Does Rome Possess the Gospel?

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. For freedom Christ set us free, stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

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Look, I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.

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I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law.

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You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law. You have fallen away from grace.

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Galatians chapter 5 verses 1 -4, a very important text in light of the fact that the book of Galatians begins, the epistle to the churches in Galatia begins with Paul's warning in verses 6 -8 about those who would present a false gospel, which is not another gospel.

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It is instead a perversion of the true gospel that brings condemnation upon those who proclaim this false gospel.

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Now in the book of Galatians, we find no evidence that the apostle faults his opponents for their view of the

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Godhead, their view of Jesus Christ, their view of the deity of Christ, their view of the

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Trinity or anything else. His focus is very much upon the mere addition of a single act to the gospel of Jesus Christ, specifically to the means by which a person is made right before God, and that is faith.

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And he says to those individuals in verse 3, I testify again to every man who is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

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And verse 4 says, you have been severed from Christ, and then it's, and namo dikai usthe, that is, whoever is seeking to be justified by means of law.

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All those by law to be justified, those who are seeking to use the instrumentality of obedience to external regulations as the mechanism by which justification comes about.

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Those individuals are cut off from Christ, and they have fallen from grace.

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Now those are very strong words, but they have nothing to do with a person's view of the deity of Christ or anything else.

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Just yesterday, I made a video, it's up on the blog, where I responded to MuslimByChoice, and he made an interesting error in attempting to say that the

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Apostle Paul had differences in his view of the person of Jesus.

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He quoted from Galatians chapter 1. I had to correct him that he was misunderstanding the categories of what was being said there, that the

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Apostle was dealing with the gospel in Galatians, and that there's nothing in the book that indicates that these individuals held another view of who

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Jesus Christ was, and I asserted, believe you me, if they had, Paul would have said something about it.

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And so to individuals who are doing nothing more, certainly in the language of today, nothing more than having a slightly different view of the gospel,

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Paul says, you are severed from Christ. He doesn't say, you have a slightly less acceptable relationship with Christ.

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He doesn't say, I'm just not going to have fellowship with you. He says, you are severed from Christ.

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You have fallen away from the very sphere of the operation of grace.

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There's no way around the fact that what Paul was saying was, you add even something directly out of the

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Old Testament to the message of the gospel. You add one thing to faith, and you have fallen away from the sphere of grace.

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You can walk that road, but there's no grace on that road. You can go in that direction, but don't expect

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Christ to be there. Strong words, very strong words, but they're there.

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They're right there in the pages of inspired scripture. Now, over the years,

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I have spent a great deal of time studying the teachings of and dialoguing with representatives of the

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Roman Catholic Church. I have done more debates against Roman Catholics than any other single group.

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I'm catching up slowly but surely in the number of debates I've done against Muslims. And if we had been able to do the debate tonight, which has been called off because my opponent disappeared and has,

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I guess, had to travel somewhere suddenly, and that happens, you know, I mean, I could have had to cancel it in light of certain things going on.

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But anyways, we're going to try to reschedule for April. But if I had had that debate, then we would have gotten a little bit closer.

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But most of my public debates, especially due to the Great Debate series on Long Island starting back in the mid -1990s, have been with Roman Catholics.

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Thirteen debates with Gerry Manitics, five debates—no, no, eight debates with Roberts and Jennas, Patrick Madrid, Tim Staples, including debates that Tim Staples doesn't want anyone to know ever happened.

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In fact, pretty much every debate I've done with Tim Staples didn't happen, as far as Catholic Answers is concerned, anyways.

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Lots of interaction. Five debates with Mitchell Pacwa, which I think were probably the best encounters we had.

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Fastigi and just so many others. And in all of that,

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I have been forced to listen carefully to what Roman Catholicism teaches.

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Now, I'll be the first one to admit that Rome has become somewhat of a chameleon over the past number of decades, and that a large number of Rome's priests today don't even believe what historic

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Roman Catholicism has always taught. There's no question about that. Of course, they've become more—not more biblical, but less biblical in what they believe, moving toward an inclusivism and universalism.

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But I think I do have some background from which to speak on the subject of Roman Catholicism.

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And so, when I saw an article posted by C. Michael Patton, I took the time to read it.

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I don't always read everything on this website, Credo House Ministries, the parchment pen blog, but I do subscribe to it, and so it came up in my

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RSS feeds. And when I saw the title, Are Roman Catholics Saved?, I thought it was something

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I needed to read. Let's listen to what Mr. Patton has to say. Are Roman Catholics saved?

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Short answer, I don't know. However, don't read too much into that. I don't know if Protestants are

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Christian. I don't know if many who go to my evangelical church are Christian. By Christian, I mean someone who has truly been regenerated by God and is as a result a genuine disciple of Christ.

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Of course, a better question that people are getting at is this. Do I believe that someone who is a committed member of the

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Roman Catholic Church can be a true Christian? To this, I answer yes. Now, to be fair, the majority of Roman Catholics with whom

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I have come in contact, I do not feel are true believers. But to be fairer, the majority of Protestants and Eastern Orthodox, that matter, with whom

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I have come in contact, I don't believe are true believers. It is a simple problem of nominalism. Simply professing to be a part of any

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Christian tradition does not mean that one truly embraces the ideals of that tradition. Christians are those who truly believe in who

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Christ is and do their best to follow Him. I'm going to be going back and commenting on this in case you're wondering why

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I'm not stopping. I'm actually going to read it first. I think the most important question that has ever been asked in the history of the world is this.

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Who do you say that I am? Matthew 16, 15. The confession of Roman Catholicism, along with that of Protestantism and Eastern Orthodoxy, has been united concerning this for 2 ,000 years.

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Jesus Christ, the God -man who died for our sins and rose from the grave. That's not exactly what it says in Matthew 16, but we get the summary concept.

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Getting that right is no small thing. In fact, I would say that to have a true belief in such a creed requires the regenerating power of the

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Holy Spirit. Roman Catholicism is to be commended, in my opinion, for being an ardent defender of the Trinity, the resurrection of Christ, the necessity of belief, and such.

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Though there are many passages I could turn to, I think that 1 John 4, 2 says more than we often give it credit.

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In fact, I would say that this is one of the most neglected passages defending the deity of Christ. Notice 1 John 4, 2.

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By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. Without getting too much into this, as it deserves its own blog post, this passage teaches that a true belief that Christ is man and God is an indication that someone is from God.

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You may say that it only talks about his humanity in the flesh and not his deity. But I believe that implied within this is an assumption of Christ's deity.

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Why? Because there would be no reason to deny that Christ has come in the flesh were it not assumed that he was God. I mean, how hard is it to deny that someone has come in the flesh if they were only thought of as being human?

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It is a foregone conclusion that they have come in the flesh. This passage makes no sense unless it is assumed that a person believes that Christ is

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God. But the point that I want to make right now is that it is a big deal to believe in the humanity and deity of Christ.

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Think about how rare this really is outside of Christianity. Obviously, atheists do not confess this. What about Islam, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus, and agnostics?

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They don't have it as an essential core of their confession, to say the least, that Christ is a God -man.

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The best of Catholics do. The best of Protestants do. The best of Eastern Orthodox do. It is because of this I don't easily dismiss

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Roman Catholic status before God. They get the who -do -you -say -that -I -am question right.

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Not only this, but Catholics believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ. They believe that we are sinners in need of grace. Even though they lean toward inclusivism since Vatican II, they still believe that there is no other name by which we must be saved.

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Again, this is significant stuff which, if truly believed, I don't see how an unregenerate person can confess without salvific impunity.

