A Little Francis, But Mainly Responding to Jared Longshore

Greetings and welcome to the Dividing Line. It would be good if I, uh, I don't even know how it did that. Rich and I had tested everything and then somehow it switched audio output before we got started again.

I don't know. It's, uh, we've come up with various theories over the years as to how electronic stuff can work during the test and then do weird things afterwards. So, um, anyway, um, strange stuff. So Pope Francis, uh, we're, we're still in St. Charles by the way.

And, um, uh, I leave tomorrow, uh, heading for Sedalia, Missouri. I'll be doing stuff there in Sedalia. There's the stuff's all on the calendar at the front page. Um, locations, times, stuff like that.

Um, on a Wednesday night and Thursday night. And then I go to Kansas city and we're doing stuff Friday night, Saturday night, I think. Uh, and Sunday. And then I start the trip home and it's going to be a long trip home.

Um, in the sense that I'm trying to do it in big chunks. So there'd be long days, um, long days in the saddle, but that's, uh, I've got to get back, uh, so we can see the Messiah, uh, with my grandkids.

Uh, and I'm looking forward to that anyway. Um, so for those of you wondering where we are and it's actually, I can see blue sky. I mean, it's getting dark already here, but a lot of rain over the past few days and it's been windy and stuff like that.

But, uh, that's, that's the Midwest, I guess. Um, a little bit different living in Arizona. So Pope Francis, uh, was not well enough to deliver his own, um, speech at the, um, you know, the place where all the people fly and burning fossil fuels call upon everybody else to stop using fossil fuels.

Uh, what's called COP 28 is the, uh, is the thing. Uh, yeah, COP 28. And, uh, we were told that Pope Francis has called for the elimination of fossil fuels in a historic speech to the UN. Uh, he was suffering from a lung infection, was too unwell to deliver the speech.

So it was given by Cardinal Pietro Peralin, the Vatican's Secretary of State. He said, destruction of the environment is an offense against God, a sin that greatly endangers all human beings, especially the most vulnerable in our midst and threatens to unleash a conflict between generations.

Now it is painfully, painfully, painfully obvious that Pope Francis is a liberation theologian. He is a complete leftist and he is completely sold out to the climate fraud. And it is a fraud. It is easily demonstrated to be a fraud, but you don't see debates on it, uh, because it is the narrative and there won't, you're not allowed, uh, to question these things.

And it won't be long until any speech like what I'm giving right now will be suppressed as well. But I want you to understand something. Um, he, he says, are we working for a culture of life or a culture of death?

To all of you, I make this heartfelt appeal. Let us choose life. Now here's the real problem. Well, there's a lot of problems here. Um, culture of life and culture of death is language that has been developed over the past number of decades in regards to the abortion issue, but it's obviously bigger than that.

But by associating the abortion issue with the, uh, fantasy, the fiction of carbon dioxide is, is killing the earth and we're boiling the oceans and all the other idiocy, which is simply untrue. There is no evidence of it.

That when they try to produce evidence, they're, they're, you know, taking a chart that's this big and they, they show you this part over here or they, they ignore it. It's just, it is so plainly driven by money and power.

Um, it's, it's just a narrative that has, that is being used by the globalists to put you in a 15 minute concentration camp, to make it impossible for you to travel, uh, to communicate with others, uh, face to face anyways, um, and to limit you so that the global elites will have the ability to crash the world's population, which is going to happen one way or the other, uh, crash the world's population and they get to live and all the rest of us either die or just serve them.

Uh, and it's amazing. We can see these enslavers right now. They're right in front of us. We can see their faces. We know their names and they're just allowed to get away with whatever they want to get away with because they have captured the educational system, which is now nothing but an indoctrination system.

And those who have been indoctrinated just believe whatever they're told to believe. So the Pope is one of them. The head of the Roman Catholic Church. Now you can sit here and say, well, he's just a deceived old man and stuff like that.

Okay. If you want to, if you want to say that, uh, I'm not sure that that's actually the case in the sense that, you know, he's one of these global elites, but go ahead and take that route if you want.

