Creation of Man, What We Believe, Part 18

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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Schedule your next delivery today at PalmerGas .com. That's PalmerGas .com. We would look at this and say there's other things that were created with the appearance of age.

00:51

The trees and the other animals were created with the appearance of age. What do we mean by appearance of age?

00:57

In other words, they were not created, you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, the answer is the chicken, because God didn't create them in the egg form for them to crack open and then start.

01:09

God says He created the animals, so He created them as they would be in their adult form, and then they reproduce.

01:21

Welcome to The Rap Report with your host, Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application.

01:27

This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

01:36

Welcome to another edition of The Rap Report. I am your host,

01:42

Andrew Rappaport. Today we're going to talk about, well, human beings.

01:48

We're going to talk about mankind. How was mankind created?

01:54

When was mankind created? We're going to talk about the differences between man and angels.

02:00

We're going to talk specifically about the question of why did God create

02:05

Adam and Eve? So this is going to be coming your way right now on The Rap Report.

02:12

I am joined, boy, I've been waiting a long time to say this, I am joined again by my co -host,

02:18

Bud the Wiser. Oh my goodness. Sir, how are you? I'm great, brother. How are you? Thanks for forgiving me after all that stuff and letting me back on, too.

02:26

I appreciate that. This is, and folks, if you've been regularly listening to The Rap Report, we're back together.

02:36

Jim Osmond, we're grateful for him for stepping in, some big shoes for him to fill, even though he was kind of giving

02:42

Bud a hard time each week, saying that Bud was being booted and he was going to replace him and things like that.

02:48

But Bud is back, and not only did Bud need just a break, as we're going to talk about in a second, what he was working on,

02:55

I know many of you have been listening to some pre -recorded shows that I did on other people's podcasts and different interviews that I had done.

03:03

This is the first time really back since the passing of my mother, so I just figured I should address that, you guys, my audience.

03:10

I feel like it's, I really do feel when I go to conferences and you guys come up to me and tell me you listen to the show or you email me or message me that you're listening to a show and things that how the show has helped you, it really does encourage me.

03:28

And, you know, I know that I want to be open with you guys, my audience. First time really being back,

03:37

I just want to say that I will admit it was really hard going to Shepherds Conference and just as I walked in, or was actually walking in to the first session of Shepherds Conference is when

03:49

I got the call from my brother that my mother had passed. And so it was a mix of emotions, and I am humbled by the outpour of those who reached out, and messaged, and called.

04:01

So I just wanted, for my audience here, I just want to thank you. But we're back, Bud is back. Bud, you have been working on a new podcast.

04:09

You have your podcast that you've been doing, and where you're doing interviews with folks.

04:16

Someone already beat me to the idea of interviewing you on your own show. I'm always thankful for Providence.

04:21

Yeah. And so you have the

04:27

Bud's Own podcast, which is your show where you do interviews, but you have a new podcast that you're part of, which you're really,

04:34

I guess, kind of the co -host, but the one kind of leading it. But let folks know about your new podcast real quick and what that's about.

04:42

Thank you, Andrew. Yes, that is actually called Truth For You. It is a podcast featuring the preaching ministry of my pastor,

04:51

Andrew Smith, at Christ Reformed Community Church, where I've been a member for a while.

04:57

So we are selecting sermons and putting those out in excerpts, and he and I have a conversation just before each episode with Q &A that is somewhat tied to the content of that particular episode.

05:10

So it's been very helpful. It's ideally designed for the people in the pews when they hear a sermon and, oh,

05:17

I have a question about this or I have a question about that, and it gives Andrew the ability to answer those because you couldn't do that, obviously, in a worship setting.

05:26

So I've been very pleased with the response to it. I encourage people, if you only have a choice between the Bud's Own and Truth For You, go listen to Truth.

05:34

This is the word of God being preached, and that's what the world and the church needs these days.

05:39

I kind of feel responsible for that podcast because, in many ways, many ways, because I got you into podcasting in the first place, being co -host here, then

05:49

I kept pushing you to do your own, so you learned all the skills to do Truth For You, but really,

05:55

Andrew Smith wouldn't be your pastor if it wasn't for me, right? Because had we not had that faithful day when we just invited you and Andrew to lunch together at G3, you guys wouldn't have met and realized, hey, you're in the same town.

06:12

You're not far from each other. The Lord's Providence has been remarkable in a number of ways, yes.

06:26

Well, real quick, before we get started with the content today, we want to get into some really great stuff, but before we do, just want to let you guys know we are going back to Israel.

06:36

We're going to Israel. Before we put this back on track, if you guys remember, we were planning an

06:43

Israel trip. Because of COVID, it ended up getting postponed, postponed, postponed, and then canceled, mostly because the vaccine requirements and mask requirements and all, but those are gone.

06:54

Israel has dropped their vaccine mandates, their mask mandates, all that stuff. So, 2023israeltour .com,

07:02

2023israeltour .com, we're going to do another trip. This one's actually going to be 13 days, so three days longer than the one we planned last time.

07:12

It is going to be this time, we're doing it with Max Lick from karm .org. So, we're going to plan this trip out.

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It'll be a little bit longer. It will be February 20th to March 4th of 2023.

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And if you want to get all the details, go to 2023israeltour .com.

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I will say this, that if you register before the end of May, you will receive $100 off on the registration when you have to pay the final amount.

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And if you do that before the end of May, if we get 45 people that do the flight as well, because some people can just meet us in Tel Aviv, but if we have 45 people do the flight, those people that registered early will also get an additional $100 off.

08:03

I basically say this is a once -in -a -lifetime type of deal, because how many of us can afford to go to Israel and to be able to stay there for 13 days and see as much as we're going to see?

08:14

We have all the major sites that people will read about in the Scriptures we're going to get to go to. So, I really want to encourage you to check it out, 2023israeltour .com.

08:26

So, let's get into our topic now, Bud. What we're looking at in our continuing series of What We Believe, this is the doctrinal statement that you can go check out.

08:36

Go to strivingforeternity .org. Go there, go to the About section, under that, look at What We Believe, and we're going to start, in this series, we're going to start looking at the doctrine of man.

08:50

And so, this is going to start, now we've gotten through looking at what we believe at Striving for Truth about the

08:59

Scriptures, about God, and that went into looking at Christ and the

09:04

Holy Spirit, the Trinity, things like that. We just finished looking at angels. Now we're going to get into the doctrine of man.

09:13

So, Bud, if you could, would you be able to read those first two paragraphs for us so that we have a starting point for what we're going to look at today?

09:22

I will be happy to do that. Okay, paragraph one. Man was directly and immediately created by God on the sixth day of creation.

09:33

He was created in God's image and likeness and with the appearance of age. Man was created free of sin with a rational nature, intelligence, volition, self -determination, and moral responsibility to God.

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Parenthetically citing Genesis 2 .7, 15 .25, and James 3 .9.

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Men are distinct from angels in that they are a race while angels are not. Therefore, men cannot become angels and angels cannot become men.

10:03

Men are distinct from both angels and God and will be for all eternity. And you parenthetically cite 1

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Corinthians 6 .3, Hebrews 1 .14, Hebrews 2 .6 -8, and 12 .22

10:16

-24. Men are similar to angels in having a personality, but limited more so in power and abilities.

10:25

God's intention in the creation of man was that man should glorify God, enjoy

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God's fellowship, live his life in the will of God, and by this accomplish God's purpose for man in the world.

10:38

And you cite Isaiah 43 .7, Colossians 1 .16, and Revelation 4 .11.

10:44

That concludes the first two paragraphs, sir. So as we begin with this, I mean, this is important, folks.

10:51

Why are we going through this? Well, one is because there's some great content when you look through a good doctrinal statement.

10:57

What you end up seeing is you see what it is basically systematic theology, what we believe. Now, granted, most doctrinal statements are kind of short.

11:06

As you look at Striving for Eternity, it's quite long. It's a lengthy one. We go into detail with it, and we're doing that purposefully.

11:13

But I hope that as we're going through the series, you're saying, wow, I notice there's a whole lot behind each of these sentences that I might not have read or understood.

11:24

And that's what a good doctrinal statement does. It gives us all of this information to say, kind of like guardrails on a highway with a steep cliff on either side.

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It protects us from falling off into error on either side. And what a good doctrinal statement does is keep us on the right road.

11:46

But I hope that as you're seeing and you'll see as we go through today, there's a lot that it is trying to answer in very little words.

11:56

So we're trying to be very articulate with a doctrinal statement. And the reason it's taken us so long to unpack this is because there's that much behind each of the sentences.

12:07

And we want you to see this is what we do when we look at doctrine. It's not just, okay, hey, this is what we believe.

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But by saying this is what we believe, that also says what we don't believe, the errors we're trying to answer.

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And so with that, we look at man was directly and immediately created by God on the sixth day of creation.

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Now there's a lot there. So let's start. Man was directly created. What's the emphasis on directly?

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The idea is that God is the source, the one who created the first man.

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This is addressing the issue that some will hold to, known as,

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I know no one's ever heard of this term, but evolution. I know, I know. You've never heard it.

13:05

Darwinism, Andrew? Come on. You know, look, we should pronounce it the way that Darwin would pronounce it, because he was from the

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UK. They have an accent, and I think that they got it right when they pronounced it, evolution.

13:18

I think that's proper. But when we look at evolution, you end up seeing that it's the idea that man, over a long period of time, had been formed, had been created, not really created, but evolved from non -life into life, simple creatures into complex creatures.

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Now, this statement is flying in the face of that. Why? Because it's saying that man was directly created by God.

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So this isn't a process of nature. It's a direct effect.

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So God did this, and it wasn't something that was some natural process.

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That's what the word directly is trying to address. Natural processes didn't create man. God directly did it.

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He is the cause. Not only is he the direct cause, but it says immediately.

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What is that addressing? Well, that's addressing the fact that it wasn't a process over a long period of time.

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So directly is addressing the process. Immediately is addressing the time.

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Why does this become important? For a very simple reason. Evolution is based on two things.

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It's based on the idea of a process over a long period of time. Neither of them were involved with this.

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What we're clearly arguing is the fact that God was the one who created human beings.

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It's not a process. It's not a time thing. This is something that God did, and we even know when he did it, on the sixth day of creation.

15:07

Now, what's this addressing? This is addressing the point that we would argue that there was six days of creation, six literal 24 -hour days, where God created, and on the sixth day of the universe, when he started creating, he created man.

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So the first part, that it was directly and immediately created, addresses the arguments that people would have for evolution, this slow natural process over a long period of time, that some people, even within Christianity, would hold to that.

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It is known that you'll hear people will say that God created through the process of evolution.

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This is called theistic evolution. In other words, theistic meaning that God created,

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God did it, but still believing in evolution. So God used evolution to go about this.

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This is what people will try to do to marry what the Bible says and what modern science is saying.

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I was going to point out that it's very important, and you alluded to it when you began, that the sequence of the doctrinal statement that you've got starts with the

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Scriptures. Folks need to go back and listen to that, because by the time you arrive at this doctrine of anthropology, which is what we're talking about, it's all grounded in the sufficiency and the authority of Scripture.

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The notion of theistic evolution, the notion of deism, which is somewhat related to that as well, you can't hold to that if you affirm authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

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It is clear what God has told us there in Genesis 1 and 2. So that's what this statement is combating, is the notion that these two synthesized things in theistic evolution are incompatible with what

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Scripture actually teaches. This is all building your right, because we start with the Scriptures.

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The reason we start with the Scriptures is simply because that's where God reveals himself. We're not going to learn anything about God until we first deal with, well, where are we going to learn about him?

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Well, it's by his self -revelation. Then we can study about God. Well, that's where we get our grounding. And then we're going to talk about the angels, because that's who he created before he created man.

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We looked at that. Now we get into man. Then we're going to look at things like how we get saved. After we get that, then we're going to look at, well, when you get saved, where do you go?

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You go to church. And then we'll look at the end times. So there's a process to this, but it is important to know that those people who would hold to theistic evolution are going to argue that God used evolution to create...

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Now, I guess they wouldn't say create, but they're trying to marry up modern -day science, which, when you look at what evolution is, the whole goal of evolution is to deny

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God's existence. How do you marry... God doesn't exist with God.

18:12

And that's why I think theistic evolution has a real hard place to stand. I mean, I think that when the

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Scopes Monkey Trial was going on, and this is really where theistic evolution kind of started, people didn't understand how to reconcile

18:27

Scripture with what we see in the scientific realm. And the reality is people think, oh, well, science has proven these things.

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No, they haven't with a lot of this stuff. And we could do a whole show just on that and why science actually supports a young earth and proves that evolution couldn't have happened.

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But there are some within Christianity that hold to theistic evolution. So when we say that man was directly and immediately created by God, that is addressing the issue of theistic evolution.

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It's saying that's wrong. But what else is this also saying? It's also saying that those who would hold to the fact that, okay, evolution didn't happen, but the earth is really old, like millions of years.

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The second part, saying that God created on the sixth day of creation, shows that we believe the

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Bible says the earth is about 6 ,000 to 10 ,000 years old. And I think science supports that pretty well.

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And I'm looking forward, you'll be hearing in a few weeks, you're going to hear from somebody, his name is

19:28

Nathaniel Jensen, and we're going to talk about his book Traced. Excellent book so far as I've been going through it.

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And we're going to talk about that and how this is, it's just that science doesn't support millions of years.

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So what we're doing is by saying this is what we believe, you see what we're also saying what isn't true.

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Theistic evolution is not true. Old earth creationism is not true. What is true then is that God directly and immediately created man on the sixth day.

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But that's not all. Check out, we say the next, it says in our statement, he was created in God's image and likeness and with the appearance of age.

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So what does it mean that we're created in God's image? I mean, there's lots of discussion.

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Lots of people have a lot of different views with this. When we look at Mormonism, for example,

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Mormonism would say that because we're created in God's image, therefore God must have had flesh because we have flesh.

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God must have been like us because we're in his image. So what they'll actually say is that the

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God of this planet, and they believe there's other gods for other planets, and they'll be gods for other planets, but they would say

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Heavenly Father became, basically became a

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God. He was a man on another planet that was a good Mormon, following the teachings of Mormonism on his planet, and he was rewarded with Godhood and became

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God of this planet, and he and his spiritual wife produced spirit children that get put to earth, and they are in the image of God because, well, they're the offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother.

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If that sounds weird to you, because it is. If it sounds like something like that in the

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Bible, because it's not. It was science fiction before science fiction was a thing.

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But you'll get arguments like that. So what does it mean that we're created in the image of God? It is the idea that we are created with attributes that God communicates to us.

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So there are attributes that we call communicable attributes. What does that mean?

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Attributes that God communicates to us, that we share in common. For example, justice.

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You ever think where you get the sense of right and wrong from? That comes from God. God is just.

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He has given mankind the attribute of justice, so we have a sense of justice.

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Do we have the same sense as God has it? No, because we're fallen. But we have those attributes, emotions, intellect, things like that.

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Those attributes are what it means to be in God's image and likeness, that we share in attributes that God.

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Now, there's certain attributes we can't share in. There's certain attributes that are what's called incommunicable, or in other words, not communicated to us, that I define as attributes of deity.

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And those are things like omniscience, omnipresence, so he's all -knowing, all -powerful, all everywhere present.

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Those are things only true of deity. We can't do that. We don't have those attributes.

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But there are ones of personality and morality that he does share with us. And so that's the idea of what it means to be created in his image.

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But not only that, but he created us in his image and likeness, meaning we have certain attributes like him, but we also say here, with the appearance of age.

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Why do we say that? Very simply, the fact that we are created in the appearance of age means that Adam and Eve were created not from infants, where they needed some adult to take care of them.

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They were created as adults. What age did they have the appearance of? I have no idea.

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But they're the only human beings to skip childhood. We don't think about that.

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They skipped childhood. They didn't experience that. Now, let me just say as a caveat here, not to get too scientific, but because Adam and Eve were created with the appearance of age, and we would look at this and say there's other things that were created with the appearance of age, the trees and the other animals were created with the appearance of age.

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What do we mean by appearance of age? In other words, they were not created, you know, what came first, the chicken or the egg?

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Well, the answer is the chicken. Because God didn't create them in the egg form for them to crack open and then start.

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God says He created the animals. So He created them as they would be in their adult form.

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And then they reproduce. Well, you have that with mankind, the animals, the trees, the plants.

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One caveat here is a lot of people will try to argue, well, that's the case with starlight. People will say that, see,

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God created the universe with the appearance of age. Just like Adam and Eve were created with the appearance of age, starlight would be created with the appearance of age.

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I have had discussed this quite a bit with Jason Lyle, and he really makes a great argument why that can't be the case.

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Because he has said we have actually seen, well, he has, I haven't, but we human beings have seen stars die.

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In other words, you see that explosion when a star explodes and goes out of existence. Well, if it's taking light years for that to get to us, think about this.

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If we actually see that star explode, but there's not enough time for that light to get here, what that would mean is that God created the appearance of a star exploding, but there was never a star.

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So God would kind of be deceptive in that way, creating what looks like a star exploding, but there was never a star there.

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It was just the appearance of it that we see now, thousands of years after creation.

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And there still wouldn't be enough time for that light to get to us. So that argument that people will use, because man's created in the appearance, therefore star's light is created in the appearance of age, isn't a good argument for starlight.

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Now, I'm not going to get into what is a good argument. I encourage you to go check out Jason Lyle's Starlight and check it out.

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He has a lot of material on that. Even though Adam and Eve were created mature and did not have a childhood,

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I just want to point out, they do eventually get sent to time out. It ends up being a big deal.

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Yeah. They do act like children when they look at that fruit, like, oh. You're right.

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They were still childish without being children. That's what we're saying here. Yes. All of humanity was sent to time out.

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And we're going to get to discussing that in a few weeks. Man was created free of sin with a rational, natural, intelligence, volition, self -determination, and moral responsibility to God.

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That's a mouthful. So let's break this down as well. As we look at this, man was created free from sin.

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When Adam and Eve were created, when we talk about the idea of a free will,

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Adam and Eve had that. They were free. Now, what does the word free mean? People often talk of a free will, and they don't think through the words they're using and break them down.

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Free is the idea, as we've worded here, free of sin. It's the idea that you do not have the controlling influence of something.

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So God is free. There's nothing that controls God. The only thing that determines

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God is his own being, his own attributes and perfections. God cannot lie.

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Why? Because he's not a liar. He cannot do anything outside of his nature. His nature is honesty.

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He is free because he has nothing controlling him. And Adam and Eve, when they were created, were free.

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They had no controlling influence. They were not enslaved to sin or anything else.

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They could make, truly make, a choice between to violate

28:35

God's law or to obey God's law. That's what it means to be free. And so what we're saying is that God created man free from sin, that there was no sin nature.

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They were completely able with what we say is a rational.

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So in other words, they had an ability to reason. It was a rational nature. So they're, at creation, had the ability to reason.

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Folks, when you have atheists that tell you God doesn't exist, there's a problem there.

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The reason it's a problem is where do we get that ability to reason from? That's the height of irrationality.

29:15

That comes from God. Yeah. I mean, when they deny God, they're denying the source of their rationality.

29:23

Maybe that's why the Bible says the fool says in his heart there is no God. I love to do this when

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I'm on the streets, bud. People will say, well, there is no God. And I'll get into explaining, well, where do you get your ability to reason?

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And I'll say, you know why the Bible says the fool says in his heart there is no God? Because you're using your

29:39

God -given ability to reason to reason that God doesn't exist. And the only way you can reason that God doesn't exist is for God to first give you that ability to reason.

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Circular reasoning? Yeah. Circular irrationality. They have a belief that is firmly grounded in midair.

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And so as we look at this, we're saying that there is no controlling influence of sin in the area of intelligence.

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What is that? That means that our thinking process. In other words, they were able to not only rationalize things without the influence of sin, without the control of sin, but also in their thinking, they were not influenced or controlled by sin.

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We could add to this their emotions, because we think about three main areas of human beings, our thinking, our emotions, our will.

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And the volition that was next one mentioned is the will. And this is one that becomes really important where there's lots of discussion.

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And we're going to get into this in future lessons when we talk about salvation. But people will talk about a free will.

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Now, most people say that when Adam and Eve fell, our thinking was enslaved to sin.

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Our emotions were enslaved to sin. When it comes to our volition, it's interesting because many will say our volition, our will was enslaved to sin, but they'll say we have a free will.

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No, we don't. Once Adam and Eve fell, we no longer have a free will, we have a will.

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You want to call it something? Call it an enslaved will. We have a will that's enslaved to sin.

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It's always going to do that because that's its master. But when Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve were the only ones that we can say truly had a free will up until the time that they sinned.

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We'll dig in more about that in the future. So they were free from sin in the area of their ability to reason, their intellect, their will, also their self -determination.

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They could determine things for self. By the way, this is sun that separates us from animals. This is proof that evolution, again, is not true.

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Animals don't have a self -determination. They don't have purpose in life.

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You see this in schools right now, bud. We're seeing people in schools that are trying to, they've removed

32:15

God from schools, they're trying to remove God from culture. They want to tell people God doesn't exist. And now what do we see in the culture?

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Everybody's trying to figure out their purpose. They can't figure out purpose in life. Why? Because God created us different than animals.

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Animals do not run around going, what's my purpose in life? I don't know, we've got a dachshund that's pretty persistent, I can just say.

32:37

Persistently annoying. You know?

32:43

But no, I mean, your dachshund does not sit there and say, what is my purpose?

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I want to do something greater than myself. I want to make a statement or have, when

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I'm gone from this world, I want people to know of me. Your dachshund doesn't do that.

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And yet we do. We have people that try to create a legacy for their name. Right?

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I mean, you see this with presidents of the United States. They're all looking at history. How are they going to be thought of in history?

33:15

Now, granted, I think our current president doesn't even know he's president. I think he still thinks it's a fantasy.

33:21

I mean, I don't know if you saw, he was shaking hands with nobody. He gets done speaking and he turns, he puts his hand out.

33:27

Not only does he put his hand out, he raised it up and down. And then he turns and puts his back to the crowd and like does it again.

33:34

And he's like looking around like, he's shaking hands of imaginary people. So, I don't think he's so worried about his legacy.

33:42

I think he's still thinking this is all a dream. I've been wanting to be president for so long and he just can't believe it's actually happened.

33:48

It is so sad. It is such the judgment of the Lord on us. Oh, I know.

33:54

So, we have a self -determination. Adam and Eve had it where it was free from sin.

34:01

Also, a moral responsibility to God. Now, when Adam and Eve were created, morally, we all have attributes of morality.

34:12

But Adam and Eve, their morality was not influenced, not controlled by sin.

34:17

They had a truly free ability to choose what was morally right or wrong.

34:24

They eventually chose wrong. And we'll get to the consequences of that.

34:30

But what this is saying is when people argue we have a free will, we want to be more precise in our language.

34:39

We have a will that's enslaved to sin until we repent and the

34:46

Holy Spirit indwells us and now, though we still have the influence of sin, it's no longer controlling because the

34:53

Holy Spirit is now in a controlling influence. And he allows us to resist the

35:00

Holy Spirit in some form, but ultimately, we have a freer will.

35:07

I don't know if I want to say a free will because we don't have, even with the Holy Spirit indwelling us, we do not have the same free will that Adam and Eve had because they didn't have the influence of sin at all until they sinned.

35:21

Now, I was going to say that the two things that it seems like in the last few months that I have most engaged in conversation with individuals have either to do with theodicy, you know, the issue of wise or evil in the world, and this issue about free will.

35:36

And it's difficult. I mean, the lights of, you know, the Lord need to go off for some of these folks

35:42

I've talked to. The issue of free will has become confused with the ability to make choices.

35:48

And I know we're going to get to all this later, but we're not saying you don't have the ability to make choices. We're saying that your will, that original volition, is now bound to something and that you're always going to make choices in accordance with what you're bound to.

36:02

And in this case, our sin nature, by virtue of Adam's fall, obligates us to think and will and choose in a direction that is anti -God.

36:12

It is pro -sin. So, difficult concept, but it's curious. Those two things and some of the conversations

36:19

I've had for the last few months with folks, that's the issue. They can't get around the free will thing.

36:24

And even in the church, and you and I talked about this a little bit, you know, the issue of Arminianism and kind of the soft gospel that's out there that you have to choose.

36:33

Well, you're not able to. You're dead, Ephesians. So, sorry. Go ahead.

36:39

You're bringing up a really good point, and we're going to get this in much detail when we get to soteriology, which is the study of salvation.

36:45

But what you end up seeing is you and I and every other person knows we make choices.

36:51

Because of the language people use, they say it's a free will. Yeah. We're saying it's a will that's not free.

36:58

There's a big difference there because when people think free will means I have the freedom of choosing anything

37:05

I want, when we see in scripture, like you said, that we're dead in our trespasses and sins, they're going to say, well, some people are going to say, well, that can't be in our volition.

37:16

It can't be in our will, because we have to have the ability to choose God. And that one thing, it's amazing how that one thing ends up having a snowball effect.

37:28

Now, the way I explain this is there's a difference between theological issues and experiential issues.

37:34

In other words, experientially, I chose God. Theologically, God chose me.

37:40

So some people go, but this is what I experienced. I know. And any of you who believe in Christ, you know that experience of you choosing

37:49

God, you repenting. And because of that, some people will put that experience and say, but I know this.

37:57

I had this happen. This is what happened. And because of that, they're going to end up reading the

38:04

Bible through a lens of, this is what I experienced. Now, I always, when I teach my hermeneutics class, hermeneutics is this art and science of interpretation.

38:13

When I do that, when I do Bible interpretation, Made Easy Seminar in churches, I always explain there's two ways to interpret the

38:20

Bible. You can either interpret it by the rules of interpretation or by your experience. And your experience could be your theological system, or in this case, we're saying what

38:29

I experienced in my life. I experienced that I chose God. Therefore, when I come to a passage that says,

38:34

God chose me, I go, stop. No, I chose him. Because that's what I experienced.

38:40

Could they both be true? Well, I would argue yes. I mean, just the same way as we would say with Scripture, who wrote

38:47

Romans? Did Paul write it? Well, yes. But did God write it? Well, yes. How could they both be true? Because even though Paul experienced the writing,

38:55

God worked through him so that everything that he wrote or said was exactly as God intended it to be in such a way that God gets 100 % of the credit and not

39:04

Paul. And that's why we call it God's word, not Paul's word. Even though Paul experienced it.

39:10

This is a hard thing for people, because what ends up happening is a snowball effect of this, and the importance of this doctrine is this. Once you start saying that, well, my will has to be free because I know that I chose, therefore, okay, my intellect is enslaved to sin.

39:26

My emotions are enslaved to sin, but my will is free. Well, once you get there, you really have some other problems, because if your will is free to choose, how did it choose?

39:36

Did you rationalize that you should believe in God? Well, your rationality was influenced by sin is under that.

39:42

Your intellect, you thought your way through this. Well, that's controlled by sin. How could just your will be free?

39:49

And so what some people end up doing is once they get there, they go, well, actually, no, because, well, my intellect has to be free.

39:56

My emotions have to be free. My ability to reason must be free. Therefore, we are all born free, and now they start to deny the sin nature.

40:05

We're all born neutral, and it's just the culture or the environment that causes us to sin, just like Adam and Eve, and people will say we're all born free of sin, but then we choose to sin the way

40:17

Adam and Eve chose to sin, denying what we see in Scripture, and we'll look into more detail in later episodes, about the effect of sin when

40:28

Adam and Eve, when Adam actually decided to partake of that fruit, and that all the universe, according to Romans 8, fell under a curse.

40:37

And Romans 5, 12 and following says that because of what Adam did, that was cursed all mankind.

40:44

And what they will do is try to say, well, no, just throw those passages out. We've got to reinterpret those passages because we have to be born free.

40:54

They deny an essential doctrine of the sin nature, all because of, well,

40:59

I experienced my choice. Now, what ends up happening is, you'll have some that go a step further.

41:07

Not only do they say, well, man was born neutral, they end up realizing we still have a problem because when we have to look at man's sovereignty in choice, in choosing

41:19

God, not only do some deny the doctrine of sin nature, but some will go even further and say, well,

41:26

God actually doesn't know who's going to choose and not choose. He's just a really good guesser.

41:34

Why do we say it? This is what's called open theism. The idea that God is open.

41:40

He's not omniscient. He's not all -knowing. He's open to things. He can learn things.

41:46

He just looks, you know, here's the problem. He looks at time. So not only do they deny his omniscience, that he knows all things, they end up denying his eternality.

41:55

Why? Because if God is outside of time and everything's an eternal now to him, and he is seeing everything that happens in history and in the future all at the same time because he's outside of it, then he's got to know what actually happens.

42:10

He can't learn it. But they would say that God chooses us after we choose him. Therefore, he doesn't really know who's going to be saved.

42:18

Yeah, you just lost the doctrine of transcendence, which is what you're speaking to with regards to the eternality of God.

42:25

But there is no neutrality. No, you're exactly right. There is no neutrality. Scripture is very clear.

42:31

You're either a slave of righteousness or a slave of unrighteousness. And you see what you're bringing up with the transcendence, this is the importance of studying the attributes or perfections, the nature of God, because I'm going to root all of my doctrines in his nature.

42:46

When you have a teaching that denies the omniscience of God, the eternality of God, the transcendence of God, you don't have the

42:55

God of the Bible. You've left that God and created another one all based on my almighty ability to choose

43:02

God. I'm going to deny the God that actually exists, the God that reveals himself in Scripture so that I could say,

43:09

I'm sovereign in my choice. Man, you're not sovereign. You are a slave.

43:15

Serve your master. Your master is the one that created you if you're saved. Serve him.

43:21

And so there's another path that some go, a more philosophical path, though, because they want to have this freedom of choice and they're trying to say, well, they don't want to deny all these attributes of God.

43:32

And so what some do in this is a thing that's known as Molinism.

43:39

And Molinism was started from a Catholic monk and it's the idea, the thought, really to try to counter what they think is

43:48

Calvinism and the determinism. They say, well, if God is so determined that he forces everything, then

43:55

I don't have the ability to choose. And the almighty doctrine of free will, how do you rationalize that with where we see in Scripture that God's in control and sovereign?

44:06

And what they do is they say that God in his omniscience has this middle knowledge. He has the ability to know not only past, present, future, but the real and possible.

44:17

Now, I believe that. I believe that God can know if you made a decision to turn right when you're walking down one street,

44:24

God knows what would have happened if you turned left. I mean, just think about that. Because he says that, Jesus said, the acts that are done before you, when

44:33

Jesus walked the earth, were done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented in ashes. He knows what they would have done.

44:40

And he knows that absolutely, even though that never happened. So he even knows the unreal, not the things you've chosen, but the results of things you haven't chosen.

44:49

As you look at that, we end up seeing that here we have a situation where we have

44:58

God who can understand all things, even things that haven't happened.

45:03

But what they do is they take that and say, well, there's all these worlds that God has in his middle knowledge

45:09

He knows the result of every decision. They call them like worlds. And so world A and B and C, all the way to infinity.

45:16

He knows all of those choices that you made and you didn't make, and it was your free will acting.

45:22

And then God chose this one to make real. And in that decision, this is the one we live in, but it's all based on our free will.

45:31

Now here's the issue I think very interesting. Whenever I debate a Molinist on Apologetics Live, I like to bring this up.

45:39

I try to get them to commit, but like, so you're against determinism, right? Yeah. So God determining everything, that's not what the

45:45

Bible says. Oh no, no, no. Okay. I'll ask the question. So in this world that God made real, that he brings this about, this is the world.

45:55

Can we do anything in this world other than the free will choices that were determined for this world?

46:04

And they always say no. So I can't do anything other. I mean, I have to do the free will choices that I made for this world.

46:12

And they'll say yes. And God chose this one, right? Yes. That's determinism.

46:18

I can't do anything else. So it really isn't a free will anymore. It's completely determined by God because I can't do anything other than what

46:26

God picked. Because if God had, if it was truly free, I would have been able to pick something else.

46:32

But you're saying I can't pick anything else. So in their attempt to avoid determinism and raise up free will, they actually take free will away and back into determinism.

46:47

But all of this, folks, this is what's behind the statement, right? This is all what's behind the idea that God created us free from sin.

46:58

We're probably not going to get done with the first paragraph. And I knew that this was bad. Why did I expect this?

47:04

But there is so much in this. Now might be a good time to mention a word from our sponsor because we don't want to go too far without supporting our sponsor who supports this show, and that's

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Get your products today. Get a good night of sleep because, well, bud, mankind needs to sleep all because of the fall.

48:28

That's my theory. One of the other things that the effects of the fall was we need sleep. I think

48:33

Adam and Eve didn't need to sleep. That's my theory. Because I think sleep is just a waste of time.

48:40

But I realize that in the fallen nature, we need this thing called sleep. I just don't get it.

48:45

So if you're going to sleep, get a good night of sleep at MyPillow .com. Yeah. And if you don't sleep, then just disregard the last two minutes.

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Even if you only get 15 minutes of sleep, at least you do it on a MyPillow.

49:02

So let's see if we can get a little bit more of this done, at least this next part, because we've covered some of this in the previous shows.

49:11

Men are distinct from angels in that they are a race while angels are not.

49:16

So we talked about this regularly in the previous shows, and if you have missed those, go back to the shows on angels, and we talk about the differences between angels and man.

49:28

Angels are not humans. Human beings are a race. By the way, not races.

49:34

That's very clear. There's a reason it's singular. Men are distinct from angels in that they are a race while angels are not.

49:42

Human beings are one race. There's not races.

49:49

Color of skin and all that doesn't change what we are. We're still the human race.

49:54

Angels are not. How this works out, it says, therefore, men cannot become angels and angels cannot become men.

50:02

We've talked about this on those previous episodes. Why do we keep bringing up with the angels and with here? Because this is so prevalent in society, the thought that when people die, they become angels.

50:13

Or the thought in some religions, you'll see this in modern Judaism, you'll see this in Hinduism, Buddhism, you'll see this in Mormonism, the idea that spirits can become human beings.

50:25

Men and angels are completely separate. Men are distinct from both angels and God and will be for all eternity.

50:35

There's never a time that, like in Mormonism, where men are going to become God. That's not going to happen.

50:42

You see how much we're saying is not there. All these different belief systems people have, by stating what we believe, we're saying all these others are wrong.

50:50

Mormonism is wrong. Okay? We don't become God. When you have the idea that angels can become men or men become angels,

50:59

Jehovah Witnesses believe that Michael the Archangel became Jesus, became a man, that's wrong.

51:06

Now, what we're saying, though, is men are similar to angels in that they have personality, but they're limited in power and abilities.

51:14

In other words, they don't have the attributes of morality, they have the attributes of personality. So this is why

51:20

I make the distinctions of God's attributes different than many theologians. Many theologians talk about communicable and incommunicable.

51:27

We talked about that earlier. Those that are communicated or not means those that are communicated to human beings.

51:33

But by differentiating them by attributes of divinity, personality, and morality, we get those attributes that are communicated to both men and angels.

51:44

Because angels also have the attributes of personhood, of personality, but they don't have it of morality.

51:54

Now, when we talk about a person, we end up talking about those that have the attributes of morality and personality.

52:04

So angels have some of the same, they have more attributes, or they have less attributes than human beings do, but they have some that are shared that all come from God.

52:16

So God has attributes in all three of those areas. Humans have two of those areas, and angels have one of those areas.

52:25

And it will be that for all of eternity. Anything that you'd like to add to any of this,

52:32

Bud? No, I think that's very important. I'm just going back to the issue that angels are not a race.

52:40

We all derive from one bloodline, beginning from the garden, and we are all connected in that way.

52:49

Now, that does not make us all children of God in a salvific sense. It makes us all creatures of God, creations of God.

52:57

He is not the father of all, but he is the creator of all. In the sense of angels, though, you get the impression from Scripture that these are discrete creations.

53:07

They don't have that familial relationship. There is hierarchical relationship that we see about angels in Scripture, but that relationship of family and progeny, you don't see that.

53:20

That is unique. That is a gift that God has given to man. So, emphasis on the race is really important, and that is a very critical distinguishing mark between the creatures that are angels and the creatures that are men.

53:35

As you've gone through and listened, hopefully, to this whole episode, you realize this is important because there's a lot here that maybe you say, you know,

53:44

I never thought about this. That's why we do these things, so you see how much is behind this. It's not just saying what we believe, but it's all the other things that we're saying, these things aren't so.

53:54

And so, we want to make sure that we get those right. So, next week, we're going to pick up on really the purpose.

54:08

Why did God create man? That'll come next week. But let me just give you guys some things to let you know, and that is we're running a sale at Striving for Eternity.

54:19

We've been talking some things about Mormonism. If you would like to learn how to better evangelize, and better evangelize specifically to Mormons, let me encourage you to get the book,

54:29

Sharing the Good News with Mormons. If you go to the Striving for Eternity website, go to our store and pick up that book,

54:35

Sharing the Good News with Mormons. We are running a sale 35 % off. We are going to run this sale.

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We don't have an end time, but we're going to run this sale until we run out of inventory of that book. So now's the time to get it if you want.

54:48

I don't know that we're going to continue to stock it, but we are going to run the sale. 35 % off.

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What you do is get that book. When you go to purchase it, you use the coupon code

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LDS, that stands for Latter Day Saints, promo code LDS, and when you do that, you can get 35 % off the book,

55:07

Sharing the Good News with Mormons. This is a great book just even for evangelism. It's 24 different tactics to evangelizing

55:12

Mormons, but it has tactics that are good for evangelizing, period. 24 different authors.

55:18

I'm one of them. We all have a different way of doing evangelism. It's all laid out there.

55:23

Excellent book. Every chapter is about six pages and can be read completely independent. How do

55:29

I know that? Because none of us read anyone else's chapters when we wrote ours. So they're completely independent.

55:36

So you could just read a chapter. It doesn't take long to read one chapter, and you could pick any one of them, choose them in different orders if you so choose.

55:44

So that's something you could do. Something else. We want to get some reviews. I want to hear from you guys.

55:50

I really want to know what you think of the show. We want to hear what you think. What do you like about the show?

55:55

What do you want us to do better? And so what I want to do is I'm going to be doing for a while, sometime,

56:01

I think I'm going to do this until July 4th. I think July 4th will be when we pick a winner. But I'm going to be giving away a copy of Jason Lyle's book,

56:10

Keeping Faith in the Age of Reason. And what this is, he goes through— there's a website that had like 400 supposed contradictions in the

56:19

Bible. And what Jason did was went through all of those and provides the answers that shows that they're not actually contradictions.

56:27

And so if you ever had people who say there's contradictions in the Bible, he deals with 420 of the supposed contradictions, and he answers them so that all you have to do is go, okay, someone says, well, in a passage that says that there's a contradiction, you go to the back, you look up that passage, you go to what page it is, and he gives you the answer to the supposed contradiction.

56:49

So we're going to give that away if you will write a review for us. How do you write a review? Well, all you have to do to write a review is go to lovethepodcast .com

57:01

slash rap report. That's rap with two Ps. lovethepodcast .com slash rap report.

57:07

It's also in the show notes if you look there. And leave us a review. We want to know what you like about the show, what you don't like about the show, how you think we can improve the show.

57:17

That's what we want to hear. And in July, we're going to pick a winner and give away a copy of Keeping Faith in an

57:23

Age of Reason by Dr. Jason Lyle. So I want to encourage you guys to do that. Another way you could let us know, if you just say, hey,

57:30

I don't want to get entered in, but I want to let you guys know what we think of the show, how you guys can improve what we want to see, maybe there's topics you want to hear, email us at info at strivingforeternity .org.

57:42

Info at strivingforeternity .org. That's the way to let us know anything.

57:48

Topics. You want to let us know what we do well, what you think we need to improve, any of that, you can email us.

57:53

And I encourage you to go to strivingforeternity .org and check out everything that we have there, because there's a lot of good content there, a lot of blogs being written.

58:01

There's all the podcasts at the Christian Podcast Community. You can go to christianpodcastcommunity .org and check those out.

58:07

There's new podcasts coming on like weekly, it seems. I think over 54 now podcasts are out there.

58:15

We're producing, Bud, on Christian Podcast Community over 50 episodes a week and over 30 hours of content a week.

58:23

So if you, it's like, hey, I want great podcasts, vetted podcasts, podcasts

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I know I could trust, on a wide range of topics, just subscribe to the Christian Podcast Community as your podcast.

58:36

That's an actual RSS feed. It's an actual podcast. And it has all those that host with the Christian Podcast Community.

58:42

So you can get everything. Homeschooling, women's, apologetics, theology, sermons.

58:49

Everything. Everything's there. Now, it's time for me to take this opportunity, having returned as co -host, to do a shameless plug, which is not really shameless.

58:59

I want to encourage folks to go listen to The Bud Zone that drops on Thursdays. So look for it on Thursdays, because we will be having a special guest where we are turning the microphone and Andrew Rappaport will be interviewed.

59:14

We're going to have 20 questions with the rap man. And it should be fun. I'm looking forward to it.

59:20

So watch for it to drop on Thursdays. That's The Bud Zone podcast. And folks, just know, I haven't been given these questions ahead of time, so I have no idea what to expect.

59:28

He has no idea. I am afraid. I'm very, very afraid. Well, you know what,

59:33

Bud? What's that? That's a wrap. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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