September 21, 2004

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Around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded
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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. Well, good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are, welcome to The Dividing Line.
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We are live today. We will not be here, just so you all know, we'll not be here on Thursday afternoon because we're heading off down to Texas.
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I guess that's why we were playing the music we were playing in the pre -feed and just getting in the mood, being down there, down south at the
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Founders Conference, speaking seven times. They're just going to pour me back on the plane, sort of like when
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I went back to Pennsylvania. I was speaking seven times in just a matter of days.
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And so, thankfully, the last time I speak is just going to be on Mormonism, so I can just sort of put myself on autopilot and just sort of go through that one.
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But anyway, we're going to be talking about – well, let's see. Topics here are – my headphones are doing their wonky thing again.
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Oh, what was that? Oh, someone even called, huh? Oh, one missed call. Boy, I wonder, I wonder,
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I wonder, I wonder. Oh, okay, it was somebody else. Never mind. Justification and Sanctification, New Perspectives on Paul – notice the plural,
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New Perspectives. Suffering and Sanctification, Knowing God's Will, and then I'll be preaching Sunday morning, doing the
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Sunday School, and then the Mormonism presentation on Sunday afternoon, and returning on Monday.
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So we should have the regular schedule as far as Dividing Line goes the week after this. I am doing my level best to avoid any commentary whatsoever on other issues in regards to Christian students having their rights trampled on in schools today, because we're not quite ready for me to talk about things like that, and those of you in the channel know what
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I'm talking about. So it's really hard to get your mind off of something when it's right there, but we'll do our best.
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877 -753 -3341. Yes, I'm preaching on Sunday, and Sunday School, Sunday morning, and then they have a meal.
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They've promised me fried chicken and corn on the cob, and I'm going to try to hold them to that, because you just can't get good stuff like that.
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And then they have an afternoon service at 2 o 'clock, where I'm going to do my presentation on Mormonism, the video presentation
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PowerPoint. So that's what we're going to be doing. So anyways, that's what's going to be coming up this weekend in the
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Dallas area. The information is on our website as to how to get there, and who to contact, and all that kind of neat, fun, wonderful stuff, 877 -753 -3341, despite my repeated request that the information be reposted to me.
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As to our phone calls, that has not been done, because, oh, there we go.
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Very good. Let's see, that only took four minutes, four minutes, there you go. If you want to, now
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I can't hear myself and my headphones again, if you want to get a job with Barry Young here locally, you're not going to be able to get it, because the board op not only has to be faster, but he has to be able to say really short, monosyllabic words too, and that's how that works.
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So anyway, let's go ahead and someone, somehow, has managed to get into the program right off the bat, and the reason will become apparent here in just a moment.
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We generally don't have too much trouble with congested phone lines, but let's go ahead and go up to my hometown, actually
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I was born in Robbinsdale, which is a suburb of Minneapolis, and let's talk with Todd. Hi Todd.
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Hey James, how are you doing? You sound, what a voice you have. You should do radio. Hey, well that's what
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I do, and right now I'm shaking in my boots. Normally I'm in your job, doing your job, calling in is really weird.
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It's scary out here. Yes, and not only that, but I have control over the phone line, and you do not. Well, I'm going to try to avoid heresy,
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I do have some questions for you though, sir. Yes, sir. We've got a little scuttlebutt going on in our little hometown here of Minneapolis, St.
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Paul. You're maybe familiar with Phillips, Craig, and Dean. Just a little bit. Yeah, well they're coming to town, and there's going to be thousands of folks who go see them.
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Now we've heard some different tales told about Phillips, Craig, and Dean. We have conflicting reports about their theology on the
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Trinity, and I am hoping, sir, that you can clear up the confusion for us. Well, sadly, yeah, but you know, it's interesting.
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We did a program, in fact I'm looking at my blog right here, and I don't know if you've had an opportunity to access this, but if you go to my blog archives, you will see that we did a program with Steve Camp, and we had
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Campy on the air to discuss this very issue back in July, and he has done everything that he can, and if Steve Camp can't get through to somebody, then
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I don't have much of an opportunity to do that. Okay, first of all, that's the first thing I want to address with you, is they claim that nobody's ever tried to contact them.
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That's completely untrue. I personally have corresponded with one of the three, and we have documentation sitting on the web.
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Not at all. Beautifully done. They say that you're lying. Yeah, well, it would be nice if I could actually get that in direct writing, because then
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I could actually respond to it, and to respond to it directly, which so far, that has never been provided to me.
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If you go to my blog, I have the Phillips, Craig, and Dean controversy revisited again.
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I provide citations, interestingly enough, that came directly from going to the
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Phillips, Craig, and Dean website, and then going to the Who We Are, and then following their own web links to their own churches, and I provide right there the citations from their own materials of modalistic definitions of the
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Trinity. Now, none of these churches are any longer members of the UPCI, the United Pentecostal Church International.
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If you're familiar with the movement, you know that back in the early to mid -90s, there was a great split, and it was over what's called a holiness letter.
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The pastors were asked to sign this holiness letter that said they would not do these certain things, and there was a split, and a number of churches came out of the
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UPCI, United Pentecostal Church International, that were, shall we say, very worship -oriented.
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Some have even abandoned the distinct UPCI soteriologically, that is,
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Jesus' name, only baptism for salvation, and speaking in tongues for salvation, speaking in tongues being necessary for salvation.
