Debate: Are Roman Catholics Our Brothers and Sisters in Christ? (White vs Wilson)

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

10

Comments are disabled.

00:01

The following presentation is a production of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc. and is protected by copyright laws of the

00:07

United States and its international treaties. Copying or distribution of this production without the expressed written permission of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc.

00:16

is prohibited. Well, welcome to the 2004 Alpha and Omega National Convention.

00:26

I'd like to start off by just saying that when I picked up both of these gentlemen with the shuttle, it wasn't actually me who picked them up, but the shuttle for the airport, right away the conversation went into, well, this is how a blue state is.

00:40

You know, right away you know you're in a blue state. And, of course, we've had a tremendous amount of things on our collective minds, obviously, and I especially think of Dr.

00:51

White and Pastor Wilson, how, gosh, if the difference might have been on Tuesday that we had more blue than red, whether each one of them might have had to have changed their eschatological views.

01:02

But, just kidding. Tongue firmly implanted in cheek.

01:09

But, certainly, if you are with us tonight, it is probably an indication that you believe that there should be a sustained theological engagement within the evangelical community.

01:20

Whether it be in blogs or chat channels, there is at least a markedly different attitude towards theological reflection than that of the ambivalence that exists in much of the evangelical community today.

01:35

But, there must also be a goal in our theological engagement that ascends to the pattern established by the apostolic witness and that avoids the descent into the ad hominem argumentation that so often accompanies theological disagreements.

01:52

Well, I'm happy to say that these two gentlemen have come here tonight to engage in scholastic theological debate in order to define their differences and to bring their viewpoints to be acutely scrutinized by one another.

02:09

But, in doing so, they will most certainly maintain that they are both in God's salvific covenant.

02:15

The affirmed topic is serious. Are Roman Catholics members of the

02:20

New Covenant? And, with the central issue being, does Trinitarian baptism make one a member of the

02:26

New Covenant? Well, taking the affirmative tonight will be the pastor of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho and professor at New St.

02:36

Andrew's College and Seminary in Moscow, Idaho. He is the editor of Credenda Agenda and is the author of several well -known titles such as To a

02:46

Thousand Generations, Federal Husband, Reformed is Not Enough and many, many others.

02:53

Would you please with me welcome Pastor Douglas Wilson. Well, taking the negative position tonight will be an elder of Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church and professor at Columbia Evangelical Seminary and Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary.

03:23

He is the founder of Alpha Omega Ministries and is the author of many well -known titles such as The God Who Justifies, The Forgotten Trinity, The Roman Catholic Controversy and many, many others.

03:34

Would you please welcome tonight Dr. James White. Let me explain quickly to you how this is going to happen tonight.

03:51

First, we're going to start off with two 20 -minute opening statements which will be followed by two 15 -minute rebuttals.

03:58

At the end of those two rebuttals, we will have a 10 -minute break, okay, which we will start promptly 10 minutes right afterwards.

04:06

Then we'll go into 40 minutes of cross -examination and then two 10 -minute closes.

04:12

And I would ask for you to do this, and this is in respect for the speaker's time, to please hold applause until the end of their time, okay.

04:22

Even though there might be something that really stirs your soul, please hold your applause till afterwards. And with that, could we just bow and have a silent word of prayer?

04:45

Amen. Pastor Wilson? I would like to begin by offering my thanks to Alpha Omega Ministries for inviting me to this event and to James White for engaging in this debate with me.

05:07

I've been looking forward to it and I'm genuinely glad to be here. I would also like to thank the many in attendance here, some of whom have come a great distance.

05:16

It is a great pleasure to be able to address an issue of some importance in a way that I hope will be truly edifying to the larger

05:22

Christian community. Before proceeding to my argument, I would like to begin with an assertion so that there will be no confusion about my position concerning the

05:31

Church of Rome. I detest the errors of Rome and I pray for the day of her repentance.

05:37

Among those errors I would include the idolatry of the mass, the use of images in worship, their profound confusion on the matter of faith and works, purgatory, mariolatry, merit, the saints, the papacy and a suspected recent deal with the devil involving the

05:52

Boston Red Sox. In preparation for this debate,

06:04

I read James White's book, The Roman Catholic Controversy, which I thought was quite good. Judging from that book,

06:11

I do not know of any distinctive Roman doctrine concerning which James White and I would disagree.

