able to ably defend his position,
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I believe. And keep listening and make up your own mind. We'll be back right after this.
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Christian Answers offers many resources for the Christian believer, as well as for those with sincere questions.
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Have you ever wondered where the Roman Catholic Church stands on the issue of salvation? The following excerpt is from the
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Christian Answers video, Debate with a Monsignor, between Christian Answers spokesman, Rob Zins, and Diocese of Austin, Texas spokesman,
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Monsignor Ed Jordan of St. Teresa's Catholic Church. Dale Deloney is the moderator.
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Call Christian Answers today to obtain a free resource list on this subject and many others.
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Call 512 -218 -8022. That's 512 -218 -8022.
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Or write Christian Answers, Post Office Box 144441,
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Austin, Texas, 78714. Good evening.
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Welcome back to Christian Answers Live. I'm Lee Meckley, along with Jim Tungate. And we are having a debate this afternoon, or this evening, both hours, between James White and James Aiken.
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And we are discussing the concept of predestination that was rooted in the
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Reformation. The position taken by James White is the
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Protestant position that predestination, or that all true believers are predestined to persevere in their faith to the end and be saved.
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And the negative of that position is being taken by James Aiken.
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James, if you are ready, we'll go ahead and get started. And you will have 12 minutes from right now.
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Thank you very much. To keep us from being distracted by side issues tonight, I will be assuming the position of the great
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Catholic teachers, Augustine and Aquinas, that predestination is based unconditionally on God's sovereign choice alone.
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Since this is also Mr. White's position, it should keep us from being drawn off course. All Christians have some version of the doctrine of predestination.
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They have to, because the Greek term for it appears in four Bible passages, Acts 428,
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Romans 8, 29 and 30, 1 Corinthians 2, 7, and Ephesians 1, 3 through 12.
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In Ephesians 1, the word unmistakably refers to what has historically been termed predestination to grace, or predestination to enter the graces of the
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Christian life. Paul states in Ephesians 1, 5 that God predestined us in love to be his sons.
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Since the time we became God's sons was when we became Christians and entered the graces of the Christian life, this is an unmistakable reference to predestination to grace or to initial salvation.
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But in Romans 8, the word clearly refers to what has historically been termed predestination to glory, predestination to enter the glories of heaven.
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In Romans 8, 29, Paul states that we were predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.
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And in 1 Corinthians 15, 49, Paul tells us when we will be conformed to the image of his son, at the general resurrection, at the second coming, when we will bear the image of the man of heaven.
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In the same way, 1 John 3, 2 says that it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
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This is the time when we will enter the glories of heaven. Therefore, in Ephesians 1, we have a reference to predestination to grace, and in Romans 8, we have a reference to predestination to glory.
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Mr. White's claim that there is no exegetical distinction between the two thus goes up in smoke. It is simply linguistically false.
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The word predestined is used in Scripture for both. Sometimes we are said to be predestined to enter the
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Christian life, and sometimes we are said to be predestined to enter final glory. The term is thus used in both ways, so Mr.
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White's assertion that there is no exegetical difference between the two is simply exegetical foolishness.
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The real question, the one we are here to debate, is whether the first kind of predestination entails the second.
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Are all who are predestined to come to God in grace also predestined to stay with God until glory?
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No. The Bible clearly and unambiguously teaches that some are chosen to come to God who are not chosen to stay with God.
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True Christians can fall away and become lost. Some Christians are elected to come, but they may not be elected to stay.
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Some Christians who live in insulated Dallas Theological Seminary circles or insulated
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Westminster Confession of Faith circles may find this an unusual and novel teaching, but it is the teaching of the vast majority of Christians, including the vast majority of Protestants, the remarks of the very kind hosts on that matter notwithstanding.
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The only people who dispute it are Presbyterians, Baptists, and those who have been influenced by Presbyterians and Baptists.
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It is also the historic teaching of Christianity. Nobody denied that a Christian can fall away for the first 1 ,500 years of Christian history.
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Every single one of the Church Fathers taught it, as did all of the so -called
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Calvinistic theologians before Calvin, such as St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Martin Luther, who all held to an unconditional view of predestination and who all taught that a true
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Christian can fall away. For example, in the 21st chapter of his book,
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The Gift of Perseverance, St. Augustine wrote, Of two pious men, why to the one should be given perseverance to the end, and to the other it should not be given?
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Had not both become justified men, and both been renewed by the labor of regeneration? In respect of all these things they were of us.
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Nevertheless, they had not been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things.
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Bear in mind that this was the old Augustine, not the young Augustine. He wrote this in 429, the year before he died.
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It was Calvin who first denied the historic Christian teaching that a true Christian can fall.
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Check that out for yourself. I did. I searched multiple books and called half a dozen
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Calvinist seminaries, talking to their systematic theology and church history professors, and no one could name anyone before Calvin who taught this thesis.
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This is a problem even for those who claim to take their teachings exclusively from Scripture.
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For how could a doctrine this important, if true, remain completely undiscovered for the first 1500 years of Christian history?
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Other important doctrines have always been known through Christian history. Christians always knew, even when heretics denied it, that Jesus Christ was
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God. So it turns out that when Christians never knew that a true
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Christian can fall away, and then suddenly, a millennium and a half later, someone starts claiming it, one has to ask, who is passing on the teachings of the apostles, and who is teaching the novel heresy?
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To put it bluntly, how on earth could God in heaven fail to let the true
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Christians of three -quarters of church history know that they could never fall away? How could he let them believe that they could fall away and be damned if it wasn't true?
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This is an unambiguously black mark, a big black mark, against the hypothesis.
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And matters are no better when we turn to Scripture. For when we examine the Bible, we find that the hypothesis that no true
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Christian can fall away is totally and unambiguously crushed by the weight of Biblical evidence.
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In fact, I will only be able to bring out a tiny few of the dozens of passages showing that a true
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Christian can fall away. If you would like a list of more than 80 of them, give me a call here at Catholic Answers, or email me at jamesacon at aol .com,
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and I'll be happy to send it to you. For example, in Luke 8, 13,
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Jesus tells us that there are some who receive the word with joy, but because they have no root, they believe, they do believe, but in time of temptation, fall away.
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Jesus says so. In Luke 12, 42 through 46, Jesus tells us that you can start out as a faithful and wise steward who he puts in charge, then begin to eat and drink and get drunk, and then when
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Jesus returns, be punished and assigned a place with the unfaithful. You can end up being damned with the unfaithful, even though you started out as a faithful and wise steward who
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Jesus himself put in charge. In Luke 15, 1 through 32, Jesus tells us the parable of the prodigal son, in which one of the sons of the father leaves home, is twice described by his father as being dead, and then returns home and is spoken of by the father as being alive again.
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So you can be a genuine son of the father, then leave the father and become dead, and then return to the father and become alive again.
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In John 15, 1 through 10, Jesus says that he is divine and we are the branches, and that if we do not bear fruit, the father will cut us out of him, and we will wither up and finally be burned in the fire.
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So you can be in Jesus and yet be cut out of Jesus by the father and thrown into the fire.
