Radio Free Geneva: The SBC Traditionalists Struggle to Interact

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Nineteen fortresses are gone. The forward cannot win.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

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They're following men instead of the Word of God. I'll never be a midsummer flower until it's spring, baby.

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And I'm going to be the one standing on top of my hands, standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out,

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He died for all those who elected, were selected. For still our ancient foe, the seed to work us full, his praise and our praise.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. On earthly stones.

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I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

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To love the world, that he gave his only begotten

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Son, that whosoever. Ladies and gentlemen,

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James White is a hyper -Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper -Calvinists.

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I've said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism.

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It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist. Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

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Lord, save our home, his name. Read my book. From age to age, the same.

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And now, from our underground bunker, deep beneath Bruton Parker College, where no one would think to look, safe from all those moderate

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are

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Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for his own eternal glory.

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Welcome to Radio Free Geneva. Yes, you can now get the entire version of that song.

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Mighty Fortress, except it doesn't have all the cool inserts. So maybe you can mix them together somehow.

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You can record that, and then the real one, and then once it gets to that point, you know, fade over to the rest of the version or something.

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But anyway, there you go. That always gets everybody going and excited, gets the cage stagers banging back and forth in their cages, banging their heads against the bars.

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I can just see them. Beating themselves senseless and unconscious and stuff like that.

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Welcome to the program. We actually sort of started the program on the last program, but since we were talking about multiple subjects, we didn't do the

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Radio Free Geneva theme. I guess we could have, though it really would not have fit the discussion of all the ecclesiastical text stuff going on.

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But I figured today we're only going to get to one topic along those lines, so let's let

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Brother Bushong rip there for a while. And he's queued up to take us out, too, right?

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Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Doing some filling. That might be, you know,

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I forgot any water. I didn't bring any water or anything in here. That was dumb. So maybe we can...

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What Christmas song? Like, go get something to drink halfway through. Ah, good, good.

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Wonderful. Well, we could probably still use some water one way or the other, actually, whether we want to play music about it or not.

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Topic for today, Radio Free Geneva is a program wherein we take on the good, the bad, the ugly.

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It's normally the ugly. It's almost always time to remember this fellow and his ontological nature, the ontological nature of the straw man and the fact that a particularly invalid form of argumentation involves straw men and flames.

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And they go together. And just not any closer than that because, you know,

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I like this guy. But, in other words, we're very frequently dealing with misrepresentations and things like that.

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And that's what we'll be doing today as well. Gozer the Gozarian?

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No, I wasn't talking about... That doesn't look like Gozer the Gozarian. I don't know what you're talking about.

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No, it doesn't look like a voodoo doll either. It's a straw man. Come on, he's made of straw. Don't make me prove it.

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Believe me. Where's the closest fire extinguisher?

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Anyways, I'm not sure how close that is, but we'd have to run there. Anyway, on the last program, we started listening to a discussion featuring

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Dr. David Allen on the subject of the atonement. And we actually started off by looking at a section from John chapter 10.

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And it does seem to me that those who seem most intent upon warning against and warning people away from Reformed theology don't seem to get, no matter how clearly we express it, no matter how open we are about it, that its fundamental power is found in its deep biblical consistency and the ability to just walk through texts and let them speak for themselves without having to come up with all these strange, odd, new ways of interpreting passages that everyone thought we had actually understood.

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We're going to see one of those today. I discovered today that what everybody thought was a very important text in the

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Gospel of John concerning the coming Gentile mission, that it was one of those places where the

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Gospel of John joins with the synoptic gospels in emphasizing the importance of the

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Gentile mission, the coming together of Jews and Gentiles, and just all sorts of important stuff like that.

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That's not actually what it's about. No, that twofold thing, we'll discover.

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We've now found out from our Southern Baptist traditionalist exegetes what that's actually all about.

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Sadly, what we're actually going to discover is that certain Southern Baptist traditionalist exegetes are more than intent upon absolutely shredding the

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Gospel of John and leaving it without almost anything relevant to say to us today. It's very troubling to see the lengths to which some people are willing to go to, again, maintain their system.

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Now, I think some of these individuals, to be honest with you, have been assigned this task by other extremely powerful individuals.

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I've seen this. I've watched this. I was part of the SBC for many years, and I watched the power of politics within the

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SBC. Do not underestimate it. Do not underestimate it.

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You mean it could impact exegesis? It determines exegesis. I watched it happen.

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I watched it happen. In fact, didn't we have somebody on Facebook after the last program talking about us limiting

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God, and they quoted from Psalm 78. Remember? Oh, I know. But do you remember the significance of Psalm 78 and the

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King James translation of they limited the God of Israel? I'm surprised that didn't ring a bell with you because that was the very text preached from the

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King James that got me into so much trouble at a very large, very large

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Southern Baptist church because it was preached on Tithing Sunday. And the whole concept was that by you're not trusting

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God, that you're limiting what God can do. And that from a preacher who had never preached from the

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King James version of the Bible ever before. And I dared point out that the

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King James translators had missed the proper meaning of the root. And that's why

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New American Standard and all my own translations had attempted not to limit it.

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Well, that did not go over well. That was the beginning of the end. And I didn't know if you remembered that or not, but yeah, it goes way, way back.

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And it's just another illustration of the fact that within the SBC. Yes. Oh, you better believe exegesis sermons, very much determined by by political, political stuff.

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Okay. With that having been said, a response was offered to very little of what

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I said, certainly not to the exegesis, but to some other aspects, specifically my pointing out that if you take a class election perspective, as the traditionalists are doing, that you do so at the expense of the personal nature of the gospel, election, union with Christ, things like that.

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Even I have, I have come to the conclusion. It does not matter how clearly I state things.

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This is a tradition that is so strong amongst these individuals. They still will only hear what they want to hear.

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Because what we get back is all you're, you're into this Western emphasis upon individuality and completely missing the point of what

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I was saying. Just, just like I'm over there and they're over there going, you blew it. And, and I'm over there someplace completely missing the point.

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Not, we are not even on the same page. And they wonder why their criticisms just go flying by because they're, they're, they're shooting it.

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They're shooting it at phantoms. They, they just won't even hear it. It's, it's, it's a sad thing.

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I'll try to point out exactly how that works in this video, but let me start off once again, with, with the reason that I am reformed.

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And, and if there's anyone in the audience that is reformed because of our teaching and our presentation of these things,

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I hope it, it just, it really concerns me when I encounter people who say, well,

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I'm reformed because of you. No, I hope not. Because if I can argue you into something, somebody else come along and argue right back out.

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The reason that I'm reformed is because the hermeneutical methodology that leads me to understand the deity of Christ and the

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Trinity and the resurrection and justification, that very same hermeneutical methodology, that very same form of exegesis teaches me of God's absolute sovereignty and salvation.

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It teaches me of the consistency of the work of the Father, the Son, the Spirit, the harmony of the divine persons and working together to bring about their intended goal, which is the salvation of a particular people in Christ Jesus, all to the honor of Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

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In John chapter six, you see the beautiful balance that is presented to us in Scripture.

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In that tremendous passage, when Jesus has announced the reality that all the

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Father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out. And again, I reject all the artificial, absurd limitations that people read into the gospel.

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John was, it's not really relevant to us today. It just had to do with something's going on then. And God was blinding certain people then, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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You know, go ahead and rip John three 16 out. Although it's funny, this very same person went to the serpent in the wilderness, not seeming, realizing this doesn't have anything to do with us.

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You can't apply anything today, right? No. These tremendous promises from the gospel of John are our promises.

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There are promises. When Jesus and John chapter 14 says, I go to prepare a place for you.

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Yeah, those, those, those words are relevant to us today, too. Thankfully, there's everything good in recognizing original context, but when you then try to insert ideas into the text to remove the text from being relevant to what you fear, and, and you need to understand this traditionalist movement is a fear driven movement.

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It's a, they're seeing what's going on and they're seeing that they cannot stem this tide.

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And so they have to come up with something. It's a rear guard action is what it is. Anyway, Jesus has said, all the father gives me will come to me.

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And the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out. He's explaining, as we've said so many times, the unbelief of the

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Jews who have seen the miracles. And the answer Jesus gives is not, well, this is a temporary hardening.

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It's only relevant to these folks. And so everything I'm saying about this is going to become irrelevant in just a matter of weeks or days.

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No, all the father gives me will come to me. Those who aren't coming, haven't been given by the father, all the father gives me will come to me.

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And the one coming to me, I will certainly not cast out. And so many believers rightfully have rooted their hope and their faith in that promise of Jesus, that the one coming to me will never be cast out.

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And that is a, that is a heart sharing promise. When we know our own hearts, that the one coming to Christ will not be cast out by him.

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Why? For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. The same, same themes we saw in John chapter 10, father and son, the son doing the will of the father, the relationship that exists between them, not possible to understand the gospel outside of a

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Trinitarian context. It really isn't. As soon as you abandon the Trinity, you end up with a gospel.

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It looks nothing like the gospel of the new Testament, but here is the key that I want to focus in upon.

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This is the will of him who sent me, that of all, that of all he has given me,

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I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. That sounds rather impersonal, doesn't it? The reality is that what we have here in the original language is the use of a neuter.