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But they still hold to the modalistic view of the doctrine of the Trinity, and I document right here on the web, we believe in one
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God who is eternal in his existence, triune in his manifestation being both
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Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that he is sovereign and absolute in his authority.
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Now, part of the problem here is, unfortunately, Todd, I don't want to slur the entirety of Christian radio, but the fact of the matter is,
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I think you wouldn't argue with me that a lot of folks who sit behind microphones or make decisions in Christian radio stations today would have a hard time providing an orthodox definition of the
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Trinity. Would you agree with that? Now, hold on, though. I've got to interrupt you, sir, to ask you a very specific question. Yes, sir. We have tried to contact
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Phillips, Craig, and Dean. They won't do a radio interview with us. That's not a surprise. We were hoping to get the two of you actually on the radio together, and that way, we could just talk it out and resolve this silliness once and for all.
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We can't seem to make that happen. All right. However, we do have an email that they sent out to somebody who is concerned.
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I would like to read this email to you, and, sir, would you please tell me where there is wiggle room?
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Okay. All right. Neither the group nor the individual members of Phillips, Craig, and Dean believe in a modalist approach to the
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Trinity. They believe in the existence of the Trinity. Hello? What happened?
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Ah. Perfect timing. Hello? Yeah. I'm right here. Okay. You just dropped out.
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As soon as you started reading, they believe in... I heard the existence. Then it disappeared. Something maybe went goofy with the telephone.
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Okay. Neither the group nor the individual members of P .C .D. believe in a modalist approach to the Trinity. Right.
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They believe in the existence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the three in one. I'll stop right there. What does that mean?
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See, this is the problem. The three in one. Three what? Manifestations or persons?
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Well, okay. Fair enough. But here's the line that I'd like... or the words I'd like to focus on.
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They do not believe in a modalist approach to the Trinity. Right. That seems pretty definitive.
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Well, the question that I would then ask is, why then do the official statements of faith of the churches in which they are the senior ministers give a modalistic view of the
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Trinity, which I just read? Triune in his manifestation being both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
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That is modalism. That is not the existence of three divine persons. And let me mention something.
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I have offered... I have written the questions that would need to be answered by Phillips, Craig, and Dean to know whether they were in point of fact confessing the historic
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Orthodox doctrine of the Trinity or not. And I have put the questions out there that no person who is a modalist could ever answer yes to.
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But as you've discovered, we can't get that level of discussion and dialogue going.
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And so, you know, I've got nothing against these guys. But the fact of the matter is, if they're not modalists, then they need to remove the modalistic definitions of the
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Trinity from the statements of faith of the churches in which they are the senior ministers. I mean, if you went to my website at Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, if you went to the website of the church where I'm an elder,
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, and you found the statement of faith there, the London Baptist Confession of Faith, and that gives you the history of the historical doctrine of the
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Trinity, that's what I believe. I wouldn't allow there to be a modalistic doctrine of the Trinity in my statement of faith.
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And so it's not like this is new. This is the exact same definition that is currently on Randy Phillips' website.
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He put in an email in 1999 to someone who wrote to him in response to an article I wrote in the
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CRI Journal. So nothing's changed since 1999. Five years later, it's the exact same definition.
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It's still modalistic. And it would be so easy, so, so easy to get rid of this whole problem.
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Let me ask you a little theological question. Do you ever do that on your radio program? Once in a while. Okay. Classic modalistic heresy,
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Sabellian heresy, would be one God appearing, if you will, successively in three different manifestations.
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I'm going to read you another line, though, from Phillips, Craig, and Dean, and you tell me how this provides some wiggle room.
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Okay. All right? They write this. If you were to attend their concert, you would find they address the
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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in the present tense at different moments throughout the event. Well, the
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UPCI position, which those churches came out of, is not the way you described it as historical
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Sabellianism in that way. The UPCI position was, and this is reflected in the statement, being both
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Father and Son. The Son in oneness theology is the human nature of Christ, whereas the
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Father is the divine nature of Christ. Oh, so he was just human when he was on a soul for instance?
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No, no, no, no, no, no. He was two persons during the incarnation. He was the
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Father and the Son. The Son is not a divine person, but the Father is. Jesus was both the
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Father and the Son, so he was two persons. The prayer life of Christ is one of the most problematic issues for United Pentecostal theology, because it just simply doesn't make any sense.
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But you've got to remember, from their perspective, the Son, considered as the
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Son alone, did not exist eternally as a divine person. Jesus Christ was both the
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Father and the Son, and hence they could say he existed eternally as a divine person, but only one part of him that is the divine part of him.
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Alright, now, I'm not even sure that I understood that, but maybe you'll help me clear it up a little bit. They believe,
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I'm reading their document again, they believe that when Jesus was on earth, God the Father was absolutely reigning as scripture notes in heaven.
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When Jesus prayed in the garden, he was speaking to his Father. Where's the wiggle room?
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Well, again, since in United Pentecostal terminology, yes, he was speaking to his
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Father, because he's two persons. He is both the Father and the Son. And the incarnation, so the question that would need to be asked, and I've been asking this since my article came out,
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I think it was 1998. Here's the simple question that if they won't talk to me, maybe you can answer this, okay?
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Aside from why they have modalistic stuff on their website, and their staff members all came from UPCI schools and things like that, here's the question that needs to be asked.
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Did the Son, as a divine person, distinguishable from the
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Father, exist for all eternity? Not merely as an idea, but as an active divine person.
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There's the question that will rip the mask off of any type of quote -unquote wiggle room or anything else.