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In Romans 11, 20 through 33, Paul says that Jews were broken off of the tree of God's grace because of unbelief, and that we retain our position in it only by believing, so we should be afraid, because God will not spare us if we disbelieve any more than he spared the natural branches.
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So you can be in the tree of God's grace by faith in the Messiah, then quit believing, be cut out, and return to believing and be grafted in again.
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In 1 Corinthians 15, 1 through 2, Paul tells his audience that they will be saved by the gospel if they hold it fast unless they believed in vain.
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So they did believe the gospel, Paul says so, but if they don't hold the gospel fast, then their belief in the gospel will be rendered vain.
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In Galatians 5, 1 through 4, Paul says that anyone who is circumcised becomes severed from Christ and has fallen from grace.
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He means exactly what he says. You can be in Christ, then be severed from him and fall from grace.
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That's simply what Paul says. In Hebrews 3, 12, the author tells us, take care, brethren, lest in any of you be an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living
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God. So you can fall away from the living God and must take care that you don't do so.
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In Hebrews 6, 4 through 6, the author tells us that those who have once been enlightened and have become partakers of the
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Holy Spirit can fall away, and thus they crucify the Son of God again and hold him up to contempt by going back to Judaism and saying
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Jesus was a false messiah who deserved to be crucified. Yet at one time they were enlightened with Jesus' message and had become partakers of the
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Holy Spirit, the sure sign of a true Christian. In Hebrews 10, 23 through 29, the author tells us, let us hold fast our confession of faith, the confession of our hope, without wavering.
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For if we continually sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin but a fearful prospect of judgment and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries.
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How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the man who has spurned the
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Son of God and profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified?
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But Mr. White claims that if you were ever sanctified by Christ's blood, that it is impossible for you not to hold fast to your confession, and impossible for you to go on sinning willfully, and impossible for you to enter the fury of fire which will consume
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Christ's adversaries. In 2 Peter 2, 20 through 22, Peter tells us, if they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our
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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than at the beginning.
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It would have been better for them to not have known the way of righteousness than to have known it and to have turned their backs on the sacred commandment that was passed on to them.
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It has happened to them, according to the true proverb, a dog returns to its vomit and a sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.
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So you can escape the defilements of the world by knowing Jesus Christ, yet return to them and become entangled.
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You can be washed from your sins and yet return to wallowing in the mud, proving that you were not one of the elect, not one of those predestined to glory.
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People say this actually happened to people in his day, declaring that it has happened to them, according to the true proverb.
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Okay, that is James Akin who is taking the Catholic position that predestination is not necessarily to persevere in the faith to the end.
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He is debating James White who is taking the Protestant position that we are predestined or that all true believers are predestined to persevere in the faith.
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We are going to go ahead and take a break. We are running a little bit short on time and when we come back from this break we will be hearing from both of these gentlemen again on their positions.
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You are listening to Christian Answers Live. I am Lee Meckley along with Jim Tungate. We will be taking our calls in our second hour, so get your questions ready and we will be back right after this.
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The following is from Dr. R .C. Sproles' sermon,
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Only One Gospel. At least the Roman Catholic Church understood in the 16th century that the doctrine of justification touches the very heart of the gospel, and I think implicitly at least they agreed with Luther that justification is the article upon which the
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Church stands itself. Sadly they disagreed with Luther's understanding of what the gospel is, but at least they had the courage of their convictions and said,
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Luther is preaching a different gospel. Calvin is preaching a different gospel.
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The Protestants with their doctrine of justification by faith alone are teaching a different gospel, therefore they are under the anathema of God.
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And if Ryan was right in the 16th century, beloved, then you can be sure we are under the anathema of God, because the
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Apostle Paul says here, if anyone preaches any other gospel than that which you have received, let him be anathema.
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But I believe that Luther and Calvin and the Reformers were preaching the biblical gospel and the great, great, great tragedy is that when
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Ryan put justification by faith alone under her anathema, she put herself under the anathema of God.
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And the world is still waiting for her repentance.
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Don't get me wrong, beloved, I know that there are people, thousands, maybe millions of people within the
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Roman Catholic Church today who believe the biblical gospel. And if they believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, they're going to be saved by Jesus Christ.
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Don't get me wrong. But that church does not believe and does not teach the biblical gospel.
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And yet in our day, people are making a mad rush to bring peace at any price.
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And there is no peace. Christian Answers is pleased to offer this tape for free to anyone who places an order with our ministry.
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R .C. Sproul's message is vital in today's ecumenical age of moral and theological relativism.
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Write Christian Answers, Post Office Box 144441, Austin, Texas 78714.
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Please make sure you mention the tape, Only One Gospel, with your order. Welcome back to Christian Answers Live.
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I'm Lee Meckley, along with Jim Tungate. And this afternoon, we're talking about predestination. We're actually debating predestination, specifically if all true believers are predestined, in fact, to persevere in their faith until the end and be saved.
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And we have two able gentlemen dealing with that. We have James White, who is taking the affirmative position, coming from the
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Protestant viewpoint. And we have James Aiken, who is representing the
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Catholic position and is denying the proposition. And both gentlemen now have seven minutes to present their rebuttals, and we'll go ahead and get started with that, starting with James White.
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James, you have seven minutes from right now. Thank you very much. I want to remind the listeners what the thesis of our debate is.
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All true Christians are predestined to persevere. I took the time to quote from Mr. Aiken and lay out the actual issues.
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I'm very disappointed that he chose to ignore that and to go another direction in his presentation. Only a very small portion of what
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Mr. Aiken had to say was actually directed at the position that I had taken in regards to this particular issue.
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I brought up what the issues really are from what Mr. Aiken has said in his own article. And that is, does the
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Bible teach that there is a predestination to initial salvation and a predestination to final salvation?
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These are two separate things. They're not necessarily connected with one another in the sense that a person can be predestined to initial salvation, not final salvation.
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And I also pointed out, and John 6 and John 10 did not get addressed at all, that the other issue is, what about these allegedly non -elect
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Christians? Does the Bible allow for this? And John 6 plainly does not allow for that. Now, Mr.
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Aiken said Ephesians 1 is talking about predestination to initial salvation, whereas Romans 8 is talking about predestination to glory.
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I hope everyone will take the time to look at these two and ask themselves the question, where did Mr. Aiken get this idea?
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He says that Mr. White's exegesis goes up in smoke, but one has to have a lot of smoke around to come up with that idea from Mr.
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Aiken's position. Ephesians 1, 4 talks about the fact that this predestination is we are predestined to holiness and blamelessness.
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When does that take place, Mr. Aiken? Does not Paul associate that with the very fact of our glorification and the finished work of God's Spirit in our lives?
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Verses 13 -14 of Ephesians 1 say that the Spirit is God's Erebon, his down payment, demonstrating that we are the possession of God and that God is going to finish this work that he has begun within us.
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The idea that Ephesians is talking about merely initial salvation and not all of salvation is a mere rhetorical device that has no meaning whatsoever.
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Mr. Aiken then went along to shoot himself in the foot in his attempt to bring church history in on his side and make it his great ally, as if that was going to overthrow the biblical evidence, he cited
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Augustine. And yet, he may not have noticed that as he was citing Augustine, Augustine cites
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Ephesians chapter 1 as referring to perseverance to the end, to the very type of predestination that Mr.
