July 29, 2003

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

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

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

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

James White. Hello, hello, hello.

There I am. Hello. Well, let's see. How many channels have we fried on that board now?

We did a test. Did we not? You said you heard me. And we did a test. And is that just a whole other thing or is that thing overheating or something?

Is that the issue over there? I bet you it's overheating because it's right next to the wall. Well, let's see. Well, hey, here we go again, demonstrating that we have other jobs during the day, this particular one.

Welcome to the Dividing Line. It's always good to start that way when you open your mouth and it's the sounds of silence.

Many people wish that that was a common thing with me and so, yes, well, we get started on the right foot, 877 -753 -3341, live on a

Tuesday morning. It's – I don't have any major developments. Yes, you have no words and neither did

I. Well, you know, what can

I say? I could say a lot, but I think I'll just leave it at that. That would probably be the best thing to do.

So, no major reports of really strange weather experiences out here in Phoenix.

It's only 94 degrees outside. That's good for us at 11 o 'clock in the morning. For some of you, you still roll your eyes, but for us, that's – it was downright cool last night.

I think it got down to like 88 or something like that and for us, that's almost sweater weather. So, nothing major along those lines.

You're certainly invited to join us today at 877 -753 -3341.

Just got back from being out in Illinois. I actually saw a little rainfall, not a whole lot.

I guess a few weeks earlier, they had gotten three inches in half an hour and I told them that all of last year, we got 2 .54

inches in the Phoenix area and they just thought that was really strange and they weren't sure how anybody lived out here and actually, when you think about it, that is an unusual thing.

But anyway, I had a good time back there with the folks and a lot more traveling coming up, but you're familiar with most of those things.

So, we'll take your phone calls today at 877 -753 -3341.

Just had one interesting text I was going to share with you today.

I do have some more clips to play if we don't have the phone calls coming in on a regular basis this morning.

We did last Tuesday. I don't know why it's different one day from another, but was looking into some arguments put forward against the deity of Christ by Unitarians and some responses offered by Christians and ran across an interesting, shall we call it a factoid or something like that, that you might find interesting because now

I've run into this argument being presented from two completely different perspectives and I have noticed, and this is something that is interesting,

I've noticed the enemy of my enemy is my friend. And so, different groups do not have any difficulty whatsoever basically stealing arguments from others, even if they didn't derive these arguments themselves, as long as they communicate what they want to communicate.

A number of years ago, I corresponded with a well -known opponent of the deity of Christ and I don't remember who contacted who, to be perfectly honest with you.

In fact, I understand that last, well, a couple of months ago,

I don't know who it was, there was a debate with, I believe his name is Anthony Buzzard from Atlanta Bible College, at least he was at Atlanta Bible College when

I was there, and this is the gentleman that I corresponded with in some context, and one of the arguments that he had presented was that the constant citation of Psalm 110 verse 1 in the

New Testament is evidence against the deity of Christ. Now, if you're not familiar with Psalm 110 verse 1, the

Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

And that, of course, is cited a number of times in the New Testament, the Lord Jesus used it himself in arguing with the

Pharisees, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. He asks, you know, who is the

Messiah, if he is the son of David, how does David call him Lord, and then he quotes from this passage.

And Buzzard raised this issue, and what he pointed out was that in the

Hebrew, this is Yahweh the Lord, and you can see that in Psalm 110,

L -O -R -D is all in caps, even though the O, the R, and the D, depending on what you're looking at,

I noticed looking here in Bible works at the New American Standard Update, that the

O, the R, and the D are the same font size as the L in most printed editions, while they'll still be in capital forms, they'll be in a smaller font size.

But those capitalized forms, the O, the R, and the D, is what indicates to you that the underlying

Hebrew word is Yahweh, or as we manage to slaughter it in English, Jehovah.

Jehovah says to my Adonai. However, in the Hebrew, it's

Adonai, with Heroic Yod at the end of Adon, and what he pointed out was

Adonai is never used of God, it's never used of a divine being, Adonai is used of God all the time.

The normal phrase, Jehovah Adonai, Lord God, sometimes you'll see that put with God in the capital form, because it's not

Jehovah Elohim, that's the normal phrase for Lord God, but sometimes you'll see Lord God, and that's actually rendering

Yahweh Adonai. And the argument being, that he was presenting to me, was that this demonstrates

Jesus cannot be God, because Adonai is always the term that is used for human beings, and not for God.

Now, let's see, well, I'm going to invite your phone calls,

Jeff in New Jersey already wants to talk about another psalm, Psalm 22, but I was thinking, let's see if you all can come up with the proper response to this, because there is a rabbi,

Rabbi Singer, who I believe has a radio program in New York, he's a very virulent anti -Christian, and is very outspoken in his attacks upon the deity of Christ and things like that, and he uses this same argument, and in fact, he says that the record in Matthew of Jesus' use of this particular argument, that the

Gospel writers say no one dared ask him any question after this, the Pharisees had no response, and he says, this is absolutely ridiculous, any

Jewish person who knows anything about the Bible, knows why this argument is false.

