The Atonement: Defined by Revelation, or Philosophy?

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:32

Well, greetings and welcome. I'm coming to you live from Evergreen, Colorado.

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Beautiful day up here. We've had beautiful weather so far. Only one little bit of rain since I've been up here.

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Just completed the double, triple bypass bike ride.

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This is the third time I've done it. I have a piece of advice for everyone.

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Learn from my mistakes, since I make so many of them anyways. If you put like regular sunscreen on like your arms, okay?

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Lather it up real good. And then you put those sunshade like arm things on.

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When you take them off, you must completely reapply this. It won't stay.

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No, not even if you don't rub it. No. The arm shades will absorb all of this.

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And the result is, well, yeah. Let's just say that I'm pretty much the color of a very unpopular

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Washington football team. Well, not unpopular but certain people associated with this particular program who remain nameless.

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But the point is it's their name that is considered unpopular.

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And that name is now descriptive of my arms. Two days, 237 .5

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miles, 20 ,500 feet of climbing, as high as the beautiful top of Loveland Pass.

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And the first time I drove up Loveland Pass in my car, I had to drive on almost left side of the road.

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I was so scared of the heights. Now I've lost track of how many times I've gone up and down Loveland.

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And it's still freaky to look down and see the little teeny tiny trucks on I -70 that look like ants down there.

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They're so far down. And that's where you're going and going quickly without any guardrails.

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But great time. I should tell a story very quickly. I rode the first 35 -40 % of the trip with Pastor Eric Ellis.

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And there was supposed to be a group from the church, but we sort of had trouble getting together.

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And so Pastor Eric and I, and a fellow by the name of Forrest, we were sort of staying together as we're climbing up Juniper Pass, which we started later in the day, later than I normally do.

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And so there are literally thousands of cyclists going up this road. The road's closed. And so Eric and I start discussing the

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EFS controversy, the eternal functional subordination stuff. You know, Bruce Ware grew them, Carl Truman, all the stuff that's going on.

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The thing where if you make any comment, both sides will shoot you. But so we're having this in -depth conversation about inter -Trinitarian relationships and the meaning of subordinationism and just all sorts of this kind of stuff, perichoresis and everything.

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And we're passing all these people, or a few people are passing us, but we're pretty much passing other people. And it was really funny to see the expressions.

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And once somebody just said, wow, that's a pretty interesting topic of conversation you've got going there.

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It may be the first time that there was an in -depth Trinitarian dialogue going on while climbing

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Juniper Pass on bikes during the triple bypass bike ride in Colorado. But it was,

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I had a great time. I don't know why. I did really, really well. Crushed my record coming back the second day by 47 minutes.

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I'm not sure how that happened because I wasn't trying to. Maybe that's why. Maybe being relaxed has something to do with it.

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I don't know. But leave tomorrow and tomorrow evening,

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Lord willing, seven o 'clock and then Wednesday evening, seven o 'clock in Santa Fe.

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Look at the banner ads at AOMN .org. Everybody's going, look at the banner ads, AOMN .org.

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There's information there. And hey, I actually put it in the calendar,

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James. It's described as the youth event tomorrow night. But I feel young. So I guess,

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I guess anybody can come. I'm not sure. But you can check with the church. But I'll be speaking next two evenings in Santa Fe.

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And then I go from Santa Fe to Salt Lake. And we have already posted the schedule for Salt Lake, the dialogues with Alma Allred and with the local imam there on who is

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Jesus and speaking at the OPC there in Magna out on the, that would be the west, sort of northwest side of the

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Salt Lake Valley area. And that's where I spoke last year around the same time, if I recall correctly.

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And then coming back up here to Colorado and doing the

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Bob Cook Memorial Mount Evans Hill Climb.

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I can see Mount, well, I can't because the shade's down right now. But if, well, sort of through one of the slats,

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I can see Mount Evans from here. If you've ever been to Denver, the big huge mountain that predominates the skyline out to the, what would it be, that northwest -ish direction is

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Mount Evans. And it's highest paved road in the continental United States. The finish line for that particular little race is 14 ,130 feet above sea level.

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And if you've never been that high, you can sort of see the curvature of the earth. It's so far up there.

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It's really cool. And it's just beautiful. The only thing you have to do is dodge the sheep that live up there toward the top, who are unfortunately exceptionally accustomed to humans and don't really care whether you want to get past them or not.

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So anyway, that's what's going on. One of the reasons that I have not been necessarily commenting on everything that's going on in the world, to be honest with you, once in a while you just sort of need to let some things slide.

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It's not that I'm not noticing these things. I did post a Facebook article about the fact that you cannot define words like lives and matter without having a meaningful worldview to place behind that.