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Aiken said, I was very wrong in understanding. I'm not sure why he'd cite Augustine when Augustine didn't agree with him on that very interpretation of the passage.
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Now, the church history argument I'll address very, very briefly. Mr. Aiken made hay in how could
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God fail to tell us this for three quarters of church history? Well, it's very interesting that a person who believes in papal infallibility, a modern dogma that was unheard of for seven -eighths, nine -tenths of church history, and only became something
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Christians had to believe within just the past very relatively short period of time, could actually sit there and say it's a huge black mark against the position you're taking, that it wasn't known for all this period of time, and yet you sit there and say, well, but you do need to believe in papal infallibility, a doctrine that was known for even less a period of time.
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If that's how we're going to judge what is true and what is false, Mr. Aiken is arguing in circles. Now, Mr. Aiken went to dealing with all these passages that allegedly demonstrate that a person can lose their salvation.
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Please remember that Mr. Aiken does believe that there are people who are unconditionally elected to full and final salvation.
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Hence, he must believe that there are individuals about whom these passages are not talking.
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And of course, if we can defeat his assertion that there is this distinction, that you have some people who are predestined to initial salvation and some people predestined to final salvation, if that isn't true, and it is not, then
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Mr. Aiken has to admit that there must be some way of understanding every one of these passages that does not overthrow
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Jesus' own statement that he is the one who will raise up those who come unto him, that he pledges himself the full and final salvation of his people.
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So I just give you a couple of the passages that he cited, recognizing it's impossible to get to all of them when they're just being read off to you very quickly in the short period of time we have, but just simply to direct people to seeing how easy it is to misrepresent the
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Bible as Mr. Aiken has done for almost 12 minutes. Galatians chapter 5 was cited to us and says here,
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Paul talks about falling from grace, but if you listen to what he said, beginning in Galatians 5, 2,
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Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you.
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And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is under obligation to keep the whole law.
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You have been severed from Christ. You who are seeking to be justified by law, you have fallen by grace.
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To whom is he speaking? He is speaking to those who seek, as Roman Catholics do, to be justified through merit, through the keeping of the law, whatever it might be.
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Here it's just simply receiving the sign of circumcision. These individuals are the ones to whom
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Paul is speaking, not to the person who is simply trusted in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but to the individual who is seeking to be justified by law.
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And therefore, the phrases such as severed from Christ and fallen from grace, you have to presume that what this means is, well, yes, they were once truly engrafted in Christ, they were truly in him, they were truly predestined, they truly knew grace, but somehow
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God wasn't able to really help them to fully understand the gospel, and so they've gone off after these false things.
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I think there's a much plainer and easier way of understanding these passages. Luke 18 was brought up that there is no fruit, that there is no root in them.
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Please keep in mind in looking at any passage in this whole debate that the
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Lord Jesus himself differentiated between those seeds that grew up and never bore fruit and those that did.
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If you keep the concept of fruit showing true discipleship and true dedication to Christ, a lot of these things will pass away.
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Remember what John said in 1 John chapter 2, they went out from us because they were not truly of us. There is no question that there are many people who are driftwood, who come into the church, who look like they know
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Jesus Christ, but they truly do not. That is not the issue here at all. I would simply like to close by pointing out that when the term belief is used,
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John himself, all through his gospel, talks about people who believed in Jesus, and he uses the aorist form of the verb.
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But Jesus himself would not entrust himself to those, in John chapter 2, who had believed.
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The present tense form of the verb is the verb that John uses to talk about true and saving faith, not just simply the idea of believing in Jesus.
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There are many people who make that type of false profession. So in closing, I just want to redirect everyone's attention.
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Can Mr. Akin make a case for his dividing predestination up into initial and final?
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Can he deal with what John 6 and John 10 say in regards to the fact that a person who is truly predestined by Jesus Christ is the only person who can really be called a true
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Christian? Thank you, James. That's James White taking the Protestant position that true believers are predestined to persevere in their faith and be saved, persevering to the end.
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And now we're going to hear for seven minutes from James Akin taking the Catholic position that is the negative of that.
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James, you have seven minutes from right now. Thank you. Mr. White has staked an enormous amount of his case on John 6 and 10.
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In the seven minutes I have to respond, I wish to look primarily at these passages because they are clearly the two most important ones that he could even plausibly use.
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Responses to other passages he quoted we'll have to wait till later. In John 6, 37, Jesus does say, all that the
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Father gives me will come to me and him who comes to me I will not cast out. True, I don't doubt that for a moment.
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If you come to Jesus, he won't cast you out. But that doesn't mean you can't leave. In fact, you can.
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In order to understand this, we need to know a little bit about the Greek in this passage. I recently found a good summary of the translation issue.
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It said, quote, throughout this passage, an important truth is presented again that might be missed by many
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English translations. When Jesus describes the one who comes to him and who believes in him, he uses the present tense to describe this coming, believing, or in other passages, hearing or seeing.
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The present tense refers to a continuous ongoing action. The Greek contrasts this kind of action with the aorist tense, which is a point action, a single action in time that is not ongoing.
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The wonderful promises that are provided by Christ are not for those who do not truly and continuously believe.
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The faith that saves is a living faith, a faith that always looks to Christ as Lord and Savior. That summary was offered by my opponent tonight,
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Mr. James White, in his little book, Drawn by the Father, a summary of John 3, 35 through 45.
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So by Mr. White's own admission, the wonderful promises that are provided by Christ are not for those who do not continuously believe.
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What this text actually says is, all that the Father continues to give to me will continue to come to me, and him who continues to come to me,
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I will not cast out. That is absolutely true. What Mr. White needs is a passage which says that anyone who is ever a true
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Christian will always come to Jesus and never stop coming. But this passage doesn't say anything like that.
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Similarly, when Jesus says in John 6, 44, no one can come to me unless the
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Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Again, absolutely true.
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But again, the Greek for can is present tense, and the Greek word for come is inceptive second aorist, meaning to begin to continually come.
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And the Greek for draw is inceptive first aorist, again indicating the Father beginning and continuing to draw him.
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So what the passage says is, no one can come and keep coming to me unless the
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Father who sent me draws and keeps drawing him, and I will raise him up on the last day.
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That is absolutely true. If the Father keeps drawing you, you will keep being Christians, people
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Jesus never knew. The Catholic Church teaches that there are false Christians, and if Jesus is speaking of them in the second passage, so what?
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They were never Jesus' sheep. But that doesn't tell us anything about those who are Jesus' sheep for a time and then quit following the shepherd.
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Finally, in John 10, 27 through 28, Jesus did say, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.
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I would like to quote the great Baptist theologian, Dale Moody, on this verse. In his systematic theology, the word of truth, he says,
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John 10, 28 is frequently used as a security blanket by those who ignore many of the
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New Testament warnings about going back or falling away. But a literal translation of John 10, 27 through 28 hardly needs explanation.
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It says, My sheep keep on hearing my voice, and I keep on knowing them, and they keep on following me, and I keep on giving them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.
