Why Theology? :: Limited Atonement

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What is up guys, my name is KJ and this is Y Theology. Today we have a very special guest, his name is

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Pastor Jeremiah from Jonesburg, Arkansas. He came on board today to help me discuss the topic of limited atonement.

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So when we come back, we'll be dealing with limited atonement. What is up guys, this is

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Y Theology. My name is KJ, short for Khalil Jones, and today I have a very special guest, Mr. Jeremiah.

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Can you introduce yourself? Yes, hello everybody. Thanks for tuning in. My name is

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Jeremiah Nortier. I live in Jonesburg, Arkansas. I love my wife so much.

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She is my best friend and she is my lifelong partner. Her name is

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Allie Nortier. We are looking forward to adopt, hopefully one day in the near future.

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So anybody listening in can keep us in prayer about that. And I serve at a new church plant in Jonesburg, Arkansas called

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Twelve Five Church. So that actually comes from Romans 12 verse 5, where it just articulates that even though we are many in the body, we are one in Christ.

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So that's just a brief introduction of myself, KJ. I got you.

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How long have you been married, man? Don't tell my wife. It took me this long to think about it, but it's a little bit over five years now.

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Okay. That's good. That's pretty good, man. Me and my wife have been married, it'll be two years this

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May, so. Oh, nice. Yeah, well, I'll let you know once I figure out all the nuances to marriage,

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I'll tell you. I'll put you in about everything. God bless you, man. God bless you. Now, how did you and your wife meet, man?

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So, that's a great question, and I'll tell you a little bit more than maybe she would want me to.

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No, I'm just playing. We met at the Baptist Collegiate Ministry at ASU, and she was supposed to go to a

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Church of Christ organization to meet a guy, and she accidentally ended up at the

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BCM, the wrong place, where I met her, and she never went back to the other place.

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So, that was God's providence. He literally brought her to you.

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Uh -huh. Now, how long have you been in ministry? How did

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God put you there? What's the story behind that, man? Yes. So, in college,

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I was the typical student that could not make up my mind what I wanted my major to be in, and so, it was around my junior year,

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I changed my major from business to computer science and all these things, and I just found myself wanting to be in ministry to serve at the church, and I didn't know how it happened, but some godly accounts of my life talked about how communication is always going to be vital in that, so I majored in communication, and I started thinking about the future and how

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I wanted to go to seminary, and God was laying on my heart, the Master's Seminary in California, Southern Theological Seminary in Louisville, and I was just thinking, okay,

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I want to go residentially to seminary, and then, in that time, I met my wife,

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Allie, in college, and I told her, hey, this is kind of my trajectory. I want to go to seminary, and over time,

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I met a local pastor in Jonesboro, and he hired, he was like, hey, come on staff.

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We really would like a youth pastor, and I said, well, I really want to do seminary first, then go into the ministry, and I loved this man's guidance in my life.

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He said, that's great, and we can work that out, and he said, but let us come in and mold you just as through discipleship, and he encouraged me to go ahead and just pursue the calling that I felt in God's life, and so I did ministry before seminary, and I was just captivated.

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I went through the good, the bad, and the ugly side of ministry, and I kept finding myself that this is exactly where God has me, so hopefully, seminary will happen one day in the future, but I'm a huge advocate of the church equipping the saints for these things, not having to simply send them off somewhere, even though I think there's some godly seminaries, but, man, if you can get plugged into a local church,

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I really do think that's where it's at. That seems kind of like the biblical model as well, you know, I think like Paul was telling

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Timothy, like, you know, he was raised up in the church, kind of like what you just said, but I know like a lot of churches, you know, it's not made to,

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I guess, good solid churches nowadays that can, you know, has resources to do so, so they do send them out. I think you mentioned earlier about wanting to go to Mass as seminary, so I'm assuming

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John McArthur, I know this probably, but John McArthur, is he one of your greatest influences right now? Yes, absolutely.

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Who else do you kind of like? Yeah, so there's been multiple figures in my life that I'm so thankful to the

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Lord for having just the technology and the means to get really good teaching, like,

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I love the name of your podcast, Why Theology? We've got to understand that theology is just simply studying

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God, everybody has a conviction about who God is, whether He exists or not, so everybody's a theologian, to put a shameless plug for R .C.

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Sproul's book, everyone's a theologian, and so he was another major influence in my life, and so McArthur really drilled in home for me that the scripture is preeminent, and the walk of a

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Christian, that's the final authority, Jesus had sanctified them, and your truth, your word is truth, so McArthur really taught that as Christians, we live and breathe the word of God, that's how we have relationships, and so R .C.