You have the Bishop of Rome associating with abortion. Now, hey, he's put people with clear pro-choice stances on Vatican commissions in regards to abortion over the past couple of years. So he supports Father Martin and the LGBTQ stuff and we see what's happening there.

So is this, is this part of, you know, a whole bunch of stuff that he's doing? Maybe, but the issue here is he's talking about, he's associating culture of death, which is a real thing. It's a vitally important thing.

The problem is the LGBTQ plus movement is a part of the culture of death and he is positive toward that. Positive in the sense of seeking to find, uh, a way to be more inclusive and, and, um, you know, that kind of terminology.

Anyway, um, he's calling for the abolition of fossil fuels. Now fossil fuels is a misleading term. Initially it was thought that oil and things like that was decaying, uh, remains of animals that lived millions of years ago.

We, we know that's not the case. We know that the earth actually, it's actually renewable, that the earth actually produces this kind of stuff. But you need to understand something, and this is something people do not understand.

The advancements in medicine, education, travel, and the lifting up of so many peoples in third world countries to a level of, uh, life and property and food that they never had before is due to the use of affordable sources of energy, specifically quote-unquote fossil fuels, coal, oil, shale, uh, these, these types of things.

These are affordable sources of energy. Solar and wind are not. They, you know, they wear out over time. They're extremely expensive if it were not for government subsidies. In other words, your tax dollars, uh, for example, EVs.

Um, the, I saw a study recently that said that, that the average EV, if it didn't have government subsidy, subsidies behind it for its original cost, construction, charging stations, if it was, if it, if it was all that we had, which is what the government wants, um, the cost equivalency um, would be $77 per gallon.

That's, that's what it would be, that would, what it would cost in current fuel sources would be $77 per gallon, which means none of us could afford it. No one could travel, which is what they want. They don't want us traveling.

If you can be limited to a, a gulag, uh, a concentration camp, they call them 15 minute cities. It's the same thing. Um, to where you can't travel any longer. You can't communicate. You can't meet with people.

That's what they want. That's what tyrants always want. Um, look, look back at medieval Europe. You know, people, people lived in 15 minute cities. They didn't travel more than seven miles any one direction from where they were born.

And they were serfs. And they, they, they dug a pitiful living out of the ground and died of diseases and served the king and queen up in the castle, or the Duke and the Duchess, depending on where you were.

And that's what they want to get. So that's, that's what these people are all about. That's, that's where we're going. And the Pope's helping. Um, so, but what, I can't believe the Pope doesn't know this, but what he's saying is stop making energy so affordable.

So who is most hurt by that? The very people he talks about all the time, the poor. I mean, how can he not know this? That what he is saying would fundamentally lead to the massive diminishment of the quality of life of the poor.

He's talking about we need to learn how to, uh, yeah. The Pope also called for a decisive acceleration in energy efficiency. Well, that's nice. Renewable sources, eliminating fossil fuels, and educating people to do without them.

We just need to educate you to become our serfs or just die or live in abject poverty, but we have to save mother earth. And it's a sin if we don't. Now look, there's, there's lots of Protestant leftist nutballs out there too, but this guy is supposed to be the infallible vicar of Christ on earth.

Ah, this isn't theology. Oh, saying something is sinful isn't theology. Hmm. I wonder how that works, but there you go. Um, this cop 28, you know, we, we used to just laugh at this stuff because it would all, they, they'd frequently get snowed out.

You know, just people couldn't get there because of the, of how cold it was in places. And, and we just laughed, but we shouldn't have been laughing because these people want us in gulags. They want, they don't want me to have the freedom to travel around to these places and meet.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm killing the planet. Well, no, I'm not. That's just an abject lie. But once it's established in law and you can't even question it any longer, what an effective way to, to lock everybody down.

Um, now speaking of which I'm seeing a bunch of stuff online about people, uh, going into places and they're getting locked down and, and, uh, it's coming again. And I've, I've said over and over again, you know, I know people are flying and doing their thing again.

And here I am in my RV and people like, wow, you're really stupid. You could be flying around the world again. Yep. No, I suppose, you know, we could have spent a whole lot of money to build back up my, uh, my access and all the rest of that kind of stuff.