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If you're familiar with the Greek language, you know pas, pas, upon, the forms of the word all.

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And when it says in order that all, which he has given me, it's in the neuter, not in the masculine, which would emphasize the individual personalities of those that are given.

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When you use the neuter in this way, you're wrapping up an entire group and putting it into a whole.

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And so the elect are being viewed here as a whole. And the son says, this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he's given me,

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I lose nothing, none of it. Now, Altu, because of its antecedent, is translated as it, or I lose nothing, and maybe not even provide the term, but raise it up on the last day.

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So you have, very clearly, in Jesus's words, the view of the elect, those given by the father to the son.

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This is going to be born out in 644. It's come straight out of verse 37.

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All the father gives me, will come to me. And notice, all that the father will gives me, will come to me.

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So even when the whole group, as a whole, is being envisioned, yet there is a personal action, if you're given by the father to the son, the result is, you're going to be coming to the son.

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It's the giving by the father, to the son, that determines and results in my coming.

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Now, the vast majority of man's traditions, which cannot have a sovereign grace of God, cannot have a sovereign

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God at all, will reverse that. So that it is my coming, foreseen by God, that then results in my being given by the father to the son.

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That's 180 degrees backwards from what Jesus actually said. And yet, a large number of people, because of their traditions, will go that direction and will understand it in that way.

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All the father gives me, will come to me. So there is no question that there is a corporate element in biblical teaching.

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There is the elect, and the elect can be viewed as a body, as it is in verse 39.

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Of all that he's given me, I lose nothing. And that's sort of, it's literally that I lose from it nothing, or nothing of it, from it.

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But raise it up on the last day. So, it's seen as a corporate body, and yet, it remains personal.

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Because those who are given by the father to the son, come to the son.

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Now, coming to the son is a personal thing. Coming to the son is faith. Coming to the son is seeking life.

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Coming to the son is really the essence of the Christian life. We're always looking to Christ as our source.

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We're always looking to him. This cannot be described impersonally.

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This is not something that a nameless, faceless group does. This is something that the redeemed do.

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But they do so because they're a part of this larger group. It's not by doing that that they become a part of that larger group.

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That's backwards. That's synergism versus the biblical teaching. Very common, but it remains a tradition, and it's not what this text is teaching.

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But I want you to notice, in 37 through 39, you have

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God doing things. The father gives. The son comes down out of heaven.

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The father expresses his will. The son does not lose any. The son raises him up on the last day.

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It's all God, God, God, God, God. It's all what the father is able to do.

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It's all what the son is able to do. And then, that beautiful balance is maintained.

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For this is the will of my father, that everyone who beholds the son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I myself raise him up on the last day.

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Now, is that a correction of what came before? No. It is an expansion, an explanation.

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When you see folks like Norman Geisler, as he did in his book so long ago now, man, coming up on 16 years, take verse 40 and read it backwards so as to read verses 37 and following out, then you're not engaging in exegesis.

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You're not allowing the text to determine its own flow, its own content. What the text has done is explain the unbelief of men in light of the sovereign act of the father and the son and the perfection of the son's obedience to the father in bringing about the salvation of these people the father has given to him.

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Then, having stated that, you then have the statement, for this is the will of my father, that everyone who beholds the son, it's literally everyone gazing upon the son, everyone looking upon the son, and believing in him, so it's actually twofold.

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There is a looking, and there is a believing. We'll have eternal life, and I myself will raise him up on the last day.

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So, what is the single, balanced interpretation that follows through the text?

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Well, the father gives a particular people to the son. As a result, they are coming to the son, and here's a description of what that looks like.

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They are looking toward the son. They are believing in the son, and they are the only ones that receive eternal life, and according to the verse immediately before that, of all that he's given me,

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I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. Raise him up on the last day.

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So, you've got raise it up on the last day in verse 39. Raise him up on the last day in verse 40.

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You see what the difference between the two is? Verse 40 is telling us how it is that the individuals who are a part of this group act.

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What are they going to do? Here is a description of what it means to be given by the father to the son.

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The natural result of that is that you're looking to the son, and you're believing in the son. It is an act of desperation undertaken in service of the almighty autonomous will of man for you to reverse the order of scripture and say, well, it's actually the autonomous will of man that gives itself to God.

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It's man that humbles himself. It's man that does what's pleasing in God's sight, and as a result, then, all the rest is follows, making all of the divine acts, what?

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Secondary to the human act. God wants to do those divine acts, but he can't until enabled by the human act.

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Now, by the way, there you have a biblical balance, and there you have the reformed balance in recognizing both the corporate and yet the intensely personal.

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Personal not in the sense of individualistic. Personal in the sense that the sheep know me and I know them.

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The act of atonement is not some hypothetical, I'm going to create a reservoir of grace type thing.

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The whole idea of substitution in the phrase substitutionary atonement, which is a reformed concept, by the way.

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Well, the problems that these traditionalists have is they're trying to hold on to a reformed concept which has been bequeathed to them by their ancestors without having the theology to be able to continue to do so.

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That's one of the major problems here. But here you have the balance.

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Here you have the personal aspect. That substitution has to be personal or the atonement becomes just a general covering over rather than an actual propitiation.

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Because you see, propitiation removes the penalty for sin and that which brings the wrath of God.

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And the wrath of God is not just some general thing. It is very specific in light of His justice and His being a proper judge.

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And so when I talk about the personal nature of salvation, what I'm saying is that in Ephesians chapter 1, the elect are united with Christ.

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That union is not some type of impersonal, well, it's a category thing.

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You've got a category, God has chosen a category. No, God has chosen individuals and has made them a part of this redeemed humanity.

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And the personal aspect of that is demanded by the nature of Christian salvation.

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Because the nature of Christian salvation speaks of sin in my experience.

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What is justification? Can we have impersonal justification? How about impersonal calling?

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How about impersonal glorification? Can you call a nameless, faceless group?

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Can you glorify a nameless, faceless group? These are questions that we will be getting to.

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But these are important aspects of the doctrine of salvation.

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Soteriology, as it's called. But this isn't just Soteriology 101.

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It goes to 301 and 501 and 601 and stuff like that.

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Alright, so I was just getting ready to start playing the video and Rich left.

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I don't know where he went. He just ran away. I'm sort of watching the window here.

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I'm not seeing any velociraptors chasing him or anything like that. Oh, there you are. Hi. How are you doing?

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Oh, yay. That's nice. How did you know that? I forgot to put the video up. That's great. Wow. Okay.

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What you're going to be seeing here on the program is going to be changing in a few weeks. I have to finish setting up a new

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MacBook Pro and I'm doing it from scratch. It takes a while. So many programs to reinstall.

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But once that's done, then the current one I'm using is going to come in here. These two will finally get retired.

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We'll have one computer and one monitor. Not sure exactly what that's going to look like yet, but we will find out.

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It will be simpler than trying to deal with four monitors and all the fun stuff I try to do to try to make it all work.

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Alright, are we ready to show this? I'm going to try to do the speed up thing.

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The problem is as soon as you stop it, it stops doing it and you have to keep doing it again. So I can't promise consistency.

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But let's get into it. Here we go. Oops. Okay.

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See what happened there? Well...

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Alright. One basic misunderstanding between Calvinists and non -Calvinists with regard to the atonement.

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In particular, one which Dr. White continually makes in our conversations is he continually accuses our view of election and atonement as being impersonal.

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A nameless, faceless group. He continually says things like that. And he sees his view of election and of atonement as being very personal and intimate.

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And that's the way he likes to paint it. And truth be told, Calvinists do talk about instead of limited, the word limited can have a negative connotation so they'll oftentimes replace the word limited with the word particular or individualized.

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I've never heard anyone say individualized. Not in my life. I haven't. Particular, I guess in the sense that election is particular.

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That election is not of a group alone.

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But that the identity of the group is included in the free choice of God.

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If you want to use, well, he has elected an unidentified group or a group to be identified whatever terminology you want to use the point is that the object of his election is not individuals.

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It is a plan. God has elected to set up a system whereby if you do

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X then you get Y. That's different than saying God chose me. Progonosko, as I said in the last program, going back to Yadah, that's very

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Yadah, the Hebrew term, to know. That's not of a mere plan. That's an important part.

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Often times traditionalist, non -Calvinist will bring is that as a Western culture we tend to individualize things.

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We tend to think everything is about me, my, I, the individual. Matter of fact, that's one of the reasons we think that this debate among Calvinist and non -Calvinist doesn't really even exist within Eastern Orthodox because they don't think that way.

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They don't automatically read a text and think of it as about them, the individual. We're not talking about individualism like this.

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Completely missing the boat. The difference is between God's sovereign right to elect known individuals versus the idea that all he can do is elect programs, systems.

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That's what I'm talking about. That's the difference. It has nothing to do with Eastern or Western individuality.

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Please don't even pretend to try to bring Eastern Orthodoxy into this.

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My goodness. The category error there. Later on we're even going to get N .T.

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Wright thrown in for the fun of it. Really? You really want to go there? It seems like any port in a storm.

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Anything we can throw in here. No matter how fundamentally and foundationally out of sync with us.