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Some read the passage as if it says, My sheep heard my voice, and I knew them, and they followed me, and I gave to them eternal life.
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But the verbs are present linear, indicating continuous action by the sheep and by the shepherd, not the punctiliar fallacy of the past tense.
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In the final analysis, all John 6 says is that if you keep coming to Jesus, he won't turn you away.
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But that doesn't mean you can't leave. And all John 10 says is that if you keep coming to Jesus, no one will snatch you away from him.
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But again, that doesn't mean you can't leave. The other day, I was talking to a Baptist pastor I know who is becoming a
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Catholic, and he pointed out a parallel illustration. He said that if he told his congregation, whoever keeps coming to my office for counseling,
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I will certainly not turn away. And if he told his congregation, whenever you come to my office for counseling,
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I will not let anyone drag you out of my office, no one would possibly think that he was telling them that if you ever step into his office, you will be committed to an irrevocable program of counseling, and you will never be allowed to step outside of his office again as long as you live.
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Yet that is what Mr. White would have us make out of these two passages. Finally, to take John 6 and John 10 in the context of John's gospel,
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Mr. White must take them out of context of John 15, where Jesus does unambiguously say that every branch of his who does not bear fruit will be cut out of him by the
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Father and will wither and will be thrown into the fire. So you can be a true Christian in Jesus, yet be cut out of Jesus by the
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Father, wither, and be thrown into the fire. Thank you. Thank you very much.
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That is James Aiken taking the Catholic position that predestination is not necessarily to persevere in the faith until the end.
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Now gentlemen, we are going to go ahead and have two more five -minute segments.
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We will have five minutes for James White to present a rebuttal and then five minutes for James Aiken to present a rebuttal, and then we are going to go ahead and start taking questions after that.
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The number you need to call to get in on the conversation is 447 -KIXL, that is 447 -5495, to talk about predestination with James White and James Aiken.
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Having said all that, James White, you have seven minutes from right now to... I think we mean five minutes, right?
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I am sorry, five minutes. I am thinking about the last hour. Okay, five minutes from right now. Thank you. I hope the listeners of this debate will take the time to read the key passages in light of Mr.
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Aiken's last comments. They provide us with a glowing example of how to insert your beliefs into a passage while ignoring what the passage itself says.
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Mr. Aiken starts with his assumption of this distinction in predestination and his belief that there are Christians who are not actually the elect of God, and then simply ignores many things that contradict this concept, glibly saying, well, it doesn't say this or that.
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Such, I do hope, will be plain to all who are listening. As you listen to Mr. Aiken speaking on John 6, the same thing strikes you that struck me.
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Where did Jesus go in his words? The emphasis is all upon what man does. God is left out in the cold, seemingly unimportant to the issue.
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The Savior, Jesus, is hardly even mentioned. Yet when we read the passage, we read that it is Jesus who raises men up, not because of what they've done, not because they have remained faithful, but because he saves them perfectly.
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Jesus is the one who gives eternal life. Jesus is the one who saves. The reason Jesus cannot lose any of those who are given to him by the
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Father is because he is able to save man to the uttermost. The man -centered religion of Rome just can't seem to see this, even when reading passages that literally scream this truth.
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Mr. Aiken quoted from my book on John 6, verses 35 -45. What he didn't quote was where I talk about the fact that the continuing, present tense aspect of faith is not due to our going to priest, eating the body of Christ in the mass, or gaining indulgences from Rome.
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Instead, the faith true Christians have is continuing and ongoing because it is the gift of God.
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Saving faith comes from God, and hence does not end or fail. Jesus is, according to Hebrews, the author and finisher of our faith.
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Mr. Aiken, if Jesus starts our faith, and if Jesus finishes our faith, will Jesus fail?
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Will our faith fail? This is the issue. Now, Mr.
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Aiken, in talking about various of the forms in John 6, went a little bit beyond, I think, his field of expertise.
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He began talking about how this is an inceptive heiress, for example. Such a terminology is a syntactical category that is dependent upon interpretation.
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There is no form of an inceptive heiress. There's only an heiress, and you have to interpret it to mean whether it is inceptive or aggressive or so on and so forth.
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And Mr. Aiken failed to mention that. I didn't want anyone to feel like he was somehow giving you simple facts that you had to believe.
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Check it out for yourself in regards to those things. Now, John chapter 10 in two and a half minutes is difficult to do, but I just want to reiterate again the thesis of the debate, the fact that Mr.
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Aiken needs to demonstrate that there is predestination in the Bible to something other than final and full salvation.
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He has not done so. Secondly, he needs to demonstrate that there are non -elect Christians, and that would mean that there are
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Christians who are not truly Christ's sheep. Jesus said that I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me, even as the
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Father knows me, and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. The relationship Jesus Christ has with his sheep is a personal and intimate one, seen by the fact that even he says that I know my sheep as the
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Father knows me, and I know the Father. That's obviously a very intimate relationship that is there. It is those individuals that are in view in John chapter 10 verses 25 and following.
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Jesus says to the Jews, but you do not believe. Why? Because you are not of my sheep.
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Only the sheep of Christ will believe in Christ in true fashion. In verse 26,
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I want to point out to Mr. Aiken, the term believe is present tense. Now, there are many in John who believed, heiress, but they are not of Christ's sheep.
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That's not what true and saving faith is, and here comes the issue. True and saving faith, according to the scriptures, is the gift of God.
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It is what God places in our hearts as newly created individuals who are being conformed to the image of Christ, and since it is divine grace that gives us this faith, that faith will not fail.
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Mr. Aiken keeps talking about people who stop believing. Well, if you stop believing, then Christ will not be your Savior.
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If you stop believing, you were not one of his sheep to begin with. The faith that you had was not saving faith to begin with.
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Those who are predestined unto final and full salvation, which is the only kind of predestination in the New Testament, are given the gift of abiding in the remaining faith, and that's why these passages use the present tense, and yes, it is very important.
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It is to those people, the sheep, that Jesus says in 27 and chapter 10, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hands.
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This splitting up who is the sheep, this splitting up of predestination, it is all an attempt to try to fit into the
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Bible, the sacramental system of Rome that does not find its basis in the Bible whatsoever.
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Jesus is the one who saves Christians. True Christians are his sheep. Let's focus upon what he does and does so well.
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Thank you. You're listening to Christian Answers Live, James White presenting the Protestant position that all true believers are predestined to persevere in their faith to the end and be saved, and now
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James Aiken with the Catholic response. Mr. Aiken, you have five minutes from right now.
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Thank you very much. Mr. White said that I need to show first that there are two kinds of predestination.
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I have done that. I showed that in Ephesians 1, the word predestined is used to refer to us coming to God and becoming his son.
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That is clearly predestination to grace or to initial salvation when you become a Christian. I also showed in Romans 8 that the term predestined refers to our being completely conformed to the image of his son, which will occur on the last day, and that is thus predestination to glory or predestination to final salvation at the end of the
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Christian life. In addition, Mr. White asked me to show that one does not entail the other.
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What does he think the purpose of all the verses I've been citing has been? All of those verses I cited showed that there are true
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Christians who then fall away or who could fall away. Mr. White tries to draw a distinction between true and false faith, but such is not found in the writings we have examined.
