A Monday Radio Free Geneva!

A mighty fortress is our God. A bulwark never failing.

I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

They're following men instead of the word of God. Our helper he amid the flood.

Of mortal ills prevailing. Standing on a stump and crying out.

He died for all. Those who elected were selected. For still our ancient foe does seek to work us woe.

His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. On earth is not his equal.

I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

Did we in our own strength confide? Our striving would be losing.

But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever.

We're not the right man on our side. The man of God's own choosing.

Doomed before the womb. You ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is he.

Lord, swallow his name. Read my book. From age to age the same.

And he must win the battle. And now from our underground bunker, hidden deep beneath Liberty University, where no one would think to look.

Safe from those mother Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read

George Bryson's book, we are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say to his own eternal glory.

And welcome to another oddly scheduled special edition of Radio Free Geneva on the

Dividing Line. My name is James White, and yes, I was riding again this morning. And when

I do that, and I am listening to Steve Gregg talk about Calvinism, in fact, finishing the entire series, the nine tapes, nine

MP3, thirteen and a half hours of lecture on the subject of Calvinism, I simply could not before heading out of town resist doing another

Radio Free Geneva to address some of the particular issues raised in the last section of this particular series.

And I do so once again in the hopes that a meaningful response, a biblically based response, will be helpful to people who are indeed confused about this issue, looking for information on this issue, and I would like to announce, now having listened to all of the tapes, there were a number of things that struck me, that were somewhat disappointing to me.

I had asked, for example, if Acts 4, 27, 28 would be exegeted. I may have missed 15 minutes at some point.

I think at one point I had 15 minutes left in one of the nine of them, and since they're an hour and a half each, and you're listening on an iPod, you know what it's like to try to get the last 15 minutes.

And I think the iPod reset, you know, sometimes it turns off and the little Apple comes up and blah, blah, blah. And I may have missed 15 minutes.

So maybe it's possible in those 15 minutes, all the texts that I had hoped for in -depth exegesis appeared, such as Acts 4, 27, 28 and Isaiah chapter 10, and a more in -depth exegesis of Genesis 50, because what was offered wasn't exegesis of Genesis 50.

It just said, well, God can make good things come out of evil, which is not what Genesis 50 is talking about. Genesis 50 says that God intended this action.

The men intended this action. It was one action, two intentions, two wills, good intentions on God's part, evil intentions on man's part.

Man's judged for his evil intentions. This would help Mr. Gregg to avoid about 90 % of his argument against Calvinism, but I just don't have any reason to believe in what

I've listened to that he's familiar with that. So maybe that's there. I don't know, but I did not hear any in -depth discussion of those particular issues.

And so those would be some of the things we'd still be looking for in future encounters.

But what I would like to suggest that would be the most helpful to those who are truly concerned about these subjects, who are concerned about what the

Bible really says, they want to take the Bible seriously, and the fact you have two individuals, Steve Gregg and myself, who are basically saying the same thing about each other.

That is, Steve Gregg says that the Arminians can do exegesis and the Calvinists can't. And my experience has been that in my debates,

I'm the one doing the exegesis and the Arminians aren't. And so therefore, the best way to decide that is to do live counter exegesis.

We have the dividing line. Mr. Gregg has his own radio program. So let's do a week.

Let's do a week, and let's put together the list of verses, and give each side the amount of time necessary to present their exegesis, and then each side gets to cross -examine the other based upon the

Greek and Hebrew texts themselves directly. See, we couldn't do that in a single one -night debate.

There just wouldn't be enough time in one particular context. So let's find a way where we can either, during the course of his radio program,

I'm not sure how long his radio program is, or we can do it at another time where we do maybe two hours at a time, record it, we play it on the dividing line, he plays it on his radio program, then maybe once those have aired, do a live call -in thing where people can call in and ask questions based on what they've heard, whatever.

But let's schedule something where we can do John 6, we can do

Ephesians 1, we can do Romans 9, we can do Genesis 50, Acts 4, 27 -28,

Ephesians 2, 2 Peter 3, 9, 1 Timothy 2, 4. Let's get into the text and let's do exegesis.

Let's debate this in a format that will allow both sides to present their exegesis of the text and then cross -examine each other based upon the original languages.

Mr. Gregg makes a number of statements about the original languages. Now I cannot tell from even nine full tapes if Mr.

Gregg can actually read the original languages or if he's just using secondary sources. I don't know. But he makes comments, he's said that Calvinists are twisting and contouring the text and we're desperate and so on and so forth.

So I say, all right, let's do it. I'm a Calvinist. I've taught Greek and Hebrew and Greek and Hebrew exegesis.

And so let's go to the text and let's find out. Let's edify the people of God and allow them to hear the two sides coming together.

Now Mr. Gregg may not want to do this. I don't know. He contacted us and suggested it, but I got the feeling that was because some of his supporters and friends were in essence saying that he should do that.

But I'm certainly open to doing it. Let's try to schedule something to present a debate that will allow people to hear a much longer than just one, say two, two and a half hour encounter.

Let's do this over the course of a period of time, like I said, a week. Let's do it on special broadcast dividing line, on his radio broadcast and let the maximum number of people hear what we have to say.

And of course I think I'm helping Mr. Gregg out a little bit by providing my responses here on Radio Free Geneva.

But I think that's a fair thing to do. I have some sections to play out of the ninth tape, the last tape, the last

MP3 available from TheNarrowPath .com. The first is an issue of equal ultimacy.

I actually heard this on Saturday while I was writing. And this is a situation where, again, people get mad at me when

I say it this way, but there's no other way of saying it, so I just can't get around it. Mr. Gregg does not understand what he's talking about.

And he accuses R .C. Sproul of contradicting John Calvin when he doesn't understand either what

Calvin is saying or what Sproul is saying. And so, quite simply, this is based upon Mr. Gregg's ignorance of the vocabulary and language of scholarship.

And he doesn't understand the categories in which they're speaking, and he thinks that Sproul is contradicting

Calvin. And when you listen to the presentation, hopefully you'll be able to see where this is. But it's important because what's being addressed is equal ultimacy, something that I have frequently addressed on this program in refuting those who attack

Reformed theology is they try to make the act of predestining to life equal to the reprobation of individuals.