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These individuals or groups or movements or perspectives are as long as we all agree that the

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Calvinists are wrong we'll throw them in there. This is kitchen sink theological apologetics.

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Just throw it all out there. No matter how incoherent the result might be.

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See things as more corporate or collectivist society as the first century obviously would have been.

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When a first century person would have read the word we or you they wouldn't have thought we the individuals or you the individuals.

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They would have thought we the Jews versus you the Gentiles. The group. They thought more corporately.

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Therefore the interpretation or the way you take a text is taken from a different perspective. Again, this is just a matter of fact.

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I'm not trying to say that one is necessarily right and one is necessarily wrong. Obviously I believe the corporate view is the correct interpretation because I believe as N .T.

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Wright argues and many others argue that in the first century that that's the way they would have read the text. That's the way Eastern Orthodoxy has typically read and understood the text which is the reason the whole debate doesn't even hardly exist in that culture.

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Now the whole reason it doesn't exist in Eastern Orthodoxy is because of a fundamental imbalance in Eastern Orthodox understanding and soteriology.

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You don't even want to go there. You do not want to go there. I'm sorry

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I've met very very few people in Western Christendom that have any serious handle on Eastern Orthodoxy.

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I find it offensive that someone, I don't have any reason to believe Leighton Flowers has a clue what

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Eastern Orthodoxy is actually all about but to try to throw them into this as somehow being on your side again the category error is just stunning.

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It's stunning. I have to start queuing. I've got to queue up that Bob Newhart stop it thing.

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Stop it. Stop it. A lot of misunderstanding with regard to how we view the

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Atonement in our discussions today. So I want to give a visual perspective of this and to help you understand that our view of Atonement is just as personal.

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As a matter of fact, I would argue is more personal than Dr. White's view of limited Atonement and particular redemption. I think this visual illustration will help us to see that.

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Now if you think of Atonement as indicated by a circle in this analogy is that the circle is covering the person that is atoned for.

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Within the particular Calvinistic redemption you have individuals. So let's just put several individuals here to represent and I'm no artist which is why

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I stick to stick figures because that's as good as it's going to get. And so you've got a plurality of people individually and they need

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Atonement. They need salvation. And so from a particular vantage point from a Calvinistic five point

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Calvinistic vantage point the concept of Atonement is very particular meaning individualized. It's what

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White would argue personal and so it's about the individual. So if someone is atoned for in eternity past that eternity has selected somebody that he has atoned for that individual.

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And so he's picked these individuals to atone for. Not those individuals. So these people are born without the

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Atonement in the sense that they have not been elected they have not been eternally paid for and they remain outside of the circle.

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They remain without Atonement and therefore they will most certainly die in their sin. They're born helpless.

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They're born hopeless and they have no help or hope. They have no opportunity even to respond to the gospel because they'll never want to because their nature is born such that they would never want to and God will never regenerate them and elect them and irresistibly call them to himself.

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Now remember as normal what you get here from the Synergist is that God's grace can be demanded that everybody has to be given a fair chance you know.

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I mean grace just let's not worry about the biblical teaching of grace which says it's it's demerited favor that it's absolutely free.

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Let's not worry about any of that. What we need to do is we need to reduce it down to something that God has to give to everybody to be fair.

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Everybody's got to get to start at the same point right. I mean that's that's how everything's done today.

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That certainly resonates with some Millennials but it's not a biblical perspective. The repubates of the

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Calvinistic worldview and so within the Calvinistic view of Atonement at least the high Calvinist five -point limited

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Atonement Calvinist which again Bruce Ware and others would reject as Calvinist. They reject the concept of particular redemption or limited

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Atonement and I think you'll see why it's not a biblical concept and we can argue that of course but more than welcome to have that theological discussion because it is a good theological discussion to have but within James White's perspective this does seem very personal.

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I mean that's individual is circled there so that's a very personal kind of a thought process and so from his perspective he's saying well that's a personal thing yet that's being done according to the

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Calvinistic worldview before this this individual this person has a face or a name or anything about that person's even known or taken into account.

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Now this is not to say that God doesn't. Now notice the equivocation and the immediate error because he realizes he's misrepresenting me here.

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I'm sorry he does. Before he's known about this person what's the very foundation of Reformed theology?

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Those who me foreknew. Yada. So that's just false. Okay. I mean just failed.

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Soteriology 101 failure right there. And then notice the change. Well taken into account.

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That's not the same thing. Now is it? No it's not. So when we talk about unconditional election and that is that God's choice is solely based upon his own good will and not based upon anything in the creature.

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We're not saying it's because God was ignorant of those things but that God does not take into account. He does not say well you know these number of people got high enough on the curve they were humble enough.

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They did enough spiritual good stuff. Even the Bible says you can't do any of that but we don't worry about biblical anthropology.

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That's why we get rid of original sin and stuff like that because we're traditionalists. So we throw all that stuff out there and so they got high enough up on the curve that I'm going to let them in.

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They pass whatever the reduced standard is and so they get into heaven through this general you're going to see later the circle of Jesus' atonement.

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Haven't heard of that before you obviously haven't read Hebrews. Anyway notice the equivocation.

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They don't have any names, faces. Wrong. False. Repent. Former Calvinist here.

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Right. Former Calvinist. Funny how people who are former whatever

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I am end up just constantly face planting and representing what actually they allegedly once believed.

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Know this person. Have the ability to fully draw upon everything that he could know about this person is simply to say that according to the

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Calvinistic worldview of unconditional election that God does not take into account anything about that person. His name, his face, his actions, his behaviors, his choices his morality, his decisions, his faith or his lack thereof.

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God doesn't take any account into any of those things as to whether he provides this atonement for this person.

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So I would argue that that's a lot more nameless and faithless than our view of atonement simply because nameless and faithless.

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Now I said before they've totally missed what I'm talking about and here is documented evidence.

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Documented evidence. See what they're thinking is well look God has to take into consideration who we are.

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Man, I sure hope not. Do you really want to go there?

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You've got to have an incredibly sub -biblical anthropology, an incredibly sub -biblical view of man.

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Do you even want to begin to go there? But that aside that's not what I was talking about when

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I was talking about the personal nature of atonement and salvation, was it?

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I'm simply saying that the identity of the elect is not just known to God like God knows what time it is or God knows the exact core temperature of beetle juice that is a star by the way.

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You knew that. He's trying to distract me in the other room.

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You know you had a really guilty look on your face. We're not talking about God passively taking in knowledge, some type of middle knowledge, car dealer stuff and I'm going to get into the silliness of Molinism.

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Though there are plenty of Sun Bath traditionalists that I think tried to pretend that they were

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Molinists though I don't really ever got the feeling they actually understood what Molinism was. I'm not sure anybody really does but that's another issue.

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The point is from their perspective that's what the personal aspect is.

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What we do is taken into account. If it is and the standard is perfection, we're all toast.

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None of us are deserving of anything as a result. They're missing what personal means.

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The object of God's electing grace is not a plan it's a people.

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The elect are foreknown. God chooses in eternity past to enter into loving relationship with individuals to do not in time as yet even exist.

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But it's personal. It's not merely theoretical hypothetical, anything else.

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So keep that in mind. I'm sure you all have been noticing

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I start and then there's a brief delay because I'm popping it up to 1 .2 so we can try to get this done a little bit faster.

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God takes into account this person's face, this person's name, this person's identity this person's choices, this person's faith, this person's lack thereof.

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He takes into all of that in order to make his choice as to show favor that God shows favor to the humble according to the scripture that he looks upon those who have a contrite humble heart with favor that he chooses because he's merciful and because he's gracious, not because he has to.

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He chooses to show grace to the humble. So there you go. The traditionalists are clearly semi -Pelagians.

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They're not Augustinian. And what they like to do is they like to walk right up to the line of Pelagianism and sort of put their toe in the water and turn to the other side to see what it's like once in a while and then back away from it.

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But this is clearly semi -Pelagianism. And what you have here now is this idea that there are people now the

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Bible says direct didactic teaching. There's none good, none that wants, none that seeks after God.

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It says in direct teaching that there is none who according to the flesh can do anything that's pleasing to God.

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Either after you're born in the spirit or if you're according to the flesh you cannot do what is pleasing to God.

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You will not submit to the law of God. Does the law of God say to be humble? It does. So what he's saying is all that's irrelevant.

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It doesn't matter that those are direct statements. It doesn't matter there's all these statements that says man cannot, cannot, cannot.

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You throw all that out generally by preaching some type of pre -written sermon about babies or something.

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Get emotions going and then people forget about those direct statements of Scripture.

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And then you say we all have the ability and of ourselves to humble ourselves.

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And this then becomes the mechanism whereby you go from God's election of a plan to the personal implementation of that in the life of those who will humble themselves.

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They will do that which is spiritually good and pleasing in God's sight in and of themselves.

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These are hearts of stone doing acts of hearts of flesh. This is the valley of dry bones doing good stuff while still dry bones.

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That's the incoherence but that's all they've got.

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If your ultimate authority is the autonomous will of man you reject the absolute necessity of regeneration to bring about a freed will, to bring about a heart of flesh.