But I'm sitting here going, we didn't fix what happened in 2020 and 2021. Um, stuff is still coming out. Stuff just came out from New Zealand. In fact, I read an article, they arrested a guy in New Zealand for publishing a study, um, demonstrating the fatality rates from various batches of COVID -19 vaccines.

He, he, he, it's, it's a scholarly study and they arrested him. And the people that forced that stuff into our bodies, the massive number of young people who have been dying of strange cancers and cardiac issues and, and blood clots and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

And yet it continues to happen. Well, uh, we're just supposed to ignore all that. We're, no one's been held accountable for any of that. And they never will be. Not in this life. They will be. There is a day coming.

Act 1731. Uh, they, they will be someday, but they're not right now. And they're still in charge. And so what's this new Chinese disease? Uh, white lung disease. Um, you'll notice the big thing they're pushing now is it goes after children because that, that's, COVID didn't do that.

So it didn't really work real well. And so the new one just in time for the 2024 election is, uh, white lung disease goes after kids. And I'm sorry if you can just sit there and go, well, we never know.

I mean, it could have happened. It could be, um, yeah. Uh, that's, that's why I said from the beginning, yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to keep my RV and we're going to put the studio in there and cause we ain't done.

This isn't over with yet. And I jokingly keep saying to the folks who are flying, okay, when you get locked down and when you can't get on that plane without that, uh, magic, uh, poison juice in your bloodstream.

Uh, and all of a sudden you're looking at finding some other way of getting around. Let me know. I'll be happy to share what I've learned and, uh, do some videos and get you up to speed faster than I got up to speed.

Cause I sort of had to learn things as we've been alone. So there you go. Um, that's, uh, that's how it happens. Um, okay. Uh, I, I had to, I had to make a decision as to where we were going to go today.

Uh, the, there are two topics. And, and so the idea being probably later in the week, I'm assuming Wednesday or Thursday, um, we'll be able to do another program. Um, tomorrow's going to be a travel day and, um, and maybe even do two we'll, we'll see if I'm feeling, feeling up to it.

Maybe, maybe we can one thing. And the problem is both of these topics take a fair amount of time for prep and preparation and, and things like that. Um, I have some videos, Jeff Durbin actually, uh, linked me to them.

They just popped up in his feed and, uh, they're from, uh, what was it? Uh, what was it called? Uh, St. Michael's Abbey, St. Michael's Abbey. And there's these guys dressed all in white and, um, they're really that, okay.

They're, they're condescending. They're, they're, uh, statements about Roman Catholic belief, but they're responding to Protestant belief, but they're, they're sort of arrogant. Just, just to put it bluntly, they don't show much knowledge of the other side, what the other side has to say.

And one of the topics that is addressed at one point, this rather portly, looks like Bishop type guy, um, is talking about how Jerome had utterly obliterated this heretic long ago about the, uh, uh, perpetual virginity of Mary and, and, and, and, and I'm sitting here going, okay, so we're talking about Helvidius.

Um, vast majority of people have never read what Jerome wrote in response to Helvidius as one of his earlier works. There's actually interesting evidence that Jerome didn't continue to hold the position that he held when he was younger, uh, maybe mature reflection later on.

Minimally, he made a few comments that make you go, huh, I wonder if he's rethinking that at a later point in time, but there's just fascinating information, uh, that demonstrates that the perspective that Jerome presented just is indefensible.

It, it really honestly is indefensible, and yet it is what is repeated over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And it's, that's, that's what just done this video. Oh, just Jerome answered that long ago, and we've just gone on from there.

But the reality is, it's, you know, it's got a huge number of holes in it. And, um, and of course they did the, uh, the Luther and Calvin thing as if they were central in studying any of this kind of stuff.

And, um, so we'll, we'll try to get some of that, because I think it's, I think it's important. There's a lot of discussion of Roman Catholicism going on right now, and I think that's a, it's an important area to look at.

But, so what we're going to do in the rest of this program, the next last 40 minutes we have here, is I have owed Jared Longshore a response, uh, to what he posted, um, remember on Reformation Day, uh, he posted an article about the New Covenant and children, stuff like that.