And they try to say, see, there's this big equal sign. And Calvin didn't say there was a big equal sign.

Yes, he said that it was certain, but that doesn't mean there's an equal sign. You just don't seem to understand, Mr. Gregg just doesn't seem to understand that part, that one involves the extension of grace, resurrection to life, the other does not.

They are not equally ultimate with one another. And Sproul makes the statement that God does not coerce evil out of someone.

And, of course, all Reformed people say that. God never takes an individual who is some morally neutral agent and puts a gun to his back and says, be evil.

What God is doing is he's restraining the evil of men. That's what he does the vast majority of the time.

And there are times when in his decree he restrains, he does not restrain, allows that person to do something that is a part of his will, selling of Joseph into Egypt, the king of Assyria, etc.,

etc., etc. We see this over and over again in Scripture. But it doesn't mean that this was a morally neutral person. The problem is

Mr. Gregg is at some times almost a full -on Pelagian in what he thinks about man's abilities to do good things.

Other times he's just the opposite and he's talking about how depraved man is. But then when you listen to him talking about faith, you listen to him talking about man's abilities, you sort of fall over the road on that.

But listen to what he says about Sproul and Calvin here. Mysteries of God's justice that we are not permitted to challenge.

In R .C. Sproul's book, Chosen by God, on pages 142 and 143, he said,

The concept of equal ultimacy seeks a complete balance between election and reprobation.

The key idea is this. Just as God intervenes in the lives of the elect to create faith in their hearts, so God equally intervenes in the lives of the reprobate to create or work unbelief in their hearts.

Equal ultimacy is not the Reformed or Calvinist view of predestination, since some have called it hyper -Calvinism.

I prefer to call it sub -Calvinism, or better yet, anti -Calvinism. The dreadful error of hyper -Calvinism is that it involves

God in coercing sin. This does radical violence to the integrity of God's character. In this,

R .C. Sproul is speaking like a popular Calvinist. He calls the view of equal ultimacy, or what is sometimes called double predestination.

God predestines not only the saved, but he predestines the lost. That concept, he says, is a terrible thing because it involves

God in coercing sin. Now, stop just for a moment. Again, when someone refers to double predestination, if they are using that term predestination to where they are equal with each other, then that's what we're objecting to.

Other people use the term double predestination to simply mean that there is both the decree of salvation and what its nature is, its graciousness, so on and so forth, and the decree of reprobation, which is a different kind of decree, not only in its scope, but in its nature as well.

You have to distinguish between those two, and Mr. Gregg isn't distinguishing between those two, and that's why he creates a false dichotomy and a false contradiction between Sproul and Calvin at this particular point.

Many have the same complaint. What's interesting is that R .C.

Sproul is not willing to acknowledge that this is what Calvinism teaches. He says it's not even hyper -Calvinism.

It is sub -Calvinism. However, let us see what John Calvin himself said. I think Calvinism has the right to be defined by the man after whom it is named.

Now, let's see if the quote, I'm only going to give one of them, but let's see if the quote he comes up with from Calvin is actually addressing the issue of God coercing evil out of men.

Okay, let's see if we've really got an understanding of the issue here. In his book, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 321 .5,

John Calvin wrote, By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God by which he determined with himself whatever he wished to happen with regard to every man.

All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others preordained to eternal damnation.

And accordingly, as each has been created for one or the other of these ends, we say that he has been predestined to life or to death.

So it sounds like Calvin simply taught this concept of equal ultimacy or double predestination, although Sproul calls that view sub -Calvinistic.

John Calvin then was sub -Calvinistic apparently. The same author. Now, see, that's not what

Calvin was talking about. And it's not equal ultimacy. A double predestination does not involve equal ultimacy as long as you recognize the difference between the nature of the decree of salvation and that of reprobation, that they do not involve coercing evil out of someone.

So, you know, I know that Sproul was the primary source he used. He read a little bit from Ness and read a little bit from Owen, but 90 % of the time he's going after R .C.

And so it bothers me just a little bit that if you're going to go after somebody, at least sort of, you know, it would strike me that there might be some recognition.

If you were to sort of step back and go, man, you know, you look at Princeton and you look at Edwards and you look at Machen and Hodge and, okay, you may disagree with these folks, but it might be good to recognize some of the greatest minds of exegesis and church history and theology actually believed these things and they weren't.

There might be a reason why they did. And you might want to enter into that just a little bit more before you, you know, you sort of take them out with that kind of thing.

Then I think I got to this morning, right, the beginning of my ride. I got to what I would consider to be the low point of the nine.

Certainly a whole lot lower than I expected it to go when reading or listening to the first programs. The first program, you know, gave me some hope of believing that there is going to be some decent representation and not a whole lot of mockery.

I honestly, this part, this part, I can't avoid the recognition that this is just mockery.

It's mockery of something that Mr. Gregg just doesn't understand. And it's mockery of something that's very important as well.

And so it was rather bothersome, but I think we need to hear it. Not be, but that Adam would sin is equally true, considering Adam was subordinate to the decrees of God, determining what

Adam would do out of the freedom of his own will. That is a funny statement, and it was written in 1700, but Calvinists have not stopped talking this way.

God determined flawlessly what Adam would do out of the freedom of his will.

So you've got Adam doing this out of the freedom of his will, but it was determined by the eternal decrees of God and could not happen any other way, but he was free.

Now, I stop it just for a moment. You can hear the laughter in his voice. Mr. Gregg does, simply does not believe that an eternal

God creating time, and again, I can't figure out what his theology is, because he affirms foreknowledge, but foreknowledge would mean that free creatures, what's the nature of their freedom?

Can they do something that violates the foreknowledge of God? Well, if they can't, then can they really do other than what God has known they were going to do?

And if when he created, he knew what they were going to do, then all you're saying is he didn't really have a purpose in what they were going to do, but he knew they were going to do, so he's responsible for it anyways, blah, blah, blah.