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And so it's not like I've just gone into a shell. But at the same time, the first thing

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I do in the morning isn't to jump on social media or check the email or something else like that. And that's probably a good thing.

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In fact, I reposted a Facebook meme where these two people are talking and the lady's saying to the man, right now

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I'm finding a conflict between my desire to remain well -informed and my desire to remain sane. And I get that.

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I really, really, really do get that. By the way, on the way up here and then I finished while I was driving out up here, I listened to a book.

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Now this is not a book written by a Christian. It contains some profanity. But that's what you'd expect because we're talking military police type guy here.

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It's a book, Crisis of Character. It was the secret service agent that was in both the first Bush and then

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Clinton White House. He was very much involved in the Monica Lewinsky stuff with President Clinton.

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And he told his story recently. He was on Fox News and all the rest of that stuff. And I decided

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I'd listen to the book. And so I started on the drive up and then finished it on some of the rides that I've been doing prior to the double, triple bypass.

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Or I may have actually finished it. Yeah, actually, I finished it on the second day of the triple bypass.

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Anyway, it was thoroughly depressing, thoroughly depressing. The degradation of our nation at the highest levels, the degradation of the

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White House under the Clintons, just shocking, much more than I mean, you know, you could sort of guess.

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But the place I mean, and I'm sure this happened under the second part of this happened in the

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Obamas too. But when the Clintons first got in, he tells the story about how they were just letting everybody in their second cousin into the

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White House. And these homosexual activists were running through the

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White House plastering gay pride stickers on antiques, on stuff that's just irreplaceable.

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Absolutely no respect for the people's house or anything like that at all. And of course, one of the big things was he contrasted how things were under the first Bush with how they were under the

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Clintons. That's the only people he could contrast because that was the only time he was there. But this is a huge difference in respect in regards to the

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White House itself and the nation and all sorts of things like that. But basically, the brothel atmosphere of the

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White House with Bill Clinton there, and just the screaming insanity of Hillary Clinton, just shocking stuff, shocking stuff, more than I had ever imagined.

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So if you haven't, you know, if you have an interest in those things, you know, maybe you just might go, well, I already know enough about that.

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I don't need to be triply depressed by it. But the fact that in all probability, that's exactly where we're going again.

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It's just an amazing thing, especially with what happened. You know, the whole idea of justice any longer is just, it's a joke.

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When the Senate failed to convict Clinton, when the evidence was just overwhelmingly clear, every time justice is not done, then the concept of justice becomes dumbed down farther and farther and farther and farther to the point where most of us recognize, we realize in our heart of hearts, that justice is now not something that we expect to be done.

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We're almost surprised when it is done. Wow, they got it right. Shocking.

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That's, when a disconnection takes place between morality and ethics and what the law is, that society is, well, as George Will said, the

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Weimar problem. That's what happened to the Weimar Republic. It no longer had the, it was so corrupt, and the culture was so corrupt, that it could not maintain a republic.

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And what came after it was called the Third Reich. Well, that's where we are.

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I'm not predicting a Third Reich, but I am saying that a nation, a republic requires a certain level of consistency and maturity on the part of its citizens, which is no longer the case,

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I think, in our situation in the United States. And so, I don't know what's coming, but I just comment on it briefly.

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Now, one of the main things I want to talk about today, and I saw something pop up here.

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Wow, there's a bunch of stuff popping up here. I guess, oh,

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Eliezer Maccabee, somebody who thinks they, oh, all about Edomites and forgetting, well, you know, nothing like abusing

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Romans 9 .13. Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. So, all white people are Edomites, and therefore

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God hates all white people. That's, I mean, face -plantingly ridiculous.

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No connection whatsoever to the text, but these folks are out there. Wow. Maybe that person's listening.

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I don't know. Anyway, what I wanted to talk about was the one thing that I did get a lot of notification on today.

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Yes, I know there are certain articles out there. Maybe after some of the time has passed,

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I might address the Christian News stuff and the

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Seth Dunn article. Maybe, maybe not. The Seth Dunn article, especially, would require me to lower my standards a good bit to address it, but it's out there, and the fact that it's been deleted only makes it all the more popular.

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That's how the internet works. Once you hit save, once you hit publish, it's done.

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If you pull it, then everybody starts looking through the archive files to find out why it got pulled, and it gets read more than it would have otherwise.

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Maybe that's why it was pulled. Who knows? I don't know. Maybe we'll look at some of those things, but there's just so much more that is so much more important and so much more valuable.

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What I'm referring to is Tony Costa and Bill Roach and a number of other folks sent me notes this morning about William Lake Craig.