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There is not a question of true or false faith, but simply whether the faith continues or not. Finally, Mr.
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White asked me to show that there were non -elect Christians. Well, I'm afraid I have to point him to the same distinction with election that I do with predestination, because the two, as most
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Greek scholars will tell you, are considered synonyms, at least practical synonyms, in the language of the
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New Testament. All who are predestined are elected. All who are elected are predestined. Just as there is predestination to grace and predestination to glory, there is election to grace and election to glory.
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All who are genuine Christians, I'm not talking about false Christians, but all who are genuine Christians are elected to grace, but may or may not be elected to glory.
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And Jesus is absolutely right. His sheep continue to hear him. So when you stop hearing him, you cease to be one of his sheep.
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You show, if you remain in that state, that you were never one of his sheep who was elected to grace.
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But that doesn't mean you were elected to glory, but that doesn't mean you were one of his sheep who wasn't elected to grace.
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Now, I am amazed that Mr. White would say that all of this is simply an attempt to insert the sacramental system of Roman Scripture.
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As I pointed out, Martin Luther happened to be one of the people who taught this, and I do not think
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Mr. White would want to say that Martin Luther held his position in order to try to fit the sacramental system of Rome into the
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Bible. Martin Luther was a guy who loved his Bible. If you look just briefly at one particular passage in Peter's writings, where in 2
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Peter 1, verses 5 through 11, Peter tells us to make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue.
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For if you do this, you will never fall. So there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of Christ.
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Mr. White's head exploded when he tried to say that I was not being Christocentric in my reading of John 6 and 10.
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The fact is, it is Jesus. It is the Father who calls and who keeps us, or who calls but then chooses for his own inscrutable, mysterious, and praiseworthy reasons to not continue drawing us.
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I am simply reading you what the Bible says when it says make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, so there will be provided for you an entrance into the kingdom of Christ.
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Besides these verses, there are dozens of others which teach the same truth, all of which Mr. White has to deny and try to find some way to squirm out of.
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I'm just telling you what the scripture says. You don't have to be an Einstein to see that this is the plain teaching of scripture.
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But the writers of the New Testament knew that some would come who would try to deny exactly this teaching.
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That is why they continually uttered the warning, do not be deceived. Even though Paul tells his audience that they have been washed and sanctified and justified, he still finds it necessary to warn them in 1
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Corinthians 6, 9 -10, saying, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
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Don't be deceived. They will not inherit the kingdom of God. They were washed, but why warn them about this if they were not in danger of returning to wallowing in the mud after having been washed, as Peter said actually happened to some people?
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Why would he warn them not to be deceived if there were not certain individuals who would come to them and try to deceive them by telling them the lie, the lie that you can never lose your salvation, which is oh so pleasing to our itching ears in these last days.
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I'm telling you what Paul is telling you. Don't be deceived. Don't embrace that lie that has sent so many millions of people straight to hell by telling them they can never fall, that same doctrine which
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Mr. White is trying to woo you into believing tonight. I'm telling you, you had better get in a church that will be honest with you about the reality of mortal sin, and you had better get in a church that will tell you how to discern which sins are mortal and which are not, and most especially you had better get in a church that will tell you what to do once you have fallen and committed mortal sin and how to beseech
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Christ for his eternal grace. The safety of your soul requires it. Thank you. Thank you very much, and that's
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James Aiken presenting the Catholic position in our debate tonight over whether all true believers are predestined to be persevering in their faith and to the end and be saved.
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Now we are taking calls. We ask you to keep your questions and comments or your questions actually to these gentlemen.
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Make it a plain question because each one is going to have two minutes to respond to your question, and we are short on time so let's try to get right to the point, and we will get to our callers right after this break.
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The number to call is 447 -5495. We'll be back right after this, and our first caller up is
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Alan. Alan, you're on the air. What's on your mind? First, I'd like to thank Lee and Jim for putting on this program.
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It's an excellent program and an excellent debate, and my first question is to any of you, the debaters, or to Lee and Jim.
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It seems to me there's a little bias in the way the debate is filled.
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You know, I think you correctly say that Mr. Aiken represents the Catholic viewpoint, but to say that Mr.
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White represents the Protestant viewpoint, based on some of the things that have been said, it sounds like Luther does not agree with Mr.
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White, and I would presume Lutherans and Anglicans and Episcopalians do not necessarily agree with Mr.
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White. Wouldn't it be more correct to say Mr. White represents the Calvinist viewpoint? Okay, Alan, we'll go ahead and let you go, and then you can respond to that.
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We'll let James White give him two minutes to respond to that position. James? Well, I'll try to take up two minutes.
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I didn't, as you guys will say and testify, I didn't write up what you all would say, so on and so forth.
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There are Protestants who do not take the position that I do, so I wouldn't say it's just simply the Protestant position.
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I believe, obviously, it's a biblical position. The Anglican or Episcopalians, at least initially, were very
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Calvinistic, 39 articles, but they've certainly gone far away from that. There are many Protestants today who swim the
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Tiber on these issues. There's no two ways about it. What I mean by that is they are treading water in the
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Tiber. They're sort of playing around with Rome's position, and yet denying the various sundry elements of that position.
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But I'm not claiming that all Protestants believe the same thing, and of course Mr. Aiken, in his article, says that there are
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Roman Catholics who believe one thing about it, and Roman Catholics who believe another. So there might be Roman Catholics who would be saying, well, Mr.
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Aiken's position isn't necessarily mine. So I think it's simply a matter of what terminology we're using there, and I wouldn't mind if someone said a
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Reformed Baptist or a Calvinistic perspective or whatever. I don't think we need to really focus upon that. Okay, thank you very much,
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James White. We're going to go ahead and go on to our next question. We're having some problems with Mr.
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Aiken's line, and so I'm going to go ahead and get another question in, and we're going to try to get the problem with Mr.
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Aiken's line taken care of. So Mark, you're on the air. What's on your mind? Here?
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This question? Yes, go ahead. Okay. I was wondering if I could read just a couple of verses in collation first, you know, since I discussed that earlier, and then my question would be right after that.
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So when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his faith because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the
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Gentiles, but when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.
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The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy so that by their hypocrisy, even
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Barnabas was led astray. Then it says, when I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel,
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I said to Peter in front of them all, you are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and are not like a
01:01:49
Jew. How is it, then, you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? Here we have
01:01:54
Peter, who is heading up the group, who has just fallen away, just referred to those who had fallen away.
01:02:03
And by the way, I'm sure Mr. Aikens would refer to Peter as being the first pope. My question would be, how does he feel about having the first pope fall away into eternal hell?
01:02:19
And if not, can you show me where he's born again? Yeah, we're having some trouble with Mr. Aikens' line. So right now,
01:02:25
I think if you can go ahead and address Mark's question briefly and we'll see if we can get
01:02:30
Mr. Aikens' line squared away. All righty. Well, obviously, the question was directed to Mr.
01:02:38
Aikens. It's a little unfair of me to get to throw my comments in. I don't think that it's fair to say that Peter fell away to eternal hell.