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This goes directly to the heart of the issue. Did the Son, as a divine, not merely an idea, not as a human nature, not as a plan, but did the
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Son, as a divine person, exist eternally prior to his incarnation upon the earth?
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That's the question that needs to be asked. And that could be answered so simply. Okay, now help me out,
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James. I'm a little bit foggy on this still, because I'll tell you, you really have to engage your brain on this to follow along. It can be so foggy, and it can be so tricky.
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You said that their understanding is that, explain again, during the incarnation, who they believe that Jesus was on earth.
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Okay, the historic modalist, when I say historic, the UPCI, United Pentecost Church, since they're split from the
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Assemblies of God, and this is where these churches came from, the viewpoint that has predominance amongst them, and you're going to find some various views about whether the
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Logos was a plan or things like that, but the majority view, the view that would be defended today by, for example,
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Dr. Bernard, who is the head of the Irshon Graduate School in St. Louis for the United Pentecost Church denomination.
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He would, in his book, The Oneness of God, he presents the idea that Jesus is two persons, that you have the human aspect of Christ, who is the
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Son, and you have the divine aspect of Christ, who is the Father. The Son has not eternally existed as a divine person, because that is simply the human nature.
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So when Jesus is praying, he's praying to the Father, and the Father remains in most of this teaching omnipresence.
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They could say he's in heaven, but he's also incarnate in the Son as well, so you can't spatially locate
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God in that way. But the idea is that Jesus is God because he is indwelt by the
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Father. That is what makes him God. The Son is not, by his own nature, a divine person.
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He indeed is. Okay, that cleared it up for me. Okay. But then let's get back to that prayer business. So then that sounds a little bit wacky, that Jesus being the
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Father with a Jesus body, if you will, is praying to himself? That has always been the problem.
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You can go back to a paper I wrote long before I ever heard of Phillips, Craig, and Dean, in response to Dr.
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Bernard on the subject of oneness theology, and one of the key areas I focused upon was the inability of classical oneness theology to provide a meaningful synthesis of scriptural passages dealing with the prayer life of Christ, because very clearly,
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Christ identifies himself as a divine person over against the Father. In passages like John 1 .1
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and in John 17, Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had in your presence before the world began.
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Those are the words that one person says to another person, and they're in reference to the pre -incarnate state.
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These are very, very clear, and that's one of the reasons I might mention, Todd, in passing, that we have had a standing challenge to Dr.
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Bernard at the Irshon Graduate School to engage in public debate on this issue. We've only done one debate on this with Dr.
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Sabin in 1999. You may have seen the John Ankerberg show, where Walter Martin and E.
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Calvin Beisner debated Irshon and Sabin many, many years ago. Obviously, Walter died in 1989, so it's been some time in the 80s, on the subject of the doctrine of the
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Trinity. Well, I also debated Sabin on this same issue, and he, by the way, defended the same viewpoint that I have just expressed to you, though he, too, has left the
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UPCI, as many other people have. And so, that issue of Christ's communication with the
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Father is a tremendous difficulty for modalistic theology, and, you know,
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I would love, honestly, Todd, I would love to have Phillips, Craig, and Dean do two things.
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A, answer that question I gave you before, and then B, pull the modalistic definition of the
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Trinity from their websites. If they were to do that, I and Steve Camp and everybody else would be the first ones to swing it from the flagpole that Phillips, Craig, and Dean have done these things.
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But the fact of the matter is, when my article came out, Randy Phillips responded in an email with the exact same definition that is currently on his website, and it's a modalistic definition, and there's no one who could possibly argue that it's not.
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And therefore, whatever they're saying now, to me it sounds just a tad bit hollow if you leave those things sitting on your website, and then you have active links directly to them.
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I mean, I just went to their website and followed it, and there it is. All right, I want to read to you another statement from them. This is their canned response to people who ask about this issue.
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PCD as a group does not publicly discuss doctrine in any way beyond that which is stated in the
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Apostles' Creed. Well, one of the reasons you had to have the
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Council of Nicaea, and then one of the reasons you had to have the Council of Chalcedon, is that the
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Apostles' Creed is not sufficient to address the issues of the full deity of Christ, and then the existence of the
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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as separate and distinct divine individuals. And so that's nice, but that says something right there.
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I mean, if that's the lowest common denominator, and to say we don't discuss anything past that means our music likewise cannot address any theological truths beyond the lowest common denominator.
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Here's the next sentence. Because PCD desires to continue having a multi -denominational ministry, they do not have the luxury of publicly discussing their personal doctrinal beliefs without offending someone and ultimately causing division that is not their calling.
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Why, if they're Trinitarians, would that cause division unless their entire desire is to maintain a multi -dimensional, or multi -denominational, i .e.,
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Trinitarian and non -Trinitarian Churches ministry? I mean, if they were to confess the doctrines of the
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Trinity, the only people they'd be offending would be non -Trinitarians, right? Well, that seems pretty clear. Yeah.
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So, doesn't that actually say the opposite of what maybe they were intending to say? Here's what the manager says.
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What I can say is that because of the intense public scrutiny, that's you, James, many years back, they've allowed me to share one specific point, and they will not say anything beyond this because of their close family and relationships with people who remain a member of their past UPC denomination and doctrinal history.
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Thankfully, every major Christian ministry that has addressed this issue with us directly has come out in support of PCD based on the facts and personal discussion with the guys.
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I'm sorry, that's just simply not the case. I wrote an article for the CRI Journal. They stand by that article.
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You know, Steve Camp did everything he could to try to get a conference call or a conversation going with these folks and met a stone wall.