You know, there's all these theodicy issues that Armenians think they're avoiding when they aren't. And the only way they can really be consistent is to engage in open theism and deny

God's ability to know all things and future events. But be it as it may, what

Mr. Gregg refuses to allow for is that there can be a single action in which there are two wills involved.

Now, you have, you know, he keeps saying God makes all decisions for us, and blah, blah, blah, you know, the puppet stuff, and all the standard strawman argumentations, but Adam, of course, is the big bugaboo, because we're given very little information about Adam in the scriptures, about the nature of Adam before the fall.

We can only speculate about certain things, but all the examples we have of two wills acting in one particular event, one with evil intentions, one with good intentions, are after the fall.

We just don't have any revelation concerning the nature of Adam. And what Ness is saying is that somehow in the decree of God, there is a unity between God's purpose.

When God created, he didn't just sort of roll the dice and, oh, Adam fell. Boy, I didn't see that coming. He had a purpose in it, and yet Adam himself is free in what he does.

Now, Mr. Gregg does not like that idea, but he still has to answer the question that if God has foreknowledge of all future events, when he created all things, that somehow

God knew that was going to happen. And when God created, was he surprised that Adam fell? Did he have a purpose in Adam's falling?

He has to answer these things, and we don't get any of these answers, at least in the series that I have listened to. And so the problem here is that for Gregg, God's will must exist in time with man's equal to man's.

And that's how you say, well, you can't have this issue of freedom. You can't have an eternal God whose creative decree creates the very fabric of time itself and creates the matrix in which mankind is judged on the basis of the attitudes of his heart and his actions.

You can't have an eternal God who can create temporal beings who have moral choice and capability.

By definition says that is not possible. And, of course, that's why

I've been looking for these particular texts to find out if he's going to wrestle with them, and I've found no evidence of that. And so without any references to Acts 427 -28 and things like that, and with far too many references to Clark Pinnock, I'm left going, okay, this is one of the problems of the presentation.

To do something else, but God determined that he would do it this way. This is simply, as I said earlier, I'm trying to have your cake and eat it too, trying to have man responsible and free in his choices, and God responsible and determining, only actually

God not really that responsible. To say man did this out of the freedom of his own will is to say it's really his fault.

It's really man's fault. But God ordained that he would do it. In fact, decreed infallibly and sovereignly that he would do it.

That's the juggling act the Calvinist is forced to do. That somehow man is responsible and free, although everything he chose, he was determined by God infallibly he had to choose.

But that's still free. How this is so, well, it's a mystery. It truly is a mystery.

I would have to grant that. Yeah, you can hear the sarcasm there. It truly is a mystery.

It's going to get worse here in a second. But of course, again, we turn the very same question around.

How do you account for God's foreknowledge if in fact he does not have an eternal decree? Did time just turn out the way that it did based upon the actions of free men and God creates, looks at the end, sees, he wins?

Ah, good, glorify me. Could it have been otherwise? He'd have to say that it could have been otherwise.

But if it could be otherwise, then God might have created and the end was not what he wanted. So he just scraps the whole thing, starts all over again.

Is that what we've got? I mean, I really do have to wonder about the basis of such things as God's foreknowledge, the concept of prophecy.

All these things strike me as being rather without a foundation in Mr.

Gregg's theology. The two authors of Calvinism, Hyper -Calvinism, and Arminianism make this point.

The Reformed Christian may even biblically say that God has foreordained sin. For if sin was outside the plan of God, then we would have to maintain that God does not control all things and that some things come into being apart from his sovereign will.

Yet we would have to say that. We would have to say that God does not ordain all things and some things come to pass contrary to his sovereign will.

I actually noticed that he missed the point that the actual quotation was making. Some things come into being apart from his sovereign will and then

Gregg repeats that as come to pass apart from his sovereign will and doesn't see the point they're actually making.

That if this comes into being outside of his will, then something can happen in God's creation and there can be a change in that creation that was not a part of his will rather than something coming to pass that was not a part of his will which

Gregg understands to be every time we sin, we're violating God's will. He denies or functionally denies the difference between the prescriptive will of God and the decretive will of God.

That just does not even enter into the conversation which leads to a lot of his misunderstanding of the Reformed materials that he's reading.

At one level that is certainly true. God doesn't will for me to curse him.

By the way, I don't, but some people do and he doesn't will for them to either as far as the Bible is concerned and therefore he gets angry when they do and punishes them for it.

If he wanted it, he wouldn't get angry. Anyway, the

Calvinist assumes at the outset that all things are ordained by him and nothing happens outside his sovereign will.

He is not to be considered the author of sin, they say. Oh, this is so hard for them. You can just see the discomfort with which

Calvinists have to address this issue. In one statement they say, God has foreordained sin.

Then in the next sentence they say, he's not to be considered the author of sin.

Oh, okay, I get it. He foreordained it, but he's not the author of it.

Okay, what do you do with it? How do you solve this? Well, they'll work hard at it. Let me show you their valiant effort. They say

God was the divine first cause whereas godless men were the second cause. Nothing is outside his sovereign purpose, including sin.

But the decree with reference to sin is permissive rather than an efficient decree.

Notice they disagree with Calvin on this. That is, it is a decree that renders sin in absolute certainty but is not brought about by a direct divine act.

Ah, okay, so God ordained sin by a decree that renders sin in absolute certainty.

In other words, God guarantees it. God makes it certain. God decrees it in such a way as nothing else can happen.

Okay, but he's not the author of it. He's the divine first cause, but he's not the author. Oh, this is deep stuff.

It's shoveled high and deep. It's very deep stuff. It's deep theology, but it's not biblical theology, as near as I can tell.

Well, I was taken aback. Shoveled high and deep.

Well, we all know what that refers to. You see, if Mr. Gregg had ever actually had to do something more than just throw his traditions at Genesis 50, ignore

Isaiah 10, ignore Acts 4, and it actually had to deal with them and struggle with them and actually exegete them, then

I just don't think that he'd be able to, in such a cavalier fashion, mock the reality of the difference between primary causes and secondary causes, the difference between being the author of something and decreeing something, author that comes forth from one's being, from one's nature, things like that.