I responded to that on the dividing line, and then he wrote a response to that, and I think he recorded a response to that as well. I just have the written portion here. And, uh, I said at the time, well, you know, there's a number of things I'm trying to get to and getting ready to leave right now, so it's sort of hard to catch up with everything.

So, um, and it's now December, so if he does respond to me, he has to be really nice. If it was November, he could do whatever he wanted to do. Um, if you don't get that, don't worry about it. Um, so I want to look at some of the stuff in the time we have, and, uh, once again, when we're dealing with the issue of paedo-baptism, and, of course, this is in the context of, you know, right now, the discussion of the Moscow mood and all the rest of this kind of stuff, and, uh, we've had a lot of back and forth.

Uh, remember last year, Chocolate Knox had a guy on that was, um, literally blamed transgenderism on Baptists, and, uh, and, uh, you know, so I ended up on CrossPolitik responding to that. I did here on The Dividing Line, and at least in that context, you end up having conversations with many.

Let's just be honest, when I criticize certain reformed names, uh, out there, most of the time, they don't want to have that conversation. They're not going to allow a back and forth, and no matter what else you're going to say, at least when you're talking to the folks up in Moscow, they'll go, all right, let's talk about it, and let's, let's talk about it, um, without canceling the other side, and without all the, you know, calling councils, and anathematizing, and dragging up everything from history, and everything else in the process.

So you've got to give credit where credit's due, and of course, they know, um, where I stand, and that I'm not going to, you know, sit back and go, oh, okay, fine, whatever, we'll just let that slide, where there's, there's going to be a response.

So, um, when we work through some of this stuff, the, the, one of the main concerns I have, and I don't want this response to go this direction, most of the time, this conversation bogs down and dies in the footnotes of the Reformed Orthodox from the 17th, and 18th, and 19th centuries, um, and I'll raise you a Witsius, and I'll, I'll give you a Turretin versus your Owen, and, and that's why most people in the pew don't end up overly edified by the conversation, is because they don't own Witsius, or Owen, or Turretin, um, or even when they read portions of these resources, they're left going, I thought this was written in English, and, and, you know, half the time, they're, the sentence will be a certain portion in English, and a certain portion in Latin, and a certain portion of some other language thrown in, and the, the edification of the church factor tends to be very low when the conversation is not focused upon Scripture, and, you know, I try, I try to be consistent in this area, um, this, I would say the exact same thing in regards to, well, for example, I, I've, I, I haven't said this in the program, but I've said it to some other people, I intend to try to find the time, and again, I, I know February's coming, um, and it's, it's only a matter of weeks away, literally a matter of days away, and I, I do not at all feel like I've made much progress, um, in preparation for all the debate, it's not that I'm not thinking about them, um, and thinking about what directions I want to go, and stuff, but as far as collection of all the research that I want, things like that, I don't feel like I've made a lot of progress yet, so doing these other topics may not be all that wise, but, um, I do want to, uh, do, uh, a review of, uh, Jacob Trotter's article from the Journal of Classical Theology, which I, if I'm thinking clearly is a brand new thing, uh, maybe it's, there's a lot of groups that use that phraseology, but I think this is a fairly new one, uh, on inseparable operations, and talk about the difference between, um, hard ISO and soft ISO, um, and, you know, the importance of the unity of the divine persons in the accomplishment of salvation, the working out of the divine decree, but at the same time the danger of adopting a philosophical framework that then destroys the reality of the biblical revelation of the divine persons, and their, and their, uh, interaction with each other, and I, I think produces a sterile, um, just far from, from, you know, the people in the pew when they're reading their Bible, they're reading about the Son, talking about the Father, and the interaction, and the transfiguration, and the high priestly prayer, and, and they're seeing all of this, and they go to the epistles, and there's this, this, this clear recognition of, of who the Father is, and who the Son is, and who the Spirit is, and the roles they've taken, and, and our interaction with them, and it's so vital, and it's beautiful, and it's astonishing that God would, would condescend to reveal Himself in this way, and to, and to be a, you know, intimately connected to His creation in this fashion, and to, and to unite the elect unto the Son in a way that we're not united to the Spirit or the Father, and, and then this philosophical system comes along and says, yeah, actually, the only way you can tell the difference between the Father, Son, and Spirit is by this theological speculation about how they relate to each other in eternity past, and no, we can't show you any of this in Scripture whatsoever, and no, we can't show you that the apostles actually believe in this, or they would have even understood what we were talking about, but we're gonna, we're gonna say that this is the necessary thing to maintain orthodoxy, and all the rest of it, and so, you know, for years, and years, and years, I've felt that, and anybody who's read my book on the Trinity knows I want people to love the Trinity.