06:17

At the same time, I believe our Lord's teaching requires us to detest our own failings more than those of others.

06:24

And as a classical Protestant, I can only lament what the larger Protestant world has become.

06:30

As someone who wants to be fully identified as a dedicated, convinced and practicing Protestant, one who by the grace of God is going to die in the evangelical faith he was brought up in, honesty still compels me to state that I detest our sectarianism, infighting,

06:46

Jim Crack evangelism, hostility to covenant connections and lack of historical awareness.

06:52

These are our besetting sins and I believe the best way to demand that Rome repent is to show them how.

06:59

And no, repentance does not require returning to Rome, but it does require returning to the scriptures and it does require a new reformation.

07:07

I fully believe that the issues we are discussing tonight are not at all peripheral to that reformation.

07:13

Before proceeding to my positive case, I would like to make a brief preliminary argument in order to set boundaries for what others might do with our discussion here tonight.

07:23

I appreciate how James White has already framed his understanding of this debate and so these remarks are not directed to him or to you here tonight.

07:31

But as one who has been condemned as a heretic by certain scribes in the Reformed Sanhedrin, some of whom could not locate their confessional hinder parts if allowed to use both hands,

07:41

I really cannot afford to participate in a debate like this without making certain things abundantly clear.

07:48

I'm sure you understand my dilemma and perhaps your heart goes out to me. At the center, this debate is really going to revolve around the question of whether or not

07:57

Protestant churches should receive Roman Catholic baptism, thereby acknowledging it at some level to be a valid new covenant baptism.

08:06

This means that part of this statement will necessarily be an exercise in historical theology and not just an exegetical question.

08:13

I understand fully that just because certain reformers held to a position does not automatically make that position scriptural or right.

08:21

Synods and councils have erred and do err. But bringing this up might prevent modern adherents of these same positions, like me, from having to endure the absurd charge of having abandoned the

08:32

Reformed faith. From 1517, when the Reformation broke out, down to 1845, when

08:38

J. H. Thornwell and Charles Hodge differed at the General Assembly of that year over this issue, the overwhelming position of the

08:45

Reformed churches was that of receiving Roman Catholic baptism. This was not an issue that can be dismissed as an unexamined holdover from the medieval era.

08:53

It was thoroughly examined and regularly debated. This was one of the defining issues that distinguished the

08:59

Magisterial Reformation from the Radical Reformation. As I said, this in itself does not make one position or the other right.

09:06

To determine that, we must turn ultimately to scriptures, as I will seek to do in just a few moments.

09:12

But it does mean that a man should be able to hold the same position today without fear of being labeled sympathetic to Rome.

09:19

This is not the road to Rome. This is the road our fathers took out of Rome. The Magisterial Reformation was not closet potpourri.

09:28

And yet some of us today who hold to certain positions articulated and defended in the Magisterial Reformation too often have to endure this kind of profound misunderstanding.

09:38

So, who held the view that Roman Catholic baptism was a valid administration of New Covenant baptism?

09:44

Among others, I would like to name as my cohorts in crime John Calvin, John Knox, Theodore Beza, William Perkins, Samuel Rutherford, Richard Baxter, Francis Turretin, Charles Hodge, and A .A.

09:58

Hodge. Providing implicit support for this view would be the position outlined by the Westminster Confession of Faith.

10:05

I'm not going to quote extensively from all these gentlemen because we do need to get to the scriptural argument. But I want to make it perfectly clear that this debate we are having is a comparatively recent intramural reformed debate since 1845, and it does not represent a clash between light and darkness, good and evil,

10:22

Klingons and Smurfs. So, here are just a few quotations to give you some idea of where I got my unsavory opinions.

10:31

Bad companions, as they say, corrupt good morals. From John Calvin's Institutes, Book 4, such in the present day are our catebaptists who deny that we are duly baptized because we are baptized in the papacy by wicked men and idolaters.

10:46

Hence, they furiously insist on anabaptism. John Calvin's commentary on Amos 5 .26,

10:55

John Calvin, so it is with baptism. It is a sacred and immutable testimony of the grace of God, though it were administered by the devil, though all who may partake of it were ungodly and polluted as to their own persons.

11:08

Samuel Rutherford, Rutherford provides us with an interesting case because he not only argued for the legitimacy of Roman Catholic baptism, but does so while arguing for the legitimacy and necessity of Roman Catholic orders, ordination.