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I had noted, I may have mentioned on the program, I don't recall if I did, I may have mentioned on the program that Bill Craig is writing on the subject of the

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Atonement. I sort of went, well, this is interesting.

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This is one area. Isn't it interesting that there's a tremendous amount of controversy, there's a tremendous amount of people who are attacking a biblical doctrine of the

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Atonement, but it doesn't seem to get nearly as much attention as what

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Apologia Church does to try to raise funds to help establish a church in Hawaii. It gives you an idea of the priorities of many people.

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It would be really nice if some of the folks that are just massively focused upon issues of adiaphora, well, they say that is, but they don't act like it is, would actually invest almost any of that energy in dealing with and digging into the people out there who are fundamentally denying penal substitutionary atonement.

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That's why I remember about two years ago, a year and a half ago or so, I played portions from the debate that Michael Brown did defending penal substitutionary atonement at the

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IHOP event, and we listened as that particular subject was addressed and things like that.

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Most of you probably know that Dr. Allen from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, ironically, even though his field is preaching, has somehow been selected by that cadre of Southern Baptists to be the expert in attacking a thoroughly

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Biblical doctrine of atonement and replacing it with the wonderfully nebulous, broad, and yet impersonal doctrine of universal atonement, which is very popular in many

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Southern Baptist churches, but not because it is overly Biblical, but because it is very much a tradition that people have embraced and imbibed over time.

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And so, my understanding is his Kindle book is out, and then the paper book comes out later, which is,

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I think, normally backwards or something. I have not purchased it as yet. I will,

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I would imagine, have to, in some way, listen to this huge thing at some point.

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I honestly wish somebody else would, and in fact, if there is someone that I know who has some experience in this area, who teaches

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New Testament, Greek, Hebrew, so on and so forth, and sound theologically, is planning on responding to this book, please let me know so I don't have to.

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I would find it distasteful and a distraction from the primary project that I need to be committed to, but we'll see.

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We'll see what happens along those lines. But the point is, the doctrine of the atonement is absolutely central.

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This is not an area of adiaphora, and yet, similarly to the doctrine of justification, trying to get modern

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Christians overly excited about imputed righteousness, about the union of the elect with Christ and His death, imputation of, you know, and there's areas of dispute.

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What about, is, you know, people into the new perspective, into those areas that don't believe in imputation, they don't, or if they believe in imputation, it only goes one direction.

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There is no imputation of the positive righteousness of Christ, just the removal of the stain of sin.

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There's all sorts of issues, and you would think these things would be central, but my experience is people are far more interested in things like eschatology or urine tattoos than they are about the subject of the atonement.

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And so, for William Lane Craig to be addressing this as a well -known anti -reformed individual, but Craig himself identifies himself as a philosopher, and so I'm afraid what we're going to be looking at is a philosophical treatment of the doctrine of the atonement.

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And while there is certainly room to discuss the philosophy of atonement from a

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Christian perspective, once again, just as with Molinism, what is the problem with Craig's Molinism?

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Well, it's a philosophy looking for a biblical text, and instead of deriving your beliefs from the biblical text, you have external sources that are driving your exegesis of the text.

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And though Craig obviously deals with theology a lot, it's not known as an exegete.

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And so, it was interesting to look at the article.

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It was in response to a fellow by the name of Colton, and it was published just today, so I guess we're right on top of it anyways.

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Let me just check to make sure. Yeah, okay, just making sure Rich hadn't sent me an email or something like that.

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We're not on here, or something like that. I imagine I was seeing something on my phone. The question, this is

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William Lane Craig speaking, the question of the extent of the atonement is one that I would rather avoid, as it seems so secondary an issue when it comes to the atonement.

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And I immediately stop right there and go, secondary? How can it be considered secondary?

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It speaks to the very definition of what atonement is, as to whom it is applied to.

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But anyway, I want to focus on the really central questions raised with the doctrine of atonement. Nevertheless, one can't help running into this issue when one reads widely on the subject of the atonement, so I'll share here some tentative thoughts on the matter.

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Well, I'll share some tentative responses on the matter. At face value, it seems incredible to think

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Christ died only for the elect. You couldn't get a much clearer repudiation of this view than 1 John 2 .2. He is the expiation for our sins, not for ours only, but also the sins of the whole world.

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Reformed thinkers are forced into exegetical acrobatics in order to explain away the prima facie meaning of such scriptural statements.

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And at that point, as far as I can tell, let me double -check this. At that point, as far as biblical texts relevant to the issue of extent, that's it.

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There is no interaction. Later on, there's some quotations from Romans that aren't on that particular subject.

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But immediately, the first thing to note is it does not seem that in all of his wide reading that Dr.