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If Campy can't get through that, then I'm not going to get through it either.
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Like I said, I would be more than happy to appear with them. I'd be more than happy to ask these questions of them, and if they would be willing to answer those questions and to remove the modalistic teachings from their websites and say, hey, we embrace the doctrine of the
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Trinity, we believe that it is in point of fact a biblical truth and that it is important to worship, then
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I would be the first one to want to trumpet it. Because you know what? I don't know if you read my article in the
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CRI Journal when it first came out, but do you remember what it said at the beginning? I was listening to them.
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I like their music. Me too. I mean, that's the kind of music I listen to, and I would love to hear that part of their coming out of the
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UPCI has been to abandon these things. The problem is, the last time that Randy Phillips addressed this issue in an email, he gave a modalistic definition of the
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Trinity, and that very same definition, word for word, is on his website today.
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Now, that tells me there's a problem. I'd love to see it addressed. Okay. How's about this?
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You, sir, are being nitpicky. Yeah, I hear that all the time, and so was the
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Council of Nicaea, and so was the Council of Chalcedon, and so were the Reformers. I mean, come on.
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Does it really matter whether you believe in justification by faith alone or faith plus works?
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I mean, does it really matter? The original nitpicky guy, as far as I can tell, in the
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New Testament was the Lord Himself when he said, No one comes to the Father but by me. And then the
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Apostle Paul really got nitpicky when he wrote an entire letter against a group of people who only added one little thing to the
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Gospel. Just one little thing. I mean, people today add dozens of things, and they added one little thing, and Paul wrote an entire letter against them.
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In fact, he anathematized them and all this stuff. Yeah, when it comes to who we're worshipping, and isn't that what we're supposed to be doing in music anyways?
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Doesn't it have something to do with worship? Well, who are we worshipping? Are we worshipping the Triune God or are we worshipping a
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Unitarian God? There's a huge difference between those two. A massive difference. The Gospel, I believe, is
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Trinitarian. And that's one of the reasons why, interestingly enough, at least two of the three members of the group still have on their website,
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Baptism in Jesus' Name Only, as very important to the issue of whether a person is saved or not.
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That also tells me that those churches are still filled with UPCI theology. If they've thrown off the legalism of the
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UPCI, they've still got the theology there. I'd love to see them move beyond that.
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I would much rather just sit down with the guys, quote -unquote, and explain the doctrine of the
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Trinity, answer any questions biblically, all those things, but I'm not within their inner circle. And you know what really should happen?
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When they said in that statement that all these ministries, all these churches they've gone to, those are the folks who should have been sitting down and dealing with these issues.
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I'm just sort of the watchman on the wall, and I look at something and I go, you know what, that's the modalistic doctrine of the
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Trinity right there, consistently, I check things out. I didn't just write that article. I went to their websites, found the consistency, put it in print.
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That's all there is to it. I would much rather sit down and talk with them. I'd love to see them come to embrace these things, but you know what,
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I have no contact with them. How's about this, James, because the last thing that we want to do is to try to judge the motives of the individuals, so let's just stay away from that.
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What we're trying to figure out is... My motives, too. I think they've been brought into question.
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You know what, I don't think you're making money off of this deal. I don't think it's going to get you popularity.
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The realm of the Bible says we don't get to get into, we just judge what they do and what they teach.
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Is it possible that they do indeed believe in the Trinity, they're just being really immature, they're making some bad decisions, but we can still embrace them because they say enough stuff that sort of sounds
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Trinitarian? The immaturity part would be a real possibility in light of the fact that these are churches that came out of the
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UPCI, and honestly, when people come out of a movement, very frequently they don't have a lot of good connections.
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That's a real possibility, however, many people, many, many, many people have contacted them and have addressed these issues, and to continue to say the same things, to continue to teach the same things, over the years, since 98 -99, things like that, there's got to be a reason for this, and I think the reason came up in what you were just, the previous section you read about the family members.
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I think what we've got here, and I'm not talking motives here, I'm just talking, I think this is why this all fits together.
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They don't want to choose between being in Oneness churches and being in Trinitarian churches.
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They want to be in both. Alright, and so because we are to judge those who claim to be inside of the body, what do we do with them?
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Well, good question, and by the way, I don't know if you've been on our website, but there's an excellent long article on our website by Eric Nielsen.
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Eric has just joined us, and I'm going to see if we can put him on the line with us. He was listening to the program and has called in so that we have even more expertise here.
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But what do we do? Well, the problem is, as far as I can tell, these churches have no connection to any fellowship of other churches and things like that that could bring any force to bear there.
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As far as I can tell, you simply have to put the information out there to pastors who feel it is their responsibility to guard the flock, in essence, and to be careful what they expose their churches to, and hope that they are going to examine the information and come to their own conclusions in regards to that.
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And obviously those who have their ear, who are listening to Phillips, Craig, and Dean, or talking with Phillips, Craig, and Dean, hopefully they can communicate to these folks and talk with them without the seemingly,
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I don't know, the nastiness that wasn't a part of my original article. My original article wasn't about them.
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They were an illustration in an article. My article was on loving the Trinity. I sort of stumbled into this one, as I seem to stumble into a lot of things, by just daring to say, no, the doctrine of the
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Trinity that is found in Phillips, Craig, and Dean's websites on their church websites is definitely modalistic.
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And so far, no one has been able to demonstrate that that's not the case. And it could be very, very easily dealt with at that point.