11:21

Virtually all Protestants accepted baptism performed by Roman Catholic priests while there was debate, for example, on baptism performed by Roman Catholic midwives.

11:30

This is Rutherford, John Robinson the separatist, brackets on the identification, and our brethren acknowledge that the

11:37

Church of Rome hath true baptism, even as the vessels of the Lord's house profaned in Babylon may be carried back to the temple.

11:44

But I answer, if baptism be valid in Rome, then so are the ministers, baptizers.

11:51

A. A. Hodge, all, quote, all who are baptized into the name of the Father and of the

11:56

Son and of the Holy Ghost, recognizing the trinity of the persons in the Godhead, the incarnation of the

12:01

Son, and his priestly sacrifice, whether they be Greeks or Armenians or Romanists or Lutherans or Calvinists or the simple souls who do not know what to call themselves, are our brethren.

12:13

Baptism is our common countersign. It is the common rallying standard at the head of our several columns.

12:20

Note that Hodge called Roman Catholics his brethren. Not only so, but he managed that particular stunt in a banner of truth book.

12:31

Nevertheless, despite this cloud of witnesses, even if I'm an error on this and shown to be an error from the scriptures,

12:37

I hope before God that I would receive the truth and humility and confess my fault. But if I were prevailed upon to do this,

12:44

I would be confessing a characteristic reformed fault held by virtually all of our reformed fathers for 328 years.

12:53

That's a lot of times around the Son. I would also hope that those same reformed fathers would be equally correctable on this issue, although Knox might present a little trouble.

13:02

But in any case, for all of them, the arguments would need to be pretty good, and they would have to be better than the arguments they encountered in their day.

13:11

Having said this, I'd like to turn to the scriptural argumentation. If the scriptural phrase New Covenant is to be taken as synonymous with the elect or the invisible church, then of course we cannot answer our question in the affirmative.

13:26

With such an understanding, we could not say that Roman Catholics are members of the New Covenant. But of course, because we would now be dealing with the secret decree and the invisible church, we could also not say that Southern Baptists were members of the

13:38

New Covenant, or Free Methodists, or Presbyterians. While I think that the doctrine of sovereign election is an important doctrinal truth and one that I heartily affirm,

13:48

I do not believe that this is strictly in view when the Bible uses the phrase New Covenant. The number of the elect and the members of the

13:54

New Covenant are not an interchangeable set of names until the last day, when they will be.

14:00

Put in familiar categories, the New Covenant people in the New Testament are the visible church, not the invisible church.

14:07

And as we consider this question, it all comes down to whether or not the Bible teaches that the New Covenant can be broken by any of the members of that covenant.

14:14

I am asking if the New Covenant contains any covenant breakers of the New Covenant itself. Can the

14:19

New Covenant itself be broken? I want to begin by setting a scriptural pattern, and I want to show how this pattern can be seen as culminating in a specific apostolic warning to the church at Rome, which is the subject of our proposition being debated tonight.

14:34

Hebrews 10 .29, and James, I'm sorry about the King James here, of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the

14:51

Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the

14:59

Spirit of grace. The book of Hebrews was written to a new covenant people, and it was written in order to head off a looming apostasy.

15:07

This is what the entire book is about. In this verse, we learn that the sanctions of the New Covenant are more severe than the sanctions under Moses, quote unquote sorer punishment.

15:17

The New Covenant does not contain no sanctions, it contains more severe sanctions.

15:23

If we allow the New Testament to define what Jeremiah meant when he prophesied of the New Covenant, we will spend most of our time with the entire book of Hebrews.

15:31

This book is where we receive an extended and inspired commentary on this prophecy of Jeremiah, and that commentary makes it plain that apostasy is a very real threat for New Covenant members.

15:43

Members of the visible church can and do fall away from Christ. Now is apostasy a possibility for those who are decretely elect?

15:52

Of course not. But here in this passage, we find New Covenant members who will receive sorer punishment because they trampled the

15:59

Son of God underfoot and reckoned the blood of the covenant, the blood that sanctified them, as an unholy thing.

16:05

For various reasons, we have a tendency to draw contrasts between the old and new covenant people at precisely those places where the

16:12

New Testament draws parallels. Hebrews 3, wherefore as the Holy Ghost saith, today if you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness, when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.