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Craig has bothered with something like the death of death and the death of Christ. And it just strikes me, this is the normative, this is my normative experience with pretty much everybody from this perspective, that derives their theology from an external source rather than from exegesis.

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Let me just ask a simple question. Do Reformed folks know that 1

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John 2 .2 is in the Bible? Yes. But is 1 John 2 .2

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a text about, is it an extended discussion about the

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Atonement and its impact and its effects? No, it's not. Is it even in a topic directly relevant to that?

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No, it's mentioned in passing, and it's mentioned in such a way as to remind believers that God continues to have

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His elect outside of their particular fellowship that exists at that time, that God's going to continue gathering

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His elect, well, at that point for another 1 ,800 years. No, 1 ,900 years.

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And so, the question that I would immediately ask is, if we're talking about the

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Resurrection, and Craig, of course, is much more focused upon this, and again, even when he quotes

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Scripture in regards to the Resurrection, you have the problem that he seemingly has a very weak view of inerrancy, so you're not exactly sure how he's taking some of the texts he quotes.

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But leaving that aside, if we were dealing with the Resurrection, would he allow an objection to the

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Resurrection based upon a statement made elsewhere in Scripture that's not specifically on that subject to be his primary foundation?

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Why is it that when I hear synergists, anti -reform folks,

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Arminians, if you want to use that term, dealing or attempting to deal with the subject of the

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Atonement, they don't go to the extended discussions of the specific intention of Father, Son, and Spirit in the act of Atonement itself to start there, and then, once you've laid a foundation from those central passages, then look at references that are made in passing elsewhere in Scripture.

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In other words, follow the old dictum that the clear passages interpret the unclear passages.

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I mean, he wouldn't allow that to happen on key issues like the Resurrection or the deity of Christ, so why then do it here?

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Why not show an understanding of the depth and power of the

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Reformed understanding of the teaching of the Scriptures on this subject? And so, before I look at the rest of what

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Craig had to say, let me just, I feel like I need to illustrate that. I need to spend some time today looking at a couple of texts and reminding us of what the real issues are here, because I'll be honest with you, if you have a real understanding of what the key issue in regards to the subject of the

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Atonement is in Scripture, then you will actually eventually become somewhat frustrated with the, and I'm going to take some heat for this, but the shallow nature of the argumentation coming from the other side, and you'll be able to recognize that they can't just dive into key texts on this subject and lay a deep biblical foundation.

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Instead, when you look at these books, what you get is a bunch of either theology or philosophy creating a system up here before you ever get to the application in texts.

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You know, we saw that in a very similar vein with the

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Soteriology 101 thing where they did the hit piece on me in regards to Acts 13 -48.

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You establish all this other stuff before you ever get to the text, rather than being able to say, well, you know what, let's go directly into text and let's see when the

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Scriptures are specifically talking about this subject, what they say, and then we can draw our perspective out from that.

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So obviously, I think some of the most profound, powerful teaching on this, and I'm repeating some of this stuff, and some of you who've listened for a long time are going, you're repeating yourself.

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Yeah, but we have a lot of new listeners all the time, a lot of new viewers all the time, especially since this

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Hebrew -Israelite stuff has taken off. There's a lot of folks that are listening, and so if I repeat a few things,

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I apologize for that, but it's good for reminding, and it's good for the new folks that are joining us.

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But I've often said that, unfortunately for many Christians, their theology of the cross is sentimental rather than biblical.

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It's, you know, and I appreciate this. One of my earliest memories of anything to have to do with the cross was

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George Beverly Shea singing the old rugged cross, and I'm thankful for that music.

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I'm thankful for that memory. I'm thankful being raised in that context. But I have to recognize that, you know,

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I think on that, there was one, and a few young folks look it up on Google, LP made of, as I showed the word for first time to my daughter years ago, she goes, what's vinyl?

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I hear you're laughing, Marty. And studio audience of one, hiding in the background there, but it was the old vinyl

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LP. Sorry, Summer, but it's a good story. And on the same record with the old rugged cross was, what is that song?

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In the Garden, is it called In the Garden? And it's, let's just say it's pretty sappy sentimentalism, and it's not really good theology.

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But again, you know, it's what I grew up with. And I have learned that I have to examine those things.

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We all do. And I can, unlike the emergent church folks that just throw everything off,

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I am so, remember when I talked with the guy whose name I can never remember,

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I think I have a hard drive with a bad sector in it. Because when I try to remember Brian McLaren's name, there it is.

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When I try to remember Brian McLaren's name, it's just, it doesn't work. Remember the conversation

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I had with him on Unbelievable about what, four years ago now, four or five years ago? Here's a guy who had a very similar upbringing to me.

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When I read his books, he was talking about his, as a five -year -old boy, his black pants, and his brightly shined black leather shoes, and his white shirt, and his bow tie.