01:02:49
But I do believe that Galatians chapter 2, even though this isn't specifically what we're debating today, is relevant to the concept of papal infallibility.
01:02:58
Peter would be supposedly the pope. He is led away in hypocrisy. He is not walking straight in accordance with the truth of the gospel.
01:03:07
If the truth of the gospel is not relevant to faith and morals, I don't know what is. And according to the definition, teaching in heresy in regards to faith and morals would be a violation of papal infallibility.
01:03:19
Most Roman Catholics say, well, he wasn't teaching anything. Well, if he wasn't teaching anything, then I'm not sure what Paul is doing rebuking him in open public.
01:03:26
And in fact, it's interesting, some Roman Catholic apologists have gone so far as to attack Paul for violating Matthew 18 in Galatians chapter 2, which
01:03:34
I find to be somewhat indicative of how far they need to go to substantiate a doctrine that, like I said, was utterly unknown in the
01:03:41
New Testament and utterly unknown in the early history of the church. So I would not say that Peter fell away to hell.
01:03:48
I believe he was led away in hypocrisy, that he engaged in erroneous teaching, if only by example, it was still teaching that required the rebuke of the apostle against him, and that this is relevant to the doctrine of papal infallibility.
01:04:01
But I don't think that it really has anything to do with the issue of predestination, perseverance, so on and so forth, which is the topic of our debate today.
01:04:11
So that would be the only comments that I would throw in there. Thank you,
01:04:17
James, and we're going to go ahead and take a break. You're listening to Christian Answers Live, and we're having a debate with James White and James Aiken.
01:04:24
James White taking the Protestant position that all true believers are predestined to persevere in their faith until the end, and James Aiken, who's taking the
01:04:33
Catholic position, and we've been having some problems with James Aiken's line. So we're going to go ahead and take a break, get that squared away, and then come back and take more of your phone calls at 447 -KIXL.
01:04:43
That's 447 -5495. We'll be back right after this. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God.
01:04:59
Hear the truth on 970 AM KIXL. Good evening.
01:05:07
You're listening to Christian Answers Live. I'm Lee Meckley, along with Jim Tungate, and we're talking about predestination, predestination of all true believers to persevere in their faith until the end to be saved, and we're actually having a debate on the subject between James White, who's taking the classic
01:05:23
Protestant position, and James Aiken, who's taking the Catholic position, and we're having some trouble with our phone lines before we went out, and James Aiken was not able to respond to a couple of our callers.
01:05:36
So we're going to go ahead and give James Aiken a chance to respond to the first caller, who is
01:05:42
Alan, and the subject of his question was whether or not James White was taking, we could call
01:05:48
James White's position the classic Protestant position, or whether it's just simply the position of Calvin.
01:05:55
James Aiken, you're with us? Yes, I am with you. Okay. You can go ahead and respond to Alan's question at this time.
01:06:04
Well, I think Alan has an extremely good point, because in point of fact, Mr. White's position is not the classic
01:06:10
Protestant position. The position that Mr. White is advocating is only advocated by Calvinists.
01:06:16
It's not even advocated by most Baptists, because Mr. White would say that if you don't persevere in faith and holiness, that you won't be saved.
01:06:24
But many people, many Baptists even, hold the view that is known as once saved, always saved, distinct from perseverance of the saints, according to which, after you've been justified, you can fail to persevere in faith and holiness and still be saved.
01:06:39
Zane Hodges, for example, would hold that. Now, in reality, Mr. White's position only represents the position of Calvin.
01:06:46
It does not represent the position of even most of his fellow Baptists, and it does not represent the position of other
01:06:53
Christians who are Protestant. For example, Martin Luther and the Lutherans, John Wesley and the
01:06:58
Wesleyans and the Methodists, the Anglicans, the Church of Christ members, the Pentecostals. There are just an innumerable number of Protestant Christians who do not buy this doctrine.
01:07:08
It is, in fact, something that is only the position of Calvin and is only held by Calvinistic Baptists such as Mr.
01:07:15
White, other Calvinists such as Presbyterians, and it is not representative of Protestantism.
01:07:20
It's a minority view, even among Protestants. Okay. Also, were you able to catch
01:07:28
Mark's question? I heard Mr. White respond to it. I'll tell you what. Let me put Mark back on the line and let him ask it again so you can get his question, and then you can respond to it.
01:07:37
Okay. Okay. Mark, are you with us? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. If you could go ahead and ask your question again for James Aiken to respond to it.
01:07:44
First of all, just addressing James White, it's not that I believe that Peter fell away there and went to hell, but the point
01:07:52
I was making was that the falling from grace that's mentioned in Galatians is the very thing that Mr.
01:08:00
Aiken was referring to, that you can fall from grace, and therefore I understood him to mean that you can fall from your salvation.
01:08:07
The point that I was making is that, in this verse right here,
01:08:14
Paul addresses and says, how is it then that you forced the Gentiles to follow
01:08:20
Jewish customs? So it's clearly seen that Peter is the leader of the group that causes those who have fell from grace.
01:08:29
The point that I was making is, not being a Catholic, I do not believe that Peter was the first pope, but I know that Catholic scholars, you know,
01:08:43
Catholics do, and therefore my point is, my question is, if Peter was the instigator in these people who have fell from grace, and grace meaning salvation, justification, that this scholar is claiming, then where can he show me that he was born again after that?
01:09:05
In other words, he believes that, and that would be my second question, is a person born again repetitively?
01:09:12
And if so, show me where Peter was born again. Is a person born again, again? Right. Okay. James Aiken, your response?
01:09:20
Okay. First of all, a person does not have to be born again multiple times. You're born again once. After that, you can, like the prodigal son, go away and leave the father and die, and then come back to the father and be spiritually resurrected.
01:09:35
When you come back after having committed mortal sin, you're not born again, again. You're spiritually resurrected.
01:09:42
Now, regarding the passage concerning Peter in Galatians, I would agree with Mr. White that it doesn't have anything to do with Peter's own salvation.
01:09:49
I would disagree with Mr. White, however, when he brings in the irrelevant subject of papal infallibility that we are not debating tonight.
01:09:56
However, just to tie up a little thing he mentioned, Peter was behaving in this passage, not teaching.
01:10:02
Paul doesn't say he opened his mouth. He censures him for behaving in a way that was out of accordance with Peter's own teaching, for he says, you and I who are
01:10:12
Jews know that one is not justified by the law. And of course, the law he is talking about is the
01:10:18
Mosaic law. That is a passage, that is a fact that Mr. White seems oblivious to in Galatians 5, where Paul says,
01:10:26
I testify to every man who receives circumcision, circumcision being something commanded only by the
01:10:33
Mosaic law, that he is bound to keep the whole law, thus the whole Mosaic law. And he says, you are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the
01:10:42
Mosaic law. You have fallen away from grace, and so, as he said a couple of verses earlier,
01:10:48
Christ will profit you nothing. You can lose your salvation if you pin your hopes on being saved by the
01:10:54
Mosaic law of circumcision, instead of pinning your hopes on salvation on Christ. Okay, thank you very much for your call,
01:11:01
Mark. And we're going to go ahead and go to our next caller, who is Tom. And Tom, you're on the air. What's on your mind?