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Sproul, he not only taught that, but he opened up just a huge door into church history, and just showing me how

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Christ has been building His church for 2 ,000 years, and I loved that, I loved the rich doctrine and history of the church through R .C.,

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and then another major figure in my life that God has used is Dr. James White, he kind of had the best of both worlds in my mind, he would use the scripture as an apologetic tool, and he was also well equipped with church history, and it's like,

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I got to see those used together to contend for the faith, and to give a defense for the hope that lies within us, and then

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I started seeing other guys' ministries that were just super influential in my life, like Todd Friel, his wretched radio ministry, and wretched

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TV, I fell in love with his heart for sharing the gospel evangelistically, and he would record those episodes, and I found myself not only being sanctified, like understanding these truths more and more, but just seeing how he is fulfilling the great commission, like he's actually going out, preaching the gospel, making disciples, and so guys like Todd Friel and Ray Comfort, I got to see a hands -on experience of sharing the gospel, so there's a lot more men, but those are probably the ones that come to the forefront of my mind, who've just been super influential in my life.

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That's amazing, man, I know you just mentioned R .C. Sproul, we're actually going to be talking about a subject that R .C. Sproul kind of delved into a lot, you know, he was alive, and so today's subject at hand is limited atonement.

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Now, before we get canceled, I guess let's kind of take a step back, before we even define limited atonement, what do we mean when we say that, because I know this is kind of associated with TULU, but what does

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TULU kind of, I guess, you want to give us kind of brief history about? Yes, so this is where like me, like R .C.

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Sproul and James Watt have helped me understand that church history is important when defining terminology.

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Now, obviously the scripture, the terms that the scripture uses, that is the one we should be most familiar with, but we're all bound to use the vernacular of our own context, our own day and time, and probably the best examples of this is the word trinity.

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You know, guys like me and you, men that believe in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith, we understand, we believe the trinity, and yet we don't see that term, so church history can tell us how these terms developed, and no matter what terms we use, like limited atonement, or the whole acrostic of TULIP and what that entails, we must say, okay, what does that mean, and what does the

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Bible teach? If the Bible teaches that, well, then praise God, right? We embrace that doctrine, you know what

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I mean? So it's guys like James Watt that really made me think, okay, I'm going to test all things and hold fast to that which is good.

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So really, I've heard just people saying, well, that word, that term is not found in the Bible, but we should look past that and say, well, what does the

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Bible teach, and what does that term from church history mean? So I just wanted to kind of set that up to say that limited atonement falls within that acrostic for TULIP, right?

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Now, a lot of people may be familiar with this, maybe not, but TULIP is an acrostic, like it stands for something, right?

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And so TULIP are essentially the five points of Calvinism. And when you say, you know,

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I've had conversations with people, and they're like, Calvin who? Like, there's totally no context at all, and I totally empathize with that, because at one point in time,

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I was right there where they're at currently. So what really helps is understanding church history. And so these five points of Calvinism were written as a defense against the five articles of the remonstrance.

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Now, this is important to understand, because the church was pretty well unified on who

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God is, according to Scripture, and who man is, according to the Scripture. But you had men like Jacob Arminius, and kind of some of his followers that they came up with five articles to say, well, we disagree with some of these key doctrines that the church has been teaching.

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And so TULIP was written as a defense or a response to these five articles of the remonstrance.

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And so something I want to say real quick, KJ, is that when something is written as a defense, you don't always have the leisure of presenting something in a clear, positive fashion.

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So these five points were written as a defense, and if history could rewrite itself,

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I think a lot of advocates for Calvinism would really rewrite this acrostic with more precise terminology, because something like the term limited

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Talmud carries some baggage to it. You know what I mean? So like I said, I think if we understand church history, we understand that TULIP was written as a defense, it can kind of clear up some of the misconceptions that are attached to it.

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And kind of like what you just said, too, this acronym kind of is describing how God is sovereign.

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And we kind of see throughout the scriptures, you kind of mentioned as well, like Jacob Arminian, or Arminius, if you go back to like Augustine, or some people call him

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Augustine, you know, he had his own disputes with Pelagian, I think, and kind of like that whole, it kind of stemmed it, right?

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It's kind of started there in church history. That was like early 300s AD, I think. So it's kind of been going on for a little minute.

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The life of them, I guess the great majority of church history, they've always held to like, kind of, you know, these doctrines in a sense,

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I mean, had been kind of spoken as a TULIP, but they've always kind of held on to God is sovereign, even in the midst of salvation.

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So, yeah. I guess my next question, man, is not if we kind of like, I guess, define, you know,

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TULIP, you know, a T is total depravity, the U is unconditional election, and that L that we're talking about today is limited atonement.

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Now I've done a whole series about this, but I want to kind of focus on this one particular, because a lot of But how would you define,

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I guess, limited atonement? Yeah, I think that just very briefly, limited atonement carries some baggage to it.

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But really what it's getting at is that Jesus is the perfect Savior to all that the

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Father has given him. So kind of as another setup, going back to the acrostic

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TULIP, this was kind of a joke that James White had said a while back.

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He said, but if the acrostic could have been rewritten differently, it would have been STULIP, beginning with an

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S, which would be for the sovereignty of God. And so everything else in the acrostic would flow from the sovereignty of God.

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So that's where church history didn't really have the advantage of rightly qualifying these five doctrines of grace, because we see

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God's hand graciously, mercifully, you know, working out a plan of redemption for a people that do not deserve

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God's grace, yet out of his love and compassion, you know, he is regenerating a people to be a bride for the

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Son, and the Holy Spirit is not only regenerating them, but sealing them to the day of redemption.

