SRR 113 Josh Harris Abandons His Shipwrecked Faith | Intro to Systematic Theology

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Polemics, Persecution, and the Bible Alone

The anathema of God was for those who denied justification by faith alone. When that is at stake, we need to be on the battlefield, exposing the air and combating the air.

We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.

We are polemical and polarizing Jesus style.

I would first say that to characterize what we do as bashing is itself bashing. It's not hate. It's history. It's not bashing. It's the Bible.

Jesus said, woe to you when men speak well of you. For their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way. As opposed to, blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.

It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle. Thank you for tuning in to the Simple Riff from on the radio. This is where the Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety is applied to all of life.

And we've got a lot of important topics to discuss today. I'm your host, Carlos Montijo. And I'm going to be flying solo this time for this episode. Tim Shaughnessy, my usual co-host, wasn't able to make it today.

We've had a lot going on recently. So I wanted to also thank everyone, our listeners and our readers for your patience. We've still had a lot of obstacles and just sickness to be fighting through and vacation and stuff like that.

But I'm very eager to get back on and to jump on this topic. It's a very important topic to discuss. It's a recent event, specifically dealing with Joshua Harris in particular and his falling away. But before we get to that, I wanted to make a few announcements today.

The first is that the Trinity Foundation is now on social media. So you can follow them on Facebook and Twitter. And that's a shout-out to Stephen T. Matthews. He's the director of social media for the Trinity Foundation.

And he is also one of the hosts. He is the host of Radio Lux Lucid, a very good podcast on our network, the Thorn Crown Network. It's an excellent podcast dealing with a lot of topics like politics, economics, from a biblical, scripture-less perspective.

So definitely recommend that you check out his podcast and his articles as well on the scripture-less blog, on our blog as well. The next big update, sad update, is that, and I'm reading this from the Trinity Foundation's website.

Sadly, Richard Bennett, founder of Berean Beacon Ministries, went home to be with his Lord and Savior yesterday, which was September 23rd, 2019. This is really sad news to hear, but I'm glad that he's finally at home with the Lord.

Richard Bennett is the founder of Berean Beacon Ministries, and he was a former Roman Catholic priest. He has outstanding material for Catholics. Anybody you know as a Catholic, he has excellent resources and websites for Roman Catholics.

I'll keep reading the announcement here.

It says,.

Arrangements are underway for his memorial service and will be posted on his ministry's website at bereanbeacon .org later today or tomorrow. Please pray for Richard's wife Lynn as she makes arrangements while she is still battling stage 4 cancer.

Update, after the last few years of great physical suffering, Richard passed peacefully in his sleep on Monday, September 23rd, 2019. The precious life of Richard Bennett touched so many people in so many ways, and his spiritual legacy will continue well into the 21st century.

Richard Bennett will be laid to rest Friday, October 4th, 2019, at 1030 a .m. PDT. Burial will take place at the Natchez Cemetery, Cal Lowry Road, and Old Natchez Highway, Natchez, Washington, 98937. A memorial service will be held at 1130 at the Atanam Pioneer Church, 8500 Atanam Road, Yakima, Washington, 98902.

Richard Bennett is survived by his loving wife, Lynn, and three stepchildren, Solving, Gunner, and Cunnett, and two grandchildren. Very sad news to hear. I would have loved to have met him in this life, but hopefully look forward to meeting him in the next.

He has done a great, great service to the church. He has been a tremendous blessing in his ministry to the church, especially in ministry to Roman Catholics. So our heart goes out to the Bennett family, and the prayers go out to them as well.

And so, speaking of the topic of death, and well, specifically the recent mass shooting that happened in El Paso not too long ago. This issue is not something I really want to get into today. We'll probably do a future episode with Tim and talk about that.

But I did want to point to our readers, there's an excellent article on the Scripturalist blog and Thorn Crown Ministries website, thorncrownministries .com, that I highly encourage everyone to check out.

It was written by Steve Matthews, who I mentioned earlier. He's the host of the Radio Lux Lucid podcast. And the title of the article is called, Mass Shootings, What Are Christians to Make of Them? And it is an excellent, excellent article dealing with this topic.

It's a very difficult topic. A lot of different opinions on how to address it and deal with it. But Brother Steve really did an excellent job in this article. So I highly recommend everybody to check that out.

And just stay tuned for, Lord willing, a future episode where we can talk about that specifically, the recent shootings. Alright, so that's a wrap for the announcements and updates. So now, I want to dive into the topic.