16:29

Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, they do always err in their heart, and they have not known my ways.

16:36

So I swear in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest. Take heed brethren, note this, take heed brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief.

16:49

Brethren with an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God, but exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.

17:01

For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.

17:06

We are not told in the New Covenant that it is impossible for New Covenant members to depart from the living God.

17:12

We are not told in the New Covenant that there will be no bodies scattered across the wilderness. We are warned solemnly again and again about the dangers of hardening our hearts in just the way that our fathers the

17:22

Jews did. Now whatever this means, it cannot mean that in the New Covenant such hardening of heart is an impossibility.

17:29

Again for clarity's sake, I want to assert that such apostasy, such hardening of heart is an impossibility for the elect.

17:35

And again just for the record, I am so Calvinistic it makes my back teeth ache. In another place, the

17:42

Corinthian Gentiles were beginning to boast and puff themselves up a little. We have baptism. We have the

17:48

Lord's Supper. We have spiritual food and spiritual drink. We have Christ. Not so fast,

17:54

Paul said. So did the Jews in the wilderness. And their bodies were scattered across that wilderness to provide a solemn example for you.

18:02

Moreover, brethren, I would not, you should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and were all baptized unto

18:10

Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and did all eat the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink.

18:16

For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. But with many of them, God was not well pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

18:25

Now these things were our examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

18:32

First Corinthians 10, 1 through 6. In short, our fathers, the Jews, are our examples today.

18:38

And with a number of them, God was not well pleased. But what does all this have to do with the

18:43

Roman Church? Rome has fallen into the errors she has because she has refused to heed the warning explicitly given by the

18:51

Apostle Paul to that specific church, a warning very much like the ones we've just been considering.

18:56

The Apostle could already see the stirrings of hubris in that church, in that ancient capital city, and so he spoke to it bluntly.

19:04

The Apostle Paul saw with remarkable prescience that the Church of Rome was going to be a problem, and he addressed it forthrightly.

19:12

And the only thing that is more remarkable than the Church of Rome ignoring these Pauline warnings, aimed straight at her besetting sins, is the fact that Protestants have also largely ignored the fact that these warnings were directed at Rome.

19:25

For if the first fruit be holy, the lump is also holy, and if the root be holy, so are the branches.

19:32

And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches.

19:42

But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou will say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.

19:49

Well, because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not high -minded, but fear.

19:57

For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed, lest he also spare not thee.

20:03

Behold, therefore, the goodness and severity of God on them which fell severity, but toward thee goodness. If thou continue in his goodness otherwise, thou also shalt be cut off.

20:13

Rome, thou shalt be cut off. Why? Because of unbelief and covenant presumption.

20:19

Luther said it well when he said that Sola Fide is the article of a standing or falling church.

20:24

And here is the text for that. Unbelief caused the Jews to be broken off, and thou standest by faith.

20:32

Now, this is not a statement that Rome has fallen into complete apostasy, but it certainly is a statement that Rome is capable of complete apostasy.

20:41

She can fall away. She is not indefectible. This being the case, then why could we not say that Rome has been broken off because of her formal and judicial denial of Sola Fide and other doctrines at the

20:52

Council of Trent? Four comments. First, the unbelief for which the Jews were cut off in 70 AD was a problem that had plagued them for centuries.

21:01

God does not operate on a covenantal hair trigger. All day long he holds out his hands to a disobedient people.

21:07

Second, if we drum out of the new covenant anyone who does not hold to a pure understanding of Sola Fide, then we've not only gotten rid of Rome, but also of most

21:16

Protestants. Take as one example of a Protestant Council of Trent this statement from the

21:21

Free Will Baptist Articles of Faith. Quote, the human will is free and self -controlled, having power to yield to the influence of the truth and the spirit, or to resist them and perish.

21:31

Now, would we accept their baptisms? Well, of course we would. Third, if we require a pure understanding of Sola Fide in order to be included in the new covenant, then we have denied

21:40

Sola Fide. It is not faith plus a passing grade on your ordination exam. It is not faith plus anything.

21:47

It is God -given faith in Jesus, period. Fourth, this is not an issue to be decided by this individual or that one.

21:55

Either God will do it in a signal and unmistakable way, as he did with the Jews in 70 A .D., or he will do it working through an ecumenical council of the continuing and faithful church.