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So that's why the five points of Calvinism are seen as the doctrines of grace.

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We really try to help explain people that God is sovereign, he's working out a plan of redemption, and we are saved by his grace, nothing that we bring to the table by our own human works.

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So that's where the U kind of falls, you know, we're really focusing on the U of, you know, or the

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L for limited atonement, but that has to be within a context of God's sovereignty, right?

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So I think that that kind of helps us get the ball rolling then. The L is limited in its scope, but not necessarily in its effect.

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So I actually prefer a different term when we're talking about limited atonement. Particular redemption is probably how

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I would begin to explain to people what we're actually talking about, that Jesus is once again the perfect savior for a particular group of people that the

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Father has chosen by his grace and his mercy according to his decrees, if you will.

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And Jesus is the perfect savior to redeem that particular group of people.

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His atonement is definite for them, very specific for them. So not only is particular redemption a good, probably a better phrase, but also definite atonement.

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So do you see how really, you know, pulling back the curtains, looking at church history and trying to look at more passages of scripture, we understand that limited atonement might carry some baggage with it.

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Like, oh, is God limited where he can't do something? It's like, man, we're talking about Jesus being the perfect savior for all that the

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Father has given you. Now, are there any like verses in the Bible to kind of support the definition? Yes.

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So there's a ton of them. One of the questions that you sent me beforehand,

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I liked it because it was, did Jesus believe in limited atonement?

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And I started thinking about that and I'm thinking, well, absolutely, yes. But for just a second,

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I was thinking there are a lot of Christians that really put more emphasis on the red lettered portions of the

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Bible, red letter Christians. Maybe people have heard, you know, they think that there's more, it's more special if Jesus said it rather than the apostle

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Paul. And I know guys like me and you, we see right through that. But since all scripture is

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God breathed, well, we got to look to the whole counsel of God, all of scripture to build a doctrine, right?

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So we see the value in not only the red letters, what Jesus said, but also what the apostle Paul said, what the rest of the

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Old Testament said. So we kind of, we really come to the scripture as a systematic whole on some of these things.

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You know what I mean? So I guess, first of all, if we, if I really, you know, we try to unpack what limited atonement means or particular redemption,

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Jesus in John chapter six, he said this in verses 37 through 40, all that the father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me,

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I will never cast out. For I've come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

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And this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

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For this is the will of my father, that everyone who looks on the son and believes in him should have eternal life.

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And I will raise him up on the last day. So we see here,

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Jesus is going to say perfectly to the uttermost, all that the father is giving to him.

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So when I'm talking with people and we might get it, we might bring up some of the controversial passages, you know, and trying to understand the atonement, like John 3, 16, first John 2, 2.

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And I'm saying, look, what Jesus is saying is that it's the father's will. It's the sovereign triune

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God's will that is going to be accomplished. And so it's not that Jesus is not able to save more people or something like that.

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No, but his work of atonement is very specific to all that the father has given to him.

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So I think that helps have a right perspective on what we're talking about. Is it limited atonement for the elect?

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Yes, but it's really more of an emphasis about Jesus being the perfect savior. That's a pretty good definition too.

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I know as well, I think it's in John 10, where Jesus says, I lay my life down for my sheep.

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And like the illustration that I love kind of using, it's like, imagine like, like a modernized, like, yes, like imagine if you was going like to your school, like your school and like you went into the classroom and you say, you know, hey,

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I don't know your church's name, but let's say your church's name like John, you know, Mary, so hey, John and Mary, you know, come on, let's go.

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I'm taking you out. The other kids in the classroom wouldn't look at you because you're not your parent, but like John and Mary, if you're like their father, they will look at you because they know your voice and they're your children.

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Yes. Well, in the same way, doing that context back in the day, when Jesus says, I know my sheep, my sheep know me, I lay my life down for my sheep.

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If Jesus, like a shepherd, wouldn't go to like the fence or whatever, and he called out his sheep, the sheep wouldn't move because they don't know that shepherd, but the shepherd, you know,

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I guess the sheep that know that shepherd's voice, they would directly come to him because he's a shepherd of that flock. Well, in the same way, like you just said,

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Christ, he lays his life down for a definite or a particular group of people, which is the elect of God.

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Yeah. And that's, that's perfect because when he says, my sheep hear my voice, there's an, there's an intimate relationship going on.

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So that's like you said, in John 10, 27, 28, saying my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.

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I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

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So like you're saying, he lays his life down for his sheep, a very specific group of people, and he's the perfect high priest mediator intercessor for those people.

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So that's how we're kind of building this, this doctrine. The atonement is a substitution atonement.

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Jesus actually paid the penalty of sin on the behalf of a very particular group of people.

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So when we're talking about, you know, what did Jesus specifically said, maybe before we get into what the apostle

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Paul said or Isaiah 53, he goes into a high priestly prayer. A lot of us are familiar with in John 17 and he says this, and we can't miss it because a lot of times people want to look at the word world, cosmos, and then instantly assume that it means every single person to ever exist without exception.