And he raises the exact same argument that Buzzer did, he goes back to Adonai, and says everybody knows that Adonai is never used of God, it is only used of men.

Now, how would you respond to this? There's a glaring, what seems to me, just flashing, red light, obvious oops in all of this, that is really, really clear, but I'd like to see, hey

Mr. super -duper, board -operating, web -mastering, plug the microphone into a different channel before it explodes person, well you don't get anything.

Do we have something like we could give to somebody, if they get the right answer on this? Do you think there's something over there on the shelf that they'd actually like to get, that maybe they could, you know, if they get the right answer, they'd call in today?

I think I have a pen. A pen? Did you chew on it? No, but I'd get the dog to chew on it. Well, that would make it completely indistinguishable from, well, from lots of stuff that we find laying around, especially if we threw it in the garbage can and Zeke finds it.

But you don't have anything more than a pen? Like maybe an audio?

Well, actually, this is a pretty tough question, so I think it deserves a fairly decent prize.

Reward, reward, reward, reward. This is not by grace, this is by works. Let's see,

I'm looking over, I'm thinking, I'm thinking a copy of the

Potter's Freedom might be in order. Oh, oh, yes, yes, that's very good. So the

Potter's Freedom. Watch the lines light up. Yes, the Potter's Freedom for anyone who can explain to me, now it's got to be the right answer.

I mean, there may be other ways of arguing it, but there's one very obvious, especially with Singer's argument, it's the same argument, but when

Singer says the Jews would have never found this to be an even compelling or meaningful argument, there's a real

Mack truck -size hole here. And so the first person, now you're going to have to keep track of who's...

Yeah, you need to put a caveat on this, and that is no one who was in the Hebrew class when you discussed this...

Oh, I'd like there's someone in the Hebrew class listening to the debate. Well, that's true. What do you think, this is a radio show or something?

I know, I know, I know this one, I know, I do, I know this one. All right, 877 -753 -3341, there it is, folks.

Why is that argument completely, utterly, and grossly fallacious? So, join us if you would like to...

Some people are saying we're skipping, so let me try it one more time. Why is the argument offered by Rabbi Singer and by Anthony Buzzard that Adonai at Psalm 110, which is used only of men in the

Old Testament, not of God, Adonai is used of God, why is that not an argument against the deity of Christ?

What is the glowing big Mac, big Mac, that's not a big Mac, Mac -truck -sized error in this particular argument, especially, and here's the hint, hint, hint, hint, what...

When Singer says that any Jew of the day of Jesus who heard that argument would have not have found it compelling, why is that wrong?

Oops, my computer, I guess, isn't potted up, because I played something there to get you in the mood for calling in at 877 -753 -3341, if you would like to join us today.

Yes, indeed, let's see who can come up with it now. I'll stop that.

Now, here's the question, I'm a little worried that Jeff might know, and Jeff was already online when

I threw this out there, so I'm not really sure that it's fair if Jeff wants to guess at this, but maybe we'll go ahead and, well, let's just go ahead and take

Jeff's phone call and see what happens. Let's talk with Jeff back in the

Garden State, I think that's a term that should only be allowed to be used for the southern half of New Jersey, but the

Garden State... Is that the part you're in? I'm in the good part of New Jersey. You're in the good part of New Jersey.

Not the part you make fun of. Well, but you see, the problem is, it's still difficult for me to differentiate between New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California when it comes to governmental policies and socialism, so, you know, are you guys planning on maybe seceding from that part of New Jersey sometime?

Well, we don't really get any consideration from Trenton, so most of us, but if they knew we existed, maybe they would, that might happen, but generally that's the way it is.

All the rich people are in North Jersey, and... Yeah, yeah, and all the good folks are down south, I understand.

All we really have is Camden and the casinos, and some farms. All right, what can we do for you today?

I was going through... Oh, by the way, do you know the answer to the question? I think I do. It was kind of weird being on hold, because I could kind of hear only the call screener and random noises every once in a while.

Oh, you couldn't hear me? No, I couldn't hear you. All of a sudden, Jeopardy music was on, and then

I was like, I had no idea what was going on. That's probably best, that's probably best. He was shouting something about Hebrew class, and I could only hear one side, so I turned on the internet portion.

Oh, isn't that interesting, Richard? I thought they could listen to the program when they were on. I just fixed that.

Oh, great. Okay, well, anyways, you had a question about Psalm 22, anyways.