22:05

And unfortunately, the Protestant church is too fragmented to make the kind of statement that one day might need to be made.

22:11

We are too much in need of repentance on this point to be entrusted with any judgment of the lack of repentance on the part of others.

22:18

But more on this in a moment. It is important to me, for me, to acknowledge that this has not always been my position.

22:25

In the past I have maintained, although I cannot find where I said this, that Rome was guilty of a final apostasy at Trent, wherein solemn ecumenical council she anathematized any who faithfully held to the biblical gospel.

22:38

This is no longer my position, and if my worthy opponent has found a quotation of mine that says this and returns to this point to press it,

22:44

I will merely say, I changed my mind and it is a practice I commend to you. It is nevertheless still my position that what happened at Trent deserved removal from the olive tree, that is, from the

22:59

Catholic church, small c, Catholic. But I am now convinced that such a removal has not yet occurred.

23:05

God does not always give us what we deserve. Why is this no longer my position? First, I find no signal event of providence that could be interpreted in this way.

23:14

No blazing meteor has landed on the Vatican while crying out, come out from among her and be separate. Secondly, there has been no concerted ecumenical rejection of Rome as entirely and completely apostate.

23:24

It might be countered that the Westminster assembly should count, and they reckon the papacy as the antichrist.

23:30

Does that not matter? No, because that assembly occurred 198 years before classical

23:35

Protestants began rejecting Roman Catholic baptisms in 1845. The men of Westminster would have been on my side in this debate.

23:43

Again, consider men like Rutherford. The Apostle Paul gives the textual basis for all of this in Ephesians.

24:15

is foundationally Trinitarian, one God and Father, one Lord, one Spirit. Woven in with this

24:20

Trinitarian reality is the phrase, one baptism. Baptism into the triune name means what

24:25

God says it means and not what the men performing it say or think about it. Let God be true and every man a liar.

24:34

So then, Trinitarian baptism, baptism into the triune name, places an individual into an objective covenant relationship with Christ.

24:41

This does not mean he is automatically regenerate or that he is necessarily among the elect. The conclusion is that I believe that faithless

24:49

Roman Catholics are, in fact, members of the new covenant. Otherwise, how could they be covenant breakers? To illustrate our difference,

24:55

James White believes faithless Roman Catholics to be guilty of the sin of spiritual fornication.

25:01

I believe them to be guilty of the far more serious sin of adultery, and part of my mission here tonight is to encourage my brother to be a little bit harder on Rome.

25:11

Thank you. Thank you, Pastor Wilson. Dr. White has 20 minutes for his opening statement.

25:42

It does seem somewhat unfair that I would have such a tremendous advantage this evening in getting to use a modern translation of the

25:49

Bible, but we will attempt to work through this difficulty. It is good to be with you this evening.

26:01

It is very encouraging to see the large number of people that are here this evening.

26:06

There are many people in our society that would think that we in this room are doing something extremely odd to gather to discuss a theological topic, and in fact a very politically incorrect theological topic.

26:20

Our subject is one that many people would have a difficulty understanding, but the reason that we have chosen this subject is because of the fact that it touches upon the very nature of the

26:32

Gospel. Many of you in this room, I know, have come out of Roman Catholicism.

26:39

Many of you have come to know the liberating Gospel of Jesus Christ from within a religious system that while you toiled within it, and while you did what it demanded of you, it did not give you peace, it did not give you salvation, until you came to understand that the

26:56

Gospel was not to be found in the possession of the Roman Communion. As such, you have members of your family, even this night, who are in that communion, and hence you find this to be a very important subject, and that's what has brought me here this evening.

27:13

That is my concern. As I understand the federal vision, as I understand the movement that has been described in that way, it in essence comes from a pastoral concern, and it is a pastoral and apologetic concern that brings me here this evening.

27:30

The pastoral concern, as I understood it, as I have sought to fairly in a balanced way examine the teachings of those who would go under the banner of federal visionism, is that there is a concern about a morbid introspection, about those who are constantly examining themselves and saying, am

27:51

I really a Christian? And all of us, when we examine our works, when we examine our lives, can see the tinge of arrogance, the tinge of sin upon even our righteous deeds.

28:04

And as such, it is very easy for the gentle soul, the introspective soul, to be constantly wondering, am

28:12

I truly a Christian? And so to address this pastoral problem, a problem

28:19

I must admit that in my pastoral ministry I do not see to be the major problem,

28:24

I would like to have more people who would be introspective concerning their spiritual lives and their spiritual existence.

28:32

It is not my experience that that is the central pastoral problem, but even laying that issue aside, the idea is that we need an objective way of knowing who is in the covenant and who is not, and this objective way is

28:47

Trinitarian baptism. This gives us assurance. We are to look to God's promise in baptism as that assurance.

28:56

Now, of course, there are many who immediately point out that doesn't really give you assurance when you then turn around and say, well, those who are baptized, there are going to be some who, because they are of the elect, are going to be faithful, they are going to fulfill the obligations of a covenant member, and then there are others who, while they've been put into the covenant by this act of baptism, in fact, because they're not elect, are going to be unfaithful and, in fact, are going to have covenant curses come upon them.

29:25

I'm not sure how that increases one's assurance, to be honest with you, but that is the pastoral background.

29:32

Now, obviously, for most of you who have a knowledge of the books that have been written,

29:38

I have attempted to make sure. I believe I've read everything that Pastor Wilson has written on this subject.

29:45

I've written everything he's put on his blog on this. How many of you here have read everything that Doug Wilson has written on the

29:51

Auburn Avenue controversy on his blog? I'm really sorry. Boy, that was an opening

30:02

I'm not going to follow, but anyway, I have. I have tried to make sure that I understand exactly what is being said in this particular situation.

30:12

As I've read these things, obviously, if you know something about the background, many of you probably came here this evening going, why in the world is that James White character debating

30:21

Douglas Wilson? James White normally debates Roman Catholics. He debates Muslims.

30:27

He debates Jehovah's Witnesses. Why is he debating Douglas Wilson? I thought they were both those odd Calvinists.

30:34

Can you imagine what would happen if Dave Hunt walked into this room? So, what's going on?

30:47

Many of the issues that took up, I would say, the majority of the space in the discussions that took place might be called inter -Presbyterian issues.

30:58

They are issues regarding the interpretation of the Westminster Confession of Faith. They are issues regarding the history of how that's been understood and other confessions and other symbols and all these types of things.

31:10

Pastor Wilson has many times in his writings said, you know what, I really wish that my opponents would just be consistent and become

31:18

Reformed Baptists. Well, here I am. We don't have to worry about that part tonight.

31:25

I am a Reformed Baptist, conscientiously so, hopefully knowledgeably so.

31:31

So, why in the world am I here? I am here because over the past 14 years, the

31:38

Lord in an amazing, an amazing way has given me the opportunity of debating almost all of the leading

31:46

Roman Catholic apologists in the United States, many of them more than once. I have challenged all the leading ones.

31:53

There are a number of them who won't debate. In doing so, I have had the opportunity of addressing this issue of the

32:01

Roman Catholic Church and especially the issue of the Roman Catholic Gospel. And I have said in debate repeatedly that the reason that we need to engage in these debates is because Rome does not possess the

32:15

Gospel of Christ. And if Rome does not possess the Gospel of Christ, then we must count the cost and we must do the politically incorrect thing and we must evangelize the proclamation of the truth of the

32:30

Gospel, the Roman Catholic people, if we love them and if we honor God's truth.

32:36

That has been my position. But then all of a sudden, someone comes along and I've written books presenting the five points of Calvinism and Doug Wilson has written books presenting the five points of Calvinism.

32:50

And most people would say, well, Doug Wilson is a Calvinist and he's just as wacky and wrong about those things as James White is.

32:56

And yet, Doug Wilson is saying that a Roman Catholic is in the New Covenant, a

33:02

Roman Catholic is my brother or sister in Christ and that the way to reach them, and this is the terminology that was not used this evening, but I would imagine it will be accepted because it was used, especially in the 2002

33:13

Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church Conference, we need to grab them by their baptism. Now, when

33:21

I debate a Roman Catholic, when I evangelize a Roman Catholic, I'm not trying to grab them by their baptism.

33:28

The baptism that they experienced may well be in a Trinitarian form. So is the baptism of my

33:33

Mormon friends in Salt Lake City. But the problem is quite simply this, and if you want to get down to where the nitty -gritty is this evening, if you want to get down to where my heart is and where my concern is this evening,

33:49

I don't believe that someone is my brother or sister in Christ when they have never even heard the

34:00

Gospel of Jesus Christ. The union that I have with someone who is my brother or my sister in the faith is a spirit -born union.

34:12

It is a union of common confession that Jesus Christ is Lord, that He rose from the dead, and that there is nothing that I can do to save myself.

34:23

It is all of grace, and I understand Rome's Gospel well enough to know that when you begin to consider not only the idolatry, and that was the terminology

34:35

I believe Pastor Wilson used, the idolatry of the mass, the idea that Jesus Christ, His sacrifice is represented as a propitiatory sacrifice, but a sacrifice that can never save anyone.

34:48

When you understand the concept of the treasury of merit, of indulgences, yes indulgences are still around folks, there are more sections in the modern

34:57

Catholic catechism on indulgences than there are on justification. When you consider the treasury of merit, when you consider the excess merit of Mary, when you consider the whole concept of how a

35:09

Roman Catholic believes that he will stand before God clothed in a multi -form robe of righteousness made up of the righteousness of Christ, Mary, the saints, and my own righteousness, when you understand just that amount, and we haven't gotten to the sacramentalism, we haven't gotten to the priest as an alter

35:29

Christus, another Christ. When you understand all that, from my perspective, all of the

35:38

Trinitarian baptism in the world is not going to put that person in relationship with Jesus Christ when the gospel itself is not only absent, but that act is performed in direct defiance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

35:58

The Holy Spirit doesn't honor that. The Holy Spirit is not involved in that.

36:04

Think of what happens. One of the problems, many of my Presbyterian friends have expressed to me that one of the big problems they have with this perspective, that this objective activity of Trinitarian baptism automatically results in this being joined to the covenant and the responsibilities of the covenant and being in Christ.

36:23

One of the things they point out is, look, what we've always understood along those lines, and I'm speaking now about a

36:30

Presbyterian perspective, is that the reason you baptize your children is because they're born in the covenant.

36:36

And Pastor Wilson has said that. He's said that on his blog. We baptize our children because they're Christians. But the point is, they've been born in a

36:45

Christian family where the gospel is present, where the parents embrace the gospel.

36:50

When we talk about Roman Catholicism, we talk about a system that the Westminster Confession of Faith, when it talks about marriage, says you're not to marry a papist or someone who holds damnable heresies.

37:04

Why would they say that? The problem is, you have, in Roman Catholicism, generational heresy.

37:14

You have generational false gospels. How can that be the realm in which the covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ exists?

37:29

This is the issue as I see it. Now, we heard already in the presentation that in essence, well, there have been people who have accepted

37:37

Roman Catholic baptisms. Well, there have been others who did not, and I'm not going to argue about that. I agree with Greg Bonson when he was asked about that question, that the issue, the dividing line is are we talking about a true church or a false church?

37:51

Are we talking about a true church or a false church? And he says, Rome's a false church. Rome doesn't have the gospel.

37:58

The same thing is true of Mormons. So, that issue aside, you've heard it said this evening, well, the

38:08

New Testament teaches us that we have these people who are members of the covenant, and yet they fall away.

38:18

Well, it's one thing to discuss apostates and people who have made a profession of faith, but I want to, before I address those apostasy passages and the issue of the nature of the covenant,

38:29

I want to try to make sure that we are all on the same page. Let's keep something in mind. I think there is a fundamental difference between someone who has been under the sound of the gospel, someone who has been in the fellowship of faith, which is the context of the

38:44

New Testament, certainly when Paul addresses the Corinthians, the Corinthians had heard the gospel.

38:50

They had heard it directly from Paul. There's a vast difference between someone in that context, and their falling away, and the person that lives in a

39:02

Roman Catholic country today, who for generation after generation after generation, there has been no gospel preaching.

39:12

For generation after generation, there has been the worship, literally, of false gods. Some of you who have gone to Central and South America know exactly what

39:22

I'm talking about, and the fact that Mary and the saints function as deities for many

39:29

Roman Catholics in those nations. In that type of a situation, where there's been no gospel proclamation, how can we say that mere

39:40

Trinitarian baptism, doing something in the right name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, while not believing what the

39:47

Father has said about the gospel, while not believing what the Son has accomplished about the gospel, while in fact rejecting what the

39:54

Spirit does in the accomplishment of the gospel, and replacing those divine truths with hellish errors, how can that simple action be said to have anything to do with true

40:09

Christianity? I see nothing in the New Testament to lead me to believe that that is the case.