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All this can be said about Eastern Orthodoxy as well. Having said all of this, I am sure that many of my

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Protestant brothers and sisters are getting hot under the collar right now. I understand many of you are saying, what about their worship of Mary?

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What about their acceptance of purgatory? What about the Apocrypha? What about the Pope? And most importantly, what about their denial of justification by faith alone?

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By the way, I'll get back to this, but those are not the right questions.

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I just need to say about that, but we'll get to it. I just need to say it to keep the pressure down.

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All of these are good and significant questions and differences, some more so than others. I don't want to undermine the importance of doctrine by saying that Roman Catholics can be saved.

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I hope you don't see me doing this, though some will inevitably think that I am. I am simply saying that the most central question in Christianity is, who do you say that I am, and they get this right.

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So the question becomes, how can someone believe and confess that their works contribute to their salvation and be saved, as Roman Catholics do?

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The answer is this, perfect doctrine does not save anyone. Sufficient doctrine is an indication that someone is saved.

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I believe deeply that justification is by faith alone, sola fide. However, I don't think that justification comes through a belief in justification by faith alone.

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Put it this way, heaven will not be inhabited by anyone who contributed to their justification. Some will get to heaven, and they will find out how radical grace really was.

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In fact, I think all Christians will be overwhelmed by grace. The sanctification process in some ways can be summed up as this, the progressive realization that grace, undeserved and unmerited favor, is our only hope.

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I don't think any of us really grasped this. Therefore, both Protestants and Roman Catholics will stand before God with a greater realization and confidence that our works had nothing to do with our present state of eternal blessedness.

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Roman Catholics will have a bigger learning curve than Protestants, in my opinion, but both of us will be overwhelmed by how grace is really grace.

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Most Roman Catholics will have a sudden realization that it truly was their faith in Christ alone that justified

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Ephesians 2, 8 -9. So where does that leave us? Does this mean that doctrinal justification by faith alone is not important?

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Most definitely not. Paul exhorted the Galatians who were justified, yet were replacing grace, the burden of law and works, not to get saved, but to live out the benefits of their salvation.

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Please note that. Please note that. I'm going to repeat that just so you catch it. Paul exhorted the

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Galatians who were justified, yet were replacing grace, the burden of law and works, not to get saved, but to live out the benefits of their salvation.

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I'll get to this, but that's not what he said. He said, you are cut off from Christ.

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You have fallen from grace. He didn't say, I think you just need to do better. This is straight out of N .T.

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Wright, folks. I can show you the page in N .T. Wright's book where he said the exact same thing and missed the exact same point.

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It's just amazing. Anyway, to the degree that we are preaching justification without works is the degree to which we are preaching the grace of God.

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So we continue, as Paul did, to encourage people to take the burden off their backs that it's not ours to carry. I encourage Roman Catholics to do the same.

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Realize how crazy, insane, radical, and beyond belief grace really is. Protestantism is not perfect by any means.

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I believe that we have a fuller gospel in understanding the Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox. Otherwise, I would not be a Protestant. But this does not mean that we have a perfect understanding of the gospel.

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However, we need to continue to spread the message of the gospel that grace is only realized once we see that it is completely undeserved.

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Romans 11 .6, but it is by grace, is no longer the basis of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. So there's the article.

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I've already started my response because I just couldn't help it. But let's do it a little bit more carefully here.

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I agree that there is a tremendous amount of nominalism.

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And I agree that the majority of self -professing

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Christians in the world today, especially if people can say that some 50 % or whatever it is of people in the

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United States claim to be Christians or something, clearly these are not true believers.

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If you can live your life, you can go through the entire week without everyone thinking about God, Christ, the

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Trinity, or anything else. Obviously, that's nominalism. Then it says, of course, a better question that people are getting at is this.

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Do I believe that someone who is a committed member of the Roman Catholic Church can be a true Christian? To this I answer yes. The question, this is the wrong question.

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Unfortunately, the article never touched on the real question. The real question is, does the gospel of the

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Roman Catholic Church save? Yes or no? The answer has to be no. That was the answer of the

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Reformation. And if you don't say no to that, then you're really not a part of the

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Reformation. You're out swimming around the Tiber River someplace, but you have abandoned the

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Reformation. And the question is, does Rome's gospel save?

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That's the question. I have said many times, people have said, are you saying every single Roman Catholic is going to hell?

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No. I think that there might be a few who do not understand

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Rome's teaching that, for example, Jesus' one sacrifice is being represented as a perpetuatory sacrifice on the altar that never saves anyone.

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It does not perfect anyone. It gives a modicum of grace, but it perfects no one.

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They don't know that that's what Rome's teaching. They don't view that priest as an alter

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Christus. They're not trusting in the sacramental forgiveness that is doled out through the sacramental system of the

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Roman Catholic Church, the dependences, and they don't believe that their suffering and undergoing satispassio and purgatory is going to somehow eventually finish the purification process, that's something that Christ's sacrifice can't do.

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They don't believe any of that stuff. They are simple folks who believe that Jesus is who he said he was, and they believe he's the

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Savior, and they look only to him, and I believe they can be saved. But they are saved in spite of the

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Church, not because of the Church, and the way that this article presents it is, these are committed members of the

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Roman Catholic Church. The only way I can understand that is they understand Rome's gospel, and it seems that C. Michael Patton is saying, you can be saved by that gospel.

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And I say to you, get rid of Galatians if you're really going to believe that, because you don't believe what

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Paul said there. And you're not alone. You're not alone. This is this mere

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Christianity stuff that has infected a large portion of the evangelical church.

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The gospel is no longer considered to be a definitional element.

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It's just, well, you know, they get the answer right on the theology part, and that's all you need.

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All this gospel stuff, there's just too many divisions. We just don't know. This is happening up in Wheaton, all over the place.

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We've talked about this. We see this in the ecumenical movement. And I just go, Galatians is still there, isn't it?

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And I see as part of this the infection of a real degradation of confidence in the clarity of the teaching of the scriptures on the nature of the gospel.

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And a lot of it's related to postmodernism and things like that. Anyway, he goes on to say,

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The majority of Roman Catholics whom I have come in contact, I do not believe I feel are true believers. To be fair, the majority of Protestants with whom

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I have come in contact, I don't believe are true believers. Okay, this is a person looking at the outward. The only way to answer this question is to ask about the gospel itself.

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The only way to answer this question is to deal with what these groups have as the gospel. You'll never come to a meaningful answer if you just look on the outward appearance as seemingly is going on here.

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Then he goes on to say, I think the most important question that's ever been asked in the history of the world is who do you say that I am? Okay. The confession of Roman Catholicism, along with that of Protestant and Eastern Orthodoxy, has been united concerning this for 2 ,000 years.

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Jesus Christ is a God -man who died for our sins and rose from the grave. Okay, again, I think that's going a little bit beyond. But anyways, getting that right is no small thing.

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In fact, I would say that to have a true belief in such a creed requires the regenerating power of the

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Holy Spirit. If it requires the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit to have a true faith in the triune nature of God, why can't that regenerating power of the

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Holy Spirit also give you a knowledge of the true gospel of Jesus Christ? Why does it work for the one but not for the other?

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I think I stand, at least for the Reformation here, in saying these two go together.

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Maybe I'm just out in the woods someplace, but I see stronger language in the

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New Testament about an abandonment of the gospel than I do anything about the Godhead. So how come, well, if you have the work of the

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Spirit, then you're going to believe this. I agree. I don't think any unbeliever truly adores the one true

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God. It requires the work of the Holy Spirit. But why can't that same Holy Spirit reveal the gospel?