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I've got pictures of me like that. I remember one of those shiny white shirts that I wore at one of those, what do you call the

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New Year's Eve services? Where, you know, in the old Independent Fundamentalist Baptist context, you'd meet on New Year's Eve to, you know, bring the year in in prayer and normally watch some type of scary eschatological movie or something like that too.

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And I remember so clearly trying to stay awake in the corner of an uncomfortable pew around five years of age, maybe six or seven, somewhere around there.

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And so when I'm reading McLaren's book, I'm going, that was me, man. You know, how do we get to such completely different places?

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Well, we both learned that you have to make your faith your own. You have to examine it.

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You have to see how deep your understanding really is. And if there's traditions, you need to examine your traditions.

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The difference between me and McLaren is, he figured you do that with everything. So the

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Trinity, the Bible, the nature of the Gospel, the nature of sanctification, everything goes on the table, and everybody just gets to reinvent the wheel.

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And I recognize that's silly. That's impossible.

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You can't, no one can reinvent the wheel every generation. That is an imbalanced way of doing it.

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And so I held on to that which is true and that which is historical and that which is thoroughly biblical and what

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I could defend using a consistent biblical hermeneutic. But, and it's not on this issue, but on certain issues,

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I can't, if I can't, and maybe somebody else can, and I'm just not as smart as they are, but if I can't defend something biblically, then

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I'm not going to be able to hold it as a dogma of the faith. And so when it comes to this issue of the atonement, we have to recognize that this is a central aspect of biblical teaching.

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The problem is that the central passages that teach it are in the most unpopular book of the

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New Testament. Well, I suppose 3 John is probably the most popular book of the New Testament. Sorry, John, but in all probability.

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But when I talk about major books in the Bible, it really seems to me that when it comes to the

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New Testament, the book of Hebrews just doesn't rank up there. And I've said many times why it is.

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It is, it assumes a deep familiarity on the part of the reader with the

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Tanakh, with the Torah, the Nevi 'im, the Ketuvim, the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

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And most people today do not have that kind of familiarity. And so they find the argumentation, they find the weight of the presentation lacking.

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And yet, the longest continuous presentations of what the purpose of Father, Son, and Spirit in the entire drama of redemption are to be found in the book of Hebrews.

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And I thoroughly believe that it was the unpopularity of that book and the split that took place between the church and the synagogue, so much so that the warning of Romans 11 was ignored.

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And as a result, much knowledge of the

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Old Testament was lost amongst people. And you cannot understand Hebrews if you don't have that Old Testament background.

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The result of that was an imbalanced, unbiblical, shallow doctrine of atonement.

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Anybody who studied church history, one of the things we'll be talking about, I don't know, a couple months from now in church history, will be the fact that you do not have a full treatise specifically on the doctrine of atonement written until the middle of the 4th century in church history.

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Now why would that be? Well, it wasn't the focus, and part of the reason for that is that the main

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New Testament presentation of this subject is all wrapped up in the

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Old Testament view of the high priest. And if we don't have high priests anymore, and if only the

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Jews have high priests, we don't like the Jews anymore, then why bother? And that's basically what happened.

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And we're sort of living with the results of that even to this day. So it's even difficult, to be honest, to just dive into the book of Hebrews at some point, because there is such a rich context and flow to the book that builds upon itself that is very, very useful.

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If you're not aware of this, I preach through Hebrews over the course of about four years, not every

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Sunday. I don't preach every Sunday at my church, but and it's available at sermonaudio .com

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if you want to get a more in -depth, verse -by -verse run -through in the book.

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But going to chapter 7, there is a discussion of the Melchizedek priesthood and the concept of the supremacy of Christ's priesthood to the

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Levitical. Remember, the key to understanding the book of Hebrews is very simple.

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The argument of the book of Hebrews is addressed to individuals who are being pressured to go back to the old ways.

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Very clearly, Hebrews was written before the destruction of the temple. And these

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Hebrew Christians are being pressured to go back to the old way.

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And the argument of the book of Hebrews is, there is nothing to go back to.

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What you have is the fulfillment of and so much better than what you had before.

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Despite the fact that in that day, Christianity was this little group of persecuted people that were being called cultists, and Judaism had the temple and the priesthood and the sacrifices and all that stuff.

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Despite all of that, the reality is that there's nothing to go back to.

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And so, this argument is being developed numerous different ways, a number of different threads through the book of Hebrews.

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And in chapter 7, you have this idea that the Melchizedek priesthood, it is given by an oath rather than genetically, rather than being passed down, because Christ was not of the tribe of Levi.