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And you and I know that we got to always let context develop our understanding of what the scripture is teaching us.

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And we got to be familiar with the Greek and the Hebrew words of what words can mean and what they don't mean.

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And context always shows us what that is. And so to me, it's inescapable of what

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Jesus is saying in relation to all that the father has given to him and the contrast of what the world looks like.

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So in John 17, Jesus says, I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

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Yours they were, and you gave them to me and have kept your word. I am praying for them and I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me for they are yours.

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And so once again, you notice how Jesus is not praying for the world, but for those whom the father has given him out of the world.

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Right? So once again, he's a perfect mediator. He's a perfect intercessor. He's the paraclete or the advocate for the people of God.

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You know what I mean? Yes. That's perfect, man. Something that I guess is kind of helps us like kind of with this, you know,

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I guess this, I don't want to say you call it an argument, but kind of like help, I guess kind of define it even better.

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It was like a doctrine, you know, theology known as substitutionary atonement, that Christ was a substitute for our sin.

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And so like, if that is true or since that is true, that means that all my past, present and future sin has been wiped away.

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And so for those who truly profess in Christ, they won't end up in hell, but like if there are people in heaven right now, and there are people in hell, then we know there's no way in the world

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Christ could have died for every single body. That's kind of another way you can look at it as well.

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Yeah. Yeah. And I think you just put your finger on, I guess a hard question for people on the other side of this issue that hold to a universal atonement.

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I think a hard question is that they have to answer is did Jesus die for every sin, including unbelief?

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Well, you know, for those of us that are Reformed and believe, I would say consistently with penal substitutionary atonement, we can say, yes, he actually died for the sin of unbelief for all the elect.

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And if you do not affirm that and deny that, then I think you have trouble harmonizing passages out of Colossians 2, 13 in particular, and then 1

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John 1 .7 that says, by the blood of Jesus, he accomplished salvation for all who believe, and he completely forgives all sin.

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So you see how that's going to be, I'll tell you what, I can actually pull up Colossians 2, 13, because it's all -inclusive.

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And you who were dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all of our trespasses.

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And so the idea is, well, is it all of them, or is it all of them except our unbelief?

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And that's where we would, I think, be consistent and say, yeah, well, Jesus' death even covered the sin of unbelief for the elect.

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So I think that is something that we all got to wrestle with is, is Jesus, his atonement, is it truly a substitute?

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Did it cover all the sin? If it did, then that's where we understand salvation.

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We don't bring any of our works, not even our good decision -making or our wisdom to the table.

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Jesus is the one that accomplished all that. I guess we could look at it, because this is probably another issue that might arise out of this kind of what we've discussed.

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And I guess some Christians may think of, I guess in this sense, that yes, indeed,

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Christ does have elect, but these are elect are the ones that God looked through at the quarter of the time and see that they would make a decision in Christ's death, or Christ chose that person.

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And now those are the ones Christ died for, versus kind of in a sovereign election of God.

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How does that deal with that? Yeah. So I do think that is a good point to raise.

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And it kind of, once again, we're talking about particular redemption in the context of God being sovereign.

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So I do think before people can really appreciate and understand the depths of the doctrines of grace, you've really got to have that foundation of the sovereign

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God of the scripture. And when we talk about Jesus being a perfect savior, I really want to emphasize that that is exactly what we're talking about.

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And so I wanted to shift real quick to the Apostle Paul, if that's okay with that, because I wanted to read something out of Romans chapter eight.

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I believe it's around. Okay. So verse 34, where we read,

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Christ Jesus is the one who died, and more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

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And so when we see that Jesus is the perfect savior, his substitutionary death is not only applied to all those who believe, but even his resurrection is crucial for him being a perfect interceder and savior, because we also get the benefits of his resurrection.

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We too will receive resurrected bodies fit for eternity one day. And so when

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Paul says, you know, not only did he die, but more than that, he was raised, he indeed intercedes for us.

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Paul is not talking about a generic us, all of mankind, but at the very beginning of Romans chapter eight, he says that there is no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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So he's talking about Christians there. The benefit of his substitutionary death and his resurrection life are for us as believers.

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And once again, it goes back to that motif we're talking about is Jesus is the perfect high priest.

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He not only intercedes for us, but he is also the sacrificial, he's the sacrifice for us.

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So he is both the sacrificial lamb and he is the high priest. That's why he sat down at the right hand of the father.

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He offered his life up, which was totally perfect. And then he wasn't like the old priest, the priest of the

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Old Testament, where they would have to, you know, leave the temple, get other sacrifices year after year after year.

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He gave his life as a perfect sacrifice. And then he sat down as the perfect high priest on our behalf.

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So my big point was his death and his resurrection are perfectly applied for the elect of God, for those of us that have experienced

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God's grace. I think about this too. I guess before I, you know, say this next topic,

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I'm going to, I guess, move us, I guess shift my direction a little bit to something that's very controversial.

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But before I do that, I just want to make sure that we're all in agreement, I guess, the acronym we're dealing with, again, talking about the doctors of grace, which means, you know,

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God is sovereign. But not only is God sovereign, he's sovereign in his electing of people to be saved.