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Todd, say hello to Eric Nielsen. Hey, Eric, I read your article, sir. Nice work. Hi, thank you. I wish you could be more thorough.
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It's a little on the long side. With really fine print. Yes, I've heard some complaints about that, but I wanted to try and be thorough so that I could be accurate and also be fair to what
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Phillips, Craig, and Dean were actually saying and were actually teaching at their churches.
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Help me out with this, sir, if you could, because for some reason, every single time this topic comes up, I get a little queasy in my stomach.
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There seems to be more here than just, well, we've got some brothers who seem to be a little bit confused.
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I don't know what it is. I don't want to enter into the realm of judging their character, but what are we to do?
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In your opinion, how do we respond to this? They're being played on the radio. They come to town for concerts. Everybody thinks that they're wonderful, and they think that you're just being a jerk for bringing up such a nitpicky issue.
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What's going on here? Eric? Well, I hope it's not that I'm being a jerk.
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No, these are actually very, very important issues.
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The relationship that the Father and the
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Son have had for all eternity with each other, the love that has existed there, the way that the entire
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Trinity as divine persons is involved in our salvation, is an extremely, extremely important thing.
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It is not a secondary issue. And Todd, if I could be enough of a jerk to go ahead and say this, the fact of the matter is that in large portions of evangelicalism, evangelical churches have become non -functionally
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Trinitarian. In other words, while the confession is still a part of many evangelical churches, you will never hear a sermon on the subject.
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You will not hear any concern about the recognition of the triune God in salvation. And so, let's face it.
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Most evangelicals—see, there are three foundational doctrines to the Trinity, Todd.
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That is monotheism, the existence of three divine persons, and the equality of those persons.
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Now, on the first and the third, people will get up in arms. I mean, when the
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Mormons come by and talk about becoming gods, most evangelicals go, excuse me, but there's only one true
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God. And when the Jehovah's Witnesses wake you up on Saturday morning and bug you by denying the deity of Christ, you'll go, oh no, wait a minute, a
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Christ who is not fully divine cannot be the Savior, you don't believe the Holy Spirit is a person, you know, get out of here, you're a member of a cult.
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But it's that middle one, the existence of three divine persons and the relationship between those persons, many evangelicals are functionally modalistic to begin with.
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They don't even know what the doctrine of the Trinity is there, and therefore, a denial of that, they weigh that against the nice beat, and these are nice guys, and they say nice things, and Mercy Came a -Runnin' is a cool song, and we've been singing their praise songs in our church and didn't even know it, and they just throw up their hands and say, is that really that important?
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And for many, the answer is, nope, it's not. All right, I want to phrase it as close to the line as I can, and you respond or not, all right?
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Because again, I'm hearing all of this, I'm understanding all of this, there's still something that just feels downright strange about this.
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Are you going so far to say that these men are intentionally deceiving the orthodox body?
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Period. That's the question. Well, the question should be, since I've never spoken to them, the question should be, are those who promote the music of Phillips, Craig, and Dean seeking to avoid a full and complete discussion of their theology so as to protect market share?
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And at that point, I would say there seems to be a fair amount of evidence that that is a real possibility. But since they've never even talked to me, all they'll do is talk to other people about me, and I don't even know who they are.
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I don't know anything about the music industry, it's not my area, I'm an apologist, and so I don't even know who these people are, they've never sent this stuff to me.
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But people keep reading me these statements that skewer me, and the simple fact of the matter is, there seems to be evidence that those who want to continue seeing them with this trans -denominational, i .e.
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trans -trinitarian -unitarian ministry, are protecting, and the statements are specifically designed to protect their being able to do so.
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They could easily disprove that feeling on my part by simply answering the direct questions that have been a part of what
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I've said about this for a long, long time. And since they keep making reference to me, they do know what
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I'm saying. They do know what I've said, they do know what is on the web, they've read Eric's article, they know what's there, and it would be so easy to clarify all this stuff, but they won't do it.
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And the reason for that, my theory is, probably has something to do with market share and keeping the
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CDs rolling. Why else would it be? I can't see any other reason other than, well, you know, we just don't want to cause family problems.
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Well, you know what? In the early church, believing that Jesus was the Messiah caused a lot of family problems.
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And in 1 John chapter 2, we are told that if you do not confess the Son, then you don't have the
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Father either. And remember, in classic oneness theology, Jesus, not
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Jesus, the Son as a person is not divine. So there is no confession of the divinity of the
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Son, it is the Father who is divine in the incarnation. And that makes me go, well, there's biblical foundation for being concerned, so why isn't everybody else concerned about this?
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Alright, how are they then, Eric, maybe you can jump in on this, how are they able to make this statement? Neither the group, nor the individual members, by the way,
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I don't know if you fellas knew this, there's actually only one member, it's just very clever on stage, somehow they appear separately at three times,
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I'll keep forgetting, neither the group nor the individual members of Phillips, Craig, and Dean believe in a modalist approach to the
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Trinity, period. End of story. They don't believe what you're saying. Well, honestly,
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I'm not sure how they can make that statement. One of the things that I did when
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I was preparing my article was I ordered some materials from Randy Phillips' church.
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I have sitting in front of me right now a book called The Inquirer's Handbook, a study guide for believers, an explanation of basic Christian concepts, and on page 64, it says very clearly, one of the primary sources of confusion in this matter, speaking of God here, is related to the word persons, and they have persons here in double quotes.