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If you make regeneration secondary to the proper good acts of man that's all you've got left.

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This is where you've got to go. ...personally is aware of and takes into consideration everything about that person.

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And so there's no nameless and faceless concept within our view of atonement. Yes there is.

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Let me point out once again the namelessness and facelessness is that the object of God's choice is not personal.

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It's a plan. I can't make you hear this but what you need to understand is your students who dare break out from the narrow confines of groupthink at SWBTS and NOBTS and listen to both sides realize one side is listening to the other the other ain't listening to the other.

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And that's your greatest fear. I know it's your greatest fear. I don't stay up at night worrying about this stuff.

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God's sovereign over this. We just get to speak the truth. I get to deal with all sorts of other issues.

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I'm going to try something here. Let's see if this works. This visually represents the Calvinistic particular redemption limited atonement view.

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If you stop it at all it just stops doing the speed thing. Instead of using the mouse

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I tried to use the keyboard and it still did the same thing.

49:25

It's very personal. The individual is being circled. The individual is being atoned for. Those two people within this group of five will most certainly be drawn, irresistibly, saved and atoned for.

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It's very philosophically and very logically just plain and simple. God chooses certain individuals.

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He atones for certain individuals. He irresistibly or effectually draws those individuals to himself. He saves them. It's a nice little tidy system that sounds really good to a lot of people and it fits within that tulip structure.

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But, unfortunately, as we argue in the podcast there's never a passage of Scripture that explains this in a clear and concise way in our estimation.

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Now there are some passages which Dr. White and others go over which, from their perspective, do argue for a particular redemption or an individual kind of perspective, of course.

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Now notice, once again, as I mentioned, and we're going to be going back to some of the comments from David Allen before we finish up the program today, but just compare the presentations that we've made from Hebrews, John 10,

50:31

John 6, John 17, Romans 8, especially the law court scene.

50:42

Again, walking through the text, allowing it to speak. Well, compare it with what

50:49

Leighton Flowers did when we tried to do Romans 9. That was exegesis versus non -exegesis. He can jump up and down and hold his breath all he wants.

51:01

Facts are facts. That's what people saw. That's what happened. I was able to point out in cross -examination where his entire interpretation of the text fell apart because he had to equivocate on terminology.

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That was it. I'll ask you, listen to what

51:22

David Allen says and compare which texts he thinks are plain and clear.

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I'm sure he thinks 1 John 2 is plain and clear. I'm sure he does. That's not a soteriology passage.

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It's not about the doctrine of salvation. Well, 2

51:43

Peter 2, again. So you're taking texts and you're implying things, whereas we take texts that are specifically on the subject, that are multiple verses, not just a phrase.

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You go, it might mean this, it might mean that, but multiple verses on a particular subject that is the subject at point of discussion.

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Do they offer the same kind of consistent exegesis? And I'm absolutely confident that the answer to that is no, they do not.

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No, they do not. It's plain as the nose on your face, but hey,

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I can't force anybody to believe. I just put it out there and we go from there.

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And there are exegetical commentaries from our perspective that answers John 10, for example, and other passages from our perspective.

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And to ignore that is just not being intellectually honest and consistent with how you do real debate and real discussion.

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To take into consideration that both sides have ample exegetical commentary on every single one of these texts.

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That's not true. I'm sorry, it's not true. I will not accept the idea that two sides holding absolutely contradictory understandings have equal quality and amount of biblical evidence on their side.

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That means the Bible is worthless. The Bible is a self -contradictory mess. And not go in there, don't believe it, and think that it's abjectly absurd to make the statement.

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You can't ignore or accuse the other side of not ever providing that. Dr. Allen provides exegetical commentary on all the texts within his book as well as in other articles and works that he's done.

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We've provided that through countless numbers of resources that you could find online with a simple search. So the accusations that sometimes

53:39

White and others will make that the traditionalists or the non -Calvinists don't have exegetical commentary on those passages, that's just not being intellectually honest or fair to represent the other side.

53:48

I would never say that of Calvinists. I would never say they don't have exegetical explanations for different texts to try to explain their viewpoint.

53:56

Now I would argue, as I think Dr. Allen rightly argues, is that there are no texts that specifically say what the

54:02

Calvinists attempt to argue from the text. And of course that's a debate to be had. So how would you visually represent the same thing from our perspective?

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Well first and foremost, you would take out this concept of the atonement as being individualized, like the hyper -individualization of Western culture.

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And you would say instead that there is an atonement that is provided for all.

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Now right here, this is a gate. And I'm borrowing the gate analogy from Scripture itself.

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Matter of fact, the Bible refers to Christ. Now can I point something out? This is very useful to see.

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What does atonement mean? What does the word mean?

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It is a sacrifice that removes both the cause that brings

54:59

God's wrath, so it removes the power and penalty of sin, and the reason for God's wrath.

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So it propitiates the wrath of God. Now there are lots of liberals who want to go with expiation and try to get around stuff like that.

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Not going there. You see what

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I'm seeing on that screen? Look up there so I'm sort of looking at the same thing as you are. Who needs atonement?

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Well it would be, well let's see here. Yeah, there we go. There's nothing down here to be atoned.

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You cannot remove the wrath of God against something that doesn't exist.

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There is no theoretical wrath of God. And so immediately

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I just go, this doesn't look like it's being derived from biblical parameters, does it?

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This looks like a system that we're trying to sort of cobble together, hold our traditions together, and we're going to try to fit it in somehow, but let's not actually pretend that this is being driven by any biblical text at all.

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It's just out there. Door or the gate. It helps to hit the right button.

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Sorry. Excuse me, but the gate was to the fold of the sheep.

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It wasn't to atonement. Jesus' statement was that he is the door. Yeah, he's the gatekeeper.

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But that is because he already knows his own, his own know him, and he's already sovereignly elected those people.

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And he lays down his life for them. Sorry. I mean, it's a nice, cute little diagram, but I just have to keep pointing out just how horrifically unbiblical it is.

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Anyone can enter into this realm of being atoned, that Christ is the elect one, and that whosoever believes in him, whoever is in him, as Ephesians chapter 1 teaches, that one becomes in him, not in eternity past.

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So much non -Bible being paraded here as if it is

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Bible that we need to slow down. I probably should not even play it fast. Christ is the elect one.

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Now, I always catch when folks throw that out. Christ is the elect one.

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Well, you can make that statement, but what does it have to do with this subject?

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Because Christ doesn't need atonement. And then you immediately went to Ephesians 1, and the direct object in Ephesians 1 is not

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Christ. Christ is not the one that's chosen. We are. We are chosen in him, but he is not the direct object of it.

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So, immediately, just so much reason for us to go, wait a minute, wait a minute, stop.

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Dr. Flowers, if you were defending the deity of Christ, is this how you do it? And remember, when I asked him about Romans 9, well, no.

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There's the difference. The exegesis I use here is the exegesis I use there, there, there, and there.

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There's the difference. When you use different forms of exegesis, that is the deadly sign of tra -di -tion.

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Just be open about it. Just admit it. I've got my system, and I'm going to do with the scriptures what

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I need to do with them to make this work. That's because that's what you're doing. That's what you're doing. You know, the troublemaker from Dallas is the one who told me to do this, so I'm sure he's watching this.

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I'm not going to play it fast for a moment, because it went by too quickly there. "...of being atoned, that Christ is the elect one, and that whosoever believes in him, whoever is in him, as Ephesians chapter 1 teaches, that one becomes in him, not in eternity past, individualistically, as the

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Calvinist would assume, but according to verse 13, that whoever hears the word of truth and believes is marked in him."

59:49

Now, did you catch that? This is a tremendous example of blatant, straightforward exegesis.

01:00:00

Why do I say that? Well, if you look at Ephesians chapter 1, and what

01:00:07

I'm going to do here is let me refresh this.

01:00:15

Ephesians chapter 1, there we go. "...just as he chose," and here's the word, hamas, us.

01:00:30

This is the direct object of the Father's action of choosing.

01:00:37

That's where we get election. "...just as he chose us in him."

01:00:42

It does say he chose him, and then we choose to be in him.

01:00:48

That's not what it says. "...when pra -cataba - excuse me -catabales -kasmu," thank you for the water, but I haven't been drinking enough of it.

01:01:08

Much better. I'm going to have to have lots of that this weekend in St. Charles. "...before the foundation of the world that we might be holy and blameless before him in love," can either be in love, he predestined us unto adoption, or might be holy and blameless before him in love, having predestined us unto adoption through Jesus Christ unto himself.

01:01:32

"...according to not what he saw in us, but the kind intention of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which he granted to us, which he graced to us in the beloved one."

01:01:46

When? "...before the foundation of the earth." Now, please note the verse numbers. These are verses 4 through 6.

01:01:55

What did Leighton Flowers do? Leighton Flowers did what everybody who is not under submission to Scriptures - sorry,

01:02:03

Leighton, but you're not on this subject - what everybody has to do. Same thing that Norman Geisler did.

01:02:09

You have to jump out of the context, farther down, find a verse that's actually about the result of everything

01:02:17

God has done, read it backwards into the previous text as your lens so that you can change the actual message of the text.