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So the first layer is, you know, T, which means total depravity. Romans 3, no one is good, not even one.

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Why is that? When we look back in the garden, you know, when Adam sinned, he was our federal head. And so when he sinned, the whole world went into damnation or into sin.

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Psalms 51 verse 5 says, David, he says, I was born a sinner from the moment my mother conceived me.

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So the moment that David's mother was pregnant with him, he was already a sinner, not because he sinned, but because he was born a sinner.

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That's why he sinned. And that's why the world around us is like insane or it's like broken. And so humans right now, they're totally incapable of picking

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God or choosing God, or apart from, you know, God's electing grace. So in that context, that's kind of what we're dealing with.

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And so speak of unconditional election. It's not that God picks us based on something that he foresaw in us throughout time.

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And he, therefore he acts, but rather because of the tea that mankind is totally incapable of doing good or picking

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God himself. He chooses us not because of anything. And that's because of his favor. But here's my question.

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We know these things, but like, how do we kind of deal with it? What we're teaching is true that God is sovereign and that he, you know, he died for a particular group of people.

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Does that mean that God, he has predestined some for salvation and sovereign damnation?

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How are you gonna deal with that? Yeah, well, I'm glad you went back to the

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S and kind of the joke of Stulip because everything really does flow from God being sovereign.

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And kind of like what you touched on with total depravity. One of the key things for me is inability.

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When we read in John 6, 44, no man can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him, right?

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And so the natural man, we cannot choose God. Like we are not, we don't have the power or the ability.

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That's where Paul says that all these things we cannot understand unless the spirit works within us.

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So I liked how you went back to a deeper issue with who man is.

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We don't naturally seek God, but in light of that, God is sovereign. And I do think this,

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I think this is where the rub really, I think this is where it all goes back to, you know, is

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God free to create history? You know, literally his story in such a way where he's in control.

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He has appointed purposes for every person. Can he, is he free to choose the people to lavish his grace and his mercy upon?

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Or is he also free to have a purpose for unregenerate man who actually chooses to sin to let them die in their sin so that his justice and his wrath and his holiness are put on display?

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I think we're getting back to a key fundamental question. Is God free and allowed to be sovereign over his creation?

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So within that, I loved your last podcast with Creston because y 'all talked about God's eternal decrees, right?

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Especially the way the 1689 lays it out. And I've had these conversations with a few different people, and I think one of the most staggering passages in all of scripture is

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Isaiah 46, right? You're probably very familiar, KJ, with where I'm going with this because when

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I read this for the first time, I thought, you know what, it seems like all of creation is unfolding the way that God is declaring the end from the beginning.

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Everything has a purpose in God's created order. So this passage says, remember the former things of old, for I am

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God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying my counsel shall stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.

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Calling a bird of prey from the east and a man of my counsel from a far country, I have spoken and I will bring it to pass.

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I have purposed and I will do it. So this is a good passage for us to really grapple with.

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I think there's other clear passages in the Bible as well, but what we're seeing is that God is the one declaring all of history and how it's taking place and it has a purpose because God is the one speaking it into existence.

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So when we start thinking about particular redemption, I would say that yes,

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God in of himself, I think the way that Ephesians 1 kind of paints this picture, is you have the

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Trinitarian counsel of God. God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and they are almost conversing about what a created world will look like and what will take place.

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The end from the beginning and I know you referenced in one of your episodes or maybe we talked about it, but R .C.

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Sproul in Chosen by God did a really good job of painting this picture that the way that God has determined to intercede with his grace and his mercy, his compassion and love for his elect is categorically different than how

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God has ordained the non -elect or how some theologians have said the reprobate.

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He does not intercede in their life the same way. We want to avoid a heresy called equal ultimacy.

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For the elect, we see that God is demonstrating grace, mercy and love and by on the flip side,

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God is decreeing whatsoever comes to pass, but within that decree, God is not forcing evil men or good men to act against their nature to make them evil.

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God's decree is simply declaring what's going to come about, the end from the beginning and so when we see that playing out from a human perspective within space and time, we see the unregenerate man choosing to do sin according to their innermost hearts and desire.

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So we see a compatibility here. Yes, God is sovereign. He has a purpose in all things that happen in his creation and yet we see man being accountable for his desires and his choices.

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So does that kind of help paint the picture of how it really does go back to is God sovereign over his creation?

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Does the pottery, does the clay have any right to look to the molder and say, hey, you can't do something?

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Well, the overwhelming testimony of scripture says no, God is God and we are man.

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So we don't have any standing before God to tell him that he can or cannot do something.

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So I really think it's how we also define what free will means. I believe man is free to choose according to what he wants to do.

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We are just not free apart from God being sovereign over his creation. So do you want to kind of chime in on any of that?

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I feel like I just had a machine gun going on. Excellent explanation, man.

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I want to kind of unpack this part right here. I know this is why a lot of people say they're a three -point

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Calvinist or a four -point Calvinist and usually the two things they kind of disagree with is irresistible grace and then we're talking about right now, the limited atonement.