I want people to be, to be enraptured by the revelation God has given to us, and when I see that being endangered by the rise of a academic philosophicalism, yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say something about it, and, but I'm gonna do it on the basis of Scripture.

That's what we've been doing for a long time, and so my response to Jared, likewise, is, is not to, you know, so you want to quote a witsiest, I'll raise you an Owen, or something. I mean, that doesn't, that doesn't do anything.

There are certain people that that's where they live. That's, that's just what they do all day long, and more power to you, but I, you know, try to get out amongst the people instead of just in those, you know, Facebook groups, and so we're gonna be looking at specific Scriptural issues that are raised by the things that Jared said.

Like I said, I'm concerned about some of the stuff that's said, because I, I saw a link, and I went ahead and I've eventually found it, where on CrossPolitic, Jared had made the statement, when a Christian husband and wife conceive a child, the church grows, and when I hear that, what I hear as the background presupposition to that, is that to be a covenant child is to be promised to be of the elect, and that hence, if that, that covenant child will experience the divine work of regeneration and the gift of faith at some time in their life, this is the promise of God.

Every child of two Christians is themselves a true Christian, will be regenerate, and are of the elect. That doesn't mean that the elect is limited only to the offspring of Christians, but the idea, I think, for many people, is that that is what becomes normative, that it couldn't, it couldn't have been the case initially in the early church, obviously, but that over time, it would become the normative way, and you can look around and go, well, it does seem that most of the people who are Christians come from a place where they had that as part of their background.

Of course, you also, these days in our society, a lot of the people who have abandoned Christianity had that as their background as well, and were baptized as infants, so that's something to keep in mind, too.

So anyway, we're not gonna get anywhere, because I haven't read anything yet here. Early on, he says in his article, this is for James White about those children in the New Covenant, Reformation Revival blog, the nub of the issue is this, the Credo Baptist position says the New Covenant is so unlike the old, and so much better, that each and every member of the New Covenant is actively regenerate, unlike the old, when children were included.

The Pentecostal position says the New Covenant is unlike the old, and better by far, but such that the inclusion of children in the Covenant remains old and new. Now, you'll notice there's no addressing there the nature of Covenant children, and I'd really be interested in knowing, I'm sure Jared has read Pierre Marcel, would Jared agree with the idea that Marcel expresses, that Covenant children, because of their Covenant nature, have the effect of original sin in essence canceled for them, so that they are almost like a new Adam.

What is a Covenant child? What is the spiritual difference, and is there a fundamental promise? Because I hear all the time, it's a promise to you and to your children, if that's from Acts, to you and your children, the Jews, and to all who are far off, the Gentiles, as many as the Lord our God should call to himself, but if we need to go back over that, that passage teaches divine election, that the Jews are not cast off in regards to being able to have faith in Christ, that's what you and your children is, that's the Jews, but it's talking about divine election, and it is not a promise that to you, if you're a believer, and your children will become believers, and I don't know what you do with those who are far off, that's not what it's saying, and if we need to go there, we can definitely do that on the basis of the text, it's very, very important.

Then he talks about the fact that, you know, when I responded, I said, look, my concern is, if you take most of the Pado-Baptist interpretations of Hebrews 8, and the nature of the New Covenant, and the writer of Hebrews utilization of Jeremiah 31, in Hebrews chapter 8, as a linchpin of his argument, he has, in chapter 7, said that Christ, because of his priesthood, which he holds permanently, is able to save to the uttermost those who draw nigh unto God by him.

So he has, he has demonstrated that in Christ, we have something that the old priest did not have, and that hence, the old priest could not save to the uttermost, because they are hindered by death, whereas Christ is able to save the uttermost, because he intercedes for a specific people, and his intercession is absolutely effective.