Yes, but could I take a stab at the little bit of the question I know? Oh, man, has anybody called over there,

Rich? Someone's called. No other brave souls yet. No other brave souls? Okay, then, Jeff, go for it.

Would it be Adonai? The argument does not apply, because there is a distinction within the

Trinity, and also that he's also the God -man, so... Well, that's very imaginative.

However, I do not have a buzzer sound I can play, but no, I'm sorry, that's not... All right, there we go.

But very imaginative, though. That's very good, very good. In fact, you could actually, you know, probably push at a distance, but there's a...

that's not the Mack truck -sized error in the argument that they've put forward. So, over to Psalm 22.

All right, I was... Um, when I lived up in North Jersey, when

I went to school, I, uh, in your archives a couple... from a couple weeks ago,

I had a question about Psalm 22, and, uh, like a lion, and... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that, yeah, right, they had the...

yeah, okay. Several years ago, I talked to, um, my pastor friend who is, uh, used to be an

Orthodox, uh, Jew, and, uh, used to be a cantor, and, uh, he showed me in the text is what the difference is, is that, uh, it's a difference between a

Yud and a Nun, uh, Sufi. Okay. So, it looks like a scribe had a flip of a pen and changed a

Yud into the Nun. Well, you know, I, I was heading out of town, and let me...

This is, this is where you get to hear all the sounds as I reach around and stuff. Oh, falls down and things like that.

All right, uh, let, is it, let's see, what is it, verse, uh, 16? There it is. Yeah, 22, 16.

Let's just get out the plain old, uh, paper text. That's, uh, you know, sometimes you just can't beat the real thing, even with computers.

Uh, I have actually written to BibleWorks and said, you know, the one thing that would make this absolutely, positively perfect would be if we had, uh, the textual variants on the screen.

And, uh, so here's, uh, verse 17 in the text. And I'm looking down here.

Uh, okay. Well, I'm not sure if it's listed as a variant, but he was saying... It is. ...the

logical thing is, if that Nun was actually a Yud, it would be, it would go to the pierced translation.

But the, the Nun, uh, makes it the, like a line, my hands would be. All right.

Now, as, as I'm looking at what is on my, my screen right now, um, my hands and my feet, let's see.

Then it says, and a band of evildoers have encompassed me. And what

I am seeing in the version that I have up there, and I'm not seeing any difference whatsoever between the text in the written text and what's there.

All right. So there is a variant listed down below and okay.

There is, there is one variant, uh, it says a few manuscripts, two manuscripts read this way.

Okay. There's just a small variation. Now, I don't see the difference between a Nun and a Yud, which as you know, in Hebrew is a very, very small difference.

Well, what I think he would say is they don't see the variance in the current Hebrew manuscripts, but if you using the

Septuagint and seeing that the difference in the Hebrew would just be that one letter. Right. Oh yeah. I understand that.

I'm just simply saying, uh, I don't, uh, even see, uh, here in the, uh, in the

Septuagint, uh, that I have, uh, yeah, it's, it's got, uh, my hands and my feet as well.

They have, they, I just, I, I, the only thing I could see is a, is a small variation, uh, in, in digging, uh, as it's spelled in, in one of the, in some of the variants, uh, down below.

I, I'm just, for some reason not seeing this and, uh. Well, maybe I'll put him in touch with you.

Well, you know, that a quote was, man, I just completely destroyed all the books over in this one point. You know, a quote was provided from the, uh, uh, um, one of the study

Bibles that, that had that, uh, you know, that mentioned Hebrew text says such and so, and I'm just like, well,

I sure would like to find it, uh, because everything I'm seeing, uh, you know, maybe I'm just completely, uh, you know, it, the, the difference is in they pierced my hands and my feet.

Is that what they're saying? Um, yeah, he was saying that the difference in the letter would be with, uh, because you can, all the letters used to be just all as much together and then you could parse them up differently.

Well, I understand that. I just, um, I just do not see in any of the resources available to me where this, uh, where this reading is allegedly coming from.

I just, uh, well, that would be the easiest way of doing it. Um, I think that that might be the right way to go.

Yeah. Well, you know, it, it definitely would, uh, would get rid of a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, you know, issues for us, but, uh, uh, it also would lead us to have no idea what the original actually said and things like that.

Let me see. I'm, I'm, uh, okay, here's, here it is here. And no,

I, even in, uh, even in the, and this isn't an overly critical text of the septogen, but I'm not seeing any variant there either.

So it must be an incredibly minor variant. Uh, you know,

I, I just, uh, you know, uh, obviously it'd be better to look at these things when you're, when you're not trying to do a radio program at the same time, but I, I just do not see, uh, where this stuff is coming from and where the, uh, uh, you know, uh, it, it's just very strange.