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If that same Holy Spirit has revealed who Jesus Christ is, how can a person who truly knows the nature of the

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God -man then stand there and receive this wafer, believing in the doctrine of transubstantiation, and in fear of going to purgatory and undergoing satispassio?

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Sorry, I started preaching. In fact,

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I would say that Roman Catholicism is to be commended, in my opinion, for being an ardent defender of the

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Trinity. I don't think so. And I'll tell you why. Because the average

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Roman Catholic today— See, I just don't think C. Michael Patton knows much about Roman Catholic apologetics and apologists.

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I just don't think if he had heard all those apologists, if he had heard

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Jimmy Akin and Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid and Tim Staples and all these big names constantly saying,

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You know what? If we didn't have the Church, we would not know about the Trinity.

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We would not know about the personality of the Holy Spirit. We would not know about the Trinity. If you just go to the

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Bible, you wouldn't know these things. The reason that the believing Roman Catholic believes in these things is because he was told to by a church that he thinks is infallible.

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And that's not why I believe in the Trinity. And I hope it's not why C. Michael Patton believes in the

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Trinity. I believe in the Trinity because I believe in all the Bible. I'm a biblical

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Trinitarian. Am I thankful for Nicaea? Am I thankful for— Yes, I am.

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But I recognize that the reason I believe this is because the Bible teaches monotheism and the

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Bible introduces me to three divine persons and the Bible tells me those three divine persons are coequal and coeternal.

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So I've had a lot of Roman Catholics who follow my work in these other areas.

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You know why? Because they can tell I give a passionate defense to the Trinity, not a defense of, well, this is what we've been taught by the

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Church. That's a completely different way of doing things, isn't it?

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So I don't think that Rome has any reason to be commended today for its defense of the

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Trinity when, in fact, it undercuts the true grounding of the Trinity by its own claims to self -authority, infallible authority of the

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Pope, etc., etc. Then he goes to 1 John 4 .2. And by this you know the

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Spirit of God, every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ to come to the flesh is from God. Yeah, I do think this text does bear on the deity of Christ.

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Of course, I think he might have helped himself out by talking about the fact there are people who believe that Jesus was a preexistent spirit and things like that and dealing with a lot of Aryans and so on and so forth, they would have responses to what he says here.

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But be as it may, he says think about how rare this really is outside of Christianity. Sure, atheists don't confess it.

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The Muslims deny it. Mormons, a little different denial. Jehovah's Witnesses, good

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Aryans, Hindus, etc., etc. They don't have as an essential core to their confession, to say the least, that Christ is a

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God -man. The best of Catholics do. Well, I would say you're not a

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Roman Catholic if you deny that. I mean, not that Rome's going to kick you out these days. But, obviously, that is a part of what we share is the affirmation of these things.

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Again, the why part is different. What forces you to believe that is different.

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But then it says, not only this, but Catholics believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ.

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Well, we would hope so. They believe that we are sinners in need of grace. Yeah, but, man, again, it just absolutely gives me hives when, again,

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I hear people going, Look, look, Rome requires grace.

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Isn't it great? Isn't it wonderful? Folks, they've always said that. Trent identified with the anathema anyone says you can say without grace.

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That was not what the Reformers were arguing about. The issue at the

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Reformation and the issue to this day is not the necessity of grace.

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It is the sufficiency of grace. How many times have I said that over the past 20 years?

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I don't know. I don't know. More than 20 years. The issue is not the necessity of grace.

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Even the Mormons say you have to have grace. The issue is the sufficiency of grace.

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That always has been the issue. It remains the issue to this day. And so when they say,

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Well, they believe that we are sinners in need of grace. Well, yes, so do the Mormons. Even though they lean toward inclusivism since Vatican II.

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Yeah, in fact, I would probably say if you took a poll of all Roman Catholic priests worldwide,

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I'd say the majority would be Universalists. They still believe there's no other name by which we must be saved.

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Well, the Universalists wouldn't. Again, this is significant stuff, which if truly believed, I don't see how an unregenerate person can confess without salvific impunity.

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I don't know what salvific impunity means. It sounds like he's suggesting this needs regeneration.

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You need to be regenerated to believe these things, to truly believe these things.

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And again, I just have to say, and why doesn't that include the

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Gospel? Why doesn't that include the finished work of Jesus Christ?

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Why doesn't that include so many other things, which ironically don't come up?

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In fact, here's the next paragraph. And this is what really, really concerned me. I just get the feeling, maybe

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I'm wrong, I don't think C. Michael Patton has ever debated a Roman Catholic. At least not one that's busily attempting to convert people to Roman Catholicism, such as the folks at Catholic Answers, you know, big guys like that.

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Having said all of this, I am sure there are many of my Protestant brothers and sisters, I think a who got lost here, who are getting hot under the collar right now.

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I understand. Many of you are saying, what about their worship of Mary? What about their acceptance of purgatory? What about the

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Apocrypha? What about the Pope? And most importantly, what about their denial of justification by faith alone? All of those things are important things, but those are not the right questions.

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The question, Brother Patton, is does

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Rome possess the Gospel? And you touch upon it with justification by faith alone, but folks, this is what is so horrific.

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There are so many leaders in quote -unquote evangelicalism today, who are so disconnected from the

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Reformation, and so disconnected from actually dealing with Roman Catholicism, and dealing with believing

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Roman Catholics, that they don't realize that Rome presents a whole view, a sacramental view of salvation that is focused upon the

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Eucharistic sacrifice. And there are very few of these men who could accurately define

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Rome's dogmatic teachings. They'll say, oh, well, yeah, that transubstantiation thing is a little bit weird.

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Don't you understand why that's central to the Mass being a perpetuatory sacrifice? But it's not a perpetuatory sacrifice that actually perfects anyone.

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You could go to Mass 20 ,000 times in your life, and die impure, and in fact go to hell, having lost the grace of justification.

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You've approached the one sacrifice of Christ 20 ,000 times in your life, and still die impure.

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You must look at what Rome has said is the center of her theology.

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And if you can figure out how that system of works righteousness can possibly, and when

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I say works righteousness, I mean the fact that you are coming to that sacrifice, and that sacrifice alone does not bring about salvation.

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That sacrifice alone does not bring perfection. If you can figure out how that viewpoint can be made consistent with the teaching of the book of Hebrews on the one time, ephapox, hapox, one time sacrifice of Jesus Christ, please explain that to me.

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I've listened to Scott Hahn, and I've listened to Jimmy Akin and the others try to explain how it works, and they fail miserably.

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So maybe the Protestants can explain this. But you can't just look at, oh, well, what about their worship of Mary?

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Sure, it's idolatry. But there's a reason why they worship Mary. And they won't say they worship

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Mary, of course. We adore Mary. No, we don't adore her. Hyperdulia. All the silliness that has been developed over the years.

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Try to get around that. We've debated that before. Debated with Patrick Madrid. We've gone over these things a thousand times before.

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But the issue is the gospel. And what is the gospel of Roman Catholicism?

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It's a treadmill. It's a get baptized, get justified, and then get on the sacramental treadmill.

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Find yourself a priest who claims to be an alter Christus, another

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Christ, because that's in their ordination, every single one of them, and start on the treadmill.

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Start doing the penances. Start making the confessions. Get ready for purgatory.

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That's what it is. And if you meet a Roman Catholic that's just embracing grace, they're not a

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Roman Catholic anymore. They're rejecting their own church's teachings.

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So the real question is, does Rome's gospel save?

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That's the question that was missed in this entire article. All these are good and significant questions and differences, some more than others.