01:11:07
Thank you very much. I have a question for Mr. White. And that being is, if a person has been sanctified by the blood of Christ, is he not a saved
01:11:16
Christian? When I read Hebrews 10, 26 through 10, 31, it's talking about a person who has been sanctified by the blood of Christ, and the
01:11:28
Bible speaks in those passages of this person going to hell. I mean, that's point blank that this person is in a saved relationship with our
01:11:38
Lord Jesus Christ. He's been sanctified by his blood, and yet it's talking about him going to hell.
01:11:45
That's Hebrews 10, 26 through 10, 31. And you'd like to get James White's response on that?
01:11:50
Yes. Okay, thank you very much for your call, Tom. James White, your response? Well, first of all,
01:11:56
I think you need to go back to the beginning of Hebrews 10 before you get to verse 26. Most of those, including Protestants, which
01:12:01
I'm assuming the caller was, I couldn't tell, who immediately jumped 26 through 31, as Mr. Akin did, seem to skip over the beginning of chapter 10 that talks about such things as, by this will, we have been sanctified with the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, verse 14, for by one offering, he is perfected for all time.
01:12:19
Those who are being made holy, those who are sanctified, verse 18, now where there is forgiveness of these sins, there is no longer any offering for sin, et cetera, et cetera, things that I would love to get into in regards to the
01:12:29
Roman Catholic perspective on these things, because we do need to emphasize that we are dealing with the Roman Catholic perspective, and that does include the concept of the propitiatory mass, and so on and so forth.
01:12:40
But for some reason, people just immediately jump to the end here, and I would simply suggest in a minute and 10 seconds, in 70 seconds, that the understanding of these passages needs to be understood in the light of the fact that the entire book of Hebrews is written to a
01:12:54
Christian congregation as a whole, and that Christian congregation as a whole is being encouraged by the
01:13:00
Apostle, Mr. Akin, very grossly created a straw man in his final statements,
01:13:05
I didn't have an opportunity to respond to, in the actual debate portion, where he's saying, knowing,
01:13:11
I am certain, as a former Calvinist, why Reformed people believe in the exhortations that are found all through Scripture, which are those included in Hebrews as well, why we believe that those things are perfectly valid and accurate.
01:13:24
Hebrews is just that, and these individuals, mainly Jews, who have shown an interest in Christ, this mixed congregation needs to be encouraged to press on.
01:13:35
That does not change the fact whatsoever that what I've asserted before, the faith that they are encouraged to press on in is the work of Jesus Christ himself,
01:13:46
Hebrews chapter 12, and since it is his work, they will persevere in it if they truly have that faith.
01:13:52
There are those, however, as Mr. Akin has admitted, who don't have that kind of a faith. Mr. Akin, your response.
01:14:00
Dr. Akin Okay, well I would just point out that Mr. White has again yielded to the temptation to try to bring in irrelevant subjects into this debate, like the math.
01:14:07
I suppose he doesn't have enough to say on this subject, so he has to bring in other matters to kill time. In fact, there's a reason why people go to the end of Hebrews 10 to discuss this issue, because those are the verses that apply to this issue.
01:14:18
And while it's true that certainly every Christian congregation is mixed, and every Christian congregation needs to be exhorted, in fact,
01:14:25
Paul says that there are people here who are sanctified by the blood of Jesus and yet can be lost and enter the fury of fire who will consume the adversaries.
01:14:36
So in fact, individuals, not a mixed congregation, but individuals within the congregation who are sanctified by the blood of Christ can be lost, and none of Mr.
01:14:45
White's obfuscations will change that fact. In fact, Mr. White is advocating something that would lead the authors of the
01:14:54
New Testament into a form of gross pastoral irresponsibility if they simply warned everyone in their congregation, without discriminating between true and false
01:15:03
Christians, to abide in Jesus and to abide where they are and to continue what they're doing. Because if you tell a congregation, keep doing what you're doing now, all that is going to do is cause false
01:15:14
Christians to maintain their false Christianity and retain the illusion that they are in Jesus and the illusion that they have been forgiven, when in fact they need to be prompted to repentance and not just told to abide in Jesus and keep doing what they're doing.
01:15:29
Finally, I would point out that Mr. White is ignoring plain testimonies of Scripture, such as in 2
01:15:35
Peter 129, where Peter says that false teachers will come among you, secretly bringing in destructive heresies, even denying the
01:15:43
Master who bought them, bringing on themselves with destruction. But that contradicts
01:15:48
Mr. White's thesis of limited atonement and perseverance of the saints. According to him, no one who has been bought by the
01:15:54
Master can ever deny him. And so he's got, based on 2 Peter 2, he has got to either sacrifice
01:16:03
L, limited atonement, or sacrifice P, perseverance of the saints. This verse is the rock on which
01:16:09
TULIP founders. Okay, 447 KIXL, that's 447 -5495, to get in on this debate between James White, who's taking the
01:16:19
Protestant position that all true believers are predestined to persevere in their faith until the end and be saved, and he is debating
01:16:28
James Aiken, who is taking the Catholic position and is denying that proposition.
01:16:33
Our next caller is Carl. Carl, you're on the air, what can we do for you? Good evening. Well, I think
01:16:39
Mr. White has it correctly, but Mr. Aiken, you quoted from 6
01:16:44
Hebrews and the 10th chapter of Hebrews, and you don't follow through immediately after what you quoted from the 6th chapter of Hebrews.
01:16:51
You have these words at verse 9, even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case, things that accompany salvation.
01:16:59
And after you quoted the downside of chapter 10, you failed to go ahead with verse 35, where it says, do not throw away your confidence that will be richly rewarded.
01:17:08
You need to persevere so that when you've done the will of God, you will see what he has promised. And I wonder how you would respond to those, and you seem to leave quite a bit out in Hebrews, also where he speaks, where he says, again in the 6th chapter, he says, because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath.
01:17:33
And last but not least is Romans 1, 17, it says, for in the gospel of righteousness from God is revealed a righteousness that is by faith and first to last, just as it is written, that just shall live by faith.
01:17:46
And one last point, if you believe that you by your actions can lose your salvation, in other words, that Christ can't keep you safe, that you can lose your actions, you lose your salvation by your actions, as opposed to trusting fully in the work of Christ, then conversely,
01:18:05
I assume you're suggesting that you as a good Catholic, or anyone else that's going to be saved is actually really saved by the work of Christ, plus by their own obedience to Christ, their own devotion to Christ, their own avoidance of mortal sins, and these other things.
01:18:22
And I don't think you're any more saved than any other Christian, if you're saved at all.
01:18:28
And I and other Christians could go on and on all night, all the verses that say we're saved by grace.
01:18:33
Ephesians 2, 8, 9, 1 John 1, 5 says, if we confess our sins, he's faithful to forgive us our sins.
01:18:39
By the way, that includes mortal sins, or what you in the Catholic Church call mortal sins, because I believe all sin apart from Christ will kill you.
01:18:46
Okay, Carl, thank you very much for your call. We'll give both gentlemen two minutes to respond to that.