Joshua Harris, Dug Down Deep, and the Roots of Apostasy

And I chose a specific... You might have been thrown off a little bit, or maybe wondered at the title of this episode. It might sound a little redundant. Why did I decide to name it, Joshua Harris Abandons His Shipwrecked Faith?

That sounds a little redundant. But there's a specific reason as to why I said that. And I've been doing some research for a while now regarding what had happened. His recent announcement of leaving the church and embracing the LGBT community and all of those things.

And I've listened to several episodes, several podcasts about discussing Joshua Harris. They've been mostly helpful. But there are some things that have been crucial in the life of Joshua Harris and in his teaching that have not been discussed.

I have not seen anybody talk about this. And it's partly why I think it's important for people who do podcasts or who do news or who have a platform to discuss these kinds of issues. I think it's generally very helpful to do some homework first.

We try to do that as much as possible here at Thorn Crown Ministries, Thorn Crown Network, Semper Firmamanda Radio. That's really one of the primary principles that we operate on. And we've done this throughout.

Even back when we were with the Bible Thumping Wingnut, we were very diligent about studying New Covenant theology and addressing that topic. Also, even when I wrote a review of the shack, a lot of people were just kind of pointing to other resources that were pointing to other resources.

And sometimes the resources were by people who haven't actually read the book. So, when I deal with a topic, I do my best to read up on it and actually read the material, read the books, and give hopefully a more qualified, a more fruitful discussion on that.

And so, that's partly what motivated me to want to talk about Joshua Harris. Especially because there's a lot of personal... There's not so much... There is a history tied to the church that Tim and I met in that we used to attend.

The leadership there really liked Joshua Harris and his material because it was a Sovereign Grace Ministries church. And that's what Joshua Harris and C .J. Mahaney, they were like one of the main leaders of that movement or denomination or whatever they call themselves.

And so, this was pretty significant hearing about this, just given the history that we have. And when we were going through the issues with presenting the issues with Tim Keller at this church, they had actually recommended that we read material from Joshua Harris.

And that's how I found out about him and kind of started to read more up on him. But there's a reason why I gave... Going back to the original thing that I mentioned, there's a reason I titled the episode in this way.

Because there were already some serious issues that I found with Joshua Harris going back all the way to at least 2010. And to my knowledge, I didn't do a bunch of research or homework on the internet to see what people had uncovered about this guy and some of the critiques of his views.

But he had some very alarming, problematic issues, doctrines that he was teaching in his book. Specifically, the book, Dug Down Deep. That's the one that I'm going to be covering today in this episode.

I recently finished reading it. And this book is called Dug Down Deep, Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters. And this was, I think, published in 2010. And so, yeah, it looks like it was way back in 2010.

And there's some really alarming stuff in here. I'm going to talk about that and kind of discuss it. And this is what concerns me when there's so many people that try to be quick to discuss things on the Christian podcast without really doing some research.

And sometimes the answers that they give, they can be helpful, but they're almost always incomplete. And they're almost always leaving out crucial information that really kind of informs as to why Josh is where he is now.

And so, I'm going to talk about a lot of the... So, I read through the book. I made a lot of notes throughout. And I'm going to just kind of bring up some things that really stood out to me. And so, I've listened to Todd Friel, James White, and a handful of others, I think, talking about this.

They did say some things that were helpful. There was an interesting thing that I was kind of wrestling with in terms of how you know that he is truly an apostate. And not just maybe temporarily lapsing.

If he really did abandon the faith or if he's just kind of lapsing. If there's a window of time that we should give. But from what has been going on with Josh and the announcements he's been making, it doesn't seem like he's coming back.

So, let's dive into the book. The book is basically kind of a sort of spiritual journey that Josh took. It's kind of like his spiritual upbringing and his theological trek to where he got at that point.

And the changes he made, the adjustments that he made along the way. And it's also, at the same time, it's kind of an overview of major Christian doctrines. It's sort of like a basic overview of major Christian doctrines.

And so, he reveals a lot. He reveals a lot about himself. And a lot about what he believes and what he teaches in this book. It's why I read it. Mainly because it's one of the few books that I have by him.

I have my wife actually had I Kissed Dating Goodbye. But she never read that book. Which, ironically, as far as I've been able to tell, I think I would agree with many of the principles in that book. About courting and a proper biblical view of dating.

Even though it seems like he actually recalled that book. And now, I guess, he doesn't agree with what he said in that book. But, ironically, I think I would agree with the principles that he's trying to put forth there.