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I don't want to undermine the importance of doctrine by saying that Roman Catholics can be saved. I hope you don't see me doing this, though some will inevitably think

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I am. Yeah, but it's not because you've addressed the question. It's because you haven't thought through what the real question needs to be.

32:35

I am simply saying that the most central question in Christianity is, who do you say that I am, and they get this right.

32:42

Jesus actually said, anyone who is ashamed of me, there's the who do men say they are question, and my gospel,

32:52

I will be ashamed of them before my Father. You see, today we cut off the last part.

32:59

We want the least common denominator. Mere Christianity. Too many gospel differences.

33:08

But Jesus said, anyone who is ashamed of me and my gospel,

33:16

I will be ashamed of him. So the question becomes,

33:21

I'm reading again, how can someone believe and confess that their works contribute to their salvation and be saved as Roman Catholics do?

33:27

That's not even a good representation of Rome's view. Notice how the way the whole article is presented is, well, what

33:40

I see in others, or what others see in themselves, or what a person does this, no objective gospel issues here.

33:48

No objective question, is Rome's gospel the gospel of Jesus Christ, despite its additions or subtractions?

33:59

But then this next part comes straight, I should have brought it in here. I don't think I have it in here. I know where it is on my bookshelf near the room.

34:08

Maybe, you know what I'll do? We'll take a break at the bottom of the hour, and I'll go get it, and I'll go read this.

34:16

Okay, I'm not going to say that he borrowed this from N .T. Wright, but N .T.

34:22

Wright said the exact same thing. In fact, I could actually, you know what? I just realized something.

34:28

I have this in Keynote on this computer. That's the wonderful thing about using your old computers, is

34:35

I have this quote in Keynote. And those things just don't go away. So I'll see if I can track it down during the break or something like that, or maybe it'll pop up, and I can do multiple things all at the same time.

34:47

Or maybe not, because that will probably end up resulting in something like what happened last time, which we don't want to happen ever, ever again.

34:59

Anyway, but here is this assertion. My answer is, perfect doctrine does not save anyone.

35:10

Notice, I think, the problem immediately. The question is, do they have the gospel?

35:16

Not do they have perfect doctrine. No one's talking about perfection of doctrine.

35:21

Well, the hyper -Calvinists do, which is why I'm not a hyper -Calvinist, if you say I'm, you're a liar. The hyper -Calvinists do.

35:28

You've got to cross every T and dot every I. And I've always opposed them.

35:34

That's not what we're talking about. Sufficient doctrine is an indication that someone is saved.

35:42

It's important, but I've known a lot of apostates who had a good knowledge of what Christianity taught, and even played the game.

35:50

They were once of us. However, I don't think the justification comes through a belief in justification by faith alone.

36:00

How many times have you heard that? No one. No one is saying you're saved by faith in justification alone.

36:08

We're not saying faith in Sola Fide. What we're saying is, Paul said to the

36:13

Judaizers in Galatia, who clearly claimed to follow Christ, they added one thing.

36:22

I say to you who have received circumcision, you who would be justified, who are seeking to be justified by law, severed from Christ, fallen from grace.

36:37

Paul said that. This isn't a matter of putting faith in Sola Fide.

36:45

No one is even suggesting such a thing. That is a canard. Put it this way, heaven will not be inhabited by anyone who contributed to their justification.

36:58

What if they thought they were? I mean, that's exactly what an inclusivist will say.

37:06

Well, you get there, you're going to find out you didn't add anything to it. But what if you thought you were? What if you weren't trusting solely in Christ?

37:14

Isn't that exactly the people Paul's speaking to? I wish it weren't that way. My life would be easier.

37:21

More people would like me. But isn't that exactly what we've got in Galatians 5?

37:30

In fact, I think all Christians will be overwhelmed by grace. The sanctification process in some ways can be summed up as this.

37:35

The progressive realization that grace, undeserved and unmerited favor actually it's not only undeserved, it's demerited is our only hope.

37:43

I don't think any of us really grasped this. Therefore, both Protestants and Roman Catholics stand before God with a greater realization and confidence that our works had nothing to do with our present state of eternal blessedness.

37:51

What if you think that by what you're doing you are going to receive something from God?

38:00

By your going to confession, by your crawling up the steps on your knees and kissing every step, and lighting candles and praying before a statue and seeking the intercession of saints and going through Saddaspassio and Purgatory.

38:14

What if you think that that's part of what makes you have a proper standing before God?

38:22

What then? Is that what the Judaizers are thinking? What is the difference, Mr. Patton, between the

38:29

Judaizers and the Roman Catholic? As far as I can tell, the difference is the

38:34

Judaizers only thought of one thing to add and Rome has thought of dozens. Am I wrong?

38:45

Where am I wrong? What's... Where is that in error?

38:52

That's what I need to know. Because if that is in fact the case then

38:59

Rome makes the Judaizers well, look like amateurs.

39:05

They have added so many things to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

39:15

There's a book I didn't have to go to my office to get it I managed to multitask.

39:24

What St. Paul really said, what Paul of Tarsus was Paul of Tarsus the real founder of Christianity by N .T.

39:30

Wright. N .T. Wright. And he says here, quote

39:38

Second, I must stress again that the doctrine of justification by faith is not what Paul means by the Gospel. It is implied by the

39:44

Gospel when the Gospel is proclaimed people come to faith and so are regarded by God as members of his people. But the

39:50

Gospel is not an account of how people get saved. It's a proclamation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. If we could only get that clear in current debates a lot of other false antitheses not least in thinking about the mission of the

39:59

Church would quietly unravel before our eyes. Let us be quite clear. The Gospel is the announcement of Jesus' Lordship which works with power to bring people in the family of Abraham now redefined around Jesus Christ and characterized solely by faith in him.

40:12

Justification is a doctrine that insists that all those who have this faith belong as full members of this family on this basis and no other.

40:19

Then he says on page 159 One is not justified by faith by believing in justification by faith.

40:27

One is justified by faith by believing in Jesus. It follows quite clearly that a great many people are justified by faith who don't know they are justified by faith.

40:40

The Galatian Christians were in fact justified by faith though they didn't realize it and thought they had to be circumcised as well.

40:52

Page 159 of Wright's book.

40:59

The Galatian Christians were in fact justified by faith though they didn't realize it and thought they had to be circumcised as well.

41:08

So, you who would be justified by law you are severed from Christ but still a

41:15

Christian. You have fallen away from grace but still a Christian. Evidently I don't get it don't understand that, never have but that sounds exactly exactly like what we read here, doesn't it?

41:36

Paul exhorted I'm reading straight from the second to last paragraph Paul exhorted the

41:44

Galatians who were justified yet were replacing grace with the burden of law and works not to get saved but to live out the benefits of their salvation.

41:57

How do you read Galatians 5 3 -4 and come up with that?

42:03

I don't know. I don't know. I don't get it but sounds exactly like what

42:10

N .T. Wright said that they were in fact justified by faith didn't realize and thought they had to be circumcised as well.

42:17

Exact same concept. So, bottom line this kind of fuzzy thinking is all over the place today and do

42:38

I get upset about it? I do. I do for a lot of reasons. When you have sought to bring clarity to a defense of the gospel against the attacks upon it by the

42:52

Roman Catholic Church since the very first public debate you ever did in August of 1990 at a church in Southern California against an apostate who's now an apostate from Rome as well by the time an apostate would have abandoned his ordination vows as a

43:15

Presbyterian minister and had embraced Roman Catholicism by the name of at the time all but dissertation at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

43:27

And from that time forward in debates in Roman Catholic churches all across the land literally, they've tried to bring out what the real issues are, tried to bring out what the issue is that it's the gospel that Rome's gospel does not give anyone peace because it's not the biblical gospel.