01:18:52
James Akin, did you get all that? Yes, I assume that I agree with the caller that he certainly could go on and on all night.
01:18:58
In fact, we are saved by Christ's grace. It is Christ's grace that produces all of our good actions in us, no matter what they are, whether they are faith, or love, or anything else.
01:19:08
All of our good actions are produced by Christ. The question is not, can Christ keep us saved? The question is, does
01:19:14
Christ and his Father keep drawing us to salvation so that we continually come to him?
01:19:19
Anything I do is simply an outworking of what Christ has given me to do. Anything I do is simply what the
01:19:26
Father has given me to do. It is not something that I do of myself. It is holy and entirely produced and brought about by God's grace, just as my faith is.
01:19:35
And of course, faith is one of our actions. It is something you do. Believe is a verb. Otherwise, you wouldn't exhort people to believe.
01:19:42
Yet it is God's grace who brings that about in us. Now, regarding the end of Hebrews 6 and so forth, it is true that Paul says that he is confident of better things in the case of his audience who have remained faithful and not gone back to Judaism.
01:19:55
But the basis on which he is confident is the fact that God will not forget their work which they have done. And so, as a result of this, we can see that it is not simply a blind declaration that Paul is confident of everybody's remaining in Christ.
01:20:08
It is something that he says is specific to these people. Similarly, at the end of Hebrews 10, yes,
01:20:13
Paul does say that you should persevere in having done as will remain. Well, that is true. You should persevere.
01:20:18
That doesn't attack my position at all. Okay. And James White, we will go ahead and let you respond.
01:20:29
Okay. I appreciate it. All of Mr. Aiken's ad hominem comments about my head exploding and not having enough to say aside,
01:20:37
I hope that all the smoke and dust that has been raised, it does not obscure the fact that really what we are talking about here, as the caller brings it up, is the difference between a man -centered religion and a
01:20:47
God -centered religion. It is not an issue of debating the necessity of grace.
01:20:52
Mr. Aiken just confirmed the necessity of grace. That has never been the issue. The issue has always been the sufficiency of that grace outside the added works and merits of men.
01:21:04
Now, the issue, I think, as we can see here, Mr. Aiken closed his statement about encouraging people to become a part of a church that will seriously tell you about mortal sin and so on and so forth.
01:21:16
He is talking about the Roman Catholic Church. And even though he says it is out of topic to bring up the mass and so on and so forth, he is the one that directed us to the
01:21:23
Roman Catholic Church. And let us always remember, as this is being presented, that what Mr. Aiken is presenting to us as being the alternative is that very same system that speaks of indulgences, that speaks of merit, that speaks of purgatory, that speaks of status pastio, our undergoing the suffering of atonement in purgatory to atone outside of the grace of Jesus Christ for the temporal punishment of our own sins, confession to priests, baptismal regeneration, and all the other things that Mr.
01:21:53
Aiken would also say he finds so plainly on the face of the text of Scripture. Hopefully those listening will recognize that Mr.
01:22:01
Aiken does not have the Bible as his final authority. He has Rome as his final authority, and Rome tells him how to interpret these passages, and he will do so.
01:22:09
The thesis of our debate had to do with predestination and perseverance. We have seen how
01:22:14
John 6 and John 10 deal with those issues. I know we don't have much time left, but here is my hoping that some of the next questions will actually deal with the thesis of the debate.
01:22:24
Okay, and we do have time for one more question. We are going to go to it real quick. Gilbert, you are on the air.
01:22:30
Yes, this question is for James Aiken. Okay, since the Pope says
01:22:36
Christians and Muslims worship the same God, does God predestine
01:22:41
Muslims to go to purgatory when they die? I'd appreciate it if James Aiken would answer that question.
01:22:47
Okay, thank you very much for your call, Gilbert, and James, you can respond. Okay, well,
01:22:52
I think the caller has a confusion. Purgatory is simply the final stage of our sanctification, and anyone who goes to purgatory goes to heaven.
01:23:00
No one is predestined to go to purgatory for all eternity. It's simply the cloakroom of heaven that you pass through before you go into the throne room.
01:23:08
So thus, anyone who is predestined to go to purgatory is predestined to go to heaven, period. The question of whether they're a
01:23:15
Muslim or not is not the subject of our debate tonight. It's irrelevant, and I'm going to have to decline to respond to it, just as I'm going to have to decline to respond to all of the innumerable issues not related to the subject of our debate that Mr.
01:23:28
White brought up in his last speech. I am, however, going to point out to Mr. White that not only did
01:23:34
I affirm the necessity of grace in my previous remarks, I also affirmed the sufficiency of grace.
01:23:40
Like I said, I'm taking Augustine and Aquinas's position here. God's grace not only is necessary for us to do the things that he commands, like repentance and faith and adding to your faith virtue and all those things that Peter says,
01:23:56
God's grace is not only necessary for us to do all of that, it is sufficient for us to do all of that, and it is efficient for us to do all of that.
01:24:05
I affirm the complete sufficiency and the complete efficiency of God's grace, and Mr.
01:24:10
White simply again fails to see the point. I have consistently in dealing with him over the last several years tried to point this out to him, that Catholics are not a bunch of Arminians who are trying to substitute added works not produced and brought about and effected by God's grace, but he simply remains blind to this point.
01:24:28
I can only assume it's a form of willful blindness that he wishes to engage in in order to be able to preserve his position.
01:24:34
Okay, and James White, your response? Well, let's remember there was
01:24:41
Mr. Aiken who brought up the issue of what church you go to, so they weren't irrelevant things, and I wouldn't want to have to defend indulgences and merit in a short period of time either.
01:24:49
It's a very difficult spot to be put into. Mr. Aiken has over the past number of years tried to say that God's grace is sufficient, but the problem
01:24:56
I have is that I keep reading Roman Catholic documents, and I keep listening to the Pope, and as I read those
01:25:01
Roman Catholic documents, I see the assertion that justification takes place at baptism, that justification is something that needs to be grown and increased, and I see all this stuff about indulgences, merit, and I hear
01:25:13
Mr. Aiken saying, well, it's sufficient to do that, it's sufficient to do that. I hope the listening audience will recognize that he's limiting what the do that is.
01:25:22
Is it sufficient, Mr. Aiken, to keep you from having to spend time in that cloak room before you go into the throne room, where you have to suffer the pains of purgatory so as to atone for the punishments of your own sin?
01:25:34
Is it sufficient for that, Mr. Aiken? Those are the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, and it's not a matter of willful disobedience on my part.
01:25:42
It's a simple fact that your system is not biblical that keeps me from accepting your explanations thereof.
01:25:48
Again, the point is, the scriptures are very, very plain. God's grace is sufficient.
01:25:54
God has a people he calls unto himself in Jesus Christ. He gives them to Jesus Christ, and the reason they will persevere unto the end is because Jesus Christ, when he works in a person, works perfectly.
01:26:06
The faith that he gives the person is a perfect faith. It will persevere. Jesus Christ is called
01:26:12
Savior, because Jesus Christ is able to save those who come unto God by him,
01:26:18
Hebrews chapter 7. That is the issue this evening. That is what I hope people will really focus in upon as they think about this debate tonight.