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The doctrine of the Trinity states that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three persons who make up one
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God. In actuality, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three manifestations, manifestations is all capitalized, of one
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God. Whoa, that's it right there! Well, it is, and so that's when
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I hear that statement that they do not believe in a modalistic view of God.
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I'm not sure how they can accurately say that. They're redefining the very term modalism,
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Dan Dean's website, under what we believe. We believe in the true one God who is revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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Well, again, okay, I mean, I can see how a Trinitarian might be less, you know, not overly explicit and say that, but the problem is that given the background of modalism, that's something a modalist could say.
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These gentlemen do know, I believe, if they're senior pastors, come on, if they're senior pastors of a church,
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I don't think that we're being unkind to expect of them some level of knowledge of what their church teaches and publishes and puts out,
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Eric just read from it, they know how they could say, we believe in the doctrine of the
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Trinity in the historic way. They know exactly how they could say it, they know exactly how they could clarify this, and the fact of the matter is, so far, up to this point, they have been unwilling to do so.
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I would love to see that happen, and if it took place along with the removal of these modalistic statements from their church's websites and the promotion of a positive view of the doctrine of the
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Trinity therein, I would be ecstatic, honestly, I would, but that's not what's going on, and every time these statements come out, as you've used the term, they provide wiggle room.
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They have just, they don't contain the level of accuracy necessary to actually discern what is being said, and so, for example, they can say, we don't believe in modalistic view of the
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Trinity. What do they mean by that, the historic Sibelian view over against the oneness view?
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Is that all that they're saying? Is that how they're going to answer that question? I don't know, because we can't get dialogue going, it's just always, he said, she said, and you put it on the web, and so on and so forth, and unfortunately, you don't get anywhere with it.
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Well, I've got to tell you why I would not be excited if they came out and confessed it that clearly. Why?
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I've already thrown all their CDs away. It would cost me a lot to replace them. Now, do I have wrong priorities?
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Well, you know, a lot of people have asked that question. Let's face it. I know, Eric, you actually faced this within your own church, didn't you?
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I faced a similar issue, yes, trying to explain why this issue was important.
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Within the context of a music ministry, wasn't it? That's right, yes. And a lot of people have the very same problem.
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It's not a problem in my church, because we use the Trinity Hymnal, so everything in there is at least 120 years old, so this is going to be an issue for Reformed Baptists until the year 2150 or something, but anyway, it is an issue because it goes to the issue of worship.
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Now, I'm not, everybody can look at my website. I'm not one of those folks who has said, okay, this is what you need to do.
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You need to throw away your CDs, or you need to do this, that, or the other thing. I leave that to, I want to put the information out there and put out some principles, and I want someone to act on the basis of the application of those principles in their life.
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I'm not one of those folks who is just going to come along and say, you need to be like me because, believe me, the world needs fewer of me, not more of me.
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So the point is, I try to say, look, for me, I would have a hard time being led in worship knowing that the individuals leading me in worship are purposefully non -Trinitarian.
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Guys, let me ask you another question. This is very, like, this is so disturbing to be involved even in this conversation and to understand what is going on here.
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I don't know that we're really ever going to fully understand it until they come out and speak plainly on the issue, but it gives me a really queasy feeling.
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The other theology these days that I believe is the big heresy that nobody seems to be addressing is man -centered versus God -centered, all right?
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Now, without having a Protestant Pope, how does the evangelical community go about figuring out and identifying what is either aberrant or heretical so that it can be identified, labeled, and avoided?
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Very good question, Todd, and really, it's ironic.
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We're waiting for a shipment to arrive here at our little teeny tiny offices of a book that is just coming out called
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Scripture Alone, and it is a book that's spent a long time in writing for me that focuses the attention once more on Sola Scriptura as the foundation that has been, while still confessed by most evangelicals, is not practiced by most evangelicals today.
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Todd, there is a passion for the Word of God that is born only of the
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Holy Spirit of God. You can go read the 119th Psalm, you can listen to the psalmist as he speaks about the
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Word of God there, the fact that he sheds tears when he sees those who do not keep
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God's law, and you can go back in history to the time of the Reformation and you can see people who were willing to give their lives, they were willing to give their substance, they were willing to give their families for truths because they were born out of a deep commitment to and love for the
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Word of God. And until God in his mercy sees fit to reignite that love of the
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Word of God and that obedience to the Word of God and that desire to be deep into the
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Word of God and to handle the Word of God with respect and with the love that it deserves, then we're not only going to have this kind of thing going on, we're not only going to have the idea of worship as entertainment, we're going to have people like Harold Camping running around who rapes the
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Word of God on a regular basis and does so in a monotone voice and nobody will say anything, we're going to have television channels that I don't mention but here in Phoenix between 20 and 22, and they're going to be constantly raising millions of dollars even though they already have millions of dollars in excess and they're going to be praying on the people of God and all this stuff is going to continue going on until God brings revival in this land, that revival is not going to be a bunch of jumping and shouting, it's going to be weeping and it's going to involve the love for the
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Word of God and obedience to the Word of God. And so I honestly believe that to be the case and interestingly enough that is the case in other nations in this world.
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We may just well be living in a land at the end of a period of blessing and the beginning of a period of judgment and when you live in a land like that then you are called to be faithful to your calling within that context despite the fact that it can give you that queasy feeling you've been talking about many times to speak the truth within that context.
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Alright, I'm going to make both of you make noises that have never come out of your bodies before. Alright? Have you heard about a new book called
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The Word on the Street? Yes. Alright, I'm going to read John 3 .16 to you. Okay. Alright guys?
