James Responds to Paul Copan's Appearance on the Bible Answer Man

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is the dividing line. To be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
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Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the
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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr.
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White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Well Anne, good morning, good afternoon, whatever time it is for you wherever you are, welcome to the dividing line today.
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My name is James White and today we have a lot to get to. It's been interesting of late.
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Last night I was sort of brought into an interesting situation.
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I had never been on pal talk before. I tried it once. We have a firewall that makes, you know, we have issues going back and forth and I did not have and do not have a microphone yet hooked up to my computer.
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I have a microphone sitting in front of me right now but that's actually hooked up to a sound system and so on and so forth.
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But anyways, went in there, went into a channel, was brought into a channel called
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Calvinism, Is it Biblical? and had a fascinating time listening to the folks talking, first of all.
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That was different. And then reading the comments and it is interesting.
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I did notice that there was a difference between the comments and what was written. In other words, people are more likely to say something strident and sort of nasty when they're just typing than when they turn their microphone on and everybody knows who's talking.
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I found that interesting study in human psychology. But anyways, it reminded me a lot of my days many, many moons ago back when
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I would go into the AOL chat rooms and try to talk with folks in the
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Christian chat rooms on AOL. And you get folks that just do not have the humility to ever consider the possibility that maybe they might want to do some study to find out what they're talking about.
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And that does take humility. I'm sorry, but there are a lot of folks who think they're very humble by just simply being ignorant.
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And ignorance is not an aspect of humility. And there were folks just throwing stuff out that was just like, you've got to be kidding me.
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Where did that come from? In the typewritten stuff, there was a woman, I assume it's a woman, with the name
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Rachel in her ID or whatever. And she was just throwing stuff out. And after I left, actually, she was talking about how, oh, we had a famous author and channel who insults
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Jesus Christ. Well, I'm so excited and stuff like that. And I'm like, and by the way, Rachel, if you're listening, feel free to call in and explain that.
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I'd like to know what thought process goes into that particular kind of assumption.
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I don't even follow that. But anyways, it was interesting. It was basically sort of a rehashing of, whoa, that's about 14 times louder than it was a few seconds ago.
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It was basically a rehashing of Dave Hunt material. And I found that ironic because I was,
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I'm sitting here surrounded by printouts of the Dave Hunt book. I'm back on that project now, finished the project
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I was on before. And back on that project, there's not that much more to do.
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But it's very confusing at this point because there's, you have 14 different topics that you're juggling and you've got to know, am
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I supposed to be doing a 1 ,000 word response or a 500 word response? And you have to put them in order so you can see if they're, well, train of thought.
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There's no train of thought. But where the basic subject line was supposed to be going anyways. And so it's pretty, it's a little confusing right now.
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But that's what I'm working on right now. And it was, it did encourage me to continue this project for the simple reason that I was hearing a lot of his stuff repeated as if it was gospel truth.
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And that bothered me a good bit. But anyways, the reason I mention all this is last week, some of you may recall, during the disaster that was the
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Thursday evening dividing line. No, no singing today for those of you who have been writing and asking me to put out a
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CD and things like that. No, not going to be doing that. We did have callers mention, however, some phone calls and guests on the
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Bible Answer Man broadcast on Thursday and Friday. Well, obviously they were only talking about Thursday on Thursday.
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And then Dr. Paul Copan was on on Friday as well and talked more, much more about the doctrines of grace.
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And of course, there was one good caller that called in, gave a good question.
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But there was no give and take. There was no response from the Reformed aspect. And given some of the seriousness of some of the charges, specifically that people are driven away from the
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Christian faith by Reformed theology, we are going to give a response to the things that were said by Dr.
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Copan on the Bible Answer Man broadcast and let you know what it would be like if there was a two -way street there and there was a response that could be offered.
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I again feel that Dr. Copan was considerably less strident, being the scholar that he is, than much of what we see out there.
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But I still think that it really looks like a very consistent
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Arminian perspective being presented. There was, again, amazingly, the standard miscitation of Matthew 23 -37.
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I mean miscitation. We've talked about this before. It is absolutely incredible to me how many people miscite
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Matthew 23 -37 and it gives clear evidence of the traditional lens through which they read
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Scripture. We've talked about it before. People look at Matthew 23 -37, they assume, they don't exegete it, they just assume it.
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Even the error of saying Jesus was weeping over Jerusalem in Matthew 23 -37. He wasn't. He was berating the
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Jewish leaders. He was not weeping. But he says Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem, just like Dave Hunt did.
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And then when he quotes it, he does exactly what Dave Hunt did in our dialogue back in 2000. How often would
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I have gathered you under my wings, but you were not willing. You would not.
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Exact same miscitation we hear over and over and over again. It's incredible.
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But anyways, we'll take a listen to that. So that's what we're going to do today on The Dividing Line and I have ten clips to play.
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So I probably need to get at it because we only have 53 minutes left and less than that actually.
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So let's let's start with the first section. Well again this can raise some questions even within the
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Christian community. And again what I'm presenting is something that I have found both intellectually satisfying and one that does justice to the biblical text.
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And what I argue is that God doesn't select individuals for salvation, but rather chooses a body of believers.
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We have been chosen in Christ that we become part of God's chosen people.
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It's a corporate view of election. We aren't called in the New Testament, we're not called elect until we are already part of God's people by faith as we freely respond to God's initiating grace.
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And I want to emphasize that it's not as though we can just choose our salvation, but rather we without God's initiating grace none of us would ever respond.
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But God does give us the freedom to respond to his grace. Let me just pause it there for just a moment so we don't get too many things in the queue here all at one time.
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Throughout this presentation we will again hear the the problem, the the real issue being that from Dr.
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Copan's perspective we have prevenient or initiating grace and this prevenient or initiating grace is given to everyone and yet some people freely respond to it and other people freely not.
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This grace does not guarantee salvation. This grace instead makes salvation a possibility.
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It does not actually bring about salvation, it makes salvation theoretically possible.
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This is of course the position of Rome that insists that grace is necessary for salvation.
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This is the dividing line that has been there all along between synergism and monergism. The synergist insists that grace is necessary but also insists that it is insufficient in of itself to bring about human salvation.
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So as to protect libertarian free will, the power of grace must be limited to a prevenient enabling that then brings a person to a position where they are then able to make the right decision.
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That doesn't always happen. In fact it's left up to man whether it happens or not etc etc.
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I also would have to disagree very strongly with the assertion made by Dr. Copan in regards to the idea of the elect.
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He says we're not called the elect until after we freely exercise faith. That simply isn't true. Ephesians chapter 1 does not allow for a corporate understanding.
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The direct objects of the verbs in Ephesians chapter 1 are personal. They are not an important...
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whoa hello I just disappeared and now they're hey quick play around over there man.
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That was one of the weirdest things ever heard. We're having further technical difficulties but we do not have a person on the phone line.
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That means someone is playing with the sound equipment. Anyways oh now I just fell into a box into a well.
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Weird stuff going on here. Okay anyways I'll try to remain a professional here despite all the weird stuff going on around me.
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Anyways Ephesians chapter 1 does not allow for the idea of mere corporate election.
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Christ is not the elect one in Ephesians chapter 1. It is not an impersonal group that is chosen in Ephesians chapter 1.
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In fact it is individuals and they are chosen to personal sanctification and holiness. They can't get any more personal than that and therefore this assertion, well we're not called the elect until we've believed.
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Well if you're meaning by that that the term elect is used of people who've already believed, well of course you're addressing the church.
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The issue is is election post -faith. Do we in essence elect ourselves?
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Do we enable God to allow us to be called the elect? And that is not the case at all.
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Election is is eternal and it is not impersonal. It is very very directly personal as we see in Scripture.
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Or to reject it as Stephen said to those who are about to stone him. You are always resisting the
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Holy Spirit. That's Acts chapter 7. I've addressed that a number of times. It is certainly one of the most commonly used passages.
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It is also one of the most commonly misused passages because Stephen is not talking. He is not even beginning to assert that the hard -heartedness of the
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Jewish people that he has been recounting in their history is somehow an assertion of the ability of a dead sinner to resist the work of the
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Holy Spirit in drawing us to spiritual life. Instead this is of course very clearly in Stephen's context anyways the rejection of the conviction of the
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Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings conviction to all men of sin and righteousness and judgment. But there is nothing in the context that is talking about the work of the
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Holy Spirit in drawing his people unto himself. This is this would be directly contradictory to any meaningful exegesis anyways of John chapter 6 and the meaning of drawn, the meaning of given by the
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Father to the Son, all the rest that kind of stuff is just not there. But that kind of a passage is just always just thrown out there.
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After a while you understand that the seven or eight passages that these folks throw out there, but they will never give you exegesis.
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You'll never hear exegesis of Matthew 23. It's just simply thrown out there as if, well, it's just plain language.
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That happened in the channel last night. In that PalTalk channel I was like, well, it's just plain language. This is so obvious.
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That can't possibly be right. That's the same kind of thing we have going on right there.
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And so basically a person is predestined to hell unless he turns away from his sins and responds to the grace of God.
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And those who have responded to the grace of God are predestined to a life with God in the new heavens and the new earth.
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Notice the predestination then is not of individuals. It is just simply, well, if you're a sinner you go to hell, and if you believe you go to heaven, that's all predestination is about.
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People need to understand that's the terminology that's being used. And so that, you know, it's sort of like in the
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Old Testament. A person like Rahab or Ruth who are Gentiles, they become part of God's people because they respond to the opportunity to become part of the people of God.
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And so it's not as though they're God's elect people before, but once they respond and become integrated into the people of God.
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And similarly in the New Testament we become elect once we respond by faith to the offer of salvation by grace through faith in Christ.
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And so that is how I would respond to that. And there's some good resources that I give at the end of the chapter that point people for further reading that they can do on the topic.
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But again it is, you know, there are some in -house issues between Christians on that, and I don't want to get into it too much here, but that's the basic outline of what...
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Well, it seemed pretty obvious to me that Dr. Copan really, that's not his issue, that's not the subject he really wants to address, but it kept coming up.
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Now this next clip was very interesting to me especially because one of the callers asks about the open theistic view of people like William Hasker and those individuals,
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John Sanders and others. And I don't know about you, but it sounds to me like he basically presents a middle knowledge perspective.
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He wants to, and does very clearly in the other clips we're going to get to, very much reject the existence of a divine decree.
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Working all things at the counsel of his will is not going to fit in this system. Certainly anti -reformed, non -reformed in his perspectives on that kind of a thing.
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And very much follows the same type of view of a passive idea of taking in knowledge of the future in the comments that he makes here.
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So listen to how a non -reformed person responds to open theism. Well, I just wanted to ask what you guys just alluded to this a little bit on predestination stuff, but what your viewpoint was on the open theist movement in like William Hasker's book
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The Open View of God. And I just wanted to get your guys' thoughts on that. Yeah, there's a lot of good material out there responding to the openness of God.
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I think that there are problems with it. I think it is a sub -biblical view of God.
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I think that you see God in Scripture as someone who knows in precise detail what is going to happen.
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But that doesn't undercut human freedom, because God being who he is would know what humans would freely do in whatever world he would create them.
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That would be, as I'm hearing him, that sounds like he's promoting a middle knowledge concept.
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And so, for example, for Jesus to know that Peter would deny him three times, it seems like you have quite a remarkable statement there of the precision of divine foreknowledge.
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That it's not something that's merely general, but it's something that is very specific.
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And we can go on to talk about that. I do try to address some of those things in my book.
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That's just your interpretation to show that the open view of God, the open theism view, is inadequate.
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It's interesting to me, I don't know how on a middle knowledge theory you can explain
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Peter's three denials of Christ. The grounding of God's, and this is one of the key issues, the grounding of God's knowledge of future events is his decree.
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If you do not have a decree, I don't know that any meaningful theory has been presented as to how
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God can have that kind of specific, infallible knowledge of future events, especially of quote -unquote free creatures.
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I've not heard a meaningful answer that. And that the traditional understanding of God, knowing all the future free choices of human beings, is the true and accurate biblical view.
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And you could also say this, you could even remove, Bill Hasker and others are concerned about human freedom being undermined, but you can make truth statements, just remove bracket
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God from the picture and just say, you could make truth statements about what will happen at such -and -such a time, and it would be true that I would do such -and - such a thing at such -and -such a time.
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Without God being in the picture at all, so it's hard to see how God's foreknowledge makes any difference whatsoever, given this sort of a picture.
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Now, if you didn't follow that, don't feel badly, because I didn't either the first few times, it sounds like what he's saying is, since we can accurately predict the future at times, then
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God's knowledge of future events could not be causative. The problem is, and this is this again is where I don't find non -reformed positions to be coherent in their theology proper, is we're not talking about God getting it right once in a while, we're talking about God getting it right all the time.
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It's the infallibility of his knowledge of exactly what's going to happen that is the objection of a
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William Hasker or the other open theist, saying if God knows without question where I'm going to go to lunch today, and it's not possible that I go someplace else, then
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I am not free in the sense of autonomy and libertarianism to go someplace else.
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And what I think he's saying is, yes, but God simply knowing that doesn't mean that it's going to happen.
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Well, how does God know that infallibly? How does God have knowledge of future events?
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Is it just simply he takes in passive knowledge? If that's the case, then we're stuck with the idea that God created the universe, he rolled the cosmic dice, it came out well, and so he goes, oh wonderful, great, praise me for this.
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That's not praiseworthy. It could have come out badly, and we could have a scripture that tells us that evil wins in the end, let's all go out and eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
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Seemingly that could have happened as well. It's hard to know exactly where this is going. Because you could formulate truth statements about the future, and would we still be fatalistically determined?
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I think that the openness people would have to say no, but then you wonder, well, why does
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God's foreknowledge make the big difference here? If you can formulate truth statements about what will happen in the future, with or without God, then the issue to me seems moot.
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It's not moot at all, because the issue is whether what happens in the future is because of God's sovereign decree or not.
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And once you say it's not, once you abandon the sovereign decree, then what? Here's fatalistic determinism.
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This is the irony, is that it is so commonly asserted that Calvinists are the ones who believe in fatalistic determinism.
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Fatalism by nature is without purpose, it is impersonal. And so if God has no sovereign decree, and yet the future is perfectly known to him, that's fatalistic determinism.
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Isn't that weird how you make accusations and then end up holding that exact position yourself?
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But that's just, you know, I think one thing that can be brought up in response, but I do have a chapter on divine foreknowledge and human freedom in my book.
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Well, that's okay. Well, I'm not sure how that works.
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Anyways, now, very interestingly, this next one I do not understand. Here, Dr.
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Copan is asked about knowledge and causation. It goes back to what we were just saying, and a section from his book is read about psychics having knowledge of the future, but this doesn't cause it, as if this somehow has something to do with God's knowledge of the future.
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The perfection of his knowledge of the future is parallel to a psychic? Yeah, this one, well, you listen for yourself.
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By the way, the chapter is entitled, if God knows what we're going to do, then we don't have free will.
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And in that chapter, I was just turning to, paging through your book, and looking at page 78, where you make the point that God's knowledge of future actions does not by itself hinder human freedom, since knowledge does not actually cause anything.
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And then you give the analogy of a psychic who has the intuition that a murder is going to take place.
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And you ask the question, what did the psychic's knowledge actually do? Even if we can truly say that the psychic knew that a murder would take place, we do not conclude that the butler did not freely commit murder.
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Expand on that. Yeah, what I'm simply trying to say there is that just because you have knowledge, you know, granted that if you allow that the psychic genuinely has knowledge of what is going to happen, just because you have knowledge of something doesn't mean that you are the one who causes it.
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It's simply an awareness of what is going to happen. And similarly, we can talk about that with God, that God knows what we are going to do.
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And again, I don't want to get into the whole issue of, you know, God's control, because I think that there are ways to understand that as well.
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But the simple point is that knowledge in and of itself does not cause anything.
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And so that's basically where I'm going with that. We can talk about, you know, knowing that Jesus is going to return, but our knowledge of that future event doesn't actually bring
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Jesus. That's up to God's decision. Okay, so God's knowledge of future events does not cause them.
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That means they're uncaused or they're caused by fate. But they're definitely not caused by God. Obviously, what is being presented here is the passive idea that God takes in knowledge of future events.
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Maybe not in an ongoing process, maybe all at once, maybe at some point in time.
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I don't know how you put all this together, but what you definitely do not have is the historic reformed perspective that God's absolute knowledge of future events is based upon His decree.
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The fact that He created all things, including time itself. That is definitely the one thing that we do not have being presented here.
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Now, we did get a caller, and the name sounded familiar. It really did, and I've got some good buds down in Tampa, Florida.
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But this caller was from Tampa, Florida, and he asked a good question. Hello, grace and peace to you,
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Hank, and to you, Dr. Copeland. Thank you. I have a couple...
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well, my question, first of all, has to do with the overall condition of man.
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I apologize for speaking from a cell phone, but I believe, at least the scriptures teach, that after the fall of man, that sinners are dead in sin and trespasses, and alienated and separated from God as a result of this spiritual death, and that it is necessary for God to quicken dead sinners and draw them unto
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Himself in order for them to come to Him. In that regard, when the word free will is used, the problem that I have with it is not whether man has will or volition or the ability to make choices, but whether man has really the ability to make holy choices, or whether or not the holy choices that man, in fact, makes are the result of, if you'll excuse the expression, cardiac surgery performed on man by God.
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And in that sense, I believe the word free will, as Luther so put it forth, in De Servo, Diabitrio, on the enslaved will, meant to convey that sinners are dead and that they must be regenerated in order to respond to God.
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Well, that's an excellent question, very well put. I appreciate the fact that when folks call in to national broadcast and present a sound question, they do so with clarity and forethought.
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Thank you very much to our brother from Tampa for asking that meaningful question.
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And how is it answered? Well, we'll look at the first section of the answer, then take our break.
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And it looks like we're going at a good enough pace here, unless I start preaching, but maybe I'll take a few phone calls at 877 -753 -3341.
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Let's hear how the the answer began. Yeah, it's a very good question, a very loaded question, and we could,
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I'm sure, go on for quite a long time on the topic. That's why
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I said, I just don't get the feeling that Dr. Copan wanted to be going here during the majority of the program.
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A very loaded question. Someone says that they're not really comfortable with this particular subject.
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But as I understand the issue, I would say that, as I tried to articulate before, that yes, we are all dead in our trespasses and sins, and that unless God in his mercy intervenes, then there would be no hope for any one of us.
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You know, as Romans 3 talks about, no one seeks for God. Everyone has turned aside.
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Together they have become useless. That, you know, no one is righteous, not even one. And so that,
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I would wholly concur with that, that we need God's initiating grace for anyone to believe.
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Now that's the first part of the response, and I'll just simply point out, we need God's initiating grace is exactly what the
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Council of Trent said. There's nothing new about that. You can go to semi -Pelagianism and all the realm in between, and saying that grace is necessary is nothing new.
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It is not the same as what we are saying in any way, shape, or form to say that grace is necessary.
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The issue is, is grace sufficient? And you can tell that after the assertion that grace is necessary, what you're going to hear after this is, it is not sufficient to bring about the salvation of any particular individual without their free cooperation, the activity of their will, in actualizing that grace and bringing about the state of salvation.
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But that is what we'll be looking at in the next response. We're about halfway through them, and making some pretty good time here, so we may be able to take a couple of your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341.
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But first, quick break, and we'll be right back. Answering those who claim that only the
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King James Version is the Word of God, James White, in his book, The King James Only Controversy, examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true
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Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.
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You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin
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.org. What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free?
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A New Cult? Secularism? False Prophecy Scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called
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Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.
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In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, but The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply.
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It is a defense of the very principles upon which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it is a defense of the very gospel itself.
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In a style that both scholars and laymen alike can appreciate, James White masterfully counters the evidence against so -called extreme
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Calvinism, defines what the Reformed faith actually is, and concludes that the gospel preached by the
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Reformers is the very one taught in the pages of Scripture. The Potter's Freedom, a defense of the
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Reformation, and a rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen But Free. You'll find it in the Reformed Theology section of our bookstore at www .aomin
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.org. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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I was just sitting here during the break reading some of Dave Hunt's response to something
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I said about Genesis chapter 20 and oh my my my my my
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I need a lot if they had a pill that gave you patience I would I really need it right now
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I really do anyways we're reviewing some comments that were made on the Bible Answer Man broadcast concerning Calvinism and the next section we're going to be looking at continues the response that was offered by Dr.
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Copan in regards to the very excellent question asked by a caller from from Tampa and so here again we get some of the the idea of how
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God's grace can be resisted etc etc and I believe yes this is a section listen closely folks what does
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Matthew 23 37 really say is Jesus weeping no he's not weeping does
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Jesus say he wants to gather the Jews under his wings and they would not know he says to the
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Jewish leaders how often I've gathered your children under my wings but you would not he differentiates but that's not what you're going to hear but the question is can that illumination can that act of God that prevenient grace as it's been called can it be resisted and from from the way that I read scripture it does seem that that is the case
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God who desires that none perish but that all come to repentance is someone who has offered
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Christ to us the one mediator between God and man and so you have scenarios in scripture where the where the
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Holy Spirit can be resisted as Stephen said you are always resisting the
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Holy Spirit or Jesus in Matthew 23 when he cries out when weeps over Jerusalem he says how
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I long to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks but you would not you know
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God talking in Ezekiel about how he has been hurt by the adulterous ways of his people to me that seems to be more than that that there is something more going on than the kind of scenario that you described and again
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I know we could go on for a long time on this but again I try to deal with some of these issues ever so lightly in the book that I've read ever so lightly well unfortunately given the miscitation of Matthew 23 the lack of any exegesis of Acts 7 or Matthew 23
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I don't know what the Ezekiel thing has to do with with any of this relationship with Israel etc etc we're we're really not given any kind of a meaningful response
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I don't think the caller got his question answered then again
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I don't think there really is an answer from the perspective is being presented now it seems to me Dr.
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Copan wants to move on but that's not what happens but you don't believe in total inability in other words you don't hold that we are made in such a way that we can't respond or that a response is a work let me stop that right there
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I don't know anyone who says that we are made in that way as the fallen sons of Adam we have that inability due to our depravity and due to our sin not that we were made that way that's a miss miss inaccurate representation of the reform perspective
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I don't know anybody who actually teaches that Adam was made in enable unable that that obvious is a result of sin exactly yeah
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I some people say that well if you know if you say that you responded to the grace of God and certainly is biblical language you received you you embraced and so forth there is that language but some people will say well if you say that you received the gift of God that you chose the
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Bible says you choose this day whom you will serve but you know they'll say that that's a work and to me that just is so perplexing because if someone gives to me a generous gift
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I don't see myself getting any credit for opening up the wrapping
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I don't you know refer for saying thank you to the person to me it just I see all kindness there and nothing in myself that is anything meritorious for for saying thank you and taking the gift that just strikes me as very odd well what's odd is the the objection is is not what is presented here the objection is if each has been given the exact same kind of prevenient grace then what makes one man to differ about another what makes one man to accept and one man not if both are given the exact same grace if God is if God cannot in any way have redemptive self redemptive love for his people and so he tries equally hard with each individual which seems to be the the fundamental concern then why is anyone saved why will there be people in heaven and other people in hell well if it's if the answer is not to be found in God's discriminating grace then the answer must be found in the person himself
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I must in some way shape or form be more spiritual better more pliable smarter more intelligent more wise something then the people in hell and that just simply isn't the case and the praise of the glorious grace of Jesus Christ is greatly diminished when that grace is simply turned into something that tried really hard but failed with a bunch of a bunch of folks and it only worked with the other ones simply because of the fact that they cooperated with it it still moves the fundamental decision straight into the arena of man and that's exactly what the system wants because it is promoting the concept of libertarian free will one other question related to this the analogy often is made of Lazarus Lazarus was dead dead men don't respond is there a category mistake here between physical death and spiritual death now that's not the first time that Hank is asked that question and normally it's not a question normally he's making the assertion
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Hank believes it's a category error to use this illustration I use this illustration all the time and if I had the opportunity of explaining it
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I would say I'm not saying that John chapter 11 is meant by the gospel writer to be taken as a discussion of the means of regeneration however if we are saying that there is no connection between physical death and spiritual death why is the term even used or are we saying that Jesus Christ Lordship over the physical realm is not the same
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Lordship that exists in the spiritual realm and that is what's being said that is what's being said we need to recognize that the non reformed person may want to be willing to grant the
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Lord Jesus Lordship over the physical realm however because of libertarian free will the
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Lordship of the spiritual realm is in man not in Jesus Christ that's why you have the picture the inaccurate picture of Jesus standing outside of a knobless door meekly knocking not the powerful picture of Jesus standing outside the tomb saying
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Lazarus come forth and so it is a beautiful picture of raising men to spiritual life truly incredible picture but here's how the response came well
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I think I think you do have to be careful about how you construe this and when you talk about death you also have other images too that are
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I think very important to consider as well and you see for example images of enlightenment you know and again
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I don't want to get into the whole issue surrounding Hebrews about one's losing salvation but what you do see in Hebrews chapter 6 for example is those who have been enlightened and who have received the heavenly gift there does seem to be this you know if you you know say that a person cannot lose his salvation or lose his faith you do have an example of someone who genuinely receives enlightenment that there there does seem to be this not life and death but you know this ignorance as opposed to illumination and so I think you can bring in other images and scripture does bring in those other images as well and so just to leave it in the whole area of life and death may not be doing proper tribute to paying proper tribute to the other images that might be useful in discussing this whole issue of well
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I'm sorry I hit the stop button there too quickly well in other words well since there's other illustrations that are used and he goes to Hebrews 6 and I certainly would not in any way shape or form go to Hebrews 6 to to illustrate some type of general enlightenment of man but that that in essence is what's done there but I want to hurry up because we've got some callers in line there are there are two more two more cuts here and I think they're very very important the first has to do with the the issue of God and evil dr.
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Copan doesn't want to connect God too closely to the issue of evil listen what he has to say in the chapter dealing with this subject you write furthermore if God predestines literally everything that happens including acts such as the disobedience of our first ancestors then he is too closely connected to evil so we would say that God creates the potential for evil but human beings actualize that evil is that correct exactly and you could even bring it back one step further with regard to the fall of Satan you know in terms of some sort of you know the perfect environment being in the the heavenly courts so to speak but yet Turks you know again we don't know the the evidence for this is all sketchy we're just making inferences but there is this turning away from God and a reluctance turning away from wanting to serve this
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God and Satan's wanting to be his own master and so you think well you know is
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God going to you know are we going to associate the turning away somehow with God I think we have to be very careful about that some people you know talk about God's being the basically know all the causes that come ultimately from God well if we are going to tie some of those secondary causes to God so that Satan and our first ancestors turned away then then we are
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I think moving God in the direction of being the author of evil I know some would strongly disagree but that's one of the intuitions or one of the instincts that I have that I I resist because I I don't want to see
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God associated with with being the author of evil even if some people see it in a remote sense so in other words all of the passages in the
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Bible that present compatibilism Isaiah chapter 10 Genesis chapter 50 Acts chapter 4 someone channel just quoted
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Proverbs chapter 16 verse 4 which says the Lord has made everything for its own purpose even the wicked for the day of evil all those things we we want to sort of deemphasize and for what reason did you catch the terms intuition feeling that this is something that is not intuitively sound
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I mean again the difference between exegesis and other other forms of other forms authority well here's finally last cut and this one
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I thought was very very important listen very carefully to what is said in response to this question you consider this an in -house debate well it is to some degree in -house debate but I think it also becomes a stumbling block to other people
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I have known many people who have turned away from Christianity precisely because of this issue they have seen the strong predestinarian viewpoint as being an overly harsh and perhaps deterministic understanding of human choices and so they have
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I mean I meet people on a regular basis who have turned from God because of this think of one person by the name of Anthony Flew who expresses this sort of a thing himself and basically lumps in a forthcoming book he edited by Stan Wallace he basically associates the
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Christian viewpoint with this predestinarian understanding I think it's a red herring frankly or he's just creating a straw man but I just note how there is this strong association and how it some people have found it very counterintuitive and morally problematic counterintuitive and morally problematic those the terminologies you just heard the term predestination appears in scripture there are numerous places to speak of God hardening hearts and and destroying the king of bastion and all the rest of these things and and yet it's counterintuitive and and Anthony Flew doesn't like this there are people have been driven away think about the anthropology that underlies that statement in other words
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God's truth will attract rebel sinners think about that one for just a moment it would seem to follow the cross should be attractive to rebel sinners but we know it's not you see once you deny the depravity of man once you die that that if you are not in Christ Jesus you are the enemy of God you're in rebellion against God then it affects everything else and of course you know you have the two things and and I think
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Alvin was right we talked about you know which comes first knowledge of ourselves or knowledge of God I mean we can't have true knowledge of ourselves without seeing ourselves in light of God we can to knowledge of God as long as we think ourselves but to be demigods there's the the two are linked to one another and that's why the two fundamental foundational issues are the sovereignty of God the fact that he is the creator of all things and if all things are going to result in his honor and glory than what takes place in time is not the random result of his creatures it is part and parcel of his creative purpose now the
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Bible teaches that he holds man accountable all those objections they well then man can't be accountable fall flat on Genesis 50
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Isaiah 10 and acts for there is no exegesis offered by folks who keep repeating those things of those passages and you just don't see any any answer being given and so that argument doesn't work it's frustrating to hear this kind of thing being repeated because you know that in the lives of so many people they're not hearing the other side they're only hearing this one side and they're not hearing the response to it and and we do our our best to give a response and to point out that there's a bunch of stuff that isn't being said and isn't being isn't being responded to a couple folks have called 877 -753 -3341 and let's start in the order in which we received the got a few minutes let's talk to James in Denton Texas hello
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James how are you doing all right my question was in regards to John chapter 1 okay 12 and 13 mm -hmm and it says yet to all who received him to those who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God and then in verse 13 he says that it's children that are born of God and not of human will or decision is it talking about regeneration they're being born of God yes yeah and so I was wondering in verse 12 it says that that is given to those who have received him those who have believed him and I was just wondering that I had understood that regeneration was an act that preceded faith well the assumption that you're making is that there is an ordo salutis being introduced between verses 12 through 13 and that's that's where the error is if you will look at the use of the term born that is used and in fact interestingly enough verse verse 13 in the
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Greek the phrase but I've been born from God is at the very end of verse 13
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I'm English translations for various and sundry reasons reverse that and put it right at the beginning so it looks like there's supposed to be a direct connection in fact the phrase but have been born from God both of these phrases that do not connect the way that you're assuming
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I'm looking for something right now in my both look at the screen and looking for a little note that I had here because I address the specific specific issue and unfortunately grab the wrong wrong one here so I'll just go something else anyways the problem is you're assuming that when it comes to verse 13 that this is temporarily located after verse 12 so this is what happens and then the result is we are born but the problem is the verse 13 is describing those who received him and if you look at John John uses this phrase in my head here
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I believe it's first John 227 for 751 in the exact same context the exact same terminology and each one of those places the being born of God results in men doing something believing loving and doing righteousness the three things in first John here in John chapter 1 verse 12 it is receiving
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Jesus Christ and believing his name that is the result again of being born again so the the issue is is this somehow an ordo salutis that is an order of salvation is a a direct lineal connection being drawn out here or is verse 13 describing those who do the actions of verse 12 and the only consistent way of looking at the
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John's gospel and his epistles is to recognize that he is describing them and I'm not sure if you read
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Greek or not but if you look at verse 13 you can see it starts off with the plural article those those individuals going back to verse 12 and then describes them as the ones who are not of blood not not blood literally nor the will of the flesh neither of the will of man but from God have been born and the have been born looks in some
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English translations like it's repeated twice it's not that one verb is at the very end of the sentence and it's describing those who are those who receive him despite the fact others rejected him who are those who believe in his name they're the ones who are born of God that's that's the the issue that is there is very common for people say that the problem is the very phrase itself says they are not born of the will of the flesh nor the will of man so if the action of receiving and believing is of the will of man then if you make this an ordered statement like that it becomes a self -contradictory statement that's why you have to recognize everything that John is saying okay thank you okay thank you thank you you have good one too and Scott in Kirkland Washington hi
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Scott I don't I'm doing well are you doing all right well
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I guess I just want to make a quick comment first I guess what would dr. Copan have to say to Jesus and John chapter 6 because Jesus seems to really blow it there by teaching some
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Calvinism doesn't he well you know that I actually have invited I haven't heard back from this fellow yet but I actually invited the moderator of the pal talk channel that I was in last night that was set up to denigrate
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Calvinism attack Calvinism to be on our program on the 20th now someone else
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I think I had mentioned at some point in the past something else going on the 20th that person did not want to debate the topic that we had initially agreed on still hoping by the way to have a debate
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Thursday night though I'll tell everybody right now we have not been able to contact the Roman Catholic individual who were supposed to be debating
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Thursday night no emails the email address I had is bad it hasn't come into his own channel in at least three days so we're gonna try to go for a debate on Thursday night but right now we have had no contact whatsoever so if anyone knows
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Aquinas let him know we're looking for him we've got him you know he agreed to do it so anyways on the 20th we're gonna ask this fellow to come in channel let me know today if you can do it to discuss
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John chapter 6 and to exegete John chapter 6 and to explain because he's very firm on this that there's no such thing as irresistible grace there's no such thing as man's inability
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I would like to hear a an interpretation of John 644 but certainly the result of Jesus preaching was what they all walked away he starts off the day before with 5 ,000 men more than that when you include women and children they're described as seeking him look as they come across the lake and they are coming after to to hear him and what happens by the end of that whole situation well they they all walk away but but the disciples and so yeah
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Jesus certainly would not follow after most of the church growth methodologies that are that are offered out there no toys about it yeah well but my question for you was that when he talks about the the gift being unwrapped how much of this is a problem that I think actually in Simon Escobedo's article on first Peter to one he kind of addresses it is the issue between what is being bought here is it for example ice cream being bought for an individual or a gift being bought or as an individual being bought or purchased mm -hmm yeah well it's always used in the in the context of well salvation is a gift being offered it is something we somehow possess it doesn't really fit real well with issues concerning what redemption actually is that we are the ones who are redeemed it doesn't fit real well with with the idea of redemption being actual instead that kind of language would more be based upon the concept of what
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Jesus purchased was a theoretical atonement that then has to be actualized by the works that we do whether it be a an act of faith or all the various work salvation systems it's all a matter of synergism and adding that that extra element to it whereas in reality what is what is purchased was the people of God that's what
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Matthew 121 tells us that he is he is called Jesus because he will save his people from their sins and he does so by a perfect sacrifice that perfects for all time those for whom it is made he was chapter 10 so it there there really is a fundamental difference in how these issues are framed and presented and I wish that there was much more opportunity for dialogue with folks on a on a national level that would that would bring these issues to the text itself and and and not just in a in a sense of saying well you know you present your side will present our side and and then we we don't argue about anything we don't make anybody feel bad by really pressing the issues the you know that really shows that we don't have a very deep passion for the truth itself if we're more concerned about what someone may think or feel then then about the the truth itself and I'm not saying you just you just you know spitting people's faces and be mean that the point is if if someone is repeating a tradition like misquoting
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Matthew 23 37 somebody needs to call them on it and say hey stop misquoting this verse it doesn't say that offer an exegesis let's let's be serious the text we do that with issues like the deity of Christ the
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Trinity why don't we do it on this one because it runs up against traditions within evangelicalism itself well hey thanks for your call today thanks for listening to the dividing line like I said right now the plan is
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Thursday evening an extended edition of the dividing line debating Roman Catholic apologists by name of Aquinas on the subject of the
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Apocrypha but we can't find him if he doesn't show I'll give a presentation on the Apocrypha anyways and we'll go from there but that's our plans for Thursday evening see you then on the dividing line 8 5 0 6 9 you can also find us on the world wide web at a omen org that's a o m i n dot o r g where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books tapes debates and tracks join us again next