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So if we're speaking in the sense that God is sovereign, according to scriptures, that he's the one that chooses who it is, who will be saved, who it is, who will not be saved.

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We know there's a verse in Romans nine that says, Paul, he quotes, I think Exodus, how God, he hardened

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Pharaoh's heart. And so you have God saving people and then you have people who God's hardened their heart.

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So in a sense, some people, some Christians out there, they would say, are we robots? If God, even though God is sovereign over our freedom, that means that God is the one that's allowing this sin to come about.

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He's the one that's doing this sin. And that's why they kind of, four -point Calvinist because they don't kind of understand.

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But like, let's kind of, I guess, talk about that a little bit. Yeah. So R .C.

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Sproul had a special name for four -point Calvinists. He called them Arminians. And you know what?

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I totally empathize with people. I've been there and it's not that I've arrived, but these things are hard to grapple with.

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And hopefully our heart's desire is to be, okay, God, you speak truth into my life.

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I love how Proverbs three says, trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding.

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Acknowledge him and he will make your path straight. So the big point is we can't hang on to our presuppositions, our traditions, and bring them into the text.

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We need to be willing to try to do some introspection, figure out what our biases are, and try to set them aside and let

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God's counsel, his word, speak truth into our lives. When we start there, I think we have a better chance of getting, understanding a lot of these hard to understand doctrines.

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Because when we start talking about the sovereignty of God, that perhaps is the deepest possible thing we could be talking about.

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So I just want to say I empathize with people that maybe do not see the harmony of just the five points of Calvinism.

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But once again, I think we got to go to that, which is even more foundational, which is we have to grapple with, is

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God truly sovereign over every aspect of life in his created world? Or is it something different?

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Because however one comes down on that issue, I've talked to a Roman Catholic about this point.

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Does God have omniscience before creation? Or after his creation?

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And I think a lot of people, just a knee -jerk reaction would say, yes, well, God would have omniscience before he created.

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And I think there's obviously, you know, very clear scriptures that teach us that. But if we think about that for a second, that means

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God has a knowledge in of himself that I think Ephesians 1 kind of articulates a

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Trinitarian counsel. Well, think about how he chose, you know, any number of worlds that could have come in.

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Yes, can you hear me okay? Sorry. But yeah,

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I think if we really think about kind of this fundamental concept, does

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God have knowledge and all comprehensive omniscient knowledge before he creates or after he creates?

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Think about the implications of that. Because most people say, yes, God is omniscient even before he created the world.

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Well, that means he had all sufficient knowledge in of himself. That means that any number of worlds that he could have created, the triune

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God chose one in particular and then chose to speak that in the creation.

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So God doesn't learn anything. Everything is fixed from God's perspective.

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And I'm saying that's simply what the reform side of things are saying, that God has a decree.

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God, you know, between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, counseled about what was going to come to pass.

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And they had a will. That means that they came to a decision and nothing is going to deviate from their plan that was decreed and planned before the foundation of the world.

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So that's where Ephesians 1 .11, let me pull it up just so I don't misquote it.

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But I think this really gets to the heart of, is God free to do what he wants with his creation?

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In him, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

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And so I heard another influential man in my life, Steve Lawson, he really pointed out how this makes order.

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Everything kind of stems out of this eternal will of God. From that will, meaning a decision was made, involved a counsel.

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So you had this counseling of the triune God, and they made a decision. And from that, everything in this created world is flowing, and God is monergistically, him alone, working all things to a created end.

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So that's why predestination is huge within it. From God's perspective, everything has a purpose.

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Nothing is firing around arbitrarily that God doesn't know about or he's learning as we are learning.

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But God is truly the omni -king in the sense that he is omnipotent, he is omniscient, and he is omnipresent.

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He sees everything, everything as a purpose. So I really think when we start talking about reprobation and election, we really have to determine in our hearts, is

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God truly sovereign? Is he unfolding this plan that was determined even before the foundation of the world?

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So that's where scriptures like Revelation 13, 8, that says, yes, Jesus Christ, he is the lamb slain even before the foundation of the world.

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God has always had plan A, and he's not really trying to go to plan B or C or man or Satan kind of mess things up.

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He's accomplishing everything for a particular purpose. I did, maybe if you have someone out there that kind of has that kind of problem where like, if they kind of believe everything you're saying, but I guess the problem is, if they do continue to believe that, then they have the problem kind of balancing human responsibility and then

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God's sovereignty and then the sin that kind of exists in the world. How do we kind of deal with passages like Paul in Romans 9, that God's heart is people's heart.

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Does that kind of mean that God has forced people to sin or what does that kind of mean? So for one, I think that's an excellent question that even throughout church history, people are like, okay, we get that God is sovereign, but we know he's not the author of sin.

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I think that's where the 1689 really helps us understand that question in terms that we can better understand.

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So when we get into hardening and we get into how man is responsible for sin,

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I think we need to carry this compatibilistic perspective that God has decreed and planned everything that comes about in his creation.

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No matter what one's theology is, if you believe in a personal creator who's omniscient, everybody has to grapple with this same issue.

