George Bryson's "Calvinism" Reviewed then Vines

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

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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.

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

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

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

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James White. I'm not sure how much it would have impacted the

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Bible Answer Man broadcast in December of 2003 had

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I heard the Pastors Conference, the Calvary Chapel Pastors Conference that took place beforehand, specifically the comments made by one of my two opponents in that debate on the

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Bible Answer Man broadcast, George Bryson. But it certainly does give some insight into the mindset of those who seek to oppose

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Reformed Theology and its proclamation to listen to George Bryson talking to Calvary Chapel Pastors.

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Now, of course, Jeanne Cook has begun responding to this

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MP3, which I had not heard before, at least I don't recall ever having heard it before. I think I would have remembered it had

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I heard it before. And so I'd like to do is play just a few moments of it here at the beginning, then go back to the

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Vines sermon that we've been covering before. But I think I think we can learn a lot about the mindset of those who oppose quite simply biblical theology.

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I mean, if honestly, most of the time I don't say a whole lot about my debates in the sense of who won and so on and so forth.

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But I don't think anyone's going to really fault me for saying that when I debated

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George Bryson at the Anaheim Vineyard and when we had the Bible Answer Man broadcast, both were tremendously useful promotional pieces for Calvinism.

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OK, George lost. He lost on every level you could lose. He lost on argumentation.

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He lost on presentation. And he especially lost on exegesis and consistency. The written debate that we did in the

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CRI Journal, the debate itself, the radio program.

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There's no question about who came out on top and all those things. And yet George Bryson is still considered to be the great

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Calvinist slayer for the Calvary Chapel denomination, which I find very, very odd.

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And as we listen to some of these statements that he makes, I would just remind you that we have since this time, since he said these things, since we had the

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Bible Answer Man broadcast debate, he has been invited to debate me again up in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City, Provo area.

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And it didn't work out because he would not allow for cross examination.

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And now you tell me why you would not allow for cross examination. What what reason could there be for you not to want to engage in cross examination and debate other than you don't want to debate?

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I mean, if there's no cross examination, then you just pick up his his presentations and you pick up my presentation, you play them side by side, and that's all you got.

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If you will not answer questions, if you will not have to. I mean, just just watch the

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DVD of my cross examination of George Bryson on John 6. And you will see why he never wants to go through that again.

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The fact is, George Bryson can't go through that text with someone who knows the text themselves, just not possibly can.

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Now, obviously, from my perspective, that would make me go, you know what? I need to change my viewpoint. I need to change my beliefs.

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But for some odd reason, when you're opposed to reformed theology, you just you know it's wrong.

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You just know it's wrong. And so that's all you need to say. And that's all you need to do. And and that's that's that's the end of that.

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So listen to just this first section, a number of minutes. I'll break in a couple of times, but I'll just pretty much let it roll and listen to the attitude.

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Listen to the listen to the language. I mean, he will at times say, well, you know, we know that these people are

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Christians and things, but listen to what he says about being hoodwinked and falsehoods and deception.

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And it's sort of hard to know exactly where he comes down on these things. He certainly has a very low view of of reformed theology and a very high view of his own understanding of reformed theology.

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But the reason Calvinists don't win the lost is because Calvinism or reformed theology is sterile.

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It just doesn't produce. And so if you want children and they do, where are you going to get them?

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You've got to get somebody else's children. So they look to groups like us that are growing and lots of young pastors.

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We're not let's face it. We're not terribly theologically sophisticated. And I personally don't think we need to be.

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I don't think every Christian needs to be a philosopher. I think we ought to have enough understanding of philosophy to know what's harmful and what's inconsistent with scripture.

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But it's the same with theology. And I love theology. I consider myself a theologian, but theology isn't the answer.

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God's word is. And I say this. I just need to stop and just point out the utter logical, rational incoherence of what is being said right now.

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I'm sorry, but these words don't mean anything. It's not theology. It's the answer.

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It's what the Bible teaches. And what does the Bible teach again? As soon as you say the Bible teaches

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X, what is that? That's called theology. I mean, I'm sorry, but this makes no sense.

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There's no substance to it. And I would like to think that the people sitting in front of him are looking at him with quizzical looks on their faces going, what are you babbling about?

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What are you talking about? But unfortunately, I don't I don't think that's probably what's happening.

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But folks, don't don't get upset with George. This is the reason why you and I both know all sorts of folks who.

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Came into a Calvary Chapel from wherever, maybe they were saved in the

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Calvary Chapel and Calvary Chapel says, study the Bible, read the

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Bible. Now, do they throw a lot of traditions in? Yeah, but they say, study the Bible. And the reason that Calvary Chapel pastors and Calvary Chapel people will continue to leave as long as reformed theology is denied is why?

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Because they're reading the Bible. It's the Bible that teaches it.

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It's I mean, George, you know, I would debate George Bryson any day on pure exegesis.

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Let's just pick I'll pick seven texts. You pick seven texts. We take a certain amount of time and we do cross -examination based on the original text.

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George Bryson will never do it because he knows he can't. But I would do it. That's where my confidence is.

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It's in the text. And as long as they keep reading the text, they're going to keep going, you know what?

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What we're teaching on this isn't isn't quite in line. And I wonder why. And as soon as they start asking, they get shut down.

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And that's when they then, you know, realize that things are not all well when you take

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George Bryson's perspective. A little bit tongue in cheek. People are always trying to pigeonhole me. Ask me, are you a

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Calvinist or an Arminian or some kind of Chalminian or something like that? And I say, I'm none of those things.

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I'm a Biblicist. And of course, they they get real upset. They say we're all, you know, Biblicists.

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We all want to believe the Bible, but I want to know what your interpretation of the Bible is. And my response to that is, and with all due respect, the moment they're willing to give up calling

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Calvinism the doctrines of grace, then I'll give up calling myself a Biblicist. Now, let me stop right there.

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There is no logical or rational connection between those two statements.

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And George Bryson couldn't demonstrate that there is. He can object to the concept of the doctrines of grace if he wants to.

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But what does that have to do with the fact that when you call yourself a Biblicist, you're engaging in a category error because you're not answering how you interpret the

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Bible? There is no logical connection there. And that's one of the reasons that George struggles so much with Reformed theology is that Reformed theology is logical and he does not think in logical categories.

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He tries to. He tries to pretend that he does. But he very frequently engages in equivocation.

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He makes category errors where he thinks that Calvinism is being inconsistent. He even proclaims that says it's being illogical.

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But in reality, he's just missing the point. He doesn't he does not think with great clarity or consistency in any way.

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The moment they give up calling the Calvinist or Reformed version of the gospel the true gospel, then

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I will stop calling myself a Biblicist. Again, no logical connection between these things.

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And I would simply ask the question of those who object to referring to Calvinism as the true gospel.

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What do you want us to say? It's the false gospel? I mean, what honestly do you wish us to say?

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Are you not saying that what you believe is the true gospel and Calvinism isn't? I mean, come on, let's let's let's try, you know, to pretend like we're applying the same standards to both sides and try to think logically.

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But in fact, that if if there's a proper term for Calvary Chapel, it is Biblicism in terms of our approach.

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We're not some of us like theology, some of us like philosophy, but our real heart and soul and what we promote and push is simply the

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Bible. We want people to get into the Bible. We want people to believe the Bible. We want them to live by the

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Bible. Now, listen to what he says here. And theology doesn't come automatic or it's not a necessarily or natural result of studying the

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Bible. Catch that? So if you so if you study the

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Bible, you really won't be learning theology. Well, what exactly will you be learning?

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I mean, it's just. Yeah, yeah, well, you know, as frustrating as it is, you have to just chuckle and go, hey, look, if this is the guy that they're sending out after us, well, we don't really need to be overly worried here because you get very far.

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It's it's it's bad. I think good theology corresponds to the Bible. It's absolutely good.

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Theology is a reflection of what is said in Scripture. But you don't become a theologian just by becoming a student of Scripture.

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And if you never become a theologian, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think you first and foremost need to know what the

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Bible says. And now, of course, theology is the knowledge of God. If you were to grow in the grace and knowledge, the Lord Jesus Christ, we study the

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Bible, you'll grow in theology. And so it's just evidently theology for him. I don't know what theology is, but it's not what any of the rest of us define it as.

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That's the bottom line. However, we live in a world where there are lots of people who speak and think and act theologically.

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And if you're on act theologically, it's up to you to act non -theologically.

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I'm sorry, maybe you're thinking of me laughing at this, but it's incoherence. And this is someone who's put up as an expert.

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And he's going to later say, people just try to dismiss me because this, but I know what I'm talking about. And I just want to go, yo, bro, man, you know, when you when you try to become an expert in one particular area, but you don't have sort of the foundational stuff, you know, down, you can think, you know, something real well, but you're you're completely speaking a different language.

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And that's that's sort of what's going on. Aware of the language used by theologues, sometimes it can be intimidating, sometimes can be overwhelming, and it can especially be alluring more for young people than any others.

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Come over here, little boy. It promotes a kind of spiritual elitism and arrogance.

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Arrogance. Yes. And so my goal isn't to try to get

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Calvinist to become non -Calvin. That's for sure. I think that's a real hard road.

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Oh, I've seen it happen since I've written a book and it's been circulated now for a number of years. I get letters from people who came out of Calvinism from reading that book, but I'm usually surprised.

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Yes. But believe me, having seen that book, I'm really surprised, too, because all that means is that person thinks they were a

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Calvinist, but it's sort of like that alleged Calvinist called the Bible Answer Man last week or the week before that, who hadn't a clue what

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Calvinism was to begin with. What I really want to accomplish and I really have confidence I can accomplish.

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Now, listen, listen to this, folks. Listen to this. You can accomplish is

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I can keep people from becoming Calvinists. That's not so difficult. And I'll explain why.

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In other words, I can poison the well and misrepresent things so much as to create as much confusion as possible so that someone will never embrace reformed theology.

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That's really how it ends up coming out. And I know this is going to be a very harsh comparison, but I've made this claim.

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If you give me somebody that has never been. Now, just I want you to let the whole thing play through here.

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He's going to be talking about Mormonism. He's going to parallel Mormonism and Calvinism. He's going to say they're not the same thing, but the parallel he's going to make anyways, and he's going to claim to be an expert on Mormonism.

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I would love to see just how much of an expert on Mormonism George Bryson really is. Given the shallowness of his presentation of reformed theology,

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I imagine the farms guys would have fun with him. But as it may even listen to the terminology he uses of Mormon at one point and just well, you'll see when it happens to the

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Mormon faith. And let me talk to them first. I did a year as a missionary to Mormons.

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I lived in Idaho Falls in Pocatello, Idaho, and I did a great deal of study on Mormonism. And I know enough about Mormonism that if you give me somebody before they become a

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Mormonist, the chances are extremely slim. They become a Mormon after they talk to me.

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A Mormonist? Now, once they become a

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Mormon, I mean, I don't care how much you know about Mormonism. Once they're emotionally hooked, they're locked in.

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Getting them out is really tough. And those people who feel they have been called to to get

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Mormons to become non Mormons or to get Mormons to become Christians. They got a difficult, difficult task.

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Isn't anybody who would be a missionary amongst the Mormons? Isn't that what they're they're doing is trying to get

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Mormons to become Christians? That that's a tough road to hoe. That's true.

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No, no question about that. But it's a lot easier to keep people from becoming a Mormon. It's exactly the same thing with Reformed theology.

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Again, I'm not comparing Reformed theology with Mormonism, except that the psychological situation is the same.

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You give me a person who's never been exposed to Calvinism, has not been brought in and has not made emotional and psychological commitments to Reformed theology.

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And I can keep them out. I can show them things and things we're going to talk about today that would be so counterintuitive, so obviously off base from scripture, they would never give

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Reformed theology a second thought. That's what I really want to do. I don't want everybody.

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Now, did you hear that? I want to poison people against it so they'll never even examine it.

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Let's just stop for a moment and think about what is being said here. They cannot answer the exegetical foundations of Reformed theology.

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They can't do it. And they know it and they've given it up. And in fact, don't even seem to care while they're calling themselves biblicists, they won't fight the battle on the level of the

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Bible. They will poison minds so that they will not engage the subject and actually examine it.

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Isn't that amazing? I'm left absolutely stammering that anyone could make the statements that George Bryson makes in this presentation and not realize, you know what, we must be on the losing side of this argument, the way that we have to approach this.

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It's absolutely amazing. It truly is. Become an expert on Reformed theology or to know everything there is to know about Calvinism.

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But I want them to know enough so that when it comes along, they have some kind of immune system and they don't fall for it because there are some very subtle ways in which people say, how can anybody believe that?

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People can believe anything if their guard is down. If you understand, you know, if you're not a

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Mormon and you, you know, you hear for the first time what Mormons believe from a non

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Mormon, you go, how could they believe that? Well, you can believe anything if that's all you've been taught your whole life and if it's presented to you and packaged to you in such a way that it seems palatable or, you know, attractive, et cetera.

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So today there's a generation of Reformed theologians and Calvinists who, because they themselves aren't reproducing, they're not winning.

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Try to find a church that grew up based on Reformed theology.

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It just doesn't happen. Now, did you catch that? I mean, let's face it. One of the criticisms that can be made of many

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Calvary chapel people is they have no concept of church history at all.

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None. And so he can make a statement like that with a straight face.

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He can actually say that because his experience is so narrow and his knowledge of church history is, is completely non -existent that, that, and sadly the people he's talking to likewise have so little connection with church history that, that they can, they can accept this, except there's gotta be some of them sitting there going, well, wait a minute.

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I know churches that are different than that right here in my own area. So, but you know, we don't get to see the looks on people's faces going, yeah, what?

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Now, wait a minute. Is he saying grew up through church history or is it in the

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Calvary chapel mold of got big? Uh, probably got big. Got big. So in other words, you know, you started out with a little group of people,

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Calvary chapel, and we, you know, take over, take over shopping mall, take, take over a shopping mall, renovate the shopping mall.

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Next thing you know, we're overflowing the shopping mall and that's how grew up gets done. Okay. Uh, nothing about, you know, growing in grace and things like that.

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Cause that's theology. Uh, and we don't, we don't do that. We're, we're Biblicists or something.

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I don't know. So they come to places like Calvary chapel and other evangelical churches to get all the new blood, every hardcore

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Calvinist that I know today came to Christ through a non -Calvinist. R .C.

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Sproul gives a great example, a very typical example. Then they catch this. I mean, I almost feel like sending this to R .C.,

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but how it is Calvinism is reaching into the non -reformed community and chosen by God.

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If you look at that book, he'll show you how it happens. It's a lot of arm twisting. He fought it tooth and nail.

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It seems so off base. Now he only knew the scripture up until that time, but he was converted or persuaded by a man named

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John Gerstner, much smarter, much more articulate at that time that we think of R .C. Sproul as a brilliant man.

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And he is, but he was a young, brilliant man. And even brilliant young people often don't know a whole lot.

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They just haven't lived long enough to know very much. And so he was hoodwinked and overpowered intellectually by John Gerstner.

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And he explains this. He says it wasn't easy for him to become a Calvinist. Now we've, we've all hopefully read the same material and now you're getting an idea how

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George can claim to be an expert in Calvinism. And yet his conclusions are just so utterly disconnected and, and self contradictory and shallow and stuff is if he can read just the basic stuff about the struggles that Sproul had to get over what

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Sproul would identify as the traditions, the human traditions that were in the way of divine truths and, and, and how the natural man is opposed to the things, the spirit of God.

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And if he can read that stuff and, and say that basically Gerstner hoodwinked him

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I mean, this sounds very much like the description of the process of getting into a cult, you know a mind control cult type thing.

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That's if he can read that stuff and not get that point, then that's why he can read everything else and not get what it's saying either.

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Okay. So since when I became a Calvinist and I am struggling with John chapter six,

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I am struggling with Romans nine, I'm losing sleep at night. You were struggling with a lot of things. Um, in fact, you're struggling with everything about Calvinism.

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Uh, well, yeah, I, I objected to four out of five points and there was absolutely no reason for me to believe the fifth point, uh, based on what

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I previously also believed, uh, but, but so I'm, I'm struggling,

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I'm struggling with these things and that's arm twisting. Oh yeah. Somebody was twisting my arm.

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Who would that be? God. Okay. But he said Gerstner. So, so who was beating you over the head with these things?

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Well, you weren't. Oh, okay. You just put them in front of me and said, here, have you ever looked at that? No. According, according to George, I was the one who hoodwinked you.

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Who hoodwinked me? Yes. Oh, okay. All right. So struggle with anything. So I, I should have gone back to ignoring

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John six and Romans nine and not actually dealing with what those, you know, so theology,

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I was up with the Bible. So in his vernacular, I was a Biblicist before when

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I was ignoring major passages of teaching passages in scripture. Okay. I got it. Okay. Just want to make sure.

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Well, good. Now I'm glad that now you may have helped some other people figure that out because it just didn't seem right.

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And, uh, um, John Feinberg also uses the term since Calvinism is counterintuitive.

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It just, when you're first exposed to it, you go, Ooh, man, that just doesn't, doesn't seem to fit what

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I know from scripture. Isn't there a text somewhere in Isaiah somewhere about God's ways being above our ways and isn't there something about the foolishness of God and the wisdom of men?

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Oh, that's theology. Even an unbeliever can hear about Calvinism the first time and go, that's just, that doesn't seem right.

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Oh yeah. And every unbeliever says that Arminianism is right, right off the bat. Yeah. Think about it for a second.

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Adam Jechter in Romans nine is going, yeah, go George. Something about the natural man and the things of God come to mind here.

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But that's theology again. And sometimes, uh, that intuitive reaction is the right reaction.

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But again, with some clever maneuvering and working on the ego and presenting

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Calvinism as the deeper things of God, you know, Here we come across something that I, I was listening to this yesterday while I was riding and, uh, sitting here.

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Thankfully I didn't fall out. I didn't go off the path and into the, into the canal or anything. But, uh, I was listening to this and I'm, I'm sitting here listening to this whole big, long thing about ego and I'm going, you know, the, the most, the most ego smashing, uh, pride destroying thing

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I can think of is that it wasn't me that got myself saved.

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I mean, it's, it's his free will perspective where he's better than somebody else.

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He's the one who believed in somebody else didn't. That's what is, I would argue a basis for pride is

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I can look at somebody else and go, Hey, you know, God tried equal to it. I made it. He didn't.

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It's all because of me. I mean, that's the whole essence of what we're talking about here. And so to hear him talking about pride and, and, and, and that you're presenting it to, to, to stroke somebody's ego.

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I just want to go, you have got to be kidding. No, you got to turn those system sounds off.

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I, the thing is, when I went through those struggles, I reacted to this information.

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So upset. I was, I was angry and it was, I look back and I go, you know, it was this, how dare you say,

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I can't X. How dare you say that I didn't do that.

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And no, those aren't works. Those aren't for me, but how dare you say that I couldn't do them. That, that was my whole reaction to the system and, and, and the whole thing.

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It was, it was very prideful. It was arrogant on my part. I mean, my pride was getting crushed by John six and Romans nine primarily.

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And, and other pieces of information from scriptures came in, but I guess I was being a good biblicist by defending my pride biblicist work just like this.

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Uh, you, you, I don't think you're ready for the deeper things. Um, especially tell that to a young person.

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I think this is a little bit over your head. I want you to just stay with, you know, the study of scripture, you know, drink the milk.

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You're not ready for meat yet. You know, there's different ways of saying it. And so they just, I mean, I can handle that. I can handle that.

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And so then they open up to it and they get due by it. But, uh, the most important thing that I can do for you is just real quickly, uh, as you guys may know, writing the worlds, when my book is published, it'll be one of the oldest books out.

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Now, of course, he's talking about the book that he, that he brought into the studio. I'll never forget this.

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He brings, uh, the dark side of Calvinism into the studio and it is a velo bound

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Kinko's special. Okay. I mean, it's eight and a half by 11 photocopied, uh, not spiral bound, but, but velo bound on, on the side.

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And I remember he slides a copy of it to, to Hank and Hank just sort of looks at it cause see, they're making a, a, a offer available where you get both books.

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And of course my book is called the Potter's Freedom and it's published and has been out and has all these endorsements on it and blah, blah, blah.

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And he's dragging in and only has a few with them because they're not going to have the rest of them ready. Uh, he's dragging in a, a, a, a

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Kinko's special, uh, velo bound the dark side of Calvinism. And of course this is the same book folks.

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Um, where we, we had, uh, let me see here. Uh, let's see if this is, is now, uh, let me try this.

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That, uh, uh, MP three, read my book. Yeah, there you go. Uh, that's one of our channel sounds is from the

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Bible answer man broadcast debate, uh, where, uh, you have, uh, you know,

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I'm, I'm challenging George on John six and he's got nothing. He just, he ain't got nothing.

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And so what does he do? He says, read my book at that's. And so we're all waiting. I, how long did it take?

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I think it was at least late January into February before I finally got a copy of the book. And that, that program was in, in middle of December.

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And so I waited for a long time to read my book, read his book. And, uh,

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I wanted to see the response that it, uh, it provided for, uh, for the stuff on John six, because I, I had to trust that if I would read my book, that it would answer these particular questions.

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And so when I, when I got the book, uh, of course I did what I was told to do read my book.

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And I read the book and, and there was nothing on John six. There was no exegesis at all.

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The questions that I had asked weren't answered, uh, even when I had read his book.

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And, and so I was very disappointed. And this is the book that he's talking to, and this is talking about, and this is the book that he's recommending to his audience.

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Read my book. And, uh, so, uh, that's, that's what, uh, what we're, what we're talking about this particular point in time.

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I have seven years. I've wasted my life on this stupid thing. Seven, seven, seven years, seven.

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That's, that's a long time to wait to read my book. That is they're laughing book called the dark side of Calvinism.

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It's subtitled the Calvinist cast as the Calvinist cast system, the reformed doctrine of redemption and reprobation.

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And when I, um, CRI has asked me to come on and do a debate with, um, me,

30:40

James white on the radio when I've completed this book, cause they want to promo his book and promo, um, my book at the same time.

30:48

So they wrote a James white and they said that, you know, George Bryson has a new book out called the dark side of Calvinism.

30:54

Then he goes, Ooh, should I wear my Darth Vader outfit? And my response to them was, I thought he already was, but I'm not going to repeat that cause it's not nice.

31:08

Yeah. Well, when you say it in front of a microphone, it gets repeated anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

31:15

Hank did call it a cast system just a few weeks ago. And I imagine that's probably where he got the, uh, the terminology too.

31:21

So, uh, the attitude, uh, the mindset, I cannot begin to understand it.

31:27

I cannot begin to understand it. Um, I, there's George saying, give me an opportunity and I'll poison people's mind.

31:36

Not that I'll disprove it. Not that I'll be able to answer it's exegesis. I can poison people's mind to it.

31:42

So I'll never give it a second thought. That is not how Christians approach the matter of truth.

31:48

We'll continue with the Jerry Vines sermon, but we need to take a break. We'll be right back right after this.

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Lord in the bookstore at AOMEN .org. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the

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where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

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Pulpit crimes. The criminal mishandling of God's word may be James White's most provocative book yet.

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35:18

Read my book. Well, if we have to, we will do so.

35:26

At least we do that. We read other people's books, but it's sort of hard to get them to read ours in a fair way.

35:32

Well, anyway, didn't expect to spend the entire first half hour on that, but that sometimes happens and we move back to the

35:40

Jerry Vine sermon delivered at Woodstock back in October, now early

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October, in Seeking. Remember, this is a part of, what was the series on? Let's see,

35:55

Drunks and Charismatics and Liberals and something along those lines.

36:03

I don't know. There's quite the interesting group of people there, but we were talking about the text that Dr.

36:12

Vines threw out on particular redemption, and I had closed by starting to preach a little bit on the subject of Galatians 2 .20

36:23

and the issue of particular redemption. So let's pick up where we left off.

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Now, let's just use an illustration here for a moment. I love

36:37

Pastor Johnny. I love Miss Janet. I've just made that statement.

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I love Pastor Johnny, comma, I love Miss Janet, period. Now, what does that mean? Does that mean

36:49

I don't love his children? Does that mean I don't love his grandchildren? Not at all.

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It just means I have said I love him. I love his wife. But if you ask me,

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I'd say, well, of course I love his children. Of course I love his grandchildren. You do not restrict the love of God simply because the language at some specific point in scripture doesn't make it all encompassing.

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For instance, let's just look at some of the scriptures. John 1 .29,

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behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Hebrews 2 .9,

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that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. Now, most of you who are

37:34

Reformed could probably right now finish this list, couldn't you?

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I mean, if you if you were going to throw out a list without any exegesis,

37:46

I mean, without any asking the question, OK, when we go to Hebrews chapter two, is there is there an audience in sight when we we look at the subject of world, the original context?

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Is there is there anything about Jews and Gentiles? There is there anything in scripture that would lead us to believe that Jews thought in the concept of Jews and Gentiles and that this was a part of the of the the mindset that had to be dealt with and all the rest would, you know, you and I think about all those things.

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And we have taken the time to listen to what they have to say and to respond to what they have to say in such a way as to do so exegetically.

38:29

Now, I said last week when he started this section, do you think we're going to hear anything about intercession, mediation, substitution?

38:39

Or we could get into Hebrews seven, eight, nine, ten and all the, you know, being able to save the uttermost and any of that stuff.

38:50

And of course, so far we haven't heard any of that. And I'm looking at the waveform here and we're getting toward the end of the end anyway, so not going to be a whole lot of time left to get to those things, but I'm sure they'll come up.

39:06

Here's an interesting one. Second Peter two one. He talks about the false prophets even denying the

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Lord that bought them. Now. It almost sounds.

39:17

Honestly, like this former president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Has never taken the time to find out what reformed folks say about second

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Peter two one or to deal with the issue of the meaning of despotism there and the lack of a redemptive price paid.

39:37

And and it's almost like he just doesn't you know, I suppose you could argue, oh, actually, he's he's worked through all of that stuff and he's come to the right conclusions.

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But if that were the case, couldn't you couldn't you phrase your presentation the way that like I do when

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I present the reformed faith? And I can prove this. I mean, there's all sorts of things we can go to to demonstrate this.

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I present the positive case. But as I'm presenting that positive case,

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I use language and and terminology that provides a response to as many of the objections as I can as I'm moving along.

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And in fact, I think I'm following apostolic example at that point. You look at Romans nine, you look at Romans three, you look in Galatians and and in speaking the truth, the apostle will raise objections and answer those objections as he's going along.

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And that's what we try to do. And that's one of the major differences that I see between reformed presentations of the doctrines of grace, things like that, and those who oppose it and are seeking, in essence, to just poison the minds of people.

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Here you have a man standing in front of an entire congregation and you're not going to hear anything in here about the the fact that you have solid presentations from historic

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Southern Baptists on the subject and things like that. You're not going to get that at all. Look at first John two, two, he is the propitiation, that is, he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

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And what we would like, rather than the fact that my waveform shows that we are distorting at this point because we're yelling, is we'd like to have some of that energy actually transferred into now explaining how you avoid universalism if, in fact, propitiation is for the whole world and you insert into that word world the concept of every individual who has ever lived.

41:53

If you're if you know, that's what we'd like to hear. That's that's what that's what we need. But that's not what we get, unfortunately.

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The idea is volume basically overshadows substance in this particular situation.

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John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten son.

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There's no way you can monkey with the text and play exegetical games and get around the fact that the

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Bible teaches when Jesus died on the cross, he died for the sins of the whole world.

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So there you have a pretty strong challenge. Unfortunately, it's, you know, it's a challenge that we're monkeying around and playing with exegesis.

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When, again, we don't seem to get any any indication that this high positioned leader is even marginally familiar with what the actual issues are and hence has does not seem to have exposed himself to a meaningful discussion of issues such as world and all and the various terms that are utilized and the the necessary consequences that come from ignoring those things and just simply replacing that substantive study with loud voices, which doesn't really get you anywhere.

43:21

Well, it does it does get you applause. I should I should note that I doubt that you would get applause in that particular context if you yeah, itching ears,

43:31

I doubt you'd get applause if you actually had just presented a, you know, a rather in -depth exegesis of Hebrews 10 or something like that.

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And the perfection of those for whom the sacrifice is made and stuff like that. If he died for the sins of the whole world and not everybody's saved, does that make the death of Christ a failure?

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Not at all. Let's go back to Pastor Johnny again, and he may do this tonight. Let's just say that 20 of us are over here at a restaurant somewhere and be the generous man.

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Yes, Pastor Johnny goes to the proprietor. And he says there are 20 people out here and here's money to buy supper for every one of y 'all.

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Get in line. We get a list here tonight. You should get your name. In other words, he said, I paid for 20, 20.

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Here are these 20 people. Every one of them paid the bill for every one of them. Boy, 15 of you say, whoa, that's great, brother

44:27

Johnny. And you go in and you buy the meal. But five of you refuse to do it because five of you refuse to do it.

44:36

Did he not pay for it? Well, let me ask you the question. Will the fully righteous proprietor of the restaurant accept double payment for his food?

44:50

Because, of course, the question then becomes if substitutionary atonement is substitutionary atonement, if substitutionary atonement actually involves the punishment, not just the payment of a price, but the punishment of the sinless son of God for the sins committed by those who do not, quote, unquote, accept this.

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Then is he going to punish them as well? Or is it we are we going to adopt once again the well, actually, all sin has been punished.

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That's not the issue. It's now unbelief and blah, blah, blah type of of a viewpoint. He paid for it, it was available.

45:22

Where's the failure? It wasn't his failure. It was your the death of Jesus Christ is sufficient for the sins of the world, but it is efficient only for those who will receive it.

45:37

Now, you know, again, a lot of water under the bridge on on that statement.

45:43

And from the eternal perspective, no one denies, in fact, this is where Dave Hunt fell off the of the bus and the fellow before him that he was just simply copying fell off the bus and misunderstanding what

45:55

Charles Haddon Spurgeon was saying in regards to the sufficiency of the sacrifice of Christ being unlimited because the nature of the person, but efficient only for the elect is a normal statement, he says, only for those who believe, which, again, those who are elect will believe.

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And from their perspective, those who believe make themselves elect. Again, one side focuses upon what

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God does. The other side focuses solely upon what man does. But and that's part and parcel of the divide that always exists between these two sides when when we discuss these things.

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But the question doesn't actually enter or answer the real issue.

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And that's why when people say, well, I believe this, I say, that's nice, but didn't answer the question.

46:38

Because the question was, what is the intention of God, the father,

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Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. In giving his life upon the cross of Calvary, what was his intention, what was his purpose?

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If you take the substitutionary atonement perspective, take it out of its reformed historical context and add it to a context in which it was never to exist, you have logically, inevitably universalism, which is why historic

47:06

Arminians didn't believe in substitutionary atonement. And why a modern

47:11

Arminian who says he does believe in substitutionary atonement has to modify the nature of the atonement and modify his historical relationship to Arminianism, has to do it.

47:20

It's the only way to only way to make that work, because logically the things just just don't fit together. So that's what you have to do in that particular context.

47:29

But what was the purpose of God? Would Vine say it was God's purpose to save every single individual or just simply to make men savable?

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And see, there is a world of difference between saying

47:45

God saved and saying God made men savable. One is a divine act to his glory.

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One is a hypothetical act that only can result in the glory of man. And that's why this issue cannot and will not ever go away.

48:03

First Timothy 4 10, Jesus is the savior of all men, sufficient for all, especially of those that believe it is efficient for those that believe.

48:14

Well, that's an interesting application that you want to make there, and he wouldn't be the first person to did so.

48:19

I'm hoping that he's not trying to say that that's an exegetical conclusion, that he's just reading it that way.

48:27

I'm hoping that that's what he would actually say. And I've said a number of times, I hope someday as well.

48:35

And maybe the crews next year will give me an opportunity to do this now that I think about it.

48:40

Yeah, it will. Oh, good. I'm really putting some effort out to try to make my projects fit in.

48:48

For example, I'm going to be doing some writing and I was asked to do a book review and I looked at the book and it's on the

48:57

Gnostic Gospels and things like that in relationship to the Christian gospel. That's perfect, perfectly that dovetails with what

49:04

I'm doing. So I'm going to do that. But other people have been contacting me and asking me to do all sorts of things.

49:11

I have to go, sorry, it just doesn't fit with what the future studies are going to be doing. So I can't

49:16

I can't go there. But anyway, I want to make sure to sneak in a phone call here before we wrap things up here.

49:25

So let's let's go ahead and talk with with Adam. Hi, Adam. How you doing? Hey, Dr.

49:31

White. How's it going? Going pretty well. Well, you're up there in Wisconsin, so isn't that Arctic air mass sitting right on top of you right now?

49:40

Yeah, we're down. We've been down to single digits like the last two nights. And tonight is supposed to get down to six degrees.

49:47

Hey, well, you know, we've got a bunch of of our Channel Rat regulars up in North Dakota and they've had have minuses in front of theirs.

49:57

So I suppose as long as there's not a minus, you've got something to be thankful for.

50:03

That's for sure. Yeah. What's up? I was wondering, I heard your debate with John Shelby Spog.

50:09

And one of the things that he says really disturbed me and something that I've been dealing with right now is he said that, you know, if you went to most higher education places to get a degree in Old Testament, you'd fail if you put that Moses wrote the first five books of the

50:26

Bible and that David wrote the Psalms. Right. And what I'm dealing with right now, that's that truth is really hitting home because I want to go to graduate school for Hebrew studies and almost every place that I can find pretty much worships

50:41

Wellhausen and these folks. And so, you know,

50:46

I'm going to get my degree at the end of this year. And I was wondering if you could give me some advice on how to go about finding a school where, you know, before I go to get my

50:57

Ph .D., I can, you know, I can learn about this stuff so that I'm not overwhelmed with it, just jumping into it.

51:05

Well, wow, you're going to find a general embracing of a broad application of the

51:17

Graf Wellhausen documentary hypothesis theory almost everywhere you're going to be able to find.

51:23

In fact, I would tell you what, drop me an email through the through the website and I'll get you in touch with someone who could probably be a little bit better than myself at helping you out in this.

51:37

But I would say for your own benefit, I don't know that you necessarily have to find a place to go where that is not the perspective.

51:47

I mean, I graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary and I can guarantee you that was the perspective.

51:54

And I had to struggle with that. And it was the struggling with that and responding to that and thinking through that that was so very good for me.

52:03

I mean, in the sense that I remember very, very well, I may have told the story.

52:08

And thankfully, we have so many new listeners that most people won't know if I told the story or not.

52:15

We do have one fellow named Algo who remembers everything I've ever said and he frightens me to death. But anyway, and he will tell me if I actually have said this before, because he'll remember when

52:23

I did it. And the scary thing is he might know what I was wearing that day. So it's just very frightening. Yeah.

52:29

But anyway, we all love Algo, but we are scared of him. But as it may,

52:34

I took a class on the Pentateuch and had a great teacher. I mean, my teacher was very good.

52:42

And in fact, I had him for five or six different classes and they were all excellent classes. I liked my teachers a lot, even when we disagreed.

52:50

I had a leather bound Hebrew text made for that particular professor because I liked him so much.

52:56

I treated my teachers nicely. But anyway, he held up Gerhard von

53:02

Rath's commentary on Deuteronomy at the beginning of the class. And he said, this is the best commentary on Deuteronomy in English, in print.

53:10

And one of the part of the projects in the class at Fuller was to read each of these commentaries and then write a review of the commentary and write a pro and con section, what you liked and what you disliked.

53:24

And so I remember very clearly reading this this commentary. And when

53:30

I got to writing the review of it, the in the positive section, what

53:35

I said was this book has one of the best bindings of any book in my library.

53:42

And that was all I could say on the positive side. I moved from there to the negative side and the rest of the review was ripping and shredding

53:52

Gerhard von Rath's entire thesis because it was clear to me that he did not even consider the conservative perspective worthy of even taking into consideration and coming to his conclusions.

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And so the thing about Fuller back then, I don't know whether it would be the case today or not.

54:11

But the thing about Fuller back then was I was one of the only people in the class who got an A. In fact, as I recall,

54:17

I got a 98 on that review of von Rath, even though the professor had held it up and said this is the best commentary in English on Deuteronomy.

54:25

And I said, it's it's, you know, a good doorstop, basically, is what

54:30

I said. Now, let me let me amend that just a little bit. I didn't just say it was a good doorstop. There would be a lot of good historical information that you can garner even from those that you disagree with.

54:44

Take, for example, Kittel's Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Most of the writers of Kittel's are way to the left of where I am.

54:51

But liberals are good at doing research and coming up with facts. It's the way they connect them together or the facts that they choose to include or not include that takes discernment on our part to look at those things.

55:03

And so we did, with very few exceptions, give up Old Testament studies to the liberals a long time ago.

55:12

So almost anything you're going to buy, almost anything you're going to pick up is going to to buy the entire concept that we can be smarter than Jesus was in viewing the

55:25

Old Testament. And it really comes from an unbelieving worldview. The vast majority of information that's out there comes from that perspective.

55:33

And that is a challenge. There is absolutely no question about that. But what I'm saying to you is

55:39

I would encourage you, like I said, I'll get you in touch with someone who might be able to get you in touch with some folks that would that would sort of function as somewhat of a support system for you in your study.

55:52

But we need more and more conservative scholars in that field to to reclaim it in a

56:00

Christian worldview context. We really do. So that's one of the reasons I want to study it is because I'm so concerned about the fact that the

56:08

Old Testament just isn't known anymore. Well, not just not known, but even when you start digging into it,

56:14

I understand how someone, if they have a man centered mindset, a secular mindset, can look at these documents, separating them from their nature and saying, oh,

56:29

OK, these these had to have evolved over time like any other secular document did and come to conclusions they come to.

56:39

The point is, the Old Testament does not exist in a vacuum. And in essence, you have to approach this as a humanist to come to those conclusions, which, of course, is what's wrong, does

56:50

I mean, he is he is a humanist humanist and is proud of being called a humanist humanist.

56:55

So that that really is is where he's coming from. That's that's where the literature is coming from.

57:02

But unfortunately, to function in that field, you have to know it backwards and forwards and be able to, with your eyes closed, present a critique of it.

57:11

And there is a paper on our website that a good friend of mine, a student of mine, Colin Smith, wrote on the subject.

57:17

I don't know if you've taken a look at it, but I would recommend it to you. And you can do believing

57:22

Old Testament studies, but you are going to it's almost the same thing as as being a geneticist and believing that God created man in his own image.

57:31

OK, in other words, there's a there's a there's a contrast there from the viewpoint of most.

57:37

They would say, no, you can't do that. Those those things are not compatible with one another. But obviously, from our perspective, you would say you most definitely can, in fact, are greatly blessed when you do so.

57:47

But, you know, so so drop me a line. I'll see if you can't get in touch with the fellow I'm talking about and see if he would have some recommendations for you.

57:56

But you're going to find that that the vast majority of seminaries are going to come from that perspective to greater or lesser degrees, but more normally to the greater degree.

58:08

OK. All right. Thanks. OK. Hey, thanks a lot. God bless. Well, God bless you. Thank you. And you stay warm up there where it is very, very, very cold.

58:17

Well, we will continue with Vines and Bryson and so on and so forth when we continue with the dividing line on Tuesday morning.

58:27

And I look forward to being here with you then. God bless. Ten for the faith above us fought for, we need a new reformation today.

59:03

It's a sad time to tear it down.

59:10

Once you lift up your voice, are you tired of playing religion? It's time to make some noise.

59:16

I stand up for the truth.

59:25

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59:34

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59:45

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