Oh, well, um. I had another thing. Um, I, in the same program, you had a question about, uh,

Dr. Matheson's book. Keith Matheson's book. Yeah. About which, uh, yeah, right.

Uh huh. I had actually, after I read the book a couple of years ago, I had a chance to correspond with him. And a clarification on, uh, your conversation there, uh, he did clarify that the rule of faith is, as you should put it, it was sub -biblical.

He would probably say co -extensive with scripture, where it's not derived from scripture per se, but it is no different and is a subset of the, the message of scripture.

Well, if it's not derived from scripture, what, what is its source? What he would say is, is that it is, it corresponds with the traditional apostolic teaching, which is the same thing that is found in the

Bible. Well, yeah, the, the, the problem is though, who defines it and where does it come from and why is it, why is it, uh, authoritative?

Um, is it, is it something that the apostles passed on outside of scripture? If it's, if it's sub -biblical, um, then no, it, it, it, if it came from the apostles, is it, or is it not theionistos?

If it's not theionistos, how do we know it came from the apostles? Uh, the only tradition that I know of in the early, in the earliest writings,

Irenaeus identifies his tradition and it's very, very, very clearly sub -biblical in the sense of being derived from and derivative from scripture.

So the, you know, that, that, that to me is the issue. And once you start saying, well, you know, what, what's really going on here is the, is the role of the church.

Well, you have to identify it. And the, the problem that I'm having with, uh, in essence, the, the whole

Moscow, Idaho movement, uh, in its embracing of that perspective, the fact that they embrace the ecclesiastical text perspective, um, the, the fact that their view of the covenant now in essence, uh, brings the

Borgia popes, uh, into the covenant and makes them our fathers in the faith and all the rest of this stuff is, how do you apply this stuff in real life?

I mean, in the ecclesiastical text area, how do you determine a textual variant? When did the church sit down and work through these things?

Well, he was actually, um, in part of my correspondence with him, he was thinking about a future followup book, uh, to kind of explain more of the ecclesiastical issues.

Well, that's certainly what is needed because I mean, that's, you know, that the vast majority of the criticisms that I have seen have been focused on people saying, well, that's real nice, but you know, it's great to talk about quote unquote, the church in this way, but how do you identify it?

And how do you say the church has said X, Y, and Z, and when did the church say it?

And what did the church examine? And, you know, uh, I, I hear a lot of folks talking about what the church has allegedly said, but when you get down to, to brass tacks, uh, is it, you know, the church quote unquote spoke at Carthage and Hippo, but we don't necessarily agree with what was said at Carthage and Hippo.

And so once you start utilizing that kind of argumentation where, you know, in essence word, you draw the line and, and what are your standards and are you consistent in those standards and things like that?

So that, that's really one of the issues that I have is, is this, you know, it's, it's wonderful and great to, to invoke the, what seems to me to be a rather nebulous concept of the church.

Um, a, I have a problem with that on an exegetical ground. Um, I think that much of the discussion of the church, even, even in first Timothy three 15, where it says the church is a pillar and ground of the truth, that's in the context of the local church.

And it's very easy for people to, to, to sort of turn it into the foggy, misty, unidentifiable church, uh, and sort of throw it off into the universal aspect and, and forget about the fact that it exists as a, as a body, uh, and as a body that is connected through commitment to a particular message.

And this is another area where the, the Moscow movement, uh, has, has begun through the

AAPC stuff to, to consistently attack the idea that, that, um, well, if you're going to say, for example, the

Borgia popes are not our, our, our brothers in the faith, our fathers in the faith, then what you've done is you've gotten into this post enlightenment idea of identifying the gospel as this pure form.

And it's this idea that, that there's certain elements of it that are, that, uh, you know, you need to believe this, this, and this, or you're not truly believing the gospel and all the rest of this stuff.

And I say, yeah, that's called Galatians. That's called, uh, that's called the new Testament where there is an identifiable truth of the gospel and that there is no church and there is no fellowship and there is no brotherhood outside of a common commitment to the truth of that gospel.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. And I don't think that's enlightenment because that's what Paul believed long before the enlightenment itself.

So I'm, I'm really, I'm very, very good. I know he wrote that book for the

Moscow group, but I'm not, uh, even though I've corresponded with him, I'm not exactly sure how he fits in with them.

And well, to my understanding, everything's been published by Canon Press, which is the publishing arm of, uh, new

St. Andrews and, and Douglas Wilson, the folks in Moscow, Idaho. And they've, they've produced some great stuff.

This new emphasis, this, um, what we Reformed Baptists refer to as hyper covenantalism that, that is, that is very much a part of things.

Now, uh, I'm finding to be extremely problematic and I'm seeing it to be very divisive and, and it's causing all sorts of problems.

And, you know, I think in, in God's providence, it causes all of us to work through things and think about things.

That's fine. Uh, so, you know, I'm not going to throw up my hands in despair and say, oh, you know, the kingdom is lost, the kingdom is lost.

But, um, it is, it is very, uh, disconcerting to me when, when the, for out of the same area where you have the ecclesiastical text stuff and, and things like that, that you have these, the uses of the term church in such a way that I just don't think there's going to be any way of, of, uh, very clearly differentiating between what's being said there when you're out in the area of debate itself, when you're responding to Rome's claims.

I mean, most people are going to hear one side talking about the church doing this and the other side hearing the church doing that.

And they're not going to make much of a differentiation. The two sides may identify what the church is, but that again goes back to my original question is, how are they going to identify what the church is?

And, and it seems, uh, in recent things that I've read from Douglas Wilson, that he's promoting an apost, not an apostolic succession of ordination, but an apostolic succession of baptism.

And I'm sorry, um, at that point I, I go, uh, you're going down a road that's, uh, is a whole lot different than mine.

I believe in apostolic tradition too, but it's an apostolic tradition of truth, not of baptism. And baptism is not what guarantees truth.

Um, yeah, I found the whole, um, author and sort of thing very, very, uh, confusing.

And it's not so much, I think it has a lot of function to do with, you just, it's hard to devote the time to get to the level of nuance and figure out like what's going on language wise, which

I thought a lot of part, I thought, um, the stuff I've read, you know, sometimes, you know, you're thinking, oh, this is good.

And then you're like, this isn't, and what's going on. Um, I actually devoted, I, uh, create a little bit of a, a homepage just with pros and cons and the audio of the, the

Auburn from the 2002 conference, just so some people, so just more as a resource for myself to kind of say, okay, you know, this is what people are saying and this is what people are not saying.

I mean, without having the time and, and there needs to be more glossary than anything else, but it seemed like, yeah, they're talking this way and they're, they're like more continental reformers than they're.

Well, yeah, certainly it, the, the, the controversy has backgrounds, uh, in some, in some senses, it is not new, but the, the things that really cause confusion are

Steve Schlissel and Douglas Wilson are not saying the identical same things, the identical same emphases.

Um, but at the same time, I would have a hard time sitting on a, on a, on a podium, um, with someone saying that, uh,

Luther's identification of justification by faith is the article of standing following churches, who he an hogwash. Um, I, I would have to stand up and say, no, that's who he an hogwash.

Uh, and the fact that no one did, uh, makes me go, wait a minute. And then when, when

Wilson starts talking about an apostolic, uh, succession of baptism and, uh, things like that,

I just go, wow, you know, this, this is starting at least from my perspective to illustrate what happens when you, when you become imbalanced in one area and that imbalance begins to affect all sorts of other areas.

And I, you know, I know that these folks are constantly saying, well, see, we're, we're the ones that are going to be able to dialogue effectively with Roman Catholicism.

We're going to grab them by their baptism and, uh, we're going to steal the ground away from them. Okay. I'm waiting to see this happen.

Uh, I'm waiting to see someone take on Scott Hahn, uh, when in reality, many of the things they're saying are identical to what

Scott Hahn says. I was just listening to Hahn today. He was on Catholic Answers Live last week, just a few days ago.

And, uh, when he answered a question on New Covenant stuff, man, bingo, bingo, bingo. It was almost identical to the conversations

I've been having with various and sundry folks from, uh, uh, the new St. Andrew's perspective. So I haven't heard of any debates taking place and, uh, things like that.

So I'd be looking forward to seeing it happen. Hey, thank you for your call today, sir. We need to take a break. Take your phone call today.

Thank you. God bless. 877 -753 -3341. A copy of the Potter's Freedom.

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Well, it looks like we're having some problems with the broadcast today as far as everybody's skipping in and out and things like that.

So, who knows? It looks like we may have to go back to real audio and not worry about the fancy -dancy

MP3 stuff, which is somewhat disappointing. It's nice to hear things with a little bit higher quality than real audio offers, but we'll probably need to go that direction.

I don't know. Part of it may well be due to our own ISP, which isn't exactly the most consistently stable one on the planet, unfortunately.

But be that as it may, that probably is going to mean that we don't have anyone calling in live this morning who wants to take a shot at this question.

So, we'll go ahead and address it, and then I'll probably play some clips and continue some responses on other issues because you just don't get a whole lot of phone calls when folks only hear you.

That just doesn't sound really overly good, and that's understandable. Someday the internet will catch up.

Anyway, the question, the argument was, in case you didn't catch the beginning of the program, the argument that was presented was based on Psalm 110, and you may recall that we raised the issue of Psalm 110 -1, a

Messianic passage that is used over and over again in the New Testament. And that is, the

Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. This is the Psalm of David.

The Lord Jesus quoted that and applied it to himself.

Jehovah said to my Lord, Adoni, in the Hebrew text, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

And the New Testament quotes this directly from the

Greek Septuagint. And in fact, it's interesting to recognize that in the first few centuries of the

Christian Church, the Jewish people abandoned the use of the

Septuagint and moved over to Aquinas's version of the

Greek translation of the Tanakh, what we call the Old Testament.

And one of the reasons was, in fact, the primary reason was the use of the

Greek Septuagint by the Christians. And so the argument that was presented by Anthony Buzzard and then presented again by Rabbi Singer is that what

Jesus said in that passage would never have been much of an argument for Jews to handle because they wouldn't have found it to be consistent.

They wouldn't have found it to be compelling because Adoni is only used of men in the

Scripture, in the Old Testament, and Adonai is what is used of God.

And in fact, Rabbi Singer says Adonai is never used of God anywhere in the Old Testament.

Well, how do you respond to that? Well, we were offering a free book to anyone who would call in and identify what the glowing error in that argument is.

Well, here's the glowing error. Sorry, I guess we don't have anyone chomping on the bits out there, huh?

Here's the glowing error. Of the

Hebrew text that existed at the time of the dialogue between the

Lord Jesus and the Pharisees, the Hebrew text that existed during the time of the writing of the

New Testament was not a pointed text. That is, the difference between Adoni and Adonai has to do with vowel pointing, not with the form of the text itself.

And the consonants would be identical between the two.

It was the Jewish Masoretic scribes, more than 500 years and right around 900 years after the time of Christ, who generalized and established the concept of vowel pointing.

It's interesting, if you go to Israel today and pick up a newspaper, it is not a pointed text. They don't use vowel points in the standard text that is used even in modern

Jewish society. And in fact, years and years ago, I even had a subscription to the

Watchtower in Hebrew, and it was not a pointed text. There was no text pointing in it whatsoever.

And so the difference between Adoni and Adonai is a text pointing difference.

And where did we get the text pointing? It came from the Jews, 500 to 1 ,000 years after Christ.

So the argument that they're making is actually, when you think about it, boils down to just this.

That Jews, 500 to 1 ,000 years after Christ, didn't believe in the deity of Christ.

Well, congratulations! Really! Didn't know that that was actually an argument. Of course they didn't!

The Jewish Mazarites pointed this in full knowledge of the use of Psalm 1101 by the

Christians and in response to the Christians. This is an editorial decision on the part of Jewish people who rejected the use of this passage by the

New Testament. So what relevance does that have to do for anything else? Someone just asked, didn't

John Owen argue for inspired vowel pointings? They probably did. He was wrong. You know, when folks, and that amazes me, and I'm not picking on anyone's channel, but I do hear people say that.

Just because someone like John Owen had tremendous insight into the scriptures, folks, they had almost no background information, manuscripts, that go back to anywhere near that period of time.

And there are people today who will ignore the modern materials that we have, the fact that we know so much more about the state of the text in that day, they'll ignore that in favor of people who had no knowledge whatsoever, but they just argue, you know, wow, but they said that once and I like the idea that that was around back then.

It wasn't! This was a later development by the Jewish Masoretic scribes to vocalize the text and to establish it.

And very frequently, if you look in the footnotes and the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartentia, very frequently you can tell that the variations in understandings, the vowel pointing is in fact an interpretation.

It is interpretive. There are many times when you have to recognize the possibility that while they put in a particular set of vowel points, that actually the consonants would allow another understanding, would have another meaning.

It is an editorial act, just like punctuation is an editorial act in modern

English translations. And that bothers a lot of folks. They for some reason have a real problem in regards to, you know, allowing for the fact that the text as we have it today came to us over time.

And I've got to look at what in the world is this question all about?

You a theonomist? That's an interesting question. Anyway, so that is the problem with the argument.

And if you hear someone throwing that out to you, what you need to recognize is the vowel pointing difference between Adoni and Adonai is an editorial decision made by people who were identified by that point in time by their rejection of the

Messiahship of Jesus. And so when you find other people who reject the deity of Christ or the

Messiahship of Jesus using the same argument, it's like, okay, what's so amazing about that?

Like, duh. So you agree with people who believed like you a thousand years ago. That doesn't have anything to do with the validity of the use of Psalm 110 by the

New Testament writers. And, of course, in the New Testament, as it's citing from the

Greek Septuagint, it is Aipen ha kurios to kurio mu.

So it is using kurios in both my Lord, kurios is the translation of Yahweh, and kurio as the translation of to my

Lord. So and that being Adonai. Or Adoni in the later

Hebrew text. So some of you are going, you actually expected someone to call in and answer that?

Yes. Because it's... I knew it. You knew it. I was going to say that.

Well, then you can have a copy of the Potter's Freedom, if you would like. Thank you.

Now, a question here, because what always crossed my mind back and the reason

I said nobody from the Hebrew class can call in, because you discussed this back when I was taking

Hebrew with you. And what always crossed my mind... It must have been during the one or two weeks. Yes, yes.

That was a very short period of time back then. But I think you mentioned something about when vowel pointing actually came along.

Yeah, yeah. I said the Jews from Mazaritz. Normally that date is put around 900

AD, almost a thousand years after Christ. But, you know, let's be real conservative and say 500.

Still five centuries after the point in time where this text was being utilized and long before the

Greek Septuagint, of course. So to infer that the Jews of Jesus' day would have pronounced it in that manner is pure speculation.

Well, totally. Completely. That's why I emphasized Singer's statement, is that he's assuming when he says,

Adonai is never used of God. What he's saying is later

Jewish scribes pointed the text so as to differentiate between a human

Lord and a divine Lord. Fine. Wonderful. That's what later

Jewish interpreters interpreted the text to mean. Great, wonderful, fine. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with the validity of the arguments at the time of the

New Testament. Excellent. Okay. Well, thank you for your call today. Thank you very much.

Appreciate that. So are we actually broadcasting now?

Yeah, the modem seems to be dancing along here just fine and much less complaints in the chat room.

Yeah, it's sort of sad when everybody in the chat room is going, well, I really can't understand what's being said.

I guess I'll catch it in the archive. Well, they didn't seem to like the idea that I just, you know,

I tried to placate him by saying that you had a skip in your voice today. Yeah, well, what do you think?

I'm just apparently not cutting it. Okay. Oh, well, we tried. All right. Thank you, sir. And hopefully that will be useful to you should you ever run into that argument.

That's not one that Jehovah's Witnesses really use. So a lot of folks could be running into disciples of Anthony Buzzard.

But that is one of the drawbacks to the Internet, and that is bad arguments have long lives and they translate, you know, they're transmitted everywhere and the refutations of them rarely get the distribution of the original bad argument.

That, unfortunately, is part of the issue there. Anyways, should there be a comment?

877 -753 -3341. But I doubt there will be. So let's go ahead. I'm going to be playing a clip here. You, Mr.

Soundman, sir, you might want to have the computer ready to rock and roll because I would like to continue providing some commentary on the common arguments that are presented against the

Reformed faith using our good friend Dave Hunt. This one was an interesting one.

This is mainly from T .A. McMahon, but he's basically asking, you know, why argue the issue of Calvinism?

Calvinists say that Calvinism is the gospel. It's not the gospel. But why, you know, if God doesn't love everyone, then, you know, why bother, etc.,

etc.? So this is pretty common. It's about a three -minute clip, and that will give us time to comment on it and then close things out today on The Dividing Line.

This week's question. Dear Dave and Tom, I'm really annoyed at Dave's new book on Calvinism, and I haven't even read it yet.

Your full -page ad in your newsletter tells me we're going to have Christians fighting

Christians over complex theological issues, and our witness to the world is going to suffer.

Well, they admit they haven't read it yet, but what about this point of arguing over theological issues and what kind of witnesses?

You know, Tom, that's one of the first things I say in the book, and I explain why I was very reluctant to write the book.

But in fact, we began hearing more and more arguments. Churches splitting, people aggressively saying

Calvinism is the gospel, and I quote a number of leaders, evangelical leaders of today, saying that this is pure Christianity, this is the gospel, and some of them even saying if you don't preach the five points of Calvinism, you're not preaching the gospel.

That's pretty serious, I think. Now, I have friends who are Calvinists who wouldn't believe that, but I'm quoting some of the major leaders who say that.

Yeah, so lots of people out there calling themselves Calvinists do believe it, although there are exceptions.

That's true, and I say at the very beginning, I do not want this book to bring division. What really compelled me, in fact, as you know, the book was first titled

In Defense of God's Character, and I don't like to get involved in detailed theological discussions and arguments.

That can go on forever. I think we have something very basic here that's involved.

Either God loves everyone, or he doesn't love everyone. Either Christ died for everyone, or he didn't die for everyone.

Either God wants everyone in heaven and offers full salvation freely to all who will believe and receive it by his grace from his hands through Christ, or he does not want everyone to be saved, and he has predestined multitudes from before the foundation of the world, before they were ever born.

They were predestined to go to hell, to be tormented forever, and there's nothing they can do about it, nothing you and I can do about it, because no good to preach the gospel to them.

They can't even believe the gospel. They can't even make a decision to receive

Christ. Let's go ahead and stop it right there, because immediately, now we hear, this is before the writing of the book, okay?

So we could hope that correction would take place, but I have to report to you, having read the book in its entirety, that no correction does take place, because those of you who are

Reformed know that what Dave is saying there is a standard canard, it's a standard straw man.

There's no sense even preaching the gospel to them, because they can't do anything about it. All of this, everything that is presented here by Dave, again goes back to the man -centeredness of his tradition, and I do believe that Calvinism is the gospel.

If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't believe that Calvinism is relevant, and what I mean by that it's the gospel is not that the five points contain everything there is to know about the gospel.

That's not the claim, and that almost sounds like the way it was being presented there, but it wasn't.

That's not what we're saying. What is being said is that the truths inherent in the doctrines of grace regarding God's sovereignty, man's deadness and sin, the sovereignty of grace, the truth of election, the justice of God in punishing the children of Adam who are in Adam and can receive only from Adam what

Adam can give them, and that is a depraved nature. The justice of judging these individuals for loving their sin, and for living in their sin, and the desire for their sin, all of that, those are biblical truths, and therefore to allow your tradition, as Mr.

Hunt does, to negate those truths is to present, at the best, a sub -biblical, inconsistent gospel, an impure gospel.

I believe that holding to the doctrines of grace is what allows you to proclaim a pure gospel that is not based upon men's traditions, but upon the

God -breathed scriptures, and it is self -evident that from a biblical perspective, the very things that are offensive about the gospel of Christ is what

Arminianism, which is what Dave Hunt is promoting, seeks to downplay and to get rid of.

And so, in response to the first section, yes, I do believe that Calvinism is the gospel in that sense, that it is biblical, and therefore to preach a pure and a clear gospel is to preach the doctrines of grace.

But then, when you see Dave Hunt saying, there's no reason to preach the gospel to us because they can't believe, we've said over and over again,

I told him in the book, he does not listen to the correction, sadly. And that is, that is a canard, it is a misrepresentation, we do not know who the elect are, therefore we preach the gospel to all men, but it's the gospel that we preach to them, we do not have to shave off the rough edges, we do not have to edit it down, we do not have to remove the offensiveness, because it is not based upon man's desires, man's will, but upon God who has mercy,

Romans chapter 9, which Mr. Hunt would tell us only has to do with nations anyways, though he, like everyone else, cannot remain consistent in listening to the text at that particular point.

So these kinds of constant straw man arguments work with those who want to hear them, they don't work when we're actually dealing with the reality.

They need to turn the computer up, because there's something going on there. Because they're totally depraved, and God must regenerate them, miraculously, sovereignly regenerate them, before they can even believe the gospel and receive

Christ. Now you can hear this, and it's constant for Dave, and part of it's just the way he speaks, there's always this, in the middle of statements, but you can tell when he's trying to present something in such a way as, can you believe they believe this, it's amazing that they would actually believe that you have to be regenerated before you can do a spiritually good act.

That's because Dave borders on pure Pelagianism when he makes statements that men can do spiritually good things before God, outside of regeneration.

That dead men are able to do these types of things. You have to have a biblical anthropology, and Dave Hunt does not.

Believe the gospel and receive Christ. Now either God does not love all mankind, does not want everyone saved, or he does.

Now I think we can deal with that fairly simply. That's not a hair -splitting issue, that's not.

I don't think so. I don't think so either. No, it's not a hair -splitting issue. There's no question about it.

It is a fundamental issue, and of course, when we got into the passages in the debate book, which again

I mentioned is due out in February from Multnomah Publishers, entitled Debating Calvinism, 5 points, 2 views.

When we got into that very issue, that's really where the rubber meets the road, and Mr.

Hunt was not able to defend the traditional exegesis of the key passages that they always utilize,

Matthew 23, 37, 2 Peter 3, 9, 1 Timothy 2, 4. Again, all he was able to do is continually repeat that and say, but God loves everyone.

And when I mention, you mean redemptively? God cannot have redemptive love for individuals that he does not have for other individuals?

Is God's redemptive love forced? Can grace be forced in that way? Again, you have the traditional falling back to the standard synergistic

Roman Catholic, and it is Roman Catholic. This was part of the debate at the time of the

Reformation between Protestants and Roman Catholics, and they're going, no, but there were

Anabaptists over here. Well, there were anti -Trinitarian Anabaptists too. The debate between Luther and Erasmus was on the bondage of the will.

It was on the issue of synergism. And let's face it, Mr. Hunt and his followers hold to the position that was held by Erasmus, who was a

Roman Catholic priest. He wrote in defense of transubstantiation, and though I have tremendous respect for Erasmus, that's simply what the debate was.

We can't ignore the historical thing. This is still the issue. It was the issue then. It is the issue.

Hello. Hello. It's the issue now as well. I guess we're supposed to go bye -bye now, so I will say goodbye, and we'll see you on,

Lord willing, if we keep the microphone working, Thursday evening here on The Dividing Line. See you then.

That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.