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Is God so passionate about the planet that he donates his one and only son? Whoever invests their life in his son doesn't die but gets given this limitless life.
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Do you think God sends his son to slam people down? No, he sends his son to liberate people.
44:44
Alright guys, hold on. Let's do some Old Testament. This is Genesis 1. First off, nothing.
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No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God starts it up and whap! Stuff everywhere.
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The cosmos in chaos, no shape, no form, no function, just darkness, total.
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And floating above it all, God's Holy Spirit, ready for action. Alright.
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Alright. You know, I've been waiting for a Bible translation that gets the word whap in there.
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Oh, you obviously don't know your Hebrew. Okay, so guys, besides the fact that it theologically has problems, is it possible, let's say that even the theology in it were all correct, and that the translation was accurate enough, just used in street lingo, is there ever a point where a
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Bible paraphrase, like the one that I'm reading to you from The Word on the Street, can actually cross the line into sin because it is just so downright disrespectful of the word?
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Yeah. It's ironic. The Sirai Journal just asked me to write a two -part feature article on modern translations.
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I've wanted to, I'm going to try to get them to do this, but I've always wanted to write a book, Bible translations, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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And that would be in the ugly part, but actually, that wouldn't even, to be honest with you, that's not a translation.
46:10
No. There's no, this is a paraphrase, it's sort of like, in 1995, I was at the
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CBA. Did you ever go to CBA, Todd? No. You know what, I did once. Okay. I did once, it was in, well, a couple times, but I was in Denver, my book on the
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King James only issue had come out with Bethany House, and I picked up a copy of the message right as it came out, and I went back to the
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Bethany House booth, and I sat down with my Greek New Testament, and I opened up to Romans chapter five, and I tried to find, in the
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Greek New Testament, because there aren't any verse numerations and messages, I tried to find where it was, and I couldn't figure it out.
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It was so disconnected from the text. It's that kind of paraphrase. If you know what it is, and you know it's a paraphrase, that's one thing.
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The sad fact of the matter is, the vast majority of evangelicals have no idea where the Bible came from, what solid principles of translation are, anything like that, and the evangelical church refuses to challenge people to step up, and to use their minds, and to think as a part of our worship.
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You see, at our church, we try to tell people, everything we do here is an act of worship, and especially listening to the sermon, and engaging the text, and desiring to be changed by the
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Holy Spirit of God, this is worship, and we need to know where the
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Bible came from. We need to know what makes a good Bible translation over a bad Bible translation, and you need to know the difference between a formal equivalency translation, and a dynamic equivalency translation, and what a paraphrase is, and all the rest of this stuff, and people don't know.
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And when I see church leaders walking in with those kinds of translations, because it sounds like it gets to the people, you know, it communicates or something, then it gets really, really, really scary.
47:56
Yeah, that kind of, if that's being presented as if it's a translation, that's wrong.
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And even as a paraphrase, the idea, I personally believe, that paraphrase should be practiced in one place, and it's called the pulpit.
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That is, when the pastor is speaking the Word of God, he's teaching the Word of God, how many times does a pastor say, in other words, it means this?
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That's where the in other words should be, within the context of the gathered body, and the men that God has called to be the elders in the church, and has given qualifications for.
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Not somebody who's, you've never met, you don't know where he's coming from, you don't know what his theology is, but he's going to put this paraphrase out, and you somehow are going to find this to be useful.
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I don't buy it. All right, guys, get ready. John chapter 20, verses 15 and 16, and I'm reading this to you again,
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I would like for you to specifically address, can we cross the line, the paraphrase, can it become wrong strictly on the fact that it holds such a low view of Scripture and of God that it frankly is blasphemous?
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Here's Jesus now meeting Mary Magg. Mary Magg? Mary Magg.
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Lady, he says, why the tears? Who are you looking to find? She assumes he's the gardener and says, mister, if you're the one who's cleared him out and taken him off somewhere else, then tell me,
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I'll go get him. Jesus just says, Mary, she blurts out, coach. Coach.
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Jesus backs off, don't grab on me, I've not yet gone up to my dad. Okay, does it cross the line into holding such a low regard for Scripture and for the person of Jesus Christ, our
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God, that it is wrong based on that alone? Well, I think
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I'll let Eric speak for himself, but certainly I could never recommend anything like that.
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I understand the motivations of people who think that by doing this, you are going to be able to communicate to people who use that kind of language, but I don't think that by adulterating the language, you actually call somebody up to that higher level.
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The problem with that kind of translation outside of its disrespectful language, and some people would say, well, that's why you should always use the
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King James, that's the most respectful. I mean, there's obviously a, it should reflect the level of respect and piety of the original language, and that does not, that goes far below what is found in the original language.
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I'm not one of those folks who thinks that we should go above the original language. You know, there's some people who say that you should always say the
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Lord Jesus Christ, even when Mark would write Jesus. You should expand it. You should be more, you know, respectful.
50:41
No. The Holy Spirit gave us the level that we are to have in the writing of the
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New Testament, and what you just read, I was following along in the Greek, isn't even close. It is far below what have been, what would have been understood in the original language of the
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Bible, which, by the way, was quote -unquote street language, in the sense that it was the language used by Roman soldiers and by common people.
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It wasn't the highfalutin language of the day, but at the same time, it could express the proper respect and awe for the truth that the
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Word of God requires. All right, so, okay, just for the sake of trying to support the word getting out so that people can understand it, okay, this is
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Koine English. No, it's not. It's not Koine English. I speak Koine English.