43:52

There is no finished work of Christ upon which true peace can be established between the believer and God.

44:03

That's the issue. Are there all sorts of other issues? You bet. Is it a blasphemy against Christ?

44:10

The elevation of Mary? You bet. False worship. Is it not amazing that the only thing that Rome can use its alleged authority on in the past 200 years is to define beliefs that were never a part of the tradition of the church, and never a part of the primitive church, but they're all about Mary?

44:28

Yeah. Is that not a blight upon the faith? Yes, it is.

44:35

Isn't purgatory a horrific thing? It is. Isn't infallibility of the Pope an absurd attack upon God's revelation in the

44:42

Scripture? It is. But the fundamental issue is the fact that the

44:50

Roman Catholic Church does not possess, and in fact anathematizes, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

44:59

That's the issue. So, I answer the question presented by C.

45:07

Michael Patton in this article, are Roman Catholics saved? If a Roman Catholic is saved, they are saved in spite of the

45:14

Roman Catholic Church, not because of it. But, the specific issue said, presented in the article, do

45:24

I believe that someone who is a committed member of the Roman Catholic Church can be a true Christian if what you mean by that is that they are a knowledgeable member of the

45:33

Church, they understand what it's teaching? The only answer to that question that I can offer while holding the

45:41

New Testament in my hand, open the book of Galatians, is no. C. Michael Patton says yes.

45:52

There's the difference. There's the difference. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

45:59

If you would like to comment, if you would like to say, I just think you're too harsh on these folks. And, we've got

46:07

Skype, possibly, maybe? Yes. Dividing .line via Skype. Dividing .line

46:14

and 877 -753 -3341. We are going to 5 o 'clock my time.

46:20

I guess that's 8 o 'clock eastern time. There is no debate this evening on ABN, unfortunately.

46:26

They asked if I could do it next week. I will be out of town next week. So, we'll hopefully find it sometime after that.

46:35

877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. If you would like to respond to what

46:41

I said, I can imagine that there's probably a lot of folks going, no, I don't think so.

46:48

Even if you wanted to call in and say something.

46:57

I'm sorry, what? Yeah, we'll go ahead and take a break. See if anyone wants to call in during the break.

47:03

877 -753 -3341. And, we'll be right back with your phone calls. If not, we'll move on from there.

47:23

More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils.

47:31

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Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

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50:41

...did not tune out during that 45 minutes worth of discussion. Because I confess,

50:48

I tire once in a while of how many times we are represented as if in point of fact,

51:00

Rome speaks for us. And I understand, looking toward Islam, it's difficult for those of us on the outside to really grasp hold of the subtleties of the differences between the various schools of jurisprudence and, you know, it's a little bit easier to understand the

51:23

Sunni -Shia stuff, but still, it can be very challenging, and I know it can be very challenging from your side to look toward Christianity and see what the differences are.

51:34

But I hope you understand that there is a vast difference between the approach to the

51:44

Gospel, Scriptures, and even to evangelism of you as a

51:49

Muslim, that a Reformed person who is consistently Reformed will take than that of a Roman Catholic.

51:56

And you need to understand what the differences are. And you need to understand we are not just Popeless Christians.

52:03

There is a fundamentally different view of the nature of Revelation and just so many things that I think it would be wise for you to understand what

52:16

I said there, why I said it, why it makes a difference. It will help you,

52:22

I think, to understand where we're coming from and why we say the things that we're saying. So please try to keep that in mind.

52:29

I think it'll be useful to you as well. I hope you didn't just tune it all out. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number if you want to get involved with the program today or dividing .line

52:44

via Skype. We are going for a jumbo edition of the program today if you haven't figured out what the nomenclature is there.

52:54

A jumbo edition is 90 minutes in length and the mega edition is 2 hours in length.

53:07

And so we're going for 90 minutes today. So I'm hoping that I'm going to be able to wave a magic wand and talk to Kevin in Ireland.

53:16

Hello, Kevin. How are you doing, Dr. White? It's good to hear from you. I was just listening to the show this evening and I must say that the comments you made on that article were excellent and very apt for what the man was saying.

53:36

I think the biggest question for me being a former Roman Catholic is, is the

53:41

Roman Catholic Church truly a Christian Church? Hey Kevin, hold on just a second.

53:48

If it would be possible, we're getting about, we're hearing back to us what happened about 15 seconds ago.

53:54

So if you've got some headsets on or something like that, maybe if you could...

54:00

Yeah, that would probably help. That way we won't have that going back and forth. No problems.

54:08

Continue with your question. Your question was on, is Roman Catholic Church truly a

54:16

Christian Church or is it indeed a manifestation of Antichrist? Well, I have answered that question in the same fashion for over 20 years now and I have not been given any reason to come up with a different answer to the question.

54:34

And my answer to that question is based upon my belief that the

54:40

Bible teaches that the Christian Church is marked by the proper worship of God and the proclamation of His Gospel.

54:51

And therefore, when I, for example, debated Douglas Wilson on issues related to the

55:00

Federal Vision concept, I emphasized that the reason I do not accept

55:05

Roman Catholic Baptism is because it is performed by a Church that does not possess the

55:12

Gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, the only conclusion

55:17

I can come to is that while there are many truths held in common, there is a fundamental rejection of the freedom of God's grace in Roman Catholicism and a substitution of a religious system that condemns men to a life without peace with God and an eternity without eternal life.

55:47

And that is not something that can be said of a true Christian Church. So I would say, no, it is not a true

55:53

Christian Church. No. Yeah, I would agree with that, I think. I mean, from my own experience being a former

55:59

Roman Catholic, I would say the biggest difference as well is the lack of a personal faith in the

56:05

Lord Jesus Christ. You're putting your trust in an institution, in a creed or something like that rather than in a true revelation of the

56:16

Gospel. Well, not only that, but when I listen to Roman Catholic apologists as they ply their trade on EWTN or whatever else it might be, so often the greatest rejoicing is when someone converts to the

56:31

Church, not when someone abandons their self -reliance and throws themselves completely upon the mercy of Jesus Christ and enters into a relationship with Him.

56:43

There is very frequently a switching of the order. As much as I love the

56:49

Church, it is the body of Christ, it is vitally important, all those things are true, but its true nature is only seen first and foremost by a focus upon the one who forms that, that is

57:01

Jesus Christ. Rome has it upside down. They are really focused primarily upon the authority of Rome and her dogmas and protecting those things.

57:14

And that's why they spend so much time protecting the teachings that are just so far removed from anything that the

57:20

Apostles ever communicated in regards to Mary and all this stuff. Because that is a manifestation of her authority.

57:27

And therefore you must bow to that. And so yes, there's so many reasons to recognize that we need to continue evangelizing

57:38

Roman Catholicism, but let's be honest, that doesn't get done much because you have a lot of Protestants who are

57:46

Protestants in name only. They are swimming around the middle of the Tiber River. They don't think that Rome's Gospel is a false

57:52

Gospel. And so they've either been compromised on that level or then you have the folks off in their own area who are primarily anti -Catholic by tradition and prejudice, not by knowledge or passion for the truth.

58:10

And let's face it, anti -Catholicism that is primarily based upon bigotry is ugly.

58:17

And it is never a promotion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes, it is. It's one of the greatest indictments of some of the

58:25

Christian churches in certain parts of the world, that they won't evangelize the Roman Catholics.

58:31

And I agree with that, but that's probably a whole other question that I'll leave to somebody else.

58:37

But thanks very much for taking the call, Garth. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate your listening over there. I do really hope that you get to come to Dublin in September.

58:45

I really, really want to do that. I have some contact folks there, but I really want to get the opportunity.