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So how could he be this great high priest? Well, it's because God had established a pattern before with Melchizedek, who was also not of that tribe, and that Melchizedek's priesthood is superior to the priesthood that would be represented by the high priest in Judaism of that particular day.

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And so, when we jump in to the text in Hebrews chapter 7, it says, so much the more also

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Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant, a better covenant.

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And so, Jesus is described as a guarantee, the guarantor of this better covenant than the old covenant, so there wasn't, again, anything to go back to.

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And then, starting verse 23, the former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing.

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And so, under the old priesthood, you had high priests who are priests for only a certain period of time, but then they cannot continue that high priesthood because they grow old and they die.

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You're only supposed to have one high priest at one time. That was changed by the Romans, but that's a different issue.

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Then, verse 24, but Jesus, on the other hand, so on the one hand, you have the old, and now on the new hand, here's, this is the new covenant.

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This is how Jesus is a guarantee of this new covenant. Jesus, on the other hand, because he continues forever, holds his priesthood aparabatam.

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It can be understood as permanently or without successor.

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I only mentioned that for two reasons. When you're dealing with Mormonism and its idea that their young men on bicycles at 19 and 20 years of age are actually

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Melchizedek priests, um, the biblical teaching is that Jesus does not pass his priesthood on to anyone else.

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He is the only Melchizedek priest. There is no other Melchizedek priest.

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That would take us back to the old ways of a repeating priesthood that had to be, have new people coming into it because of death, so on and so forth.

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No. Jesus, on the other hand, because he continues forever, holds his priesthood permanently without successor.

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He does not need anyone to step in because he has been resurrected from the dead.

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He has ascended and is now seated at the right hand of the Father, so he holds his priesthood permanently.

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The other reason I mentioned is, it's an example I like to use in talking to Mormons. There's no question that the

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Greek term there is aparabatam. You know, they tend to seem to think the Bible's been changed so many times.

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No, in fact, it's interesting to me, the purest transmission of any of the

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New Testament books, in other words, the book with the fewest highly relevant textual variants, is the book of Hebrews.

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And I like to use that as an example. But anyways, he holds his priesthood permanently. Well, what does it mean that Jesus holds his priesthood permanently?

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Well, I've said many times, whether you believe that salvation is fundamentally the work of God, or whether you believe it is something that God makes possible, but it's fundamentally determined by the actions of man, will have a huge impact upon how you hear

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Scripture. And I don't think there's any question as to what the Bible's perspective on that is. But you can really tell where someone's coming from when you read a

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Scripture to them and you hear how they hear it. So when

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I hear it said that he holds his priesthood permanently, well, if my focus is that it is his power, his ability, his office, his ability to do what the

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Father says, the perfection of his actions as the high priest that will determine my salvation, not just the possibility of my salvation, but actually determine whether I will be saved, then

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I hear this and this is very meaningful to me. If it is just a matter of, well, yeah,

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Christ makes salvation possible and he does a wonderful job making us savable, but he doesn't actually save,

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I'm going to hear this in a completely different fashion, a completely different way. Now, you might say, well, then it's just a matter of how you hear it?

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No, because the next verse can only be heard one way, it can only be understood one way. But it is important to recognize this because in verse 25 very clearly, therefore, he is able to save either forever, or to the uttermost, completely, utter extension.

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You can see how the two concepts are related in their semantic domain. He is able to save forever or completely those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

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And then the very next verse is, for it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, exalted above the heavens.

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So, this is talking about his high priesthood.

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And because he holds this priesthood permanently, he is able to do something.

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What is he able to do? I suggest to you that the phrase, does not contain within it a hypothetical concept.

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It's not saying he is able to make us all savable.

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That is a completely different proposition than to say he is able to save completely.

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So, what's the focus of the author of the book of Hebrews, just as it is the focus of the

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Apostle John in John chapter 6, when he quotes

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Jesus as saying, Now, if we just listen to that, if we just hear that, the focus is upon the

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Father and the Son. It's really a continuation of the unity of the Father and the Son that was strongly introduced in chapter 5.

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So, the Son does the Father's will, he does it perfectly, he must have the ability to fulfill the

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Father's will. And the Father's will is that he save perfectly all those that the

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Father has given to him. And what does the sinner just automatically do?

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What is the one who hears the Scriptures not with the focus upon what

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God does to his own glory? Well, the first thing you have to do in John chapter 6 is come up with some way of getting around that assertion.

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And so, well, yeah, the Father gives the Son those that he foresees are going to believe in him.

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And the same thing happens here in Hebrews chapter 7. Well, even though the whole emphasis of all the verbs and the context and the flow of argument is upon Jesus as the perfect, accomplishing high priest.