01:02:26

When you have to go 10 verses down to get a verse to become the lens to read what came before, you are twisting the

01:02:35

Scriptures. Stop it. You're twisting the

01:02:42

Scriptures. That's not how you do the Trinity. That's not how you do the deity of Christ. That's not how you do anything. That's not how you do the resurrection.

01:02:51

But when you do it here, what that's telling all of us blatantly, openly, is that what

01:02:58

Ephesians 1 is actually talking about is irrelevant to you. What's most relevant is your system.

01:03:08

That's extremely troubling. That's not how you do exegesis.

01:03:15

Not before the foundation of the earth, but before the foundation of the earth. When you can directly contradict the specific words of Scripture by jumping 10 verses down and pulling a text out of there and reading it backwards 10 verses,

01:03:33

I don't know how to even define exegesis any better than that. There it is.

01:03:38

I mean, with whiteboard and everything. Great example. In him, until you hear the word of truth and until you place your faith in him

01:03:50

Sorry. Quicktime player and there we go.

01:03:58

You enter in through the gate. This individual can enter in through faith into Christ.

01:04:06

Now, this is vitally important to understand because this person is still an individual.

01:04:13

A lot of people see the corporate view and they say, oh well, you're not including individuals. You're not talking about individuals.

01:04:18

There's an individual. But that individual was not the direct object of any choice on God's part.

01:04:30

I know you don't want to hear it, but other people will. You can't keep other people from seeing the category errors that your entire system is based upon.

01:04:39

And as long as you're sold out to it, as long as you have accepted the role of being the front man to help defend the

01:04:49

SBC against the scourge of Calvinism, you'll never hear what the real issues are.

01:04:55

And it's a shame to watch. It really is. But the impersonal nature accusation which

01:05:03

I repeat is that what God chose was a plan, not an individual.

01:05:10

That individual wasn't chosen. That individual chose to enter into a plan.

01:05:17

Now, you only have one thing he has to do. Faith. Rome has a bunch of things he has to do.

01:05:23

The entire sacramental system. But you both are on the exact same side of synergism at this point.

01:05:32

People need to understand that that's the case. He has a face. He has a name.

01:05:38

This is John here. See? He has a name. He has a face. We're still talking about individuals. We're just talking about individuals who have responsibility.

01:05:46

They have the responsibility to confess their sin, to humble themselves and confess. And through Christ, they may enter into the provision of the atonement.

01:05:56

Through Christ, they may enter into the provision of the atonement. Do I need to point out the unbiblical nature of such language?

01:06:06

Where do you get provision of the atonement in Scripture? How do you even begin to make that term work?

01:06:18

I don't know. Atonement is provided for all of these up here. And that God genuinely wants every single one of these to enter in through Christ so as to be atoned for.

01:06:28

God generally wants or specifically wants? What's the difference between generally or specifically?

01:06:36

So God wants all of these people to enter in. So the intention of the

01:06:44

Father and the Son and the Spirit was actually to atone for each one of these. But that doesn't happen unless they do those things.

01:06:53

And you complain that we say that you're making the atonement dependent upon human action?

01:06:59

Didn't you just illustrate that? Didn't you just document that?

01:07:07

This makes the atonement hypothetical and dependent upon what?

01:07:14

Human actions. Humbling oneself, believing, however long you want to make that list.

01:07:21

There are people who make it shorter, people who make it longer. Everybody who makes one is a synergist.

01:07:28

Many of them don't enter in. It's their own fault. It's not because God rejected them before the foundation of the world. It's because they rejected

01:07:34

God. No one can say on the final day of judgment, I hated God because he first hated me.

01:07:39

I rejected God because he first rejected me. Now, again, now Layton's going to go off into I think he's developed this argument because it is so easy for modern man and I'll go ahead and say it, unregenerate man to detest the sovereign

01:08:01

God. A God who has a decree, a God who's accomplishing his purpose well, in other words, the

01:08:07

God described in the Bible is offensive to the natural man. So it's really easy to play on that. And it's real easy to ignore, again, the soteriology,

01:08:17

I'm sorry, the anthropology of the Bible that tells us that all those little stick figures, they're not neutral little people up there.

01:08:24

They are the enemies of God. They love their sin. They love rebellion.

01:08:31

They make their little idol factories. They're engaged in idolatry every single day and they are justly under the condemnation of God.

01:08:40

He sort of forgot that part because, let's face it, synergism really doesn't work when you take that seriously. And so, these idol factories justly under the wrath of God they should be given equal opportunity to the grace of God is what he's saying.

01:08:58

And you need to understand the power of that argument. It's fully emotional. It's not rational. Certainly not biblical.

01:09:04

But it's powerful. It'll get people to stop thinking unfortunately.

01:09:11

It definitely does accomplish that. No two ways about it. I didn't receive the gift of atonement because he didn't provide it for me.

01:09:19

No one can say that. I didn't receive the gift of atonement because he didn't provide it for me.

01:09:25

See what happens when you start building more and more unbiblical categories on what have already been demonstrated to be unbiblical categories?

01:09:34

Atonement is something God does. Atonement is something that is perfectly accomplished in Christ and now it's been turned into something...

01:09:42

The gift of atonement. I didn't experience the gift of atonement because it wasn't made available to me.

01:09:49

Yeah, I talk to unbelievers all the time that are concerned about that and talking about that.

01:09:56

Never had a one. Not a single one. And never will.

01:10:03

It's an absurd objection. And nobody staying before God someday is going to be so stupid as to make it.

01:10:10

Because they know their own sin. And in the presence of the Holy God, they're not going to be coming up with this kind of absurdity.

01:10:21

Gift of atonement is provided for the whole. It's provided for all. And so whosoever believes in Him, in Christ, may enter in.

01:10:32

And that's not a nameless, faceless person. That person is known. So this person, John, who has a name, who has a face, this person comes to Christ with his baggage.

01:10:44

He comes with his pornography addiction. With his murder. With his adultery. With his most heinous sins that you could possibly imagine.

01:10:52

Sins that we see even leaders within the Scripture commit, like David did with Bathsheba.

01:10:57

We see these persons doing horrible things. And yet coming to Christ, in Christ, in full view of everything that they've done.

01:11:05

In full view of their sin and their righteousness. In full view of their pigsty. In full view of their name and their face.

01:11:11

They're not nameless and faceless. Christ chooses, not because He has to, but because He wants to. Because He's gracious.

01:11:17

He chooses to forgive. Now, because John asked for forgiveness, does that mean that John deserves to be forgiven?

01:11:27

So Christ chooses to forgive the humble person.

01:11:34

So there's where Christ's choice is. Whether He will or will not forgive.

01:11:42

Hmm. And we looked earlier at what Jesus said, "...came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me."

01:11:49

What's the will of him that sent me? "...if all has been given to me, I lose nothing, raise it up, and I'm lost." Seems that His choice is to do the

01:11:55

Father's will and save all of those that the Father has given to Him. Oh, well, the

01:12:01

Father only gives to Him those that humble themselves. There's always a way around it. There's always a way around it.

01:12:09

Whether the text says it or not, there's always a way to redefine things. John has earned

01:12:15

His forgiveness. Of course not. If that were the case, there wouldn't be any reason for the cross. The reason the cross had to be there is to pay the debt for John.

01:12:23

Because John can be as sorry and humble and repentant as he wants to. His debt has to still be paid.

01:12:28

If Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteousness, then there would have been no need for the cross if that had merited his salvation.

01:12:36

Because God could have just said, Oh, Abraham, you believed, you confessed, therefore you have earned your way into heaven. That's just not the way it works.

01:12:42

Okay. Time's going by here and I still haven't gotten to... Alan. I did want to get to this especially though.

01:12:57

This really is troubling. And the gate, the way in, is through Christ.

01:13:04

This goes to John 10, which Dr. White spends quite a bit of time on. And the understanding from John 10, from our perspective, is the sheep being referred to in John 10.

01:13:14

There's two folds of sheep if you go on to read through chapter 10. Let's just stop for a moment. John 10, 16.

01:13:21

I think I'm on fairly safe ground.

01:13:31

Never done a huge survey. I did a quick run through when

01:13:37

I came into the office. Didn't have a lot of time. Heading to St. Charles this weekend.

01:13:42

So I've got stuff I've got to try to get done, leave tomorrow. FF Bruce.

01:13:49

The Gospel of John. John 10, 16. Well, this fold, going back to the beginning of chapter 10,

01:14:00

Jews. The other sheep, Gentiles. This is a prophecy of the oneness of the church and the

01:14:08

Jewish mission. John chapter 10. FF Bruce. Leon Morris.

01:14:15

Excellent commentary. Gospel of John. Same conclusion. Fired up Logos.

01:14:24

So we've got Beasley Murray. Word biblical commentary. Yep, same thing.

01:14:32

How about D .A. Carson? Pillar of biblical commentary series. Same thing. I happen to want to ask one other question and I threw it out in channel real quick this morning.

01:14:47

And so I want to thank the folks that did a little digging around online for me. But ask a question.

01:14:55

What was Herschel Hobbes' view? Because Herschel Hobbes is the grandpappy of the traditionalists. He's the be all and end all.