58:53

I almost had the opportunity of coming over there and doing the debate with what ended up being

58:59

Adnan Rashid. I first thought it was going to be Shabir Ali, but I really want to challenge

59:04

Adnan to defend the things he said about the text of the Bible against a Christian apologist who reads the languages of the

59:12

Bible, understands the textual history of the Bible, and also can address the textual critical issues of the

59:19

Koran as well. I think that would be something that would be great to have there at Trinity College, and I'm really hoping that that will happen.

59:25

So we'll definitely pray toward that end. Okay. All right. I guess Kevin's gone, and we're doing the switchover process as well.

59:35

So that was right on topic, but we're going to be changing topics now. I guess we're going to be going to other subjects, but if you do want to have further conversation on the subject of Roman Catholicism, please feel free to call in, or if you want to now expand the subject.

59:55

LaShawn wants to go to Dublin with me. Hey, if you can raise your own funds, LaShawn, we can take a whole group over.

01:00:02

Dublin, I really had a great time in Dublin, and let me tell you something. If you love books, you've got to get to the

01:00:11

Reading Room at Trinity College in Dublin. You've got to get there. You will. Oh my.

01:00:17

That was a lifetime experience. No two ways about it. Google it. Google Reading Room, Dublin College, then go to the

01:00:25

Images page, and you'll see what I mean. It was absolutely incredible.

01:00:31

877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. Dividing that line via Skype, and that's what

01:00:38

Ian up in Utah utilized. Hi, Ian. Hello, Dr. White. How are you doing? Doing pretty good. Yeah, I am calling to talk with you about Dr.

01:00:48

R .C. Stroll's argument for necessary being. I'm sure you're familiar with that argument.

01:00:54

I know you are. You've read the book. Unfortunately, Ian, you're sort of fading in and out, so I didn't catch

01:01:01

Dr. Stroll's argument for what? Necessary being. Being? B -E -I -N -G?

01:01:07

Necessary being. Hang on one second. I will fix this microphone. Okay. There we go. Much better.

01:01:15

Sorry about that. You sound like you were calling from Dublin this time. Yeah, I called you actually about a year ago and talked about the same topic.

01:01:23

It was actually going to be a dissertation for my doctorate at Columbia Evangelical Seminary.

01:01:31

I have, just because of financial reasons and stuff, I had to switch over to North American Reform Seminary and finish out my doctorate there, but it's still a subject of interest for me.

01:01:43

I've been listening to the whole Sproul -Bonson debate again and reading about it.

01:01:49

I know you're familiar with R .C. Sproul and John Gerstner's argument for necessary being.

01:01:58

Okay. Relate this to presuppositionalism for me and help us out to know exactly what your question is.

01:02:05

Okay. All right. I'm glad you asked because this is kind of the feedback I wanted to get from you.

01:02:12

In his argument for necessary being, what R .C. Sproul does is he says that if something exists now, something has to exist necessarily.

01:02:22

If something exists necessarily, then you can say four things about what exists now.

01:02:28

Either it's an illusion, either it's created itself or whatever, or it existed forever.

01:02:38

What R .C. Sproul then does is he systematically goes through each one of those views and he shows how they're impossible.

01:02:48

And then what he arrives at is there must be a being who has the power of existence within himself. I think

01:02:53

I'm representing the view fairly correctly. Okay. It's somewhat of a variant version without the mind -bending elements of the ontological argument.

01:03:05

Yeah. But how is this not? I'm just interested.

01:03:10

How is this not a presuppositional argument? I would say it's almost a presuppositional argument for necessary existence.

01:03:18

So you have the presuppositional arguments for morality and you have a, you know, what you do is you go in and you show on the atheist worldview how morality can't exist given what they say about reality.

01:03:32

And you have it for logic and you have it for you have the transcendental argument for logic and the transcendental argument for the future being like the past.

01:03:43

I'm just wondering what is the rub here on necessary being? Is this not somewhat akin to a presuppositional argument?

01:03:52

He goes through and he shows the impossibility of the atheist being able to say that anything but God exists that would create the world.

01:04:02

Do you follow what I'm saying? Yeah. And I need to try to relate it to the audience so they can sort of follow what's being discussed.

01:04:13

I would recommend to folks that they listen to the dialogue that took place between Greg Bonson and R .C.

01:04:20

Sproul on these issues. I think that I'm very thankful that that took place before Dr.

01:04:26

Bonson went home to be with the Lord. I think that was useful. And I think people need to understand that if you hear people talking about presuppositionalism, you normally associate that with Reformed theology, but R .C.

01:04:40

is a rather ardent opponent of presuppositionalism as an apologetic methodology.

01:04:47

He supports the utilization of what we might call the standard theistic proofs.

01:04:54

But he was very adamant in that debate that he wants to revise it.

01:05:01

As a matter of fact, that's one of his first points. And Bonson also says in his classes that if you revise these arguments, they can fit into a presuppositional model, and he actually spends some time doing that with each of the arguments.

01:05:16

I've heard Dr. Bonson criticizing the cosmological argument and so on and so forth, but I think that there is, at least as far as on a conceptual level, that there is a connection between the use of say, the cosmological argument and a consistent presuppositionalism.

01:05:42

Let me explain to folks before I start talking about that, let me explain to folks something so we can keep this useful to everybody who's listening.

01:05:52

Fundamentally, if you really just want to simplify what the issue is in regards to whether you're an evidentialist or presuppositionalist, the issue really comes down to what do you believe about man, and do you believe that man has the right to judge

01:06:05

God's existence or not? Or is man a creature who is already suppressing the knowledge of God, and therefore adding to the knowledge that he's suppressing only increases his guilt, it's not going to remove his rebellion, and that the apologetic methodology is to pry up his fingers in his suppression of the knowledge of God, and expose the inconsistency of his worldview.

01:06:25

That really is a very, very brief discussion of how the two approaches differ from one another.

01:06:36

Now, as to the question that's being brought up, the connection it seems to me, and I don't claim to be an expert on all these things, there's a lot of folks who spend a lot more time on the philosophical end of these things than I do, but it seems to me that PSR, the principle of sufficient reason, really functions as the common denominator here.

01:06:59

Anyone who has listened to Dr. Bonson's debate with Gordon Stein knows that at one point

01:07:05

Dr. Bonson made the argument that brute facts are irrational.

01:07:12

If all you can say is well, it's just that way, that that is not a logical or rational explanation for anything in the universe.

01:07:21

And the fancier name for what Dr. Bonson was enunciating at that point is the principle of sufficient reason, that there needs to be a sufficient reason, an explanation for the existence of anything.

01:07:34

You can't just say, well, it's just the way it is. And interestingly enough, PSR, the principle of sufficient reason, is also the key element in the construction of,

01:07:50

I think, any meaningful form of the cosmological argument. And you probably could make the same argument, which sounds like what you're referring to, in regards to a form of the ontological argument as well.

01:08:02

And that is that... Go ahead. I wouldn't really consider it the ontological argument.

01:08:10

I mean, I know that Sproul's favors that, but he sets this argument as distinct in the book from the ontological argument in classical apologetics.

01:08:19

It's really the third argument of Aquinas of contingency revamped.

01:08:28

If everything's contingent, then there must be a necessary being. I think it's more of that kind of an argument.

01:08:35

I really would have trouble saying that this is an ontological argument.

01:08:41

But of course, you might disagree with me on this. Well, no, what terms you want to use to describe them, there's all sorts of folks who have different takes on that, and that's not a big issue for me.