He might have to actually deal with that stuff, but he just hasn't. And since he hasn't, then he can sort of get into the mood there and start doing the ha -ha -ha type thing and sort of laughing at these things.

And I would love to be able to play his comments on those texts and compare them with Scripture, but I can't, because I just didn't really sort of bother dealing with them.

Same thing in John 8. I didn't really deal with Jesus' statements in John 8 that are so clear and compelling as well in regards to the reason you don't hear the words of God is because you don't belong to Him and things like that.

But there were a number. One of the things that caused me to want to do this program today, even though I'm going out of town tomorrow,

I've got lots of stuff to do, but I'm taking the time to do this, is there were some exegetical comments made that we can actually get into the text and say,

Mr. Gregg, you said this. The text says this. Here are the rules. You are wrong. What will you do?

What will you do? What answers will you come up with when you are shown you're just wrong?

You missed the boat. You said the rules of Greek grammar say this. You're wrong. That's not what the rules of Greek grammar say.

What will you do? And so we're going to get a chance to look at some of those, because the next section is where he attempts to deal with two particular texts in the text of the

New Testament. The first is 1 Peter 2 .8, which says, And a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

For they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were appointed.

Or a little bit more literally, honestly, is the ESV, and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do. This is the rather clear statement of 1

Peter 2 .8. And then the other text is from Jude 4.

For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our

God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. And so here you have two texts, and they make reference to this idea of ordination, this idea of being appointed to a particular action of disobedience.

And so how is he going to respond to them? Well, let's find out. Those verses in 1

Peter and Jude, this one, even to them, 1 Peter 2 .7 and 8, even to them which stumble at the word being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed.

Now, what does this mean, they were appointed? Were they appointed to stumble and to be disobedient?

That is to say, did God make some sovereign decree that these particular individuals, from the day of their birth, they were determined by God, and He desired it, that they would be disobedient and stumble?

Well, again, the verse kind of sounds that way at first glance, but anyone can tell if they're objective that the verse doesn't necessarily involve that particular concept.

It says these people stumble at the word being disobedient. What that means is they were disobedient, resulting in them stumbling at the word, which result was ordained by God.

Now, let me make sure you understand what he's saying. What he's saying here is what

God has ordained is that those who are disobedient and stumble at the, if they're disobedient, then they'll stumble at the word.

So, what you need to hear, and this is where people sometimes struggle with this. Many of the questions

I've gotten from people have demonstrated that they struggle at this particular point. What is it that has been ordained?

What is it that has been ordained? Now, in his understanding, what has been ordained is that people who are disobedient and stumble at the word will be punished.

And you see, that's true. There's a perfectly true statement that those who are disobedient to God can expect punishment.

That's a true statement. And so, what people who want to get around what the Bible teaches about this, hear that true statement and go, oh, well, there it is.

There you go. The problem is when you look at the term, etetheisan, ha -kai etetheisan, the last three terms, ais ha -kai etetheisan, unto which also they were appointed.

It's a plural. However you want to work this thing out, it's a aorist passive.

They were appointed unto ha, unto this, ha -sei ha.

Now, this is the neuter. And we're going to find out, this is a point of weakness in Mr. Gregg's presentation is he doesn't seem to understand that that neuter very frequently is used to wrap up the entire preceding phrase.

That's why the ESV renders it the way it is, the way that I read it for you earlier. That is, as they were destined to do.

And so, they were destined unto this. This wraps up the preceding phrase.

And the preceding phrase uses, the term that is translated to stumble is the ones stumbling at the word.

Being disobedient. And so, it's a plural.

Each one of these is the plural. And so, there is no way to stick a singular thing in here that is punishment or judgment.

The ones who are appointed, they are appointed. That plural is consistent all the way through the text.

There's no way to say, well, what was appointed was punishment. No. Unto which they were appointed.

They were appointed to stumble and be disobedient. That's what it says.

You may not like it. You may not want it to say that.

But you can't just go, well, what it really means. The way it's going to say is, this is an equally good reading he's going to offer.

No, I'm sorry, it's not. You've got to explain. You've got to exegete. You've got to bring out of the text the basis upon which you say that what was actually appointed is that God will judge sinners.

There is no word doom here. You notice, he's going to focus on the word doom. Doom is in italics in NASB. There is no term doom here.

That's why I said the ESV is a little bit more literal at that point when it says, because they disobeyed the word as they were destined to do.

There is no word doom. So, you can't say, oh, well, see, their doom is what's appointed. No, there is no word doom for that to be the object of appointed.

Besides that, appointed is plural. It's they. And they're the ones who are stumbling.

They're the ones who are disobedient. And they're the ones appointed unto that.

That's what it says. I mean, there's the text. And so, Mr. Gregg, exegetically, where do you get this conclusion?

Where does it come from outside of your tradition? And you have your traditions. I know you say the Calvinists only have theirs.

Where do you get this from the text? That is, whereunto also they were appointed. Were they as individuals appointed to stumble and to be disobedient?

Or did God appoint in advance that those who are disobedient would, in fact, stumble? They happened to choose to be disobedient and, therefore, fell into that appointed class.

Now, at least both interpretations are equally. Now, I just heard something that I want to point out here.

He is making a distinction in the time frames between the disobedience and the stumbling.

Both of the verb that is used, to stumble, is a present tense verb.

And to disbelieve and to disobey is a present tense participle.

So, again, Mr. Gregg, upon what basis are you introducing this temporal distinction upon which you're basing your entire interpretation?

Where does that come from in the text itself? Possible from the passage. That is to say, they stumbled being disobedient.

That means, because they were disobedient, they stumbled. And this stumbling was something

God had appointed would happen to disobedient people. God had determined that disobedient people would stumble at the

Word. That's a judgment on them. It doesn't necessarily mean that he appointed these individuals to be disobedient.

But, rather, they fall into the general condemnation that comes on all disobedient people because they are disobedient. And God appointed this punishment for disobedient people.

So, did you catch that? There it is. There it is. God appointed this punishment.

So, the object of appointment here is punishment. So, why is appointment, why is etetheison plural?