Now, I would hope, so my argument is, Hebrews, it's unapologetic, there's nothing to go back to, and the supremacy of Christ, starting in chapter 1, this is Yahweh in human flesh, this is incarnational language, and then this, eventually, the concept of priesthood is brought in, priesthood and Melchizedek, and everything else comes together, so that by the time you get to chapter 8, you have those as backgrounds, you have these amazing things that have been done in Christ, who Christ is, these are the backgrounds, now you have the mediatorial work, and then the proof that is provided by the writer, from Jeremiah 31, is chapter 7, he is able to save Panteles, to the uttermost, Panteles.

I haven't, I was actually going to think about putting it up, we will, maybe in a second, but if you want to take a look at it, specifically in Hebrews 7, 25, therefore, he is able, dunatai, sudzain, to save Aistop Panteles, completely, those who draw nigh through him to God, because he ever lives to make intercession, hupere auton, for them specifically.

So, the Hebrews 8, Jeremiah 31 citation, is providing a Old Testament support for the assertion of the perfection of the work of the high priest, Jesus, and then, obviously, and this is the whole argument about the nature of the atonement, that atoning work is intimately connected with the intercessory work, and so, what does this intercessory work, which results in the Panteles complete salvation of those who draw nigh unto God through him, who is he interceding for?

It says, he always lives to make intercession for them, there's a specific people here, these are the elect, and so, there is perfect consistency that in the next chapter, when he provides this extensive quotation from Jeremiah 31, that what you're going to see there is the perfection of Christ's work of atonement and intercession.

What's the result of having a better mediator? What's the result of having a better high priest with better promises and a better covenant? Well, the assertion is made in Hebrews 7, perfection of salvation.

He, because he continues forever, holds the priesthood permanently, he is able to save forever to completion a certain people, because he lives, always lives, to make intercession for them. So, I would argue that when I'm looking at Hebrews chapter 8, I'm not walking into this going, well, okay, it's time for the Beto Baptism argument again.

No, that's not where the writer of Hebrews is, but what he is doing is, he has made an assertion in chapter 7, he's backing it up in 8, and then he's gonna say in chapter 9, he has obtained eternal salvation.

These are things that could not be said under the old system, and therefore, when people are saying, come back, come back, come back, forget about this stuff, here's the foundation saying, there's nothing to come back to, because he has actually accomplished what clearly in fulfillment had been prophesied about what the Messiah was going to do, and things like that.

So, I would argue that when we look at chapter 8, and I say, you know, it says, they will all, from the least to the greatest of them, they will all know God, their sins have been forgiven. This is the scriptural foundation for the assertion was made in chapter 7, and if we go, well, but that doesn't mean they're all regenerate.

That doesn't mean that they all really know God. It's just that more of them do. How does that fit with Hebrews 7, 24, and 25? How is that panteles? Because there were people who knew God under the old covenant.

Now, the argument is, what, was it because of the old covenant? I don't want it. I don't want it. That's not the language of Hebrews, and that's where we jump off into stuff where we never end up getting out of the weeds.

I want to stick with the Bible. I do that with the Trinity. I do that with Reformed theology, and the predestination election, and and I do it with paedo-baptism too, and it drives some of you crazy, but sorry, just the way we do things around here.

So, having said all of that, Jared says, in short, nothing I've proposed destroys the apologetic argument of Hebrews because I, with James and Paul, could have said loud and clear to Jim Bob, who's introduced before him, you can't go back to the old covenant because there's nothing to go back to.

Okay. He says there are three alternatives for not going back, and the three alternatives he gives is, one, don't go back to the old covenant because it never saved in the first place, and it is vanishing.

Two, don't go back to the old covenant because the new covenant saves each and every one of its members, whereas the old only saved a few of its members, and the old is vanishing. Or three, don't go back to the old covenant, for though it saved some of its members, it indeed is vanishing, and the new covenant is far better, and so he would say, if I understand him rightly, James is number two, I am number three, and the 1689 Federalists are number one, and again, I find this is a distraction from the real issue, and I find the three options to have missed the point.