01:08:54

But the point being that the... there doesn't necessarily have to be—and

01:09:02

I've encountered people who take this viewpoint—it doesn't necessarily have to be an absolute rejection of there being any value in the theistic proofs of the existence of God, because obviously, from the

01:09:13

Christian perspective, those things are valid given the existence of the laws of logic and hence the

01:09:22

Christian worldview. The presuppositionalist is saying you can't start there. You can't start by abandoning your

01:09:29

Christian worldview and saying that there is no foundation for the laws of logic and somehow reason to them.

01:09:36

And that's just—again, I'm emphasizing the functional aspect of it here as to how this plays out in the apologetic realm.

01:09:45

You're not necessarily dealing with that. You're dealing more with well, it sounds to me like Dr.

01:09:51

Sproul is somewhat borrowing from the position that he actually denies, and maybe there's an opportunity for rapprochement here.

01:10:04

Maybe that's the direction you're going. I'm not sure. But yeah, somewhat. I guess

01:10:10

I'm looking— I'm not necessarily trying to pull R .C. Sproul into some camp that he doesn't want to be in, but I'm saying if you look at the argument itself, and you look at the way it functions, how is this really not a transcendental argument for existence?

01:10:27

Just like Bonson championed the transcendental argument for logic, I would see this as somewhat of a transcendental argument for existence.

01:10:35

And the way Bonson argued for logic being transcendental and being revealed in the character of God, is that he would use the ploy of the impossibility of the contrary.

01:10:48

And this is the same thing R .C. Sproul does. He says, well, if something exists now, we can say it's an illusion.

01:10:54

But if it's an illusion, then we have to account for the illusion. It can't be self -created. And he goes through the logical fallacies of it being self -created.

01:11:02

And then he goes through the logical fallacies and scientific fallacies of the world being around forever, or the universe being around forever.

01:11:10

And then he comes to the conclusion that there must be a being who has the power of existence within itself that is sufficient to create.

01:11:20

So, I don't know. I just wanted to bounce that off you to see if you could see that. I don't know that I'm the best person to address that.

01:11:27

That's getting a good bit into some of the philosophical realms that, I'll be perfectly honest with you, are not my forte.

01:11:35

There might be some folks I can think of at a couple of the seminaries that might have much more to opine on the subject.

01:11:44

But all I know is the last time I heard R .C. address this subject, he wasn't looking for an approchement.

01:11:52

I'm sure he's not. In fact, he was... Well, the last time

01:11:58

I heard it was actually at the Ligonier Conference in Scottsdale. We had a table set up at that Ligonier Conference.

01:12:07

While he was in the Q &A session basically blasting presuppositionalism,

01:12:14

I was talking with a whole group of folks about why I believe in it. So it was a little bit of a weird situation.

01:12:20

But anyway, I think that there's value in seeking to see where the connections are, because obviously from our perspective,

01:12:30

R .C. is being inconsistent with his own worldview at that point, and so the arguments that he would develop would have to borrow from that.

01:12:38

And hence, there might be that kind of connection. I certainly have felt that PSR is a connection between the cosmological and the presuppositional approach.

01:12:50

But those are things that need to be fleshed out in full, which is difficult to do in a context such as this.

01:12:58

So anyways, hey, Ian, thank you for your call today. And keep listening.

01:13:03

Thank you for that. Alrighty. I'm still hearing sounds there.

01:13:09

Are we switching over? 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number.

01:13:17

And I was actually looking for a... Unfortunately, Comrex decided to go someplace else and disconnected on me, and so I do not have any information in front of me until it reconnects at some point in time, and hoping that it will do so before the program ends and I stop coming up with things to talk about.

01:13:40

So we'll just guess and talk to Murray in Canada. Is that what you said? Okay. I don't have so much...

01:13:48

Hey, Dr. White. Hello, how are you? Hey, Dr. White, thanks for taking my call. Yes, sir. Oh, and by the way, congrats on the great debate with Shabir Ali.

01:13:58

Oh, all right, thank you. And my question's kind of related to that.

01:14:04

In your last debate with Shabir Ali, Shabir Ali brought up the Gospels, and how the

01:14:10

Synoptics have supposedly a different day than the Gospel of John, and I was wondering, this is something...

01:14:18

It's one of the few things I don't have an answer to in my apologetics, and I was wondering if you could give me a source, popular or scholarly.

01:14:28

I think you brought up something, but you didn't get... You brought up something, an author, you don't have his name offhand, but you did not give a book title, if I remember correctly, so if you can get me a source on that.

01:14:42

Well, ironically, I don't remember that coming up, and I may have been writing something else when

01:14:49

Shabir made that statement. It's a standard argument that Bart Ehrman utilizes as well, and I don't even remember responding to it.

01:15:01

Someone else had asked about that, and I thought that was odd. But I would simply refer people to the appendix in A .T.

01:15:11

Robertson's Harmony of the Gospels, where he goes through this and demonstrates really just very fully.

01:15:20

And I did the same thing, if I recall correctly. I could be wrong, but I thought this was what

01:15:27

I presented. Well, if you don't mind me stepping in here, you did do an explanation, but I can tell it was very summarized.

01:15:37

No, I don't mean... I was saying I believe I did this presentation at the

01:15:44

Street Preaching Conference, the Stand... Not Stand, a reason. Stand, something, in New York a year and a half ago, or almost two years ago.

01:15:53

And I thought that was posted on YouTube, so maybe that would be there, and if that's what

01:16:01

I was talking about, then it would actually be on YouTube. I don't know. I know that I did this presentation at the

01:16:11

Covenant of Grace Church in St. Louis. Yeah, go stand and speak.

01:16:16

Thank you, Ralph. I was just waiting for you to catch up. I think I did it there.

01:16:21

That should be on YouTube. I know I did it at Covenant of Grace Church in St. Charles, outside of St.

01:16:28

Louis, and that would still probably be on their website, in their downloadable audio files, or something like that, where I responded to Airman's best arguments, and this is one of them.

01:16:41

And it would take me more than the time we have left in the program today to go through all of this, but all

01:16:49

I did was just expand on the information that's found in A .T. Robertson's appendix in his

01:16:56

Harmony of the Gospels, which I don't remember who it was published by, but it was used as a textbook in Bible college back when

01:17:04

I was doing that. But I do have a presentation on it, and maybe it would be worthwhile to do a video on it at some point, or something like that, because it's rather easily responded to, actually.

01:17:22

It only takes about 20 minutes, but we just don't have 20 minutes left of the program today. So, like I said,

01:17:30

I did not even remember that Shabir Ali raised the issue, but it may have just been in passing, and he was just sort of—

01:17:37

It came up in the cross -examination in 2008. Oh, 2008! Oh, I thought— Yeah, yeah.

01:17:43

I thought you were talking about the last debate. Well, I said congratulations on that debate, and I said, in your last debate.

01:17:49

I thought I was talking about that debate, but no, in 2008. Oh, 2008, yeah, all right.

01:17:55

Well, yeah, and really, all you simply have to do is allow

01:18:00

John to speak for John. I mean, he makes it very clear. He even uses the very word for Friday, which, in Greek, is the preparation day.

01:18:14

You just couldn't be any clearer than the language that John actually uses, and yet, generally what happens is individuals try to say, well,

01:18:28

John was trying to make a theological point, and so he tried to—and that's common in commentaries, but there is absolutely positively no reason to go there.

01:18:38

There are at least five texts that demonstrate that John himself is indicating the date was

01:18:50

Friday. There's John 13, 1 through 3, which makes it very clear, 13, 27 through 29, 18, 28, 1914, and 1931.

01:19:06

So if you look at those, you will see very, very clearly that John does agree with the synoptics on the date of the crucifixion of Jesus.