Why is it plural if it is a singular thing? See? This is what

I mean. This is why I say, let's go into the text. Let's do this on our programs.

And let Mr. Gregg answer my questions and I'll answer his. We'll have our

Greek text in front of us. We'll have the Septuagint. We'll have the Hebrew text. We'll answer the questions directly.

That's what I would like to see done. And they are them. Likewise in Jude.

Similarly, Jude 4. For there are certain unencrypted unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation.

Well, God planned long ago to condemn such wicked men that he describes, ungodly men.

It doesn't mean that God ordained these particular men to be ungodly, but he did. Now, to catch it, so what

God ordained was to punish wicked men. That's all this is saying.

And yet, again, what does the text say? What is the assertion of the text?

Those who were long ago marked out.

That is, to write before. Pragrapho. And it's in the perfect tense.

And Hoy is going with the participle here.

The having been beforehand marked out of old unto this judgment, ungodly ones.

So what's being marked out? Judgment? No, that's not what it says.

That is not what it says. It's eis tuta takrimah, unto this judgment.

But it is they who are marked out. They're the ones marked out.

This isn't just a bland statement that says, well, God will judge unrighteous people.

Well, it's true. God will judge unrighteous people. Yep, that's correct. God will judge unrighteous people.

But that's not what the text itself is saying. This is called eisegesis, based upon tradition.

And you see how it functions here. It was ordained long ago that ungodly men would be condemned in the manner that is described.

Yes, God could, in the councils of eternity before He created man, determine that when men are ungodly,

He will condemn them. As a general rule, that's God's sovereign choice to condemn ungodly men. But that's not the same thing as saying, therefore

He picked this man, this man, and this man to be ungodly so He can condemn them. These verses still leave open the possibility, and the rest of Scripture makes it plain that it is so, that men make their own choice to be ungodly.

Now, immediately, massive red herring, massive straw man. Every Calvinist is going, ah!

Of course they make their own choice to do so. What he means by that is autonomous choice. There can't be a decree of God.

They can't be acting on their own nature. This isn't something they can want to be doing. And every

Calvinist says, not only do they want to be, but if it weren't for the restraint of God and the common grace of God, they'd be so much worse than they are.

God restrains them. He never did deal with God keeping a bimlech from committing sin.

It didn't address any of those things. There was so much that wasn't addressed. But again, no one would say otherwise, but you get the straw man argumentation at that point.

But when they do, they fall under the condemnation that God foreordained for ungodly men. That those make their own choice to be disobedient, and when they do, they stumble with the foreordained or preappointed judgment that comes upon disobedient people.

These verses do not teach that God has individually selected certain people that he just decided not to love or care for and said he's going to take a little pleasure in seeing these people squirm in the flames of hell.

So he made them be bad. Again, like I said, this was the low point.

The high goals of the first tape didn't make it to the ninth at all.

God just wants to see them squirm in hell. This is the difference again. I'm sorry, but this is the difference between man -centered salvation and God -centered salvation.

This is the same objections you get from Mormons and Roman Catholics and everybody else. It's the difference between recognizing that God is glorified in the punishment of the wicked in the vindication of his holiness, and then this ridiculous strawman argument, he just likes to torture people in hell.

That's beneath the high goals that Mr. Gregg set for himself from the beginning by a long shot.

I would think anyone who claims to have read at least some of the books he claims to have read would have a better understanding than that.

They just would not make that kind of a statement. So they could do that. Again, the verses by themselves might be rendered that way, and if they could be rendered no other way than that, then we would have to say, well, this is the

God of the Bible. So, Mr. Gregg, now I would challenge you.

Go back into the text and explain what I've said. Tell me how hoi palai, the ones, plural, from of old, pra -ge -gram -menoi, there's the plural again, before, pra -grapho, marked out, written out, before, not just, and in the same type of format,

Scripture has been written. Written out beforehand, ais tu -ta -ta -krama. Tell me how that substantiates your position.

Go to 1 Peter and explain the grammar.

Where are you getting your distinctions? This is called eisegesis.

You've said it's at least equal. That means you should be able to give just as clear an understanding of the text as I've given.

Based upon the grammar, the syntax, you should be able to give the exact same clarity, right?

If it's equal, if they're equal with one another. Now, the problem is, they're not equal with one another, which is where your problem is.

But if you're going to say that, and if you can't come up with an answer, then you just said, this is the God of the

Bible, and therefore you're going to have to change your perspective. The trouble is with that, is that these verses don't have to be understood that way.

They are equally justly understood another way. And the other way that they can be understood is agreeable with the rest of Scripture.

God ordains the ends. Man decides which path he'll take to which end.

See that? God only determines the ends. But the paths to get to the ends are determined by man.

Now, of course, paths go different directions, and so I'm not sure how that would even happen. How could prophecy take place? How could

Cyrus be singled out, and he is going to be the one to let the people go? It just doesn't work that way.

But that's what's being asserted. We have a few people listening, actually, in our chat channel, even though we didn't announce the program, because we just sort of did this on the fly.

And David, listening, just quoted an interesting text that I thought I'd throw in here, because I think it is quite relevant, and that's

Ezekiel 36 -23. I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst.

Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove myself holy among you in their sight.

Now, that is just one of many that very clearly proclaim the fact that God has a purpose, even in the punishment and the existence of the wicked.

And when you listen to Romans 9, if you don't hear God saying in Romans 9 that he wants his power and his glory to be made known, if that's not high up on your priority list, if you're much more of a man -centered person, and your priorities have to do, of course, with man's free will and issues like that, then you're not going to understand that.

And that leads to eisegesis of these texts, which is, in essence, what we've been seeing here with these things.

Now, there are other very practical ramifications. Mr. Gregg went into a discussion.

He does not believe in unconditional eternal security. And he believes that you can be one of Christ's sheep and stop being one of Christ's sheep.

And he says this is rare, and he says that it's much more likely that those who fall away never knew

Christ, but it is possible. And he has to say that, because if you're going to maintain your autonomous free will, then if it was your autonomous free will that got you into Christ, then your autonomous free will can get you out of Christ.