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And that's the whole argument of Hebrews is that these people are being told to spit on the name of Jesus, to trample underfoot the blood of the

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Son of God. So, the focus is upon Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, all the way through. But what does the sinner just do when he reads

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Hebrews 7 .25? By the way, a sinner just is a person who believes that there are two forces that cooperate together to accomplish salvation,

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God and man. A monergist, which is what I am, believes there is one force that accomplishes salvation.

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It's God's grace alone. Until the point of regeneration, I'm dead in my sins in the first place.

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And so, the difference between monergism and synergism really normally is the focus upon whether God is able to save solely by his grace or whether his grace is dependent upon the cooperation of man.

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That's a huge dividing line. That's a hugely important thing. And some people don't understand that I can say that's hugely important at the same time recognize there are

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Christians that haven't come to understand that. It's because I was a Christian before I came to understand that myself.

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It's something you grow in your understanding of. And so, I want to encourage others to come to understand the sovereignty of God and salvation, but I don't think you encourage other people to come to understand that by being mean to them or by not even speaking to them or calling them heretics or things like that.

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So, anyway, just a little warning to all my hyper -Calvinist friends out there, or those who are walking down that road, unfortunately.

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When they see Hebrews 7 .25, what they do is they go, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait.

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To save forever those who draw near to God through him. See, there it is.

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Thought autonomous free will was a goner there for a second, but there you go.

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It's our drawing near that makes it possible for Jesus to do all these things.

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Now, remember, this is supposed to be in a book that is an apologetic for the perfection of Christ as Savior, and they're going to go, well,

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I think what the author was really trying to communicate is that this isn't really about Jesus being a perfect Savior.

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It's about Jesus providing a perfect theoretical salvation that we then, through our faith and repentance or whatever other long list of things you want to add to that, depending on what denomination you are, we make work because of what we do.

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And I go, okay, all right, wait, wait, wait, wait. What you have here is a participial phrase, and you have a participle, and it's descriptive, and it has an article.

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The drawing near to through him to God once would be a very literal rendering of this particular phrase.

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So it is a descriptive phrase. And so when you find somebody creating an entire theological category out of a passing descriptive phrase that is not central to the thesis of the verse itself, it's just describing who it is that he intercedes for.

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There's a problem there. There's a serious problem there. Who were those?

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Okay. Hi, Siri. Thank you for interrupting my program yet once again.

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Sometimes you wonder, oh, I said serious, serious problem. Too close to that other word that you're not supposed to use when a phone's in the room, even when it's silenced.

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Anyway, that never happened to Charles Spurgeon. Never. Not once.

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But then again, he never did a Skype podcast either, so you roll with the punches.

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Who are those who draw near to God? Well, again, people want to argue that point without recognizing the

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Old Testament background to this. If you'll think about the Day of Atonement when the high priest offers the sacrifice, who was it that drew near?

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It was the faithful of Israel. It wasn't all of Israel. In fact,

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I think you can make a strong argument that that sacrifice, this was something that Michael Brown and I disagreed about in our debate on this very subject on Revelation TV.

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If you'd like to hear some of the other side, go watch the debate between myself and Michael Brown on Revelation TV. The Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, actually it's

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Yom Kippurim, the Day of Atonement, but only certain people drew near.

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And I think you make a strong argument that it was only those who drew near by faith that were truly fulfilling what

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God's commandment was. When you recognize the truth of what Paul says in Romans chapter 9, not all those who are descended from Abraham are of Abraham.

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It was the faithful of Israel that drew near to God on the

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Day of Atonement that are in view here. And so, what the author is saying is, he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him.

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He is that high priest. There is a specific people who are drawing near to God.

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And why can I be so confident about that? Because I'm not done with the verse yet. Because I actually think that what comes at the end of the verse is relevant to the first part of the verse too.

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Because what it was to say, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

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Now, I have asked this question many, many times of many, many people.

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Who does Christ intercede for? He always lives.

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Remember that's the point of verse 24. Because he continues to forever hold his priesthood permanently.

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Well, his priesthood isn't just about the offering the sacrifice. Because what then did the high priest have to do once the sacrifice was offered?

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He had to take the blood of that sacrifice and enter into the holy place.

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And then he had to sprinkle the mercy seat with that warm blood from the sacrifice.

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And so, the author does not see any difference. He does not divide up the work of the high priest into on the one side, the sacrifice, and then some other action is intercession.

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No, clearly, since we're only talking about two sentences here, he sees both as the one necessary action of the high priest.

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And so, to be consistent, a person who believes in universal atonement, that is, that it was the intention of the

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Son to give his life to save every single human being who has ever lived.

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Even the Amorite high priest who lived hundreds of years before, who was already under the judgment of God.

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Jesus gave his life to save that person even though it was already known that he could never be saved. Those who hold this view struggle mightily in my experience.

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When you ask, who is Jesus interceding for today? Is he interceding for every single human being?

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Well, what would be the grounds of his intercession? Well, I've given my life on behalf of this person. And so, all right, then the wrath of God has been fulfilled on behalf of this person.

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Then what's keeping this person being saved? Their action of not exercising their own free will. So, the

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Father has desired their salvation, the Son has perfectly provided for it, the Spirit comes to bring conviction, but the entire work of the triune

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God is all dependent upon what? All dependent upon the almighty will of man, which according to the Bible is never able to do anything that's pleasing before God anyways.

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So, do you have a division between Father and Son here?

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To where the Son wants to save someone, but the Father doesn't? Or is it just inability on God's part to accomplish his desire, which his desire is to save every single individual?

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What is the nature of this intercession? You see, I would argue that the writer of the

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Hebrews is saying to us the reason we have something better, the reason we have peace with God, is because we have a high priest who is able to save to the uttermost and he is in the very presence of the

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Father who has accepted his work, his resurrection from the dead proves this, he stands there in our place.

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That's the whole point of the preceding chapter when it says we have an anchor firm and secure that goes into the holy place itself, that's why we can have confidence.

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I don't have confidence in me, I have confidence in him. But you can't have that when you turn his work into something that's merely theoretical.

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Well, he makes it possible, just makes it possible. That's not what you have here.

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I cannot think of anything that would be a greater reason for rejoicing since he always lives to make intercession for them.

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But there's a problem, it's specific. That for them is not determined by God sitting back going, oh,

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I wonder what's going to happen once I create here. I'm going to look down the corridors of time and see if anyone is going to accept me.

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Or as William Lane Craig does in this article, well, we could look at this as God has determined which universe to actualize and hence he knows who is going to freely, because he's micromanaged all the events of time, believe in him and so you could have a concept of limited time.

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All that gets rid of the freedom of God and the power of God. This is a plain statement, and I don't even,

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I'm going to run out of time here. I was going to go to Hebrews 9. I was going to read the whole thing William Lane Craig wrote.

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Didn't get to that. Here is a plain statement of the salvific power and ability of Jesus Christ.

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And I just have to ask anybody who is uncomfortable by that, why are you uncomfortable?

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Do you really want a Savior who is only Savior theoretically as long as you allow him to be?

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Now you might say, yeah, but those who draw near to God through him, look, the only, what did

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Jesus say? Who draws me to the Son? Who draws me to the

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Father? I mean, really, you start thinking about the work of the Spirit and the Father, the Son, they're all, but the

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Father draws to the Son. It's the work of the Spirit of God in bringing someone to spiritual life.

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I mean, if you just allow the entire witness of Scripture to speak, it is so clear.

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So having spent all this time, let me wrap up here, all this time just on a couple verses in Hebrews, we could go on all the way through chapter 8, the

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New Covenant, into chapter 9 and he's obtained eternal salvation and is in the presence of the

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Father and all the rest of this stuff, chapter 10, the non -repetitive nature of the sacrament. It's beautiful. It's awesome.

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It's fantastic. Compare that with a single citation of a passing phrase, which is not in a context about establishing the meaning of atonement, the extent of the atonement, the effect of the atonement.

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Who's actually providing an exegetical basis for what they're saying? Something tells me that if these are tentative thoughts, well, you know, we could always hope for the best and hope that Brother Craig will encounter some better works on the atonement than he's read so far and that there would be some exegetical framework provided eventually that would help.

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But with that, hopefully that discussion is useful to you.

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Sorry, I didn't get to reading the rest of it because I did want to deal with some of the Molinism stuff and things like that, but my understanding, and I only got this briefly, is there will be a program on Thursday and I think

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I can go to the Skype thing here and I wish I could find the messages.

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DL Studio. I'm just going to say this and if I'm wrong about this, oh, there it is.

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I can see Skype Messenger now. So I'm going to make this announcement and if I'm wrong, correct me really quickly,

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Rich, but my understanding is Thursday, Vocab Malone will be in studio with a very important program on the subject of Hebrew Israelism and I can guarantee you there's the there's something there and that's a thumbs up, which

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I think means yes. So I'm not going to be part of it.

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I'm going to be listening just like the rest of you. Maybe I'll be listening. Actually, Thursday I'm traveling so I'll probably have to stick it on my iPod and listen to it on a ride on Friday, but I'm looking forward to learning a lot with this and given the hornet's nest that's been tipped over just over the past few weeks,

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I'm sure there'll be some more again. So watch for the announcement of the time on Thursday for The Dividing Line and I'm sure it's going to be interesting.