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So I just want to say that this isn't just unique to Calvinism. Everybody has to wrestle, well, did

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God know everything before creation? If the answer is yes, well, then nothing's going to deviate from how

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God already knew it and then chose to create. So how I better harmonize this is

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I want to understand that there is a vast chasm between the creator and the creation.

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There's a huge distinction. God's will and choice is absolute and eternal.

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That makes sense to me. That's what the Bible presents God as having this eternal perspective and he's sovereign.

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Man is limited in our scope and our view. And yes, we have a will, but it's not absolute and eternal like God.

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So I want to carry these two paradigms with us when we go to hard to passages.

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So a lot of times we could say, okay, you know, from whose perspective is things determined or are things seemingly open for us to make decisions?

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I would say from God's perspective, these things are determined. From our perspective, we are free to choose according to our heart's desire.

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So with that in mind, when we look at passages in Romans 9 about hardening, I think what we got to understand is the creator creation distinction.

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Because I would say from before the foundation of the world, God had decreed that, you know, we'll take an example like Pharaoh.

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He was going to harden his own heart. That was decreed by God. So as that's playing out in real time,

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Pharaoh is the one choosing in of himself to harden himself against God.

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Yet we know both are true. And we even see God hardening Pharaoh's heart multiple times within time and space because Pharaoh would have eventually gave in just for the sake of saving his own people.

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But we understand Paul's argument goes on to say, but no, no, no, God is going to display his mighty power and his glory.

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So he had a bigger overarching purpose. So I think we got to carry those perspectives.

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God, I believe, has even decreed how he's going to come into time and space to interact with people.

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This is really what sets our view of compatibilism apart from what's called deism, where God kind of winds up the proverbial clock and then he just lets it go.

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I would say God has an eternal plan, but even within that eternal plan, he has marked out times where he's going to intervene.

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So that's where R .C. Sproul talks about, you know, God allows us, you know, or allows man in his sin for his own purposes.

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And I'm saying that makes a lot of sense how within time and space, you don't see God's effectual hand coming in displaying mercy and grace and love and kindness, but he simply, for that allotted time, allows them to stay in their sin, stay in their rebellion, and they will receive a justice that is due.

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So we're talking about that hardening. We always got to carry that Isaiah 46 and Ephesians 1 in mind that God is truly sovereign, has a purpose, but that doesn't negate man's desire, right, to continue to harden his own heart.

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Yes, God marked that out. Yes, man really does suppress the truth and unrighteousness, and the more truth that he hears and the

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Holy Spirit isn't coming in to regenerate their heart to make them receive it, well, yeah, that will become a more and more calloused heart.

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But I think compatibilism is the bigger scope of what we must contend for, that God is sovereign and that man is responsible for the choices that he makes.

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So what do you think? Does that kind of help get down to these issues? Yeah, that's spot on too.

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I know also like in R .C.'s book, he talks about like a passive hardening and an active hardening.

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You can touch on that if you want to, and then we got another question for you. Oh, absolutely, and I love how the 1689

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London Baptist Confession talks about how God is the primary cause and source of all things.

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He's the creator of his world, and I believe it's in Acts 17 that just says we live and move and have our being, and the point is because God is sovereign and eternal and literally upholds the world.

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So we got to have, no matter where you land in theology, right? Why theology? You got to realize that God is the primary source and cause of all things, but he uses secondary causes or secondary means to accomplish those end purposes.

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So I think it was Martin Luther, he said that the devil is God's devil. It's like he's on a leash, and God is simply the one holding the leash and letting

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Satan do what Satan wants to do. So you see that God is primary, and he even uses

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Satan as a secondary means because wherever we land, we must understand that God tempts no man.

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He can't be tempted, and he tempts no man. God is not like Satan that is literally tempting

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God's people and accusing them day and night. God is sovereign over his plan of redemption, but that doesn't mean that he is effectually hands -on tempting people to sin like the devil does.

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So that kind of makes sense of just understanding categories of primary cause versus secondary cause, and when we get into the active and passive hardening,

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I think we got to carry that distinction of primary causes and secondary causes.

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So I think you may have to help me here. Romans 9 says something in a very particular way that makes me think about passive hardening.

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So let's see. What if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand by glory?

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So when you go back and you look at vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, this seems to be a passive act.

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Like God is leaving sinners in their sinful state to continue to be hardened and callous to the truth.

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The more truth they hear is really to their destruction because the more truth they hear, they're becoming more callous and callous over time.

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That doesn't negate an eternal decree made before the foundation of the world, but what we're seeing in actual time and space is

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God not moving his hand of mercy and grace, which can't be demanded by any man.

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He is simply allowing them to stay in their sin. So you see how we have all these working categories that we see from other important places of scripture coming into play.

49:46

Yeah, that kind of helped. I guess when we understand too like the passive hardening and the active hardening, it kind of helps us even kind of further understand how

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God is not the author of sins. And you kind of did a great job kind of explaining that kind of the primary and then secondary causes, how you even say

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Martin Luther, the devil is God's devil. So in that, I guess the best example is kind of like the story of Job, how like the devil wanted to tempt

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Job and God was like, you know, in a sense, God was behind it, but he allowed it to happen. He didn't directly, you know, touch

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Job and do those things, but at any moment he could have stopped it. But yet he chose to allow the devil to do those things.