And so the result, then, is he recognizes that in the Gospel of John, for example, saving faith is an ongoing faith, and as long as you continue to have that faith, then you're secure.

But since his kind of faith is not a divine faith, it's not a gift from God, it's not the result of the regenerated soul, the regenerated nature, which naturally clings to Christ, then it's something you've got to keep up.

You've got to keep that faith up. God will help you, God will extend grace to you, but you might fail. And the only reason you're secure is because you just don't intend to ever fall.

Well, you know, sometimes things happen in life that can really change your intentions. And here's an interesting discussion about sheep that comes from this same section.

Again, I think it really illustrates why these points are so important. ...implied while he's keeping

Christ's sayings. If a man is keeping Christ's sayings, he will not, while doing so, ever see death.

John 10, 28, I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, implying that as long as they are his sheep.

Can a sheep of Christ ever cease to be a sheep of Christ? Now, his sheep will not perish, but what if one who was once a sheep is no longer a sheep?

Will he perish then? That's a different story. Can a sheep of Christ depart?

Absolutely. Now, no one can pluck them out of his hand, but sheep can wander off.

It says in Isaiah 53, verse 6, All we like sheep have gone astray. That's the whole...

Now, wait a minute. Do you cease being one of the sheep, or do you wander off?

Those aren't the same things. You see what I mean? Either you're still a sheep and you just wandered off, or you're no longer a sheep at all.

So, you mean we can change our nature? He's mixing metaphors here. That's because he's mixing context, not dealing with the original context, and running off to another context, which is standard

Arminian ex Jesus. But notice the difference between the two. You can cease being the sheep, which means you wander off as a sheep.

Well, when you wander off, you cease being a sheep? Did the sheep that wander off cease being sheeps? What'd they become? I don't know.

We'll have to ask Milo Hotzenbuehler about what happens to sheep when they wander off, because he's an expert on those things.

But I personally have no idea. The whole nation of Israel there, all we have gone astray. Some turn back and return to the shepherd, some don't.

A sheep that is no longer under the oversight of the shepherd is not his sheep anymore. Maybe it was, but it's not now. If he doesn't know where it is, or if he knows where it is, he has no control over it, it's wandering on its own.

So, let's keep things in mind here, folks. The sheep choose the shepherd, okay?

The sheep choose the shepherd, and the sheep choose whether they're going to stay with the shepherd. The shepherd has no choice over who his sheep are.

I just want to make sure that we understand that this is what's seriously being suggested is the mindset behind Jesus' utilization of this metaphor.

It is not following him. Of course, God is a great shepherd. He never loses track of where his sheep are, but though he knows, he does not always have control over them.

If they wander astray and go out of the way that he wants them to go, and Isaiah says that all

Israel has done that, all we like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way.

Proves very clearly that one can be one of God's sheep. That Solomon said, we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.

Now, it is amazing to me that someone can so, in such a facile fashion, confuse the context of Isaiah and John.

It doesn't make any effort to try to say these are the exact same context, the exact same use of sheep, every use of sheep in all the

Bible, they're all equal to one another. No, they're not. I mean, in John chapter 10, isn't the point that Jesus says, these are my sheep, and he says to the

Jews, you ain't? You aren't my sheep. The reason you don't believe is because you're not my sheep.

He's been explaining the unbelief of the Jews from back in John chapter 5. Why not stay in John for the context of these things?

Why run to Isaiah for these things? Well, because if you stay in John, you're not going to be able to make your point. Your tradition blinds you to it.

Israel. But did Israel ever go astray? Yes. Did some of them die in their sins? Absolutely. Did they go to heaven?

No. Yet they were his sheep. When Jesus says, I give my sheep eternal life and they shall never perish, and no one can pluck them out of my

Father's hand, he's saying, as long as they are my sheep, they are secure. I do not believe in eternal insecurity.

I am secure, and I'm secure forever, because I intend... Drat. I intend to remain a sheep, is what he said.

I just... You know, when you're selecting sound files, it's difficult sometimes to get exact... I intend to remain a sheep!

Well, congratulations. But you might not. And the very idea that it's up to you to determine your nature is, again, the vast difference between man -centered religion and God -centered religion.

I think the Good Shepherd actually is the one who chooses his sheep. And I think the Good Shepherd is the one when he says he gives eternal life unto them and they shall never perish, it means they shall never perish.

Period. Not, well, God won't cast them out and nobody else can pluck them out of my hand, but you might jump out yourself!

Oh, yeah, that's a real good shepherd. Mm -hmm. Yeah. Right. Sorry. This is so grossly acontextual and so far from the meaning of the text that it's really difficult to take it exceptionally seriously because it's just so far from the intention and it's ignoring the context.

It's not following the flow of John. This is not exegesis. This is eisegesis. That's all there is to it.

Now, remember, Mr. Gregg accuses us of the same thing, but so far, in what we've examined, and when

I get back from my trip, we're going to look at Romans 9 and really illustrate this, hasn't been overly difficult to demonstrate which side's doing the eisegesis.

And it's not our side. Now, this next one, and we've only got, let's see here, two more clips to play, and we'll be wrapping up today's program.

This next one left me... Now, I was writing, so, yeah,

I was breathing hard anyways. I had an average heart rate of 161 beats per minute today, but it left me gasping for breath for a completely different reason.

And the reason that it did so is because this had never crossed my mind.

I had never, ever, ever heard somebody come up with this. And I've heard some weird things about Acts 13, 48.

I mean, you know, everybody becomes a Greek expert and starts turning, you know, periphrastic constructions into stuff and also decides that passes should be middles and comes up with all sorts of wacky stuff, and he's done that already in a previous tape.

But this one I've never heard. I mean, this one rivals Dave Hunt's Hebrew original.

It really does. You know, the Hebrew original of Acts thing, you know, the never -before -seen

Hebrew original manuscripts of Acts that tell us that these men disposed themselves. You know, the

New World translation of Jehovah's Witnesses, disposed. He actually comes up with an even stronger viewpoint, self -disposed, which is amazing that anyone could think that an enemy of God would be self -disposed to repentance and belief and eternal life.

But those things aside, I had never heard anyone try to present this interpretation, this argument.

Never, ever in my life did I admit I learned something today. I will be a better Reformed apologist should anyone ever present this again because I will be able to refrain from laughing.

Because I'm sorry, this has got to be one of the silliest arguments against Calvinists I've ever heard in my entire life.

I'll just let you listen to it for yourself. An important verse, Acts 13, 48,

I gave several reasons for not seeing it in the particularly Calvinistic twist. Acts 13, 48,

When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

Remember I said at that point, this could easily mean, and I think it does in the context, as many as were self -disposed toward eternal life believed, as opposed to those who judged themselves unworthy of eternal life in the previous two verses.

But another support for this interpretation rather than the Calvinist interpretation is if it is saying as many as were predestined to become

Christians believed. What this means is that on that day when

Paul preached in Pisidia, Antioch, everyone in that town who was a predestined to be saved got saved on that day.

That means not one more person got saved after that in that town because all those who were ever predestined to be saved got saved.

There were no more there in that town to get saved because all those who were appointed ever to receive salvation received it then and there.

And that seems to me very unlikely. I doubt that Luke was saying that. I doubt that Luke was trying to say, okay, here's what happened.

Paul preached to everyone who would ever go to heaven in that town got saved that one day. Which is to say there's no need for further evangelism in that town.

And I'm not sure how Luke would even know that. How would Luke know that everyone who would ever be, especially since no one knows, it's in the secret counsels of God who is predestined, who is not according to Calvinism.

How would Luke know that everyone who was ever predestined in that town to get saved got saved on that occasion? Do you see what

I'm saying? All we can say is that not everyone who is going to get saved is saved now.

And not everyone who got saved that day, not everyone who was ever going to get saved in Antioch got saved that day, in all likelihood.

Of course, it's possible that they did. And a Calvinist could be very hard -nosed about this and say that's what the

Bible says. I believe it. But what I'm saying is that's a very unlikely prospect that no one ever got saved in that town again after that day because none others were appointed to salvation.

The proof is that all who were appointed got saved that day. But if we understand that to mean that all who were at that moment disposed toward eternal life got saved on that occasion, that makes perfectly good sense.

But if you're going to make it an absolute decree of predestination and all who were predestined from eternity past to have eternal life got saved right then, then it's going to force an interpretation of the verse that is not necessary and doesn't seem to my mind extremely natural or likely to be correct.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Wow. I've just never heard anything like that before.

And I've talked about this verse with cultists and I've never heard anything like this.

I really haven't. I'm just left going, what? I mean, okay.

How many errors can we have here? First of all, he says, now if we understand this as disposed, well, that would just mean those who were disposed that day believed.

Well, why wouldn't that be the same as appointed? That day believed. Those that were there.

That makes no sense. It's so obvious that the Ha -Soi -Ei -San -Te -Tag -Me -Noi for as many as have been appointed

Ais -Zoen -Io -Ne -On unto eternal life. Epistu -San believed. They believed.

And the Ha -Soi -Ei -San -Te -Tag -Me -Noi has as its antecedent defining who it is that did so the

Gentiles who heard this. That would be those who heard the proclamation of Paul.

There is nothing about the entire city. In fact, why limit to the city? I mean, this is such a ridiculous argument that I guess it would mean that if the

Calvinists are right and all English translations are rendered this way except for the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses that they've all been influenced by the

Calvinists that what that really means is that all the elect in the world were saved that day. I mean, why not go there?

There's nothing in the text that would even begin to suggest such an absurd reading of it.

And yet, that's what we heard. And I've listened to it three times now to make sure.

Am I missing something here? But I'm not. And as many as have been appointed to eternal life believed is defined by the

Gentiles who heard the preaching who were there that day. And it would not mean anybody else in the rest of the city. It would not mean the next week.

It would not mean there would not be evangelism. But the antecedents right there and it's obvious. And that's why

I think I've never heard this argument before because it doesn't lack merit.

It has zero merit. I mean, it's just there's nothing there of any substance at all.

I would like to invite Mr. Greg to abandon that one, man. Take that one out of the notes and go, whoops, that one's as bad as Jimmy Akin when he came up with his aggressive heiress argument in the radio debate we did on eternal security.

He now today laughs at that and says, wow, that was really silly. But that was primary argument he was making.

So I guess he admits he lost that debate. But anyway, really, really bad.

Okay, one more. And then we will wrap up this Radio Free Geneva and I'll be headed northward to cooler climes for a while.

Here's one more in regards to the gift of faith. Philippians 129,

Paul says, For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake.

Now notice, it was granted to you by God to believe in Christ. So faith has been granted like a gift.

And repentance has been granted like a gift. And of course we've got all Ephesians 2, the important verse there, 8 and 9, it says,

By grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest any should boast.

It is said, see there, Faith is not of yourself, it's a gift of God. This seems to support the

Calvinist notion that you don't originate repentance, you don't originate faith, it doesn't come from your will, it's

God who gives it to you. Now all I can say in the short time I have left here is

A, when it says, It is the gift of God, not of works, it doesn't refer to faith. Faith in the

Greek is a feminine word, and it, in that same passage, is a neuter.

And there's a law of Greek grammar, a rule, that the pronoun has to agree in gender and number with the noun.

It is not faith that he says is the gift of God, it's salvation that is the gift of God.

By grace you've been saved. It, that salvation, is the gift of God, not of works. It doesn't mean that faith is the gift of God, not of works.

Whoever suggested that faith came by works, but many people suggest that salvation comes by works. That's what Paul's saying.

He's not telling us that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is. It's not of works, it's of faith.

Okay, you know, when someone says there are rules of Greek grammar, it always helps when they know what the rules of Greek grammar are.

And it would help, this is a clear illustration of how a little

Greek is a dangerous thing, a very dangerous thing. And it's not that this has not been so fully discussed so frequently in Reformed works.

And it has been. I mean, I've addressed it over and over and over and over and over again, and I'm just the, you know,

Johnny come lately on the scene. This has been explained over and over again.

And again, it seems that he is really functioning on the

English text because when he says it is the gift of God, the actual that it is is in italics in the

New American Standard Bible because it's not there. It's literally, and that not from yourselves, the gift of God.