01:15:05

What did Herschel Hobbes have to say? Well, we didn't find much, but what we did find indicated that he saw it as having to do with the

01:15:12

Jews and Gentiles. Just like everybody else that I know of.

01:15:18

I didn't get a chance to go back and look at Augustine and stuff like that. I just didn't have time to. But that is the consistent understanding of what this text is about.

01:15:32

And so with that in mind, I found this really interesting and somewhat troubling.

01:15:42

In John chapter 10, there's two folds of sheep. If you go on to read through chapter 10, which he does not go on to read through the whole context of chapter 10, he talks about two folds of sheep.

01:15:51

The first fold, we believe, is referencing to his apostles. The original twelve who are brought in because Christ comes to the earth, not revealing himself to everyone, not showing himself to everyone.

01:16:04

As we read throughout the context of the narrative of the New Testament, Jesus isn't revealing his identity to everyone at the time when he comes to earth, down from heaven.

01:16:15

He's only revealing himself to a select few. He even speaks to parables to those on the outside so that they don't understand, so as to keep them in the dark.

01:16:24

He doesn't want everyone to understand he's the Christ, otherwise they wouldn't crucify him and he wouldn't accomplish his purpose. Even Paul points us out that these things are mystery that's been hidden for generations.

01:16:34

If they had understood them, they never would have crucified the Lord of Glory. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 6 through following.

01:16:41

I think this is very important to understand. That's the context of the New Testament. Jesus is only revealing himself to those the

01:16:48

Father has given him while down from heaven. That's reference to the apostles and those closest to them.

01:16:54

God is entrusting the truth to them. He's explaining the parables to them, but he's not entrusting it to all the

01:16:59

Jews at the time. The Gentiles haven't even been included in that context. It's not until Peter has that dream with the white sheet let down with Cornelius and that whole interaction and Paul is called to be an apostle to the

01:17:13

Gentiles. That's when the Gentiles are brought in. The second fold being spoken of in John 10, the context is this is the first fold

01:17:22

I'm going to bring in. I'm going to convince them through miracles and signs and wonders. I'm going to show these people who

01:17:27

I really am. Walk on water, heal the blind, raise the dead right in front of them. I'm going to teach them these truths.

01:17:34

Those on the outside, I'm going to speak to in parables to keep them at arm's length until it's the right time. Like Mark 9 says, they just came down from the mountain of transfiguration.

01:17:44

He says, don't tell anybody who I am until I've ascended into heaven. It's not until he's raised up that he draws all men to himself.

01:17:51

How does he do that? He sends the gospel. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. It's not until he's raised up that he commissions the gospel to go into all the world so as to draw all peoples to himself, both

01:18:02

Jew and Gentile. He does that through sending of the gospel which is not being completed in John 10 or John 6 where the context is that God is only revealing himself to a select few and only bringing in to the fold those the

01:18:16

Father has given him. He has revealed himself only to them uniquely and keeping everyone else out for a redemptive plan and purpose.

01:18:25

That's the context of John 10 from our perspective. James White doesn't take the time to lay out that perspective or to explain that perspective.

01:18:34

That's because it's just slightly loony. I'd never heard of it before.

01:18:41

Nobody else I know ever had either. I get faulted for... Well, he doesn't bother.

01:18:47

I'm preaching through John 10 right now based on manuscript P45, by the way. I think it's pure sand in the air to say, well, he didn't read all of John 10 and he didn't give all the context.

01:19:01

It's just trying to get people to not listen to what you're saying. I didn't figure out who the second fold is yet.

01:19:09

The first fold allegedly is the disciples. But then the second is the gospel going out,

01:19:17

I guess. And all of this comes back to this idea that John 6, now

01:19:26

John 10, all this strong sovereignty stuff, it only has to do with God blinding the

01:19:34

Jews during Jesus' ministry as to bring about the crucifixion. That's all it's about. Once that's done, all this stuff is out of there.

01:19:42

It's irrelevant. Forget it. So instead of...

01:19:51

I didn't see, again, a scintilla... Well, okay, Leighton Flowers thinks that that was exegesis.

01:19:59

You need to understand, Dr. Flowers thinks he just did exegesis. What he did was eisegesis, and he seemingly doesn't know the difference between the two.

01:20:08

What he did is he quoted a bunch of verses, did not provide us with anything that actually meaningfully connects them together outside of in his mind, see, he has this idea, and so every verse that could be related to that now becomes exegetically relevant.

01:20:27

So instead of going to John 10 and doing what the commentaries do, which is beginning of John 10, actually goes back into chapter 9 with the

01:20:38

Jewish leaders and the man who was healed, and they've cast him out, and now they're being identified as the false shepherds, and so this is the

01:20:49

Jewish context. And so all the commentaries see that, follow that, and recognize when he's talking about the one flock, that that's going to be made up of,

01:21:03

I have other sheep. That's the Gentiles. And in all of this, of course, the shepherd is the one who chooses the sheep, but that's not a part of Layton Flowers theology, so that flies out the window.

01:21:16

The context flies out the window. Instead, you're quoting something from over here, something from over there, and you throw it all in and go, eisegesis!

01:21:23

And maybe at Southwestern, that's what's called eisegesis, I don't know. There used to be some good folks there, maybe there still are,

01:21:31

I don't know, but Plato, yeah, yeah.

01:21:39

Here's, yeah, there you go. Just put together, there you go.

01:21:47

Wow. Okay. So, there you go.

01:21:55

What, did you want to say something? See, now, I would have put the whiteboard up there, and I would have put all the five stick figures, and I would have put them connected together on a bobsled, and they would be the bobsled team to hell, and fervently going there where God plucks two of them off and saves them, gives them to Jesus.

01:22:15

Right. But that's because you have a biblical anthropology, and traditionalists abandoned that one a very, very long time ago.

01:22:23

You can take that down, because we've got to get back to David Allen before we completely run out of time.

01:22:31

And, so, this is pretty much where we left off, but I wanted to get to, because I got mentioned, and so we wanted to get to that, because it's almost as good as the really interesting stuff we were just looking at.

01:22:47

So, let's press on. So, how do you respond to those who pull out the passages, like in John, chapter 10, that says he laid down his life for his sheep, or he died for the church?

01:22:59

Those are obviously very specific passages that do seem to, maybe at first reading, kind of promote the concept of a limited atonement, because he says he's dying for his sheep, or he's dying for the church.

01:23:11

Now, let's remember what we said yesterday. Day before yesterday. I may have said yesterday, but you wouldn't have known it.

01:23:19

Let's remember what we said in the last program. When we look at John, chapter 10, what did we see?

01:23:28

We did not see some kind of vague statement of some general atonement concept.

01:23:37

What we saw was that when the Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep, the result is their eternal life.

01:23:46

The result is his authority to lay down his life and take it again, the interrelationship of the

01:23:53

Father and the Son. The Father has sent him to do this. This ties back to John 6, John 8, John 14,

01:23:59

John 16, John 17. There's all this. It's not just a text that just blandly says, well,

01:24:07

Jesus died for his sheep. It does say Jesus died for his sheep, and what they'll never mention is in the very same context,

01:24:14

Jesus identified other people who were not his sheep. He specifically says, you're not my sheep.

01:24:22

If you can pretend to deal with the extent of the atonement in light of Jesus' statement there without dealing with the intention, the intention is that all of Christ's sheep receive eternal life and that there are people who are not

01:24:39

Christ's sheep and that Christ does not lay down his life. If you don't deal with those things, you're not dealing with these texts.

01:24:47

When you look at the church passages in Paul, if you don't deal with the redemption language, the justification language, exaltation language, if you don't deal with the issue in Romans chapter 8, who shall bring a charge against whom?

01:25:09

God's elect. If you don't deal with them in their context and the interrelatedness of the concepts that are tied into the rest of the context, you are not dealing with the passages.

01:25:22

You are pretending to. You're not dealing with them. You're pretending.

01:25:29

It's pretense. It's covering something over. It's not actually dealing with the text at all.

01:25:38

Right. Well, first of all, you've got to keep those verses in tandem with the many verses, which are three times as many as those verses that state that Christ died for the world, that he died for all people, that he died for the sins of everyone.

01:25:51

So there's the first thing. That is not the first thing by any stretch of the imagination.

01:25:57

No serious exegete would ever say that. I'm sorry. I am sorry. All your beings are disrespectful.

01:26:03

That is absurd sophomoric exegesis. And I will stand by that.

01:26:12

That is not how you do exegesis. Why? Anybody remember the way international way, way, way back?

01:26:21

You've got to be old like me to remember a guy named Victor Paul Werewolf. One of the groups

01:26:27

I did some studying on. I've still got, I don't know, that many books or so and stuck over there.

01:26:35

Yeah, I even wrote some tracks. Yeah, I mean, if I went like that, it's been a long time because the way is splintered into a billion parts.

01:26:44

Victor Paul Werewolf, one of his main arguments in his book, Jesus Christ is not God. And we've always given him credit, at least in being very straightforward in the titling of his books.

01:26:55

One of his arguments was this. Jesus is called son of man. More often, he's called the son of God.

01:27:02

Therefore, he's the son of man and not the son of God. I hope you can see where that is false reasoning.

01:27:13

Because if all of those texts are divine revelation, then the way you deal with them is by understanding what they mean, not only in their context, but together.

01:27:23

You don't place them in opposition to one another. What Dr. Allen just suggested is you have all these dozens of texts, and I know which ones he's talking about.

01:27:34

All these incidental texts, not the didactic texts, not the texts where you're actually addressing the subject, but all these incidental texts where something is mentioned in passing over here that we are going to interpret as absolutely of necessity saying what we think it means.

01:27:53

And so we take them and we make them primary. The straightforward text, look,

01:27:59

Rome has done this with justification forever. Rome has done this with justification forever.

01:28:07

You go back. Go back to when I first started dealing with Roman Catholicism about 1989. And you will find hmm looks like I do not have one of those in here.

01:28:22

But we did the little justification book, right? Is it on Kindle now? It was purple and white.

01:28:27

Yeah. I hope I still have one of the original of those around.

01:28:33

Probably in my office I do. I wrote a little book on justification. Late 1980s.

01:28:40

One of the illustrations I used was that of a owner's manual to a car.

01:28:49

And I said, look, if I look up battery in the index of my owner's manual,

01:28:58

I am probably going to find numerous pages where that is found. Actually, you know what?

01:29:06

I used the illustration of the lights, not the battery. I have been having to charge the battery on my little motorcycle a lot recently.

01:29:13

So maybe that is why it is on my mind. But lights. Let's say you are having problems with lights. You could probably find a reference to the lights under the section on the battery.

01:29:24

You could find numerous statements of maintenance, replacement parts, things on your dashboard, high, low, things like that.

01:29:36

But if you really want to know about the lights, you go first to the section on the lights.

01:29:46

And then, having mastered the specific section on the lights, you will be able to accurately interpret ancillary references, incidental references to the lights at other points.

01:30:03

But if you try to build your doctrine of the lights based upon a brief sentence here, and a brief sentence there, and you never start at the heart where the thing is actually explaining what the lights are all about, you will never have an accurate knowledge of your lights.

01:30:27

And what you just listened to is the very quintessential essence of how to overthrow meaningful exegesis.

01:30:36

Well, what you first got to do is you got to realize that we have come to the conclusion of all these other passages over here.

01:30:42

Even though they may not be talking about atonement, they actually are. And they mean this, and that then becomes the lens which you have to look at all these others to see.

01:30:51

That's how you get away from the meaning of Scripture, not how you discover it. That's how you defend tradition, not how you analyze tradition in the light of Scripture.

01:31:02

This isn't semper reformanda. This is semper southern baptistamana, whatever you want to call it.

01:31:09

This is how to keep your traditions while looking like you're honoring Scripture. This is horrific.

01:31:17

If this is what passes for exegesis of southwestern, wow. That's bad.

01:31:25

That's really, really bad. See, it only takes one verse on either side of this equation to affirm either limited atonement or unlimited atonement that clearly affirms such, and then all the other verses have to be taken in tandem with that verse.

01:31:40

That's, again, stultifyingly simplistic. Stultifyingly simplistic.

01:31:48

This is a complex subject. It is connected to multiple biblical streams of revelation.

01:31:55

And to say, well, you just need one verse one way or the other and that's all there is to it. This is supposed to be taken seriously?

01:32:05

I'm wondering what you're filling 800 pages with here. I'm sorry, but this is just...

01:32:14

This subject is so important, to hear it being treated in this way is just... You got clearly a dozen verses in the

01:32:21

New Testament that affirm an unlimited atonement. So that's the first thing that you have to respond. Secondly, passages like that, when you want to take those passages and then interpret them as affirming a limited atonement, you're making a huge logical mistake.

01:32:36

It's called in logic the negative inference fallacy. And what's happening there...

01:32:41

The negative inference fallacy. Well...

01:32:47

You are saying, well, because a positive is stated that Christ died for a certain number of people in this case, that therefore the negative, that negates any possibility that he died for anyone else.

01:33:02

You are not of my sheep. Oh no, we don't want to deal with that!

01:33:10

It's right there in the context! Wow. But that's not what the positive statement is making.

01:33:18

It's a logical mistake. So it was a logical mistake here? It wasn't made by us, was it?

01:33:23

No. No. And you would think, again, 800 pages? And the first thought that crossed your mind was not, well, we do need to honestly deal with the reality that in this one context

01:33:34

Jesus says, I do this for my sheep, it results in this, and these people are not my sheep. If you don't deal with all that, you're not dealing with the text.

01:33:42

Quit pretending like you are! Stop it! You know, I even sound like him when

01:33:48

I do that. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Don't even... No.

01:33:56

That's better. It has to be fast. Stop it! Yes, it has to... It can be easily illustrated this way.

01:34:02

Take Galatians 2 .20. Paul says... And you thought it couldn't get worse. ...that

01:34:08

I've been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live, in the flesh,

01:34:13

I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Well, you see...

01:34:21

That's very limited. Now you've got Paul, by that same logic, saying that Christ died only for him.

01:34:29

I don't make this stuff up, folks. If this is passing for serious interaction among Southern Baptists, this group is doomed.

01:34:39

Because they're... I cannot imagine... I know Southern Baptist seminary students.

01:34:45

I get to meet them. And they're bright, and they're inquisitive.

01:34:51

And I cannot imagine a single one... They're going to sit there and go, but wait. In John 10, you have this specific statement.

01:35:01

You're not my sheep. And in the text about the church, the church is being specifically differentiated from the world, which is in opposition to the church.

01:35:12

But when Paul's saying this, he's saying this is one of the redeemed. And obviously, Paul's teaching was that to be redeemed, you first have to have

01:35:19

Christ die for you. So on no logical, rational basis of anyone who thinks with any clarity of thought in categories at all, would you ever come up with this argument?

01:35:30

And here you have two traditionalists, doctors both, going, that's right. That's a killer argument there.

01:35:39

And we're all just left going, okay, we move on.

01:35:48

But of course, no one would make that statement. It's absolutely ludicrous. And so the problem is, it's a logical fallacy.

01:35:57

Have we seen the logical fallacy demonstrated? No, not even started. Passages that say

01:36:03

Christ died for his sheep, or he died for his friends, or he died for the church, that's the logical problem.

01:36:09

The other problem is contextual. Those passages are found, and usually, if not universally, in passages that are addressed to or about the church.

01:36:19

John 10? According to your interviewer here, it's actually only about the disciples.

01:36:25

I wonder if he'll stop him to correct him. Probably not. To or about those who are already redeemed.

01:36:33

And it wouldn't be unusual in a church setting, for Paul or anyone else, to say Christ died for the church.

01:36:38

Of course that's true, he did, but it is anachronistic to try to read Reformed theology back into what

01:36:44

Paul is saying. It's anachronistic in talking about the church as the bride of Christ to read into that the purpose of God in creating the church, his sovereignty in the church, the fact the church is made up of those who have been justified and forgiven and adopted and will be glorified.

01:37:09

That's all anachronistic, see? It's all anachronistic. No, actually, it's called consistency.

01:37:15

Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? It actually does. And a suspect theological point, namely limited atonement, to say that Paul was saying, or John or anyone else, that Christ died only for the church.

01:37:27

That's the problem. So there are numerous problems with that viewpoint, and that's why all of your four -point countenance recognize this.

01:37:35

In fact, all these arguments that I'm giving... Always run off to the Amaraldians, or your Hoopah Calvinists.

01:37:41

They agree with us, but not for the same reasons. There are arguments that have been given throughout church history against limited atonement...

01:37:48

Throughout church history means from the beginning of the church, not since the Reformation.

01:37:54

Hello? ...given by those who otherwise are Reformed. I heard Bruce made a similar argument that you just now made about that.

01:38:01

I mean, that's something that I hear from four -point Calvinists quite often. The question

01:38:07

I kind of referred to earlier, I want to get your take on this as well. When people bring the charge, well, did Christ die to actually save, or just to potentially save?

01:38:14

In other words, I've heard it put this way. I know Dr. James White put it this way when we had our back -and -forth, and he was like, well, okay, does

01:38:20

God make men savable, or does He actually save men? Because when you kind of paint that dichotomy, it makes it sound like, okay, you just believe in a potential salvation.

01:38:30

You just believe in the possibility of salvation. You don't believe in... Now remember, folks, did we not just show

01:38:36

Leighton Flowers, after recording this, drawing an empty circle and calling it atonement?

01:38:45

Whether he can see this or not, you and I can see that that's exactly what he was saying.

01:38:51

That's exactly what he put on the board. You want to see the power of tradition? If he can't see this...

01:39:00

Wow. Actual salvation. How do you respond to Calvinists that bring that charge? Yeah, it's another example of bad logic.

01:39:07

It's called a false dilemma fallacy. The answer to your question... Now, folks, the answer you're about to hear,

01:39:20

I've had to listen to it more than once to make sure that I heard what

01:39:25

I actually heard because I was left stunned.

01:39:34

Absolutely stunned. Not by its power, but by the fact that it's almost incoherent.

01:39:43

Here you go. Does Jesus make salvation possible or does he make it actual?

01:39:48

The answer is yes. The answer is he does both. And the easy response to that, to a

01:39:55

Calvinist who wants to assert limited atonement, is to talk to them about the unbelieving elect according to the theological system of Calvinism.

01:40:06

Now... The unbelieving elect. So in other words, because God includes the time of our regeneration as a part of his decree.

01:40:25

In other words, I lived a very small portion of my life before God was merciful to me.

01:40:31

Some of the rest of God's people live a much longer portion of their life before experiencing salvation.

01:40:38

But it's up to God as to when that takes place. So what you're going to hear is the idea is, well, you can have people who are elect who have not yet been regenerated.

01:40:52

And so therefore, the atoning work of Christ is potential for them. And of course, the immediate response is no it's not.

01:41:03

No more than it was just merely potential before they came into existence. No more than it's just merely potential that I'm seated in the places in Christ Jesus.

01:41:12

All you're doing is changing categories and now dealing with the now and the not yet. We have been adopted, we will be adopted.

01:41:20

Okay? Continued fulfillment in our experience. But you don't get that what we're talking about is a potential atonement that may or may not, depending upon human action, versus what now you're talking about.

01:41:42

And that is that atonement is going to be absolutely fulfilled in the fact that the entire work of salvation is going to be brought about in this person's experience without fail, with absolute certainty in the sovereign decree of God.

01:41:58

But that there's a time period in their life where, well, but we can sort of see it as potential. You think there's a parallel here?

01:42:04

You think this is relevant? You really do? You think this is a killer argument? It's absurd!

01:42:11

It is laughable! It doesn't even follow from your perspective, first of all.

01:42:18

There is no such thing. But even from our perspective, it's absurd.

01:42:25

Because there is going to be the absolute act of God in bringing about the regeneration of that individual.

01:42:32

It's never left in the state of mere potentiality. It's never, well,

01:42:38

God's intention was, and it's hoped for, but it's up to man. That's the point. And until you folks start dealing with the point, this kind of stuff, you don't realize how this stuff is gold for us?

01:42:52

It's sad for you, but it's gold for us. That's what's being said.

01:42:58

Listen. The unbelieving elect, you've got people who are on the planet right now who, according to Calvinistic theology, are among the elect, and yet they are not yet saved.

01:43:07

They've not yet been regenerated. God has not yet given them effectual grace. He will, at some point, do that, because they're among the elect, according to Calvinistic soteriology.

01:43:17

But right now, they are among the non -elect. So if they're among the non -elect in that situation, then according to limited atonement,

01:43:27

Christ has died for their sins, yet they are among the non -elect. They are still in their sins, and according to Ephesians 2, 1 -3, if they die in that state, they will perish.

01:43:37

Yet they are among the non -elect. Dr. Allen, they are not among the non -elect.

01:43:49

They're among the non -regenerate. They're not the same thing. They're not the same thing.

01:43:56

They haven't experienced regeneration yet. That doesn't make them among the non -elect. That's absurd.

01:44:08

How do you respond to this kind of thing? Again, if we were talking with somebody on a campus,

01:44:16

I would probably be significantly more patient. We're talking about someone putting out an 800 -page book on a subject that clearly he does not understand.

01:44:30

They're not amongst the non -elect. They've been elect from the foundation of the world. They're amongst the non -regenerate until they experience regeneration.

01:44:43

They are still in their sins, and according to Ephesians 2, 1 -3, if they die in that state, they will perish.

01:44:49

I even quote John Piper in my book who admits, yes, if the elect die prior to their conversion, then they would be lost.

01:44:57

Of course, he goes on to argue they're not going to die before. You get that kind of a situation.

01:45:04

What do you mean you get that kind of a situation? That's the whole point. That's the whole point.

01:45:12

This is the best you have is to say, well, you've got this potentiality type situation.

01:45:17

I know in your own system, it doesn't make any sense to argue like this, but that's the best you've got?

01:45:25

But that is basically the issue that is at stake there. Jesus died, and for the unbelieving elect, salvation is not present for them, but it is potential.

01:45:38

Jesus died such that, again, according to Calvinistic soteriology, the unbelieving elect are awaiting the day of their salvation.

01:45:48

In that sense, their salvation is potential. The death of Jesus on the cross is potential for them, which is going to be actualized at the moment of their conversion.

01:45:57

However, it is not a mere potentiality.

01:46:03

It is just simply temporally, up until the point where God's decree has determined their regeneration, they have not yet reached that.

01:46:12

It is not potential in the sense that maybe it will happen, maybe it won't happen.

01:46:18

It will happen absolutely, personally, and certainly.

01:46:26

Maybe they do see. Maybe they do see. Maybe I'm just getting upset by people that are being purposely obtuse because they have other purposes, but maybe they just don't see that they are completely missing the point.

01:46:42

Once again, the difference is between a potential atonement where Christ tries to do something, may or may not accomplish it based upon human action, versus the unified, consistent, harmonious action of the

01:47:04

Father, the Son, and the Spirit in bringing about the perfect redemption of a particular people, where there is no question that it's going to be accomplished.

01:47:17

You have a Jesus who tries his best to save and fails in many instances.

01:47:26

I'm saying that's not the Jesus of the Bible. If you can't see how this answer shows an utter misunderstanding of what the real issues are, what more could?

01:47:42

No logical fallacy was demonstrated twice. That's a logical fallacy of this. That's a logical fallacy of that.

01:47:49

Then you go, and could you substantiate that? No. Won't even try. Won't even try.

01:47:57

Wow. There you go. There you go.

01:48:04

There you go. Sometimes you just get to a point where you have to go, alright, that's sufficient.

01:48:21

What is coming up? Real quick here. We're going to wrap things up. No, don't save.

01:48:31

This weekend, once again, I think this is year 16. I think this is year 16.

01:48:38

We will be in St. Charles at Covenant Grace Church.

01:48:44

Do we have a link up? We have a link up in the banner ads. Looking at textual criticism, biblical reliability issues along those lines.

01:48:54

Friday night, Saturday, and I normally preach Sunday morning a holiday, an incarnationally themed text given the time of year.

01:49:08

Normally, it's significantly colder there than it is here. That's always a good thing to get to visit with the brethren back there.

01:49:18

Like I said, 16 years is a long time. I missed one year because I went to Kiev. That was okay because the pastor there goes to Kiev as well.

01:49:27

Well, to Ukraine. He didn't mind my doing that. That will be it for the year for me, thankfully, travel -wise.

01:49:37

But 2017 is going to start real fast. I was just noticing that Rudolf Buschhoff was just messaging me in Facebook.

01:49:51

We are looking at three major overseas trips next year.

01:49:59

We are looking at a very early trip to South Africa.

01:50:06

Let me just remind you, we always rely upon the listeners of this program to get us there and back in one piece as well.

01:50:20

If you're thinking about everybody at the end of the year starts hitting you up for end of the year giving, we don't do that.

01:50:31

We don't send out begging letters at the end of the year. We just don't do that.

01:50:37

It's not that we're taking some great moral stand. It's just that because of what we do, we've just never felt we can do that.

01:50:46

But the one thing we do come to you about is travel. Is getting places in the world that we need to be to be able to do the neat things that we want to be able to do.

01:50:59

We have certainly been able to establish a ground of credible ministry in South Africa.

01:51:11

We will be pressing forward with that, debates and things there in South Africa.

01:51:17

We're looking at as early as March. We're going to have a very short period of time to raise the funds necessary given that there will be another trip in May and then a third in September.

01:51:33

We have a travel fund that I'll try to remember to link to.

01:51:40

If you're looking at end of year giving and if you've been blessed by the debates, by the interaction especially when they take place overseas.

01:51:53

For example, the Graham Codrington debate. That was part of our work down in South Africa and places like that.

01:52:00

Then please think about helping us to get to those places because those trips are going to be coming very, very quickly.

01:52:09

Of course, very, very quickly will be the G3 conference, the debate with Trent Horn on the 18th of January there in Atlanta and then the

01:52:20

G3 conference thereafter with a huge group of speakers. I'm only speaking once.

01:52:26

I think almost everybody's only speaking once because there's just so many speakers and there's only so many hours in the day.

01:52:34

But that's coming up very quickly in Memphity the

01:52:40

Deep South weekend after that. So January is amazingly fast. Then over at the conference and very shortly after that heading to South Africa.

01:52:53

Your assistance is needed. I feel comfortable coming to this audience because you see what we do all the time.

01:53:06

You get to see the debate and we come to you to ask to make that possible.

01:53:15

So look for the travel banner. Is there a banner up right now? I'm not sure if there's a banner up right now.

01:53:21

We need to make sure there is one up. But if you go to support us, you'll find the travel link there as well.

01:53:28

And if you can assist us in getting those funds and getting to where we need to go, very, very much appreciated.

01:53:36

Thanks for listening to Radio Free Geneva. Today we will let Brother Bushong take us out of here.

01:53:47

I'm gone this weekend so Lord willing, next week maybe more of a standard schedule. We'll see.

01:53:53

See you then. God bless. God bless.