51:35
You know, my children speak Koine English, in that sense, and there is clearly, in language, there is a line whereby you abandon the original meaning and you begin to use colloquialisms and phraseology that is specifically meant to express, shall we say, an attitude of not being under authority and issues like that, which the
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New Testament simply doesn't do, and it does not do there, and especially in a context like that, where Mary turns and says to him in Hebrew, Rabboni, Rabboni in Hebrew would not mean coach, okay?
52:19
That's not even in the ballpark, all right? No, that's obviously meant to communicate something completely other.
52:28
And Eric, I hear you laughing there. Yeah, I agree, coach.
52:36
You know, the other day we received this book at our radio station and I started going through it and actually reading it on the radio, and this is nothing more than a personal anecdote, but I read a few, and after I started reading it for a while, because, well, quite honestly, it's so silly it is laughable.
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I had to stop reading it because I just found it so offensive personally. One could only imagine how
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God feels about it. Oh, yeah, you do wonder what he thinks about his word. Well, you know,
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I tell you, Todd, like I said, you have the perfect radio voice. You really do. Well, I've been working on it.
53:09
Actually, I usually sound like Dr. Ruth, but just for you guys, I just put this thing on a few hours a day.
53:16
No, no, seriously, Todd, what station are you on again? We're on AM 980 KKMS in Minneapolis, and we are going to be discussing this very topic this afternoon with you,
53:24
James, and Eric, I'd love to have you on also. Is that possible? Well, I guess...
53:29
Jumping for joy. Boy, that's about the most enthusiastic response I've ever heard. You've got to remember, poor Eric is at work at the moment.
53:35
I think he's just trying to avoid losing his job. Yes, actually, I'm taking the day off from work.
53:41
Oh, good. Excellent. So how much of a passion for truth do you have, sir? Put your money where your mouth is.
53:48
We will make sure to get Eric's number and work that out for this afternoon. Let's just give it on the air.
53:56
Yeah, I think that's a good idea. All right, I think it's one of those 555 numbers. Yes, 555 -1818.
54:03
Well, Todd, I hope that we've provided at least some answers for you that maybe will make things a little bit easier.
54:10
Now, I'm assuming we're going to have open phones up there? Yeah, we sure will. And for whatever this is worth,
54:17
I just can't tell you how still disturbing and sad. And the word that keeps coming to mind, this is, again, a kind of a highfalutin theological term, icky.
54:26
Icky, yes. It makes me feel. Yeah. Oh, well, believe me, it ought to be in my shoes. I won't even get into some of the conflicts that I'm involved with at the moment.
54:36
And I find it very icky to keep revisiting the same things when it could be so easily dealt with.
54:45
Yeah. That's the thing that really bothers me. I appreciate your time very much, gentlemen. All righty, sir. Thank you. OK, goodbye.
54:50
And Eric, thank you very much for calling in and adding your voice there. And who knows? Maybe you and I'll be talking in just a matter of an hour from now.
54:59
Maybe so. Maybe so. Thanks, sir. All right, bye -bye. Oh, goodness. Well, you know, if you want to make a program go by quickly, then have a radio talk show host call in at the beginning.
55:14
Because see what happened there, folks? He called to see if I would be available to do a program. And that was what?
55:20
About five, ten minutes, maybe five minutes before the program started. And so when Rich told him, well, you know, he's just about to go on the air.
55:29
It's like, what do you mean go on the air? And so he explained to him our webcast, and there he was. And as he himself mentioned, it's awfully odd to be in his position.
55:39
But you notice who did most of the interviewing anyway? The man with the voice.
55:45
He did most of the interviewing. So anyhow, it is an icky subject, and I fully understand what he means by that.
55:55
But it's sort of like that other subject we've been dealing with recently in regards to the
56:00
Mark Seifried situation and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ. There was a quote, and I don't see
56:09
Marie in channel right now, but there was a quote that I wish I had it on my screen here.
56:15
She was unable to find the specific reference from Kuiper, but it was from Abraham Kuiper.
56:21
In essence, it said, when your most cherished beliefs become the minority, then your calling is to engage in the defense of the truth, no matter what that context is.
56:31
I'll get the exact quotation sometime. And that really is the issue here.
56:38
It may not be pleasant, and sometimes it may seem downright repetitive.
56:44
But the fact of the matter is, who God is, the doctrines of Trinity, for many people today, look, for many evangelicals who have no faith commitment to truth, then
56:58
I can fully understand why they would consider me to be picky and someone boring to listen to, and I should just, you know, get a life.
57:09
I understand that. But if you truly believe that God has revealed his truth, that his word is true, and that we have an absolute, it is a necessity, we have a duty to believe what
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God has revealed about himself, which should follow for everyone when you think about it.
57:31
Thank you, Kev. When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling.
57:37
Peace has become sin. You must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy with all the fire of your faith.
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There is the citation. We couldn't find it exactly where it is from Abraham Kuiper, but no reason to believe it didn't come.
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And if it didn't, whoever said it was right. We have a duty to believe what God has revealed about himself.
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It is disrespectful to God to disbelieve what he himself reveals about his own character.
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And given that he reveals these things for our betterment and our proper worship, then we need to believe what he reveals about himself.
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Well, I've been talking a lot today, and I've got another hour to go when we get on the station up there.
58:24
So pray for me and those of you in Dallas. We will see you Thursday evening,
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Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Lord willing. God bless. We'll see you next week. See you then. You'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks.