A New Low of Depravity, Wolfe on Dever, Anthony Bernabei Exposed

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Well, greetings and welcome to The Dividing Line. My name's James White. We're coming to you live. For those of you who can watch on Facebook, and believe me, our plan someday is to not have to use that particular source for live streaming.

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But for the moment, that's what we are using and hoping for the other place to become available before long to be able to use.

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Just got a text message that when I'm up here in Colorado, have for years and years and years.

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In fact, some of you have listened long enough. Do you remember that I would talk about, we would do programs from the basement where I was staying at a friend's home in Evergreen, Colorado, Bruce and Marty Nicolay.

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And just as I was, I literally had my fingers on the buttons getting ready to start the program when

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I got a text from Bruce that their second grandchild was just born and they're excited and mother and baby are doing great, so congratulations to them.

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And believe me, I know that feeling and it's a wonderful feeling. So we go from the sublime.

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That's how life is supposed to be. You're supposed to have children and then they have children and then their children's children have children and that's how you become grandparents and great -grandparents and stuff like that.

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And that's how it's supposed to work. We go from that to the absurd.

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I don't really, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to talk about this, but a video was posted two days ago of a guy who pretends to be a female and he is recording himself fantasizing about getting a uterine, not a uterine implant, that actually makes sense in the real world, finding a doctor that would implant, oh, now

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I've got, I'm sorry, I've got a picture of the baby, yay, the obligatory picture of the baby where mommy is exhausted and not sure why we do that, but beautiful.

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Anyway, where he could find a doctor that would implant a functional uterus into him.

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And of course, that hasn't been done. The sad thing is, I'm sure that your tax dollars and your insurance dollars and all sorts of other things are being used to try to figure out how to do that because science, medical science, without Christian bounds, without Christian boundaries, will weary itself trying to find, trying to push all the boundaries.

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I watched the original Jurassic Park recently. That was fun. That was so well done, but watching the computer tech and stuff like that was sort of funny, reminded me of the 1990s.

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But anyway, remember one of the characters was like, in our rush to do what we could do, we didn't stop to think about whether we should do it.

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And that's part of what the Christian worldview provides to a society are the boundaries and clear guidelines and goals that are life affirming in the light of the fact that God is our creator.

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So anyways, I'm sure someone's trying to do what this guy is fantasizing about.

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It would be obviously extremely dangerous, extremely expensive, dangerous to any child that would be conceived.

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If that could even happen, I really doubt that that'll ever work, but be that as it may. But this individual goes on to say that he would then seek to have as much,

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I can't get really descriptive, intercourse as possible so as to become pregnant so that he could then have an abortion.

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That's his ultimate desire as a trans woman is to have an abortion.

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I don't think I'd ever seen anything quite that depraved, perverse, disgusting, demonic, vile.

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I didn't open a thesaurus up to find the rest of the terms we could use, but there are plenty of other adjectives that we could throw in there.

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It is the culture of death in its fullness. And you really do have to start thinking at some point, what does it mean to be given over?

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At what point do you go, this is what it means to be completely given over.

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This is what it means when God says, I am going to allow you to utterly destroy yourself and everything around you and to do so justly because this is your desire.

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This is what you want. This is your free will. You love your sin.

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And I'm going to remove my hand of restraint and give you over to your sin. And scripture shows us this happening to people.

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And many Christians struggle because we have false ideas that denigrate

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God's justice and his ultimate purposes and our creatureliness and that project onto God our creaturely categories and all sorts of things like them.

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But I just think of only 20 years ago.

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And for some young folks, 20 years sounds like a long time. It is not. It is a blink of the eye, even in human history, let alone eternity.

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20 years ago, if someone had tried to say this was coming, that we would be seeing something like this, the vast majority of us just would be like, that's just not possible.

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It is utterly impossible that someone could be that perverse. None of us had even thought of perversity on that level.

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And yet now it's right there in front of us. And our society tells us that's good.

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We're supposed to consider that to be a moral good. Let's all sacrifice so this guy can do that.

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I mean, that's where we are. It is an amazing, amazing thing to consider.

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So just a brief comment on that amazing example of what the culture of death inevitably leads to.

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It just inevitably leads to. By the way, before I jump into the main topics for the program today, just a reminder,

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I'll be speaking at South Boulder Bible Church, 6 p .m. on Sunday evening. And for those up here in the

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Colorado area, yes, I've spoken there pretty much every year since about 2011,

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I think. And Eric Ellis is a pastor there.

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I love Eric and the folks there. And they put up with me. And I don't get to go up to Boulder much, mainly because it's the deepest, bluest spot in all of Colorado.

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It is truly amazing. I was riding an extremely steep climb.

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It goes from about 7 ,000 to about 9 ,100 feet above sea level. And it climbs through a neighborhood, basically.

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And it's beautiful. I mean, the whole area, you know, you just fantasize about someone in one of these places letting you park your

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RV behind the house and just live there because it's just so gorgeous. But I just couldn't believe all the, you know,

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I rode past a rainbow -colored painted mailbox and stuff right along the side of the road and saw one of those, in this house we believe love is love,

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Black Lives Matter, all the rest of it. I'm really wondering how many people, you know, you don't hear anything about Black Lives Matter anymore.

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Because everybody knows that all those millions and billions of dollars that flowed into that movement, the only

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Black people that helped were the people in charge, who now have really big houses. And they're living the high life.

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But it didn't save a single life in Chicago. Not one. Not a one.

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It was the biggest joke in all of history, but nobody will admit it. All of the big businesses and tech companies and stuff like that, that shoved that stuff in our face.

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You don't think that when they sit in their boardroom, they don't know what that was all about?

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They just used it. They didn't care about whether it actually accomplished anything. The hypocrisy of leftism, it's part of the system.

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It's supposed to be there. Anyways, did I get out of that from talking about Boulder?

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They're just trying to be a light in a deep, deep, deep, dark place. In a very, very dark place.

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That's the way things are. We'll be there at 6 o 'clock on Sunday night. For those of you in the area.

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I shouldn't have Twitter up, because I see stuff. And I won't have it up very much longer, because I have a bunch of stuff to get to here.

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How do I watch this? I click the link, and I'm looking everywhere for the stream. I wonder what link

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I clicked. I'm assuming the live link is at aomen .org.

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It always has been in the past. That's not something that I have any control over.

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That's one thing that I don't have control over, is what's put on as far as that goes.

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It's live on Facebook somewhere. I assumed there was something at aomen .org.

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Okay. Where do we go here? Let's start with Stephen Wolf. Then we'll go to the major place

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I want to invest our time in. That is looking at John 17 and 1 Corinthians chapter 8. Mark Dever came out over the last week.

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I don't know if this was recorded last week. But it sort of started making the rounds last week.

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Mark Dever just came straight out and defended being a

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Baptist against being a paedo -Baptist. I've addressed that subject a few times.

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We've done two major debates on the subject and a number of lesser encounters over the years.

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Certainly have tied that into other discussions, such as paedo -communion and things like that.

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I have obviously done everything I can to seek small -c

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Catholicity with my paedo -Baptist brethren. If we have the same commitment to justification by faith, sola scriptura, the sola scriptura and tota scriptura, we're brothers in a much larger battle.

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But we are separated by what we believe on this subject. Most non -Reformed

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Baptists do not understand Presbyterian, conservative

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Presbyterian, Westminsterian Presbyterian arguments for paedo -Baptism.

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That's true. Reformed Baptists, almost to a man or a woman, do understand those arguments.

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We've heard it all. We've read them. We've read the theologians.

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We've read the arguments. The whole nine yards. Most conservative

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Westminsterian Presbyterians have not read Reformed Baptists on the topic and do not understand our covenantal response to their arguments at all, and with only a few exceptions, don't show much interest in actually finding out.

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That's been my experience. I would like to think that maybe some of the debates we've done have somewhat helped to close that gap a little bit, but that's still pretty much my experience.

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So Stephen Wolfe, who wrote the case for Christian nationalism, who is no fan of mine, and I'm not really a fan of his.

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He's a Thomist, and the more

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I see the fleshing out of that particular book, the less of a, well,

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I was never a fan to begin with, but more of an opponent, I think I could be identified, of that particular kind of thing.

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I mean, even when it first came out, and I had no idea of his background and his positions, he's not post -mill, so it's a,

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I mean, that changes everything about quote -unquote Christian nationalism, is whether you're talking about the result of a massive work of the

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Spirit of God or something that's done by a minority. That changes everything right there. Even then, when

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Doug Wilson and I discussed that particular topic on one of the

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Sweater Vest Dialogues, that was my concern at that time, was none of this could possibly make any sense outside of, it'll just evolve into the historical abuses of sacralism if it is not the result of a fundamental change in what

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God's doing in the world as far as the number of believers in a nation.

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And, of course, that's an eschatological thing. There are eschatologies that say that's just never going to happen.

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There's never going to be, the coastlands are never going to seek after as well. And there's, you know, give you the nations as your inheritance means that 98 % of those nations will not seek after your truth or seek to worship

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God, things like that. So it's an eschatological thing on that level. Anyway, so Mark Dever made some comments.

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And I watched one of the videos, and I agreed with him. I mean, you have to. It was talking about regenerate church membership.

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It was talking about, you know, giving the sign of the covenant to professing believers.

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And, again, I thought I had only done 13 sermons on baptism and apologia, but a friend of mine said he listened to 16.

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So I don't know, maybe I lost count. But I laid all that out from the start.

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In the sermon series on baptism, we went through all the uses of baptism in the New Testament.

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And, of course, my Presbyterian friend said, well, there's a problem. You've got to start with the Old Testament. Well, you know, even the

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Westminster says this is a sacrament of the new covenant. And the new covenant scriptures, you know, might be good to ask what they teach on this particular topic.

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And we looked at it exhaustively. We looked at all the uses of baptism and worked through the texts, and we did early church history, and we did all sorts of stuff like that.

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And so I would agree with Mark Dever that, and Doug Wilson and I have come to this conclusion.

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If you remember, after the Paleocommunion debate, we got into the other RV that we don't have anymore.

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We couldn't do now what we did then because we wouldn't have enough room in here for everybody.

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But we could do Doug and I. We could make that work. It would be tight, but we could pull it off.

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With two cameras, we could probably pull it off, and I bet you we could sneak a third camera in here.

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Yep, there's an open bay for camera three. So I bet you we could do a wide shot from someplace in here or the other room, literally, and make it work.

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But anyway, when we did that post -debate follow -up up in Moscow, it was a useful thing.

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The illustration was Baptists have guards at the door to protect the purity of the party.

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Presbyterians have bouncers inside. And so more people get in, but then the

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Presbyterians kick out the people that break the rules, and the Baptists are keeping them out at the door.

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There's an element of truth to that, and I think the biblical pattern in the

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New Testament is very clear. And you have to overthrow that New Testament pattern with an

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Old Testament pattern to come up with the opposite conclusion. So anyway,

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Stephen Wolfe comments in regards to Mark Dever, and I suppose it would be best to do it this way.

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And here's his comment. Baptists cannot coherently affirm regenerate church because they do not recognize, one, they do not recognize any outward ecclesial power to regenerate hearts, e .g.

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baptismal regeneration, and two, have no means to confirm regeneration with any certitude since regeneration is fundamentally internal.

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Now, let me say that basically they do not recognize any outward ecclesial power to regenerate hearts.

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Well, neither does the Westminster Confession of Faith, right?

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So I would hope that Wolfe is not affirming baptismal regeneration.

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Being a Thomist would be consistent with that. I mean, if you're going to believe Thomas on other things, you might as well believe him on that.

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But how is this a difference between a Westminsterian Presbyterian and a

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Reformed Baptist? Yeah, we do not recognize any outward ecclesial power to regenerate hearts.

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That is the work of the Spirit of God. That is what Word and Spirit together accomplish.

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That's what the Gospel is all about. The Gospel is the only means by which regeneration can take place. And that regeneration is accomplished by the

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Spirit of God in harmony with the Father and the Son, which means it has to do with election and the accomplishment of redemption on the cross.

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And so it's God has His elect, and He will regenerate them at the time

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He chooses to regenerate them. And He can regenerate children at a very young age. I was a very young person,

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I believe, when I was regenerated. And God can do that. But He doesn't have to do that. He can make trophies of grace of people much later in life.

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That's His freedom to do that. So I'm not sure what that has to do with how

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Baptists cannot coherently affirm regenerate church. Number two,

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Baptists have no means to confirm regeneration with any certitude.

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There's the argument. Is that in this life, I cannot look into someone else's heart.

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And there are many examples, not only in Scripture, but sadly down through church history, of false faith.

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Scripture says they went out from us, so it might be demonstrated they're not truly of us. And so they had been a part of the congregation.

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They had...Jude and 2 Peter describe them as reefs in your love feast. They're actually in the

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Lord's Supper, in the place of the Lord's Supper. They have been baptized. They have made profession of faith. And yet they're false teachers.

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So not even the apostles had that capacity as a regular given.

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But is the argument, therefore, that you should just indiscriminately give the Supper?

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So as to not...just give it to everybody? As a result,

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I'm really not sure. Because Presbyterians have no means to confirm regeneration with any certitude.

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Since regeneration is fundamentally internal. And let's just be honest on the church history level here.

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Look at what the Netherlands just did. Remember the last program we talked about Miss Universe?

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Transgender person? And that's the

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Netherlands. That was a place that only a little over 100 years ago had

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Christians everywhere. And yet, let's be honest, what happened?

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The idea was that the faith is passed on genetically and covenantally.

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Without an emphasis upon personal regeneration and repentance and faith. And I've just seen it too many times.

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I'm just being honest with you. My Presbyterian brothers and sisters especially will assume the regeneration of their children.

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Over against clear evidence to the contrary. I've seen it over and over and over again.

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It's a problem. Whether you want to admit it or not, it is. And so, this is the historical reality that we're looking at.

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So, he then went on to say, after that. That was just the beginning of the thing here.

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And let's bring it back up again. So, he goes on to say.

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So, Devers position is incoherent. You can't affirm regenerate only church when there is no means to make or confirm regeneration with certitude.

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So, there's his primary argument. Is that you have to have certitude. Which he doesn't. How does he have it? How does he have it?

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Certitude isn't the issue. Profession is. Biblically. What was the basis of baptism in the

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New Testament? Profession of faith. That's not even a question. They literally have to argue that the normative experience.

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Throughout Acts. And which is assumed throughout the epistles.

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Has. Must have been assumed to be changing in the future. Into a new normative.

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Where you have just household. Covenantal baptism of children. To where the baptism of an adult convert becomes the unusual aspect.

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Not. And it's the normative is the infant child. But in the

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New Testament. You make a profession of faith. And even the apostles.

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Would baptize someone who later. Proved. To be unregenerate.

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Paul had to sadly name names. Of people who had gone back to the world. Demas. Loved the world.

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Who had baptized Demas? I don't know. But maybe it was Paul himself. Now they could be given supernatural knowledge.

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In certain contexts. But that was not. That was not. One of the gifts of the spirit was not.

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The ability to determine. And to detect regeneration. So. The goal.

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Of the church. Should be. To give. The signs.

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Sacraments. Ordinances. Of the new covenant. To only people who make profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

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That should be the goal. That's what Baptists seek to do. And. Like Presbyterians.

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We do have bouncers inside the club. To engage in church discipline.

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When people have lied to us at the door. They gave us a fake ID. Okay. But at least we have somebody at the door.

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And the difference is. And this is what Mark Devers said. If you. If you do not allow the

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New Testament. To say. This is. Absolute minimum for baptism.

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Profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Then you are. Assuming.

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Where election is going to be focused. First of all. And you are purposefully bringing people in.

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And giving them a sign. Preemptorily. Or prophetically. Or in hope that someday it will come to have.

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Real meaning in their experience. It's highly problematic. It's been highly problematic in Europe.

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And I think it will always be highly problematic. Whenever it happens. So. It's not incoherent at all.

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It's biblical. You can't affirm regenerate only church. When there is no means to make or confirm regeneration of certitude.

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But we can use that which the scriptures give to us. In defining who is to be baptized.

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And if we would just do that. He goes on to say.

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He would have to deny the doctrine of invisible church. Which requires him to deny justification by faith.

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I have no idea how that follows. Yes there is a.

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Invisible church. We recognize. That the identity of the elect is known.

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Perfectly only to God. God knows exactly what the true church is.

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And who the false members are. That's why we have church discipline. That's why 1st

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John says they went out from us. So it might be demonstrated they are not truly of us. Mark Dever does not deny the invisible church.

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Which means he does not deny justification by faith. And the reformed held that the church is as to its essence.

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Filled only with regenerates. But that outwardly and accidentally it is mixed.

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Well if we mean the true church. Is coterminous with the number of the elect.

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Of course. But if you then baptize infants. And make them members of the church.

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Then you are either assuming. A sacramental validity to the.

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Act of baptism that indicates regeneration. Or you are simply making a hoped for thing.

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Which means you are purposefully. Setting up the necessity of doing church discipline on those.

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Who never made a profession of faith. But will now be disciplined as if they did. So. It's not there's anything overly new.

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About this particular argument. We've been having this argument with our reformed brethren.

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For a long long time. And we will continue to do so in this life.

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And for some people. They're like. Well then why why should we even be bothering.

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No I don't think it's a matter of why should we even be bothering. This is. Every generation has to face this issue.

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And what's intriguing to me. As one who teaches church history. Is that.

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The tendency I'm seeing in our modern world. Is. If we are facing persecution.

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If we are facing economic collapse. Military collapse globalism.

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All the rest of that type of stuff. That's going to mean that we're going to stop caring about all this stuff. Because we're just trying to survive each day.

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But the irony is. Even. During the hardest periods of persecution of the church.

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By the Roman Empire. Where they were facing. Imminent death.

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They didn't stop being concerned about these very issues. Some of the most important.

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Theological battles were still being fought. In fact. Baptism was a topic of conversation with.

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An amazing variety of. Conclusions.

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Being derived even during. Periods of intense persecution.

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So I don't think that's going to stop us from arguing about this stuff. Because we have to. It defines our fellowship.

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It defines what our churches look like. Stuff like that. Okay so.

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I suppose it is because.

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Now why did that one get so. Shrinky shrinky. Well you know what.

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I can fix the shrinky shrinky. You know what

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Rich. I can fix. The small print graphics. A whole lot easier.

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When I'm in control of it. Than you having to do it on your end. I mean big time. I. You know we've been discussing

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Unitarianism. We have been discussing a defense of the deity of Christ. And I gave an explanation. Early on.

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And I'll probably give this explanation over and over again. As to why this is so important. Why we need to be doing this.

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And why you need to be listening. Everything else we're talking about.

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What we started off talking about. This. Transgender reprobate.

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Fantasizing about murdering babies. Ultimately.

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What is our argument against that. Ultimately our argument is.

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There's an empty tomb in Jerusalem. And the one who came out of it. Will judge. Justly.

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Based upon God's law. So. If you have.

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Merely a religious teacher. If you have. One amongst many religious teachers.

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Then that's a completely different argument. Than if you're saying. Jesus is your creator.

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Your maker. And your sustainer. He is the second person in Trinity who became flesh.

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So he is the perfect judge. Because he lived a perfect life. He loved the father perfectly.

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He fulfilled all the father's commands positively. He never broke them negatively. So he can give you a positive.

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And a negative righteousness. In the sense of. Taking away the penalty of sin. And a positive righteousness.

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In the sense of having fulfilled. All of God's law. Such as loving God the father. Perfectly. So.

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He has the right. To say that what that man. Is doing.

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Is absolutely. Hell worthy evil. And that we.

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Should view it in the same way. So if you don't have a divine savior.

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You're just one opinion amongst many. Nothing more. And so this is an important issue.

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It's related to a lot of things. It's related to the. Thomistic resourcement. Revival.

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Because. Those folks won't argue the same way that we are. We can engage.

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Biblically. We can bring the word of God directly to bear. And when anybody says. Well you can't really go there.

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You've got to go through the great tradition. And you've got. You've got to accept this. Traditional formulation.

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That traditional formulation. And so you've got. Unitarian tradition. Versus Trinitarian tradition. And you've got.

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You've got people out there. Picking and choosing. And doing their stuff. And you don't have any ultimate authority. That you know.

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40 years. In this ministry. I can tell you. What really changes hearts and minds.

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The word of God. The word of God applied. The word of God preached. The word of God consistently explained.

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We have seen people leave. All sorts of religious expressions. That were.

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Contrary to God's will. Why? Because we gave them a traditional argument.

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Because we. Wedded them to some kind of great tradition. No. We gave them scripture. And that's what the spirit of God uses.

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And so in a sense. Every time we engage these folks. You know the people that are sitting over there going.

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Well you know. I don't think. What you believe about. Matthew 2340. 2436.

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And blah blah blah blah blah. You don't see them out there doing. What we're doing. They're not taking on these people.

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Because. These people. They would first have to have these people. Embrace.

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A traditional system. Before they could then. Engage them. And that's.

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Not going to happen. So. There's some guy. Anthony Burnaby.

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At least that's how. It would be pronounced if. Some any type of German. Element to it.

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And I had never heard this guy before. I guess he's been he's done a few. Videos or something. Unitarian.

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I suppose that's why it popped up into my feed. Was because. I was going back and forth with.

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Some Unitarians or something. And. I saw. K Dub.

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Sort of warned this guy's. This guy can be a real. Pain. Okay. All right. Well I've not.

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I've not encountered him before. So. I made a comment.

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On a on a tweet. So here's. Here's the tweet. Bo. I have no idea what that was.

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How strange is that. Anyway. Here's the tree. The father is the only true

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God. We have one God. The father. Okay. Now. I recognize.

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That. You have. Two. Biblical texts being cited here.

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Without any context whatsoever. First Corinthians 8. John 17. We all know that.

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And my assertion is. That if you isolate. These few words from those two contexts.

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You're a false teacher. You are not handling the scriptures. With any kind of.

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Faithfulness. Honesty. Integrity. And you're engaging in rhetoric.

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Because. A. Sentence. Removed from a context. We can take.

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Two biblical phrases. Judas hanged himself. Go ye and do likewise.

40:20

Put them together. And come up with a really bad conclusion. Right. Any. Body of literature.

40:27

Can be abused in that fashion. And that's what this is. This is an abusive scripture. And so what

40:34

I did. Is I. Quoted this. And I. I made the.

40:40

Comment. I said how about. How about we. Address.

40:47

This rhetoric. On the dividing line. And. So.

40:57

I think this was. In the same. Thread. It was. It'll.

41:06

It'll give you. A good idea. Anyways. Of where this guy is coming from. He responded to that.

41:15

And. Said something along. Lines of demonic.

41:20

Trinitarianism. Or something along those lines. And I had said to him. Well you aren't Jesus. And you aren't Paul. And I am referring to your.

41:27

A contextual. Partial citations. That I will demonstrate. Are purposeful. Misrepresentations of scripture. So you can keep your.

41:34

Pseudo -spiritual superiority. Yourself. Truth will shine the light. So he had said something along the lines. You know.

41:41

Demonic. Spirits. And you know. All the rest of this stuff. Well you'll. You'll notice.

41:46

You'll notice his response. These are quotes from Jesus. And Paul themselves. You old fart. So evidently.

41:57

That's what this guy is all about. He's. He's. Rather childish. Sort of an angry type guy.

42:05

And. Stuff like that. And so. Whatever. We'll. We're not worried so much about him.

42:13

But as dealing with the argument. And. Here is another. Yeah.

42:20

This may have actually come before that. John 17 does exclude Jesus. Because this is written to somebody else.

42:27

Jesus said it. The father only. Judah is allowed to be assumed. Because Jesus was made. Lord. By God.

42:33

Misuse of Acts 2. It's your demonic doctrine. That disallows you. To use your

42:39

God -given. Integrity. It really is in humans. This guy. This guy's. Really nasty. Okay.

42:44

He's. He's. He's not the kind of. A guy you're going to be sitting down. Having coffee with. And. Not to be able to have debates with.

42:51

With people that behave like this. They're just fire breathers. But what was interesting.

42:57

Is when I said. Let's address that. Initial tweet. On. On the dividing line.

43:08

Not too surprisingly. Dale Tuggy. Can't wait to see how the amazing.

43:14

Dr. White refutes the pathetic rhetoric. Of the apostles. John and Paul. So. Now.

43:26

Dr. Tuggy's. A sharp fellow. In some ways. And he knows. I bet you.

43:34

You see. This is. This is one of the. Places where. How we engage. In apologetics. Is different.

43:39

A lot of people. I would expect. That someone like.

43:46

Dr. Tuggy. Would be able to give you. Okay. I don't think that he could.

43:52

But he should be able to give you. A pretty accurate. Reading.

43:58

Of what I would say. Is going on. In that initial tweet.

44:03

Where you have. A couple words. From John 17. A couple words. From 1st Corinthians 8. Because.

44:11

You should be able. To present. The other side. You should be able. Remember.

44:17

Well. Maybe not. I remember. In 8th grade. I don't know. Why I remember.

44:23

It was in 8th grade. But. We had a teacher. In 8th grade. She didn't teach us much. English grammar.

44:28

Unfortunately. And I suffered. For that later. But she did. We have a demon.

44:36

Flying around the room. That's how Erasmus. Would have described it. Erasmus described. Fleas and flies.

44:42

As demons. He really did believe. That that's what they were. Anyway. Back. In those days.

44:50

This would have been. In the 1970s. She taught us.

44:55

To do debates. And. We would. We would.

45:01

And. Then. One of the things was. Okay. You do all this work. You get ready. To present your debate.

45:06

And then she'd force you. To switch sides. Where you had to argue. The other side.

45:13

And. That was. Really. Really useful. That was really good. And so.

45:19

I would expect. That a serious. Opponent. A serious. Critic.

45:25

Of the Trinity. Would. Recognize. That. What. Anthony had posted.

45:34

Was. Shallow. And. Meaningless. To any.

45:41

Serious. Trinitarian. He's not. He's not actually. Trying to accomplish anything. It's just. It's just rhetoric. On his part.

45:48

But. Dr. Tuggy. Didn't seem to see that. So. With that.

45:55

Having been said. I will remind you. That. Only a matter.

46:02

Of. Days ago. We. Actually. Covered.

46:09

First Corinthians. Chapter. Eight. And. I put up.

46:16

Screen. We. Looked. At. How Paul.

46:21

Is taking. The shema. From the Greek. Septuagint. And. He is.

46:29

Filling it. Out. In light. Of. The incarnation. So. I'm not.

46:35

Gonna go back. Over that. But. I do need to. At least. Point. Out. To you.

46:41

What's. What's going on there. So. Let me show you. Just. Just quickly here.

46:49

Here is. Deuteronomy. Six. Four. The shema. Shema. Yisrael. Yahweh. Eloheinu.

46:54

Yahweh. Yechad. The. LSB. Hero. Israel. Yahweh. Is our God. Yahweh. Yahweh.

47:10

Yahweh. Yahweh. Yahweh. Yahweh. Yahweh. Yahweh. Yahweh.

47:24

Yahweh. Yahweh. Is the Greek render. It's not. It's not an attempt.

47:29

To render. The divine name. It's just the replacement. For Yahweh. Kurios. Heis.

47:37

Estin. Kurios is one. Now. One thing

47:44

I don't know that I. Emphasized. Last time. When we talked about this.

47:51

But I need to now. Please notice. What. When the shema. The law asserts monotheism, definitionally, the assertion of monotheism is of Yahweh, Kurios, not

48:12

Thaos, the generic phrase in the

48:18

Greek Septuagint, and in Hebrew as well, the generic phrase is

48:24

Thaos, Elohim. So, Eloheinu, when it says

48:32

Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is the specific, our God is the generic, and then it says

48:39

Yahweh, Echad, Yahweh is one. So, the assertion of absolute monotheism, the

48:50

Echad of the Jewish faith, the

48:56

Hebrew Scriptures, and hence of the Christian faith, is that Yahweh is one.

49:04

This is why Unitarians have to stand on their heads to try to avoid the obvious reality that the

49:12

New Testament takes Kurios and uses it as the regular designation for Jesus, and then takes numerous texts from the

49:26

Old Testament that were specifically and uniquely about Yahweh and applies them to Jesus.

49:37

Psalm 102, 25 -27, Hebrews 1, 10 -12, Yahweh's unchanging immutability applied to Jesus, purposefully, clearly, intentionally, by the

49:54

New Testament writers. So, it is important to recognize that Kurios, Yahweh, is the specific covenant name of the

50:05

God of Israel. Eloheinu is more generic. He is our God. Other peoples have other gods that don't actually exist, but our

50:14

God is Yahweh. So, it is the Os that is used primarily the

50:22

Father, not uniquely, but primarily the Father in the

50:27

New Testament, and then Kurios is used of the

50:33

Son. So, when we look at 1 Corinthians 8, again, the context is, therefore, considering the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no

50:50

God. Notice. There is no

51:00

God but One. And any

51:06

Jewish convert, any convert to the faith that is using the only scriptures that they have, which is the

51:15

Greek Septuagint, sees that word, Heis. There is no God but Heis, no

51:21

God but One. And you cannot help but immediately think of the Shema.

51:27

Echad, Heis, One, and yet that Oneness is of Yahweh.

51:36

He says, for even if there are legaminoi theoi, those that are called gods, whether in heaven or upon earth, as there are gods many and lords many.

51:50

There are theoi, poloi, kurioi, poloi. Gods many and lords many.

51:57

There's lots of them running around. There's lots of things that are called gods in this world. And, of course, the

52:04

Mormons like to camp on 1 Corinthians 8, 5, not recognizing, because Joseph Smith didn't understand, so -called gods.

52:16

Legaminoi theoi. They're called gods. They're not really gods.

52:24

But to us, so to the Christian people, Heis theos, hapater.

52:35

So there's the quote that Anthony used.

52:44

And yet when you look at the text here, when you see it on the screen there, you will see that the

52:50

Thessalonians 28 editors have put this whole section in poetic form.

52:58

And so that would mean that the editors of the NA28 felt that the argument was fairly compelling, that this is a creedal statement, an ancient creed of the church, or at least a portion thereof.

53:17

Or maybe a portion of a hymn or something along those lines. Probably more of a creed.

53:26

And what you see very plainly in the text is that you have an identifying phrase.

53:33

There is to us one God, the Father, followed by a statement regarding creation's relationship to the one who's just been identified.

53:50

So there is one God, the Father, ex hu, ta ponta cae haemais eis auton, from whom are all things, and we unto eis auton, unto him.

54:06

So origination and ultimate purpose maybe, eis auton.

54:19

But then very plainly you recognize that that's only the first identifier.

54:31

The repetition of the term heis. Now remember you had heis up above.

54:37

There is no God but one, heis. And now you have heis being used twice of two distinct persons.

54:50

So there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for him. And one kurios,

54:58

Jesus Christos, one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom, ta ponta, same ta ponta.

55:07

It's the same ta ponta. If you want to make Jesus a creation,

55:14

Paul doesn't get it. Paul doesn't get it. Ta ponta is the creation, from whom, or the

55:24

Father, all things, through whom are all things, and we through him.

55:34

So what I pointed out last time, this is the

55:41

Christian Shema. It's utilizing theos, kurios, heis.

55:48

It's pulling it all together and saying, for us, here's our confession of faith. But the one which in the original

55:57

Shema, in the Septuagint, is referring to the oneness of Yahweh, is here divided up and used both of God the

56:06

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And both are intimately connected to the creation of all things.

56:17

There is no sense whatsoever that the Lord Jesus Christ, the one Lord Jesus Christ, is himself a part of the creation.

56:25

That's denied by Revelation 5 as well. So here's the

56:31

Shema expanded out, and this is why what Anthony posted is dishonest rhetoric.

56:39

It's not the words of a person who actually is working with the Word of God and seeking to understand it and accurately represent it and give it to the people and believe what it says.

56:51

Unitarianism is a fundamental denial of sola scriptura and tota scriptura.

56:59

And here you see it. If you just take, there is one God the Father, and stop there and ignore the fact that that very same term, heis, is then repeated of the

57:10

Lord Jesus Christ in the middle of expanding the Shema and talking about creation itself and the roles of the

57:19

Father and the Son in bringing about creation, you are not representing the Scripture, and you, sir, are a false teacher.

57:27

But unlike you, I just demonstrated it. That's the difference.

57:33

That's the difference. So there's that one. There's that one.

57:40

But let's go on to John chapter 17, because here's the other singular phrase.

57:48

And I noticed the clock here, and we're going to have to go a little bit long. But as far as I can tell by the one metric that I have on my screen in my studio here, we've been doing just fine.

58:03

I see no cache, and that means the stream is strong and regular.

58:08

Either that or it just ain't working. But I think we're

58:13

A -OK. And so we'll go ahead and go a little bit long and fit that in.

58:20

So here's the second A contextual statement. And it comes from John chapter 17.

58:26

I knew as soon as I would do that. It's great. So Rich says the stream is great.

58:34

Good. All right. So John 17.

58:41

Now, remember, this is in a book that begins with the assertion of the deity of Christ in John 1 -1. The eternality of the

58:48

Word, the incarnation of the Word, the description of the Word as monogamous theos of John 1 -18.

58:57

You can't read that prologue without recognizing, immediately thinking

59:03

Isaiah 6 and Genesis 18 and 19. And then John will go on later on.

59:09

And what's he going to do? John chapter 8. Abraham rejoiced, see my day. He saw it and he was glad.

59:16

He calls himself the I Am. A number of John 8 -24, John 8 -58, 13 -19, 19 -5 -6.

59:23

The I Am sayings of Jesus purposefully in context identifying

59:29

Jesus as the I Am of the Old Testament, especially in Isaiah.

59:37

You've got the oneness of the Father and the Son and bringing about the salvation of God's people in John chapter 10.

59:46

So you've got all these. And it's going to end with Thomas' Hakuri Asumu, Kaihathai Asumu, My Lord and My God.

59:55

This is the book that we're looking at. And very rarely do these people look at text as they are related to the entirety of the argument of a book or of the

01:00:09

New Testament as a whole or things like that. It's very scattered and broken up in Unitarian eisegesis is what we should refer to it as.

01:00:19

So in John chapter 17, we have Jesus' high priestly prayer. So here you have the incarnate one having fulfilled.

01:00:32

In fact, that's what he says. I glorified you on earth having finished the work you have given me to do. So this is the end and the apex of the ministry of Jesus.

01:00:44

Up through chapter 12, public ministry. 13, 14, 15, 16, private ministry of the apostles.

01:00:51

17, transitionary high priestly prayer. And it is in this context that you plainly have one divine person speaking to another divine person.

01:01:10

There is no way to confuse them. John 17 is impossible for modalists to survive.

01:01:20

It can't be done. The resultant schizophrenic

01:01:26

Jesus of the UPCI is indefensible. And so what these

01:01:35

Unitarians will do and what Muslims will do is they will take a portion of John 17 3 and build a system on it.

01:01:50

And you, you know, Iglesia Ni Cristo.

01:01:57

Remember? Me with my

01:02:02

Bible. And I don't think I had, no, I didn't have the remarkable tablet yet.

01:02:09

So I don't remember how I took my notes. But I didn't have much on my table.

01:02:16

And I only realized after the debate that for their people, the more stuff you've got, the more right you are.

01:02:24

What you're arguing doesn't really matter. But if you've not seen that debate, Tom Thayon, it's all over the place in trying to explain to a

01:02:41

Filipino cult their history in the nominative and accusative in Greek. It was fun. Great night.

01:02:47

Anyway, they'll take this one phrase and say,

01:02:54

And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

01:03:03

See? Jesus denies he's God. He says only the Father is

01:03:08

God. End of debate. I'm not going to continue reading.

01:03:15

I don't care where John 17 comes. I don't care that Jesus has already identified himself as the

01:03:21

I Am. I don't care if he's already said, unless you believe that I Am, you will die in your sins. I don't care that he's described as having eternally existed in John 1, being called a monogamous theos in John 1.

01:03:33

I don't care what Thomas is going to say in just literally a matter of hours from this point in time and refer to him as my

01:03:41

Lord and my God. I don't care about any of those things. And I especially don't care what the next few sentences are going to say.

01:03:48

That's eisegesis. It's perversion of scripture. It's what false teachers do right, left, and center every single day.

01:03:55

Every single day. So, once again, if you have one divine person, and John has already identified the

01:04:07

Logos as a divine person who is eternally existent. If you have one divine person who has been made flesh, who has taken on human flesh,

01:04:17

Sarx Agenata, and he is in prayer to the non -incarnate divine person who has sent him, and he has come voluntarily, obviously, not been forced to come, with whom he is one in saving the people of God.

01:04:42

John 10. How else is he supposed to address the Father?

01:04:48

As one of many gods? We believe there is only one true God. And so the question is, is

01:04:55

Jesus simply recognizing the Father's deity, and hence, since we're all, well, we're supposed to be monotheists, speaking as any monotheist would, how else would the incarnate person speak?

01:05:13

Is he going to be an atheist? Is he going to be a polytheist? You're one of many gods? We don't believe that the

01:05:19

Father is one of many gods. The Father's deity is absolutely one.

01:05:26

But remember what the Shema said? What was the oneness? What does the

01:05:33

Hebrew say in Deuteronomy 6 .4? Yahweh echad. Yahweh is one.

01:05:41

And so this is the same John who in John 12 .41, having quoted Isaiah 6, says these things

01:05:48

Isaiah said because he saw his glory and spoke about him, identifying that as Jesus.

01:05:56

So if you're going to read John 17 in the book of John, in other words, fairly, doing exegesis instead of eisegesis, then the

01:06:05

Unitarian reading is out the window to begin with. But Muslims don't care about reading John 17 .3

01:06:11

in John because they don't believe John's consistent with John. They don't even believe John was really a disciple of Jesus in the sense of whoever wrote this.

01:06:19

The vast majority of them don't. And so this putting

01:06:24

John in the context and putting the statement in the context of John, they don't worry about that.

01:06:31

And Unitarians don't either because, again, honoring the word of God, handling the word of God right, they have their philosophical paradigms and everything else is secondary to them.

01:06:43

But there's more to it than that. You can't take that exclusivistic reading of John 17 .3

01:06:55

to John 17 .5 and have it make any sense. They can't read it contextually.

01:07:01

So you can see, it's right above my little screen there, you can see what it says.

01:07:09

John 17 .5 And now glorify me.

01:07:15

Now you glorify me. And yes, while that is in the imperatival form,

01:07:21

I don't think it's appropriate to take that as some type of inappropriate command.

01:07:28

But this is the son saying glorify me, pater, father, together with yourself, together with yourself, with the glory which

01:07:46

I had with you before the world was. Now here's where people will say later, ah, but you see, you know,

01:07:54

John 17, you can talk about the oneness of the disciples being the same oneness as the Father and the

01:07:59

Son and glorifying them. But we didn't exist in eternity past.

01:08:08

And no matter what you do, with these Greek words, this is one divine person who is incarnate speaking to another divine person who is not incarnate about the glory which the two of those divine persons shared in eternity past.

01:08:31

That's it. That's what it says. You can stand on your head, you can spin in circles, but that's what the words mean.

01:08:40

That's what the language means. And watch the Unitarians.

01:08:45

Watch them with the text like this. Watch them with the text like John 20, 28. They will come up with the most off the wall, crazy, embarrassing explanations you've ever heard because those texts are not their ultimate authority.

01:09:02

They don't really believe them. They're finding ways around them. That's the essence of it. So once again, when

01:09:08

Anthony takes one phrase from John 17, 3, ignores the context of John, and ignores the very context of this, that's why

01:09:20

I say it's rhetoric. It's what false teachers do. It's what deceivers do.

01:09:25

It's what people who are twisting the word of God do. And so when

01:09:32

Dale Tuggy's like, oh, I just can't wait to see how I'm going to... He knows. He knew the outline of what

01:09:37

I was going to say. He knew that. And so it's really hard to take these folks seriously because they don't speak seriously when it comes to actually doing the work of exegesis in a fair and consistent fashion.

01:09:54

So these are things that we as believers, a

01:10:03

Christian believer, who wants to be mature and prepared to face what's coming at us in the

01:10:10

West over the next number of years, should be far more confident in giving a response to a false teacher like Anthony or Dale Tuggy than they are confident in giving you any set of data regarding whatever their favorite sports team, sports star, whatever, might be.

01:10:39

This is eternal stuff. This is stuff that has eternal ramifications. I can't even remember who won the

01:10:47

Super Bowl last year. I really can't. I don't think I watched it. I didn't watch it. So I don't know.

01:10:54

I don't know. In fact, I think a few years ago,

01:11:03

Tom Brady, didn't they win and they had to come back from like 30 some odd points? That was a number of years ago now.

01:11:08

I just don't even know. I don't know who won the World Series. I don't know.

01:11:15

But I know when a Unitarian is twisting God's word and can confidently respond to it.

01:11:22

And we all should be at that point. We all need to be there. I'm challenging everybody.

01:11:30

We all should be there because this, this is what matters. This is what you're, you're passing on to your children.

01:11:39

If you're taking them off to those things, there's nothing wrong with going to a sporting event. Don't get me wrong. But, if you're, if they remember that more than they remember the facility that mom and dad had in handling the word of God and explaining things to me and answering my questions, what are we really giving our children?

01:12:06

What are we really giving our children? That's, that's the question. So anyways, once again, every time

01:12:15

I sit here and I'm looking at all this stuff, I am reminded,

01:12:21

A, that I'm on the road right now, but I'm not really on the road right now because as we explained a few days ago,

01:12:33

I think I'm pretty much, I am over the food poisoning. I'm trying to get the energy back to where it was at that particular point in time.

01:12:40

So I'm here in Colorado. That's why I've got speaking on Sunday. But we still have to pay for the

01:12:46

RV park. And I'm just so thankful for this RV park. They have worked with us. They didn't have to do this at all.

01:12:54

But I'm not gonna have to move my unit. I'm not gonna have to go someplace else. I will have to move it from this slot to another slot next

01:13:03

Tuesday. That's all I'm gonna have to do. They worked it out. And this is their busy time. I'm, when you, when you find a place that does this, that is that kind, then you go kudos.

01:13:20

And in fact, I've already ordered, I ordered a cake. It says, thank you, has a little RV on it.

01:13:26

And I'm gonna take it over there this weekend for the staff. Because they didn't have to do that. They really didn't.

01:13:32

So I'm very, very thankful to them. Anyways, the point is, we're still paying for these. They're not giving it to us for free.

01:13:38

And so there are costs involved. The travel fund is how we do these things. So if you go to aomin .org, help us with the travel fund.

01:13:45

And again, I just have to say thank you to everybody who made this place a reality.

01:13:56

I just think it's so cool to be able to to do what I'm doing. I'm doing webcasts with other people.

01:14:01

I did a webcast in India last week. And I'm getting to use really high quality stuff.

01:14:10

And to be able to teach and even while moving.

01:14:16

Well, okay, not while moving. I'm just sitting here imagining what it would be like to try to do a webcast in this baby while she was moving.

01:14:31

The earthquakes that this poor little house has to experience as I'm flying down the road.

01:14:39

Yeah, that would be very, very entertaining. The camera angles would be very different because there's a slide over there that comes in.

01:14:46

Yeah, everything would be very, very different. But you know what I mean. Just deep thanks to everyone who donated for covering the cost of this unit and then the cost of the building of the studio and installation and everything else that's going on.

01:15:04

So my thanks to all of you for that. Today is Thursday.

01:15:10

Man, I'm going to tell you it's so tempting with this studio to sneak in like a

01:15:18

DL short and stuff when you've got Thursday till Tuesday. And by the way,

01:15:23

I surprised Rich with that last week when I did that this past weekend and didn't even tell him I was going to do it.

01:15:29

Because he's created a monster. I can do it all myself now. I'm not as fast as him, but I've figured it all out.

01:15:36

And I can get the files posted and the blog done and all nine yards. He does stuff after that.

01:15:42

I guess there's other places he posts the videos that I don't know anything about that part. But I can get it done.

01:15:48

I can get it done. So I'm wondering what the weekend may bring. Otherwise, Tuesday.

01:15:55

That's when we do what we do. So I hope you will be looking for that.