All right. So it is, is understood anyway. The issue is, what does tuta refer to?

Kai tuta uke ex humone. That not, and that not from or out of yourselves.

What is the that referring to? Now, Calvinists do not say that that means only faith.

And he's right. Faith, pista os, is a feminine and tuta is a neuter.

But did you hear what he said? He said what it is is salvation. The problem is that's masculine and grace is a feminine.

There is nothing neuter in the preceding context for that to refer to if, if the rule, the law that was pronounced is actually a rule or law, which it isn't.

And this takes us back to the example we saw in a preceding verse, I believe it was 1 Peter 2, 8, where you have a neuter, a neuter demonstrative specifically, as we have it here in tuta, wrapping up a preceding phrase.

The neuter is very frequently utilized in that fashion. And that's what's being used here.

The tuta uke ex humone is referring to the entirety of that phrase, the grace, the salvation and the faith.

Because if, if Mr. If Mr. Greg's position is true and your faith saves you and everybody else is capable of doing the same thing you're doing and God's trying to save everybody and you do it and they don't, then you will have grounds of boasting because you did the right thing and they didn't.

Now he'll say, oh, but it's not a work. That's not the point. It's not the point whether it is or is not a work. The point is you did it and they didn't.

And if we're all on equal level and we're not really enemies of God and it really doesn't take the grace of God to raise us to spiritual life, we're really not spiritually dead.

Then the result is you somehow were better. You somehow did something that somebody else didn't do.

And it was something that was pleasing to God. In fact, it's interesting. He read Romans chapter 8, where it says no one can do what is pleasing to God.

And I never heard the explanation of that. Maybe it was in that 15 minutes I missed some place. But I never heard the explanation.

So here you just had a glorious example of how little Greek is a dangerous thing.

That's neuter and faith is feminine so therefore it can't be faith. But sesismenoi is masculine and karite is feminine.

So exactly how would your rule work here? See, that's why we need to debate these things because I'll ask that question.

I'll let Mr. Greg know right now. One of the first questions I'll ask you when we get into the subject of the nature of faith. You have said this.

Defend it. Tell us. Tell us in light of the text. In light of the text that there must be a neuter in there.

It seems according to your own rule that you're saying salvation is a neuter noun. Is that what you're saying? Well, it's not. We know it's not.

And I'm sure Mr. Greg will listen to this and so he knows it's not. So what's going to happen? Well, don't know.

But that's why we do debates and let everybody else listen to find out.

Now, I do not deny that God grants both faith and repentance. But in what sense? In the Calvinist sense of an absolute, sovereign, irresistible thing?

Or is it more that God offers to us the option which he is not required to offer to us?

So let's apply that to one of the texts that was cited because it doesn't get... Philippians 1, 29

For it has been offered as an option to you for Christ's sake, not only to believe in him, but it has been offered as an option to you to suffer for his sake.

That's what Paul's saying. Actually, the term granted in Philippians 1, 29 is charizomai.

You know, it's related to charis, to give freely, graciously. In behalf of Christ, it has been granted to us behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.

It is just a given. Christians understood that it had been given to them to believe in Christ, to have faith in Christ.

That faith, that present tense, ongoing faith, the reason that Jesus Christ can be a perfect savior and lose none of those given to him,

John 6, 38 -39, not because they're already self -disposed, but lose none of those that are given to him in John 6, 38 -39 is because the ongoing faith they have is the work of the

Holy Spirit in their hearts, in their lives. It creates them as new creatures in Christ. And it's natural for the new creation in Christ to believe in Jesus.

That's the difference between God -centered salvation and man -centered salvation. He would never have to convict me of sin.

He could let me go on. He could give me over to my corruption and just leave me in my way. But instead, he mercifully puts roadblocks.

He mercifully influences. He mercifully convicts of sin. And when I finally, if and when

I finally repent, I say it was of God. But, God is also doing that to all sorts of other people who will not do that, which means all of that effort, even though for some reason

God knew from eternity past he'd fail, he keeps doing it anyways. And it's always the final decision has to be man's.

Isn't this exactly how Roman Catholics argue? That they believe in sola gratia?

Well, it's God's grace that's provided all this. We could not be saved in and of ourselves, but that grace is not sufficient to save.

It's necessary, but not sufficient. I found odd that when he was earlier in an earlier tape going after Martin Luther and Bondage the

Will, I did not hear him mentioned. And I could be wrong. Maybe he did. I did not hear him mention that Bondage the

Will was a debate book, that it was a book that he was debating someone else on. And maybe he didn't want to mention this because he knows who he was debating.

He was debating Desiderius Erasmus. And Erasmus was a Roman Catholic priest. And maybe he knows he is taking the position against the

Reformers. He's taking Rome's position here on the nature of grace and human will. We need to understand that's exactly what he's doing.

That's exactly what Arminianism is. That's why Reformed people detested it so much because they saw it as a return to the very battles that they thought they had just finished fighting in the

Reformation itself. God graciously granted me the option of repentance.

Likewise, faith. If I believe, it's only after God has done very many things, like convince me, persuade me.

He had to create the gospel in the first place. He had to send Jesus. He didn't have to, but in order for me to believe the gospel, there must first be a gospel.

God had to do all the prior things, none of which was he obligated to do. He simply did that out of his generosity and graciousness of his heart.

So, to apply that then to Philippians 1 .29, then it would have to be that we should understand that to mean that God has graciously granted to you the option and the possibility of believing and the option and the possibility of suffering.

Evidently, that's how we are to understand that, or something along those lines.

It's difficult, really, to understand. Well, there you go.

My flight's tomorrow, so I'm not going to be able to do any more Radio Free Geneva's before I get back, obviously. And so, when we get back, we will address the issue of the text in Romans chapter 9 and what that is all about and address that particular subject.

And I think you'll find that to be most useful at that point in time.

Be that as it may, thank you for joining us on the Dividing Line and specifically on Radio Free Geneva on this

Friday afternoon. I hope this has been useful to you. God bless. Thanks for listening.