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Kind of what you just said, I guess like the active hardening in a sense would be like, you know, if God were to tempt people himself to get them to sin, to bring about his purposes, first is what we see in scripture is more about the passive hardening, how

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God, like, you know, there's sin already in, for example, Pharaoh's heart, there's sin already in people today.

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But yet in a sense, I think how R .C. Sproul explains it is that God hardening someone's heart is simply giving them over to their own desires and their own desires in a sense kind of hangs them and kind of it'll kill them in the end.

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And so in that story, when God hardened Pharaoh's heart, he just simply gave them over to desire.

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He didn't tempt them to sin, but he gave them to one desire. He kind of like took the restraints off his heart. I think like right now is, you know, we talked about people being totally depraved.

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And when we say that, we don't mean that the world is as evil as it can be. When we say why, that's because like God is, he's kind of restraining evil people from being so evil in a sense.

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We have like, you know, polices, we have, you know, parents, you know, some parents, I guess, you know, giving authority in the home.

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There's a lot of restriction that God has in the world that if any moment, if God took his hands off, you know, those restrictions, we will all kill each other in a sense.

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But in the same way, when God hardened someone's heart, it's the same thing. He's like restraining us from like, you know, being as evil as we can be.

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But at any moment, he can, you know, want us to go deeper in sin. Yeah, I think that's perfect. Because especially from a human perspective within time and space, we see the heart of man is evil continually.

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And we are bent that way. And yet we're not totally given over to those desires.

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And it's because of God's restraining hand of grace, even on mankind.

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And so when we swing the pendulum back to God's sovereign perspective for the foundation of the world, everything that is going to take place in this world is already fully known and determined by the triune

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God. And so when I hear people talking about how these things are kind of, you know, too inscrutable for us to understand,

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I empathize with that, because the Apostle Paul tells us to not go beyond what is written. But I want us to be students of the word to actually study what

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God has actually revealed to us. I understand there are certain mysterious things that aren't revealed to us.

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But when we read passages like Isaiah 46, Ephesians 1, when we look about the early church in Acts chapter 4, praying to the sovereign

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Lord, who everything is being accomplished by His predetermining plan.

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Those are things that we can't just, you know, kind of take the marker and just mark out of our

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Bible that makes us feel bad. We got to understand that God is the creator of all things, and that we are simply playing a part in God's redemptive plan.

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And if we've experienced grace and mercy, then we should praise God and understand that literally everything that we are doing is by God's hand.

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Does that make sense? But also understanding those distinctions of secondary causes. So like when you mentioned

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Job, this helps me a lot. We understand that God allowed

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Satan to afflict Job, right? Satan was the secondary cause, but even

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Satan couldn't just do what he wanted to. He had to get permission from God. So he was the means to bring about strengthening, sanctifying

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Job's faith. And Job had a really good theology. He said, it's the

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Lord that gives and the Lord that takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And yet he didn't blame

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Satan. He didn't blame, God from being evil, and he maintained that healthy balance of God being sovereign in all things.

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And then, I think the only verse that alludes to Job in the New Testament is James 5 .11,

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which says, you have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the end purpose of the

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Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. So God had a plan with Job's life.

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It was to display mercy and compassion on Job. But look at the means that he chose to bring that about.

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His means was choosing Satan for a task to afflict Job, and for Job to lose everything only to bless him again in the end.

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And so that's how God in the Bible works. He uses the secondary means of sinful man or Satan to bring about his grand overall purposes.

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So only a sovereign God could accomplish that. Well, we've got time for one last question.

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We've got three minutes. It's been a great day, man. Having you on here, man. Within the realm of secondary causes, people around us are sinners.

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The Bible talks about us being sinners, and the Bible speaks of only one way a person can be justified before God.

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Can you share the gospel real quick, I guess, in two or three minutes? The point is because a lot of people can be puffed up with theology and never know the

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Lord truly personally. So I kind of give you a shout out there real quick. Absolutely. What Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the

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Father except through me. What Jesus has to offer is a relationship to anybody that would repent and believe in him.

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And I love that because what he's saying is you can't rely on yourself, your good words, or look to anything else in this creative world.

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You have to look to God, the Son, who became flesh, was perfectly obedient to the law, and then he died an atonement for sin, paid the punishment for sin in every way.

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And so when you put your trust in Jesus, the only Savior, then his perfection gets accredited to your account, and all of your sin, past, present, and future, will be retroactive, put on the cross, and totally paid for in full.

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And that means that you now have eternal life with Jesus, that you have a relationship with him that not only starts here and now, but will continue on into eternity.

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And that's where we have a huge blessing and opportunity to be plugged into a local church, around other believers, to sharpen each other in the word, and to lean on each other during the hard times, because we were created for community.

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And so that initial point is we got to trust in Jesus. And so when we do that, we now step into a relationship with him, and we also have the opportunity to have relationships with other

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Christians. Perfect, man. Perfect, man.