They're relevant, obviously. Yeah, they're relevant, but they've missed the one point, and the one point is the perfection of the work of Christ, because these are all focused upon what's the result of these things, whereas the argument of Hebrews is he is able to save Aistoponteles, Ponteles, get it eventually, completely and forever because he ever lives to make intercession.

I think the clarity on the issue can be derived from sticking with the biblical language and going, who does Christ intercede for? It seems that the author to the Hebrews is making a connection between those for whom Christ intercedes and those who are the members of the new covenant in Hebrews chapter 8, who, as a result of his work, do not need to teach one another, know the Lord, they all know him, their sins are forgiven, the law is written upon their hearts, not the law is written upon more of their hearts, but the law is written upon their hearts.

That's a fulfillment of this new covenant with the better promises and the better mediator who is interceding for a specific people, and so that's where I go to my reformed paedobaptist brethren. I see a major inconsistency.

I made this argument when I debated the late Greg Strawbridge. I see a major inconsistency between your doctrine of election and your doctrine of baptism, and I think it came about via history, not via exegesis.

It came about via history. You can see it when Ulrich Zwingli's students end up debating him before the council in Zurich and getting kicked out, but they're saying, hey, Ulrich, what you're saying would seem to lead to a believer's baptism perspective, and what Zwingli does is, because of the princes and because of politics, he goes that direction, and I would argue, whether you go with Bollinger or Calvin as first people, whether you go to even an anabaptist, the point is that at that point in time, the reason for the development of the covenantal view of paedobaptism that is now held with modifications by various people and with a spectrum, let's be honest, a spectrum that goes all the way into sacerdotalism, but the Westminsterian, and there's different understandings even amongst people who hold the Westminster on this, the Westminsterian perspective is still a theological novum in church history.

This is not, when you look at the development and the rise of infant baptism in the church, this was not how they understood it. This was not why it was initially practiced. It was practiced for different reasons at different times, but it wasn't for this reason, and when it became established eventually as the standard perspective, it was not established on the basis of Calvin's eventual understanding or what you have in the Westminster.

They're theological novums. They're new things, and they didn't come from exegesis, and you can go back. I would imagine if you use the transcripts thing at aomin .org, the transcripts, you can go back to basically everything I have recorded for public consumption now from 1998 onwards, and I may have said it before then, but that's a long enough time.

It's 25 years, quarter of a century. I have said, you know, over and over again, one of my favorite theologians in whole world is John Calvin. I know he would have kicked me out of Geneva. I know that, and I still love reading his stuff, but I have said all along I love the Institutes, and I've read the shorter version and the final 1559 Latin, which is what most of us use, and he did a French version after that, but anyway, but you get to book four, and you get to this material, and things change.

I can see the change myself, and so I greatly respect a man that I think was influenced by his times and influenced by these sources, and that's where it came from, so for me, this is about consistency of exegesis, and for us Reformed folks, I believe that who we baptize should be impacted, and why we baptize should be impacted by what we believe about the atonement and about the intercessory work of Christ.

They are not something over here and something over here. They should be. We should be able to bring those things together and find a consistency, and I would, I'm simply suggesting to you that from what I see, aside from the variations that I see amongst Presbyterians, the idea of the covenant child is the covenant child interceded for in the new covenant.

When Jared says, when a Christian husband and wife conceive a child, the church grows. Does that mean that child is being interceded for in the same way that Jared is? And I don't know if the 1 Corinthians 7 passage is behind any of this.

I honestly, honestly, honestly say to my Reformed Pado-Baptist brethren, if a liberal like Paul K. Jewett could put the standard Pado-Baptist interpretation of 1 Corinthians chapter 7 through the paper shredder, the wood chipper.

Let's go big. Paper shredders are small. Let's go big. Through the wood chipper that he did years and years and years ago. I just, that is one argument that every time I really have to go, oh Lord, give me patience, because I just can't believe that people who can argue with such clarity on election and predestination and the glories of the sovereign eternal decree of God could then turn to a section where Paul's answering questions about about mixed marriages because the gospel's going out and sometimes God didn't save the other person in the marriage.

It's about mixed marriages and it's about the the fact that your children are still your children. They are holy. They're not regenerated and they're not turned into covenant members or something. It's not even what he's talking about.