01:19:18

All right, thank you. All right, Murray, we may just— maybe I'll have to do it on the program or do a video or something like that, but it would be worthwhile doing that because a lot of people don't have

01:19:30

Robertson's synopsis of the Gospels hanging around, but I think it's still in print.

01:19:36

I think it's still available. Yeah, but most people have Bart Ehrman's book. Unfortunately, yes, yes. All right, thank you,

01:19:43

Murray. All right, thank you, Dr. White. Thank you very much. God bless. All right, it seems that Skype is the—is there something wrong with the phone lines today?

01:19:53

I mean, normally the phones are, you know, 877 - 753 -33—that's normally where people go, but today it's all about Skype, and I guess people want to sound really good when they're on or something like that.

01:20:08

I don't know. But it looks like we've got a bit of a bit of a troublemaker online here.

01:20:16

And you lost him. Well, that's what happens to troublemakers when when troublemakers come online.

01:20:24

LaShawn keeps saying I'm supposed to talk about Eric and Kanter. What am I supposed to say about—you know what I can mention, though, is

01:20:31

Ymir Kanter was in Phoenix. You didn't even know that, did you? No. I didn't either. I don't know.

01:20:40

And unfortunately, he was at Red Mountain Christian Church or Red Mountain Community Church or something like that.

01:20:47

And I was, unfortunately, in Canada, which I'm not sure if they checked to see if I'd be gone or what. But guess what?

01:20:55

The sermon got Kanterized. And that's a new verb that I've come up with. When your sermon gets

01:21:02

Kanterized, let's put it this way. My debate from a couple weeks ago on ABN got

01:21:08

Kanterized. Which means it's gone. It just disappeared. Technical difficulties, it's gone. It got Kanterized.

01:21:14

And if you go to the website, I think Bigelow was showing me these things in channel.

01:21:19

If you go to the website of that church, if you want to listen to Ymir Kanter's sermon, you can't!

01:21:25

It's not there. It's been Kanterized. Which is what happens when either of the

01:21:30

Kanter brothers go and speak anywhere anymore. Because every time they do, they stick their foot in their mouth.

01:21:36

Because somebody was mentioning that Eric and Kanter made some very insensitive remarks while speaking at Truett McConnell College.

01:21:43

But of course, he can get away with it there, because Ymir is the president of Truett McConnell College. Which also, as we saw in that Word document, was where the really stupid excuses for Eric and Kanter's lies were also written on a computer owned by Truett McConnell College.

01:22:01

I wonder where that happened from. Alright, we're going to try this again. Talk to the troublemaker. Let's talk to Rift.

01:22:07

Hi, Rift. Good evening. Hello. How are you doing?

01:22:13

Yes, sir, go ahead. I can barely hear you. You can barely hear me? Yes. You sound like you're right next to me, but you're whispering.

01:22:20

Oh. Technical issue I can't figure out. That sounds pretty good there. What can we do for you?

01:22:25

I have a question about John 3 .16 and the conflict between God's love and God's hate.

01:22:36

I've looked through a variety of your books, and I can't find you dealing with this issue, but the question that was asked of me is, if God so loved the world, then what are we to do with these texts where it says

01:22:47

God hates these kind of people or this person? Well, the problem is that Hutos doesn't mean that God's love is an undifferentiated, all -consuming concept that can only be understood in one shallow way.

01:23:10

It says, for thus, in this manner, for this way,

01:23:16

God loved the world. And how so? In that he gave his only begotten Son, so that every one believing.

01:23:24

So the love that was expressed, what's being described is the self -giving that is there.

01:23:32

There's nothing there about well, God just so loved the world.

01:23:38

There's another, there's two words that unfortunately have been interpreted in the

01:23:43

English language in such a way as to have a completely different meaning than they have in the original language.

01:23:50

One is, whosoever, when it's actually pas hapistio, everyone believing. The other is

01:23:58

Hutos. Hutoskar is how it starts, for thus, in this way, for in this fashion,

01:24:06

God loved the world. And it was in his self -giving. So there's nothing there about this is just such an all -consuming thing or something like that.

01:24:14

It's amazing in its statement in that he gave his only begotten Son. But that's just explaining how

01:24:22

God's love was expressed and the mechanism by which it was expressed.

01:24:28

It's not something saying, well, as people basically just automatically assume that's so in such a great way.

01:24:37

In fact, it's interesting that the word for love there, agapesen, is in the aorist, which is very interesting because the aorist is the simplest of the verbal forms in the sense of the action that is expressed.

01:24:54

And it's normally a point action, and it's normally referring to an event in history. And so the love of God that is expressed,

01:25:03

John 3, 16, is the love seen in the giving of the Son. And so it all makes perfect sense.

01:25:11

It fits together perfectly. Okay, I can understand this passage in this soteriological context, but what

01:25:19

I think I'm trying to understand is what's the context of the word used there for world?

01:25:25

Well, again, it is the, where is the realm in which this redemptive event took place?

01:25:38

Where will be the inhabitants, the people who will be engaging in the verb pistuo?

01:25:46

Where are the believers? Where are the people who are, so that everyone believing, where is this?

01:25:52

The world, and there's 14 different uses of Kosmos and John alone, this isn't the world that we're not to love in 1

01:25:59

John 2. There's a lot of uses that this isn't just the created order, but it is the realm in which the soteriological action of the sending of the only begotten

01:26:10

Son is demonstrated. Now, some would argue that that demonstration should be limited specifically to the ones who believe because they're the ones who truly see it.

01:26:22

Others would see it in a wider sense in that since the self -giving has taken place,

01:26:27

God's love has been demonstrated, whether a person believes in that or chooses to reject that, the demonstration is still made one way or the other.

01:26:36

So there's different understandings as to how you would take that, the extent of Kosmos at that place.

01:26:43

But fundamentally, it has to be recognized that it is the realm in which the self -giving takes place and the realm at which the belief takes place, all those believing in Him.

01:26:58

So that seems rather straightforward to me. Okay, one final question. Does any of your books deal with that specific question that I was raising?

01:27:09

I know I addressed it in my lengthy open letter to Dave Hunt when

01:27:14

What Love Is This? first came out. But I was primarily focused upon the translation of Hinnah Pasch Hapus Tuon.

01:27:23

I know there's a discussion of it in D .A. Carson's book on The Difficult Doctrine of the

01:27:30

Love of God. He discusses Kosmon in his discussion there.

01:27:37

What's the title? The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God, I think. It's a fairly short book.

01:27:43

It's a really short book, in fact. Almost a booklet. But Carson doesn't write anything that's overly simplistic.

01:27:52

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your call. God bless. We've got other callers, but we're pretty much out of time.

01:28:01

I'm not sure if you noticed that. I could tell you were just lining them up and not realizing that it's just about 5 o 'clock.

01:28:08

I'm sorry, Vincent. Sorry, Gregory. You know, we had open lines there for a long period of time, 45 minutes, almost 40 minutes, and they all climb in right at the end.

01:28:20

Unfortunately, 90 minutes is as far as we're doing today, and I appreciate all of you who have been listening today, and I hope especially the first 45 minutes of the program that you heard my heart and you saw that it's a vitally important issue.

01:28:37

It really goes to why we're here, what the gospel is, and we need to pray for those who have lost confidence that we can really know what the gospel is.

01:28:47

Because once the church loses hold of that, we just don't really have much of a reason for existence. Thanks for listening.

01:28:53

Lord willing, we'll see you next Tuesday here on The Dividing Line. God bless. ... ...

01:29:48

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01:29:58

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01:30:05

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01:30:10

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