I haven't read it yet, so I won't necessarily comment on that too much. So, back to his book here, The Dug Down Deep. It got a lot of interesting endorsements. One of them was by Joni Eareckson Tada. And she's, I think, a quadriplegic.

She's in a wheelchair and she's wrestled through a lot of different diseases. And, I think, even cancer. So, she gave an endorsement. Donald Miller was another one. He's the author of Blue Light Jazz.

Todd Friel gave an interesting critique of this guy. I don't know anything about him. But, apparently, he's a liberal. He's a pretty liberal writer. And here's what he said. In Dug Down Deep, my longtime friend Joshua Harris explains the basics of Christian theology in a way that all of us can understand.

He is a humble man and teaches humbly. If you are tired of high promises and want essential truth, this book is for you. As religious fads come and go, the truth in this book will last. So, Todd Friel made the interesting point that your friends affect your faith.

If you have bad company, you will be affected negatively by that. He was suggesting that Donald Miller may have pushed Josh in the direction that he's now in. Or, had a lot to do with. He said, this guy, he may have known him for a good while.

And, yes, that is what Miller himself says. He's a longtime friend of Josh. And this is back in 2010. So, he's known him for a while, obviously. But, I don't know much about him. So, I can't really comment too much on that.

And, of course, it was also endorsed by none other than John Piper himself. And, Piper, Keller, a lot of these names, the Gospel Coalition, a lot of these are very popular in Sovereign Grace Ministries churches.

And that's how I basically discovered all of these guys. It was through the Sovereign Grace Ministries church that I used to attend. And, so, these birds tend to flock together a lot. And, another, it was also endorsed by J .I. Packer.

And, even Mark Dever. Mark Dever, it was endorsed by Lecrae, the rapper, the Christian rapper guy. Who I, we'll probably have to do a future episode on him because I think he's definitely not sound at all.

But, anyway, yeah. So, he got some, even an endorsement by Ted Slater as well. He's the editor of Boundless .org and he apparently works for Focus on the Family. So, he got some pretty glowing endorsements for this book.

It's a very sort of honest, he's very honest in the book. He talks about a lot of his struggles, his sin struggles, and kind of things that he went through. But, I'm going to cover some other points here that I wanted to get into.

So, one of the things that stood out to me as well is that he evidently grew up in a seeker sensitive, worldly, he says parallel universe of the youth ministry. So, let me go to that page. Yeah, so he says here, I found my sense of identity and community in the parallel universe of the youth ministry.

So, this, he's actually kind of pointing out the fact that he grew up in a very worldly and not very spiritually minded youth ministry. And this is something that I've longed for a good while now. I've been convicted about youth ministries and children's church and those kinds of things.

They're basically a breeding ground for prodigals. It's a breeding ground for creating prodigals. And it's happened in my own church. They don't do children's ministry anymore, but they used to back when they were Calvary Chapel.

And there's sadly some stories, some very sad stories about some of the parents in the church whose children grew up and they ended up not wanting to come back to church. And a lot of that, they say was also, they can tell was from having this youth ministry and not really taking the, not really, rather than equipping parents to disciple their kids and to teach them the Bible and to take it seriously.

Youth ministry can oftentimes, and I think in the vast majority of cases, really just destroys their faith, ironically. But yeah, so here on page eight, he has an interesting comment here. He says, sad to say, I spent more time studying Michael Jackson's dance moves for that drama assignment than I was ever asked to invest in studying about God.

Of course, it's primarily my own fault. I was doing what I wanted to do. There were other kids in the youth group who were more mature and who grew more spiritually during their youth group stint. And I don't doubt the good intentions of my youth pastor.

He was trying to strike the balance between getting kids to attend and teaching them. Maybe I wouldn't have been interested in youth group if it hadn't been packaged in fun and games in a good hand. But I still wish someone had expected more of me, of all of us.

Would I have listened? I can't know. But I do know that a clear vision of God and the power of his word and the purpose of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection were lost on me in the midst of all the flash and fun.

So I think that's an interesting comment there. I think it really sums up a lot of youth ministry, that it's more geared towards flash, fun, babysitting, and keeping kids' attention without necessarily teaching them and catechizing them.

And so that was some interesting comments that he made there regarding that. And the book wasn't all bad. He does have some very good things to say in some of the chapters. For example, he does affirm that knowledge is good, that truth itself should ground emotion and not vice versa, that we should seek truth and not emotional experiences.

And he has a very solid bibliology or an understanding of the Bible, how to understand Scripture, the inspiration of Scripture. He has a very solid view on that. He had a good chapter on that. However, there were years where we have some problems start to creep in.

Faith, Doctrine, and the Christian Life

So on page 19 of the book, he talks about being a Christian rather than living the Christian life. So if we go to page 19 here. So I'm going to read a quote at the end of the page here. He says, Being a Christian means being a person who labors to establish his beliefs, his dreams, his choices, his very view of the world on the truth who Jesus is and what he has accomplished.

A Christian who cares about truth, who cares about sound doctrine. And this may have just been the wording that was maybe a little bit off. But he says being a Christian means being a person who labors to establish with his beliefs.

So he's talking about, really, he's talking about the Christian life. But being a Christian, you know, what makes a Christian is believing the gospel, not laboring to establish your life according to sound doctrine.

That comes after, that's sanctification. So the phrase there, just being a Christian, that kind of, you know, maybe that's what he meant. But it kind of raised an eyebrow at first. Maybe it would have been clearer if he had said living the Christian life rather than being a Christian.

Because what makes you a Christian is not your life. It's your belief in Christ. There's kind of a subtle distinction there that I think it would have been better for him to say living the Christian life, which sounds like what he meant.

But something to consider there. So he does also do a good job of emphasizing the entirety of Scripture, tota Scriptura. That we should consider the whole Bible and not parts and pieces that we like or that we're only the ones that we can understand and things like that.

He does emphasize, he has a good emphasis on, so here he says, When Jesus talks about the person who listens to his words, he's referring to more than just the red letters in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

All Scripture is the Word of God. It's all Jesus speaking to us. So that's a good, that was a very solid point that he made there. So he has, but then again, right after that, he does have another sort of troubling phrase here where he says, That's what Jesus pinpointed in his story, and it's the focus of the preceding verses in Luke 6.

Doctrine and theology are always meant to be applied to our lives, to shape and reshape not only a statement of faith, but also practical decisions of how we think and act. Book knowledge about building on rock has no value if we're still resting on shifting sand.

So this, the phrase here that I was concerned about is, Church affiliation and a list of beliefs are never enough. And this was kind of, never enough for what? Like what is he talking about? Is he talking about salvation?

Because obviously that, I mean, you know, he's kind of sort of undermining, in a sense, belief. A list of beliefs, which is what the gospel is, is a list of propositional truths about Christ and about his death and his resurrection and the fact that he died for our sins.

So that is enough. That is enough to make you a Christian. That is enough to save you. But he doesn't necessarily make that clear. And so you can kind of be, you can kind of take away sort of a wrong impression there.

Again, it seems like he's talking about the Christian life in general, but I just thought that could have been, that could have been a little bit clearer on his part. So he also, he also talks about Pentecostalism and fame.

And he, he, he has some interesting stuff to say about that as well. So here he makes a, he sort of talks about one of the transitions that he made, a crucial transition that he made in his spiritual journey.

He says, I had merely gone from theology light, seeker-sensitive evangelicalism, to theology light, experience-driven Pentecostalism. So the first, the first movement or the first evangelicalism, the theology light part is the, where he grew up in that children's church, that youth ministry that was very shallow and superficial.

He didn't get much out of it. And so he then says, he talks about how he jumped over to more experience-driven Pentecostalism. And it was some interesting stuff about the discussion that it gets into there and, and learning how he goes, how he learns the imbalances in both of those, the, both of those movements.

And so then he also, he also talks about how he, he ended up transitioning into more solid grounding on, on, on better theology, specifically when he was introduced to C .J. Mahaney, who at the time was leading Covenant Life Church in Maryland.

And he says this, but he didn't, so he's talking about C .J. Mahaney. He didn't reference the popular Christian bestsellers with which I was so impressed. Instead, he quoted men like J .I. Packer, Sinclair Ferguson, John Stott, and D .A. Carson.

He talked about and quoted long since dead pastors and theologians like Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Watson, and John Calvin, as though they were still living personal friends. Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century London pastor who's preaching an example of gospel proclamation inspired C .J., was his historical hero.

John Owen was his tutor on the doctrine of sin. So there he kind of gives some background as to what, why he admires or admired C .J. so much as he was starting to become a more serious Christian. So there was some good stuff there.

However, so there was something else that concerned me, which was the issue of, and this is not specific to Josh. This is a common, I think, misconception where people tend to describe physical relationships with Jesus.

You know, it's not belief in a creed, but trusting in a person, that kind of dichotomy. It's a sort of false dichotomy that's very popular in evangelicalism. And he makes a pretty stark dichotomy here.

On page 30 he says, This has to be the first and final motivation. Pursuing orthodoxy and sound doctrine has to begin with a heart drawn close to Jesus, not to a theological system, denomination, or book.

Which again, Jesus equates his teaching with himself. So it's a false dichotomy to say it's not a system. Well yeah, it's a system that Christ taught. It's the teaching of Christ that draws you to him.

So that's a false dilemma there that he's presenting, but he goes on. It's easy to make the mistake of thinking that since theological beliefs shouldn't be our goal, we don't need them at all. But this isn't true in knowing Jesus any more than it's true in other relationships.

For example, I have a 9-year-old daughter named Emma, whom I love very much. It is absolutely true that information and facts about my daughter can never take the place of actually knowing her. But this doesn't mean that I should avoid knowing about her.

An important part of caring for and cultivating a relationship with my little girl involves my willingness to learn about her character and personality, her likes and dislikes. Details about her, the color of her hair, the music she enjoys, her gifts, fears, and dreams are all important to me because she is important to me.

These truths about her could be empty data, but because they describe a living person whom I love, they enrich and grow my love for her. Facts can never take her place, but I can't know her without them.

And the problem with this, of course, is that we are not in a flesh and blood relationship with Jesus. So making these analogies are very harmful to our understanding of how we relate to Christ. Because we have a real relationship with Christ, of course, but it's primarily driven through prayer and the Word.

And so we don't have a physical relationship with Him where we can hang out with Him and talk to Him just like we do with anybody else. That's a human. And so that makes the relationship considerably different in how we interact with God.

And so it's primarily should be driven by the Word and by His teaching. And so it's similar to the popular analogy I've heard by preachers like Ray Comfort. They say it's not enough to believe that the parachute will save you.

You have to put it on in order for it to save you. And that, again, is the problem. And Gordon Clark does a brilliant job of breaking this down and showing the inconsistencies in, I think, his book on Religion, Reason, and Revelation.

So it's a very problematic way of presenting how we believe the Gospel because it's all intellectual. Believing the Gospel is an intellectual act. It's not something that's physical in the sense that you have to put something on physically.

You simply understand the Gospel and then you agree with it. That's all what saving faith entails. And so these descriptions of physical relationships with Christ can be very, very problematic because they tend to break down and they don't actually correlate.

And so that was another concern there. But this was not so much the more of the serious concerns. But he does also say some good things again. He talks about how doctrine is essential. And so he has here on page 31 he says, J. Gresham Machen, who wrote in the early part of the 20th century, helped me better understand all this.

His explanation of Christian doctrine helped me see how it connects to the living person of Jesus. In one of his books, Machen explains that while Christians in the early church wanted to know what Jesus taught, they were primarily concerned with what Jesus had done.

Quote,.

The world was to be redeemed, Machen writes, through the proclamation of an event. End of quote. Of course, the event he's referring to is Jesus' death by crucifixion and his resurrection from the dead.

The first Christians knew they had to tell people about this event. But simply telling them wasn't enough. They also had to tell them what the event meant. And this, Machen explains, is doctrine. So that was an excellent discussion on doctrine.

That is exactly what doctrine is. It's giving meaning and explanation and tying together the events, some of the events that have unfolded, such as Christ's death, his resurrection. What do those events mean?

And how do they pertain to us? And so that was an excellent discussion regarding that. That was very good. And so he continues quoting Machen here. These two elements are always combined in the Christian message.

Machen continues,. The narration of facts is history. The narration of the facts with the meaning of the facts is doctrine. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. That is history.

He loved me and gave himself for me. That is doctrine. So that was very good. I got a lot out of that discussion. That was very helpful. So there were some other things that stood out. Here's one of the first more concerning things that he said.

It's on page 32. Here he says,. And in both cases, knowing and living by sound doctrine are of utmost importance.

Why?

Because on the final day, only those who have believed in Jesus Christ and lived for him will be rescued from the wrath of God. So I'm going to read that part again. Because on the final day, only those who have believed in Jesus Christ and lived for him will be rescued from the wrath of God.

So that sentence, that's just flat out false. That is work salvation. And that's very concerning. Because what rescues us from the wrath of God is trusting in Christ alone. Not believing in Christ and living for him.

Our lives count for nothing with respect to earning God's pardon. Christ has fulfilled that completely. So that right there, already on page 32 of the book. And if you see the endorsements, it was endorsed by all these people.

And that's why I think we have to be very careful with endorsements. Because maybe the authors don't, maybe the endorsers don't read the book very carefully. Or whatever the case may be. But it makes things worse in a way.

Because this is a patently false teaching. And it's very similar to what you hear today from men like John Piper. Who say that we have to present our inherent righteousness and our good works on the final judgment as forensic evidence in order to be allowed into heaven.

This is basically the same thing. And so it's extremely concerning. Except here, Josh Harris is talking about removing the wrath of God. So this is even worse to some extent. Because what saves us from the wrath of God is faith alone in Christ alone.

That's basic Protestantism 101. So there you already see the problem that Josh is having with articulating even basic Protestantism. This is just flat out false teaching. This is more Roman Catholic than Protestant.

And so that was extremely alarming. And it's not even the worst of it, unfortunately. And he does continue to say some good things as well. There's just some good and bad stuff on the way. But he does make some good points about knowing God truly.

That we can know God truly. He does not express these sort of Vantillian notions of not being able to know God truly. In the sense that just because we can't know Him exhaustively doesn't mean that we can't know what God knows and know God Himself truly.

And so he doesn't retreat in that sort of weird Protestant mysticism. That irrational kind of view that says that we can't know God because we can. We absolutely can know God through His Word, primarily through His Word.

And he affirms that in the book very clearly. Now, this next part I do want to talk about a little bit. Because it's an important issue that I've noticed in several... It's a very prominent understanding, a way of looking at God.

And there's this issue of transcendence and imminence. And so Josh talks about that. He talks about that in his book as well. It comes up a lot, actually. And so he says something like this. He says things like this.

He says, on page 41, he says, I behold a God who is utterly and wonderfully different from me. And so here you see him expressing the doctrine of transcendence, which is the belief that God is qualitatively different from us.

He even says, utterly different. He says, God is utterly different from me. And how God is not like us. And I'm trying to find his definition of transcendence here. So here he says, on page 42, he quotes Wayne Grudem.

It is not just that we exist and God has always existed, writes Wayne Grudem. It is also that God necessarily exists in an infinitely better, stronger, more excellent way. The difference between God's being and ours is more than the difference between the sun and a candle, more than the difference between the ocean and a raindrop, more than the difference between the Arctic ice cap and a snowflake, more than the difference between the universe and the room we are sitting in.

God's being is qualitatively different. And then Josh continues. The qualitative difference of God is His otherliness, revealed in His divine attributes, is summed up in the word holy. And this was interesting.

He talks about R .C. Sproul here. He says, I used to think of God's holiness only in terms of moral purity. But R .C. Sproul taught me that holiness primarily speaks of God's being separate from His creation and His perfection and power.

God's holiness means that He is transcendent, that He exceeds all limitations. That God is holy means that He is above and beyond us. Quote, when the Bible calls God holy, writes Sproul, it means primarily that God is transcendentally separate.

He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us. Which again is kind of concerning, coming from somebody like Sproul, who is generally a sound, a more sound theologian. But here the issue of the transcendence is defined as He exceeds all limitations.

And so the reason this is concerning is because God is not utterly different from us. That's actually not true. And the issue becomes that the way people try to balance this out, the transcendence of God is with the eminence of God.

And so typically what you'll see in some theological books, and I remember reading this in, I believe it was 20th Century Theology by Stanley Grenz, where he uses this frame of reference of transcendence and eminence to kind of describe a lot of, I think, movements in church history and historical theology as well.

And so people tend to pair those two as if they were bookend doctrines. That God is utterly different from us, but He is also utterly near to us. That's what eminence means. It means that God is near.

God is near to us. We don't have to search Him out by climbing at the top of the highest mountain or whatever. He is near and He listens. He is not detached from us. And so I'm going to try to see if I can find some of his discussion on eminence.

So here, I'll read this. On page 45 he says, God is different from you and me. He is utterly different, and that is utterly wonderful. There is surprising comfort in the realization that God is so unlike you and me.

The fact that He's not like us is the reason we can run to Him for rescue. So here he's saying, and then he continues, God is not like us. He's strong. He's unchanging. His love is steadfast. He is full of mercy, and He does what we would never do, what we would never imagine.

He dies for His enemies. Quote, God chose His love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5 .8. And there he's kind of getting more into the issue of eminence. So yeah, on page 49 he says this, The incredible reality that the God who, quote, inhabits eternity, and who is holy and transcendent, that is, totally separate and different from us, is also the God who draws close to men and women who are contrite and humble before Him.