40:14

I see no discussion of this kind of person whatsoever in the New Testament. In Galatians 2, we have an excellent example.

40:22

We have an example of men who were baptized, men who were in the very leadership of the church, men who had access to the apostles themselves, and these men had crept in, purposefully, into the fellowship to try to bring us into bondage,

40:42

Paul says. Galatians 2, verse 1, verse 4 says, but it was because the false brethren secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth, the gospel, would remain with you.

41:01

The emphasis seems, on some people's part, to be when these men are called false brethren, to emphasize the word brethren.

41:11

It seems pretty obvious to me the emphasis is on false. They claim to be brothers.

41:20

They wouldn't have gotten as close as they did the apostles if they did not claim the name of Christ.

41:26

Here's people who even claim to believe in Jesus, and yet, Paul recognizes their motivations.

41:33

How does he identify them? Well, these were our fellow brothers in Christ. He doesn't say that. He said they were false brethren.

41:40

They had snuck in. We didn't put up with them for a moment. That doesn't sound like he said, well, you see, actually, they were in Christ, and they are our brothers and our sisters, and we did our best to grab them by their baptism, but they got away.

41:58

That doesn't happen. They're identified as false brethren, and Paul anathematizes them in Galatians 1, verses 6 -8.

42:09

You see, the issue this evening we do need to discuss is what is the

42:15

New Covenant? The New Covenant in the blood of Christ, the New Covenant that before Hebrews 10 .29

42:21

is described in Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10 as a salvific covenant.

42:29

Those who are in that covenant have their sins forgiven. They know God and are known by Him.

42:36

We need to start with where the writer to the Hebrews defines those things, and then not just pass them over in a rush to another passage of Scripture.

42:46

Hopefully, during our rebuttal period, we'll have an opportunity of looking more closely at that. Remember what

42:52

John said, the apostle John writing toward the end of the church age knew what it was like to have people who had once been within the fellowship, and they live.

43:02

They leave the fellowship. They are now living and teaching falsehood.

43:08

This brings confusion to the people in the church, and so he has to write in 1

43:13

John how to recognize them, how to recognize their false teachings. In 1 John 2, in talking about the antichrists, that's plural for those of you who have only been reading the

43:25

Left Behind series. 1

43:33

John 2, verses 19 -20 says, they went out from us, but they were not really of us.

43:42

For if they had been of us, they would have remained with us, but they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.

43:52

There was a separation that took place. There's something about what it means to be us, and they went out from us to demonstrate they weren't of us.

44:04

Well, I call us brother and sister. I don't call the antichrists my brother and sister.

44:14

We engage this debate this evening because I truly believe that the ability to clearly pronounce the gospel, to clearly preach the gospel in contrast with Rome's falsehoods is at stake.

44:34

I truly believe that confusion has been caused in the minds of many by this controversy, and I want clarity in the minds to be brought to the people of Christ for only one reason.

44:50

I want His gospel to be honored, and I want to see it proclaimed, not just by myself to Roman Catholics.

44:56

I can only reach a certain number. You're the ones in this room this evening who can have a tremendous impact in sharing the gospel of grace, but you must be clear about what the gospel of grace is and the motivation we have.

45:17

When you speak to a Roman Catholic, are you seeking simply to call them to be faithful to a covenant they've never, ever heard of, or are you seeking to announce to them the life -giving words of the gospel of Jesus Christ that they have never heard before?

45:37

That's the issue that we face this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you,

45:52

Dr. White. Pastor Wilson has 15 minutes for rebuttal. James is exactly right that a lot of these concerns that we've been articulating have been born out of pastoral concerns, and I'm afraid that we might differ on this.

46:33

I do believe that there are many people in the Christian church, the professing

46:39

Christian church, who could use a good dose of introspection and who could use a good dose of looking at their lives and what they say they believe, but generally speaking, in conservative reform circles, that's not the case.

46:51

In conservative reform circles, a lot of people have spent a lot of time twisting in the wind.

46:56

Am I elect? Am I really in? Am I really regenerate? Am I really converted? And some of the concerns that we've been articulating have arisen out of that situation.

47:07

And James is quite right that telling someone to look to their baptism, simply look to their baptism when you acknowledge freely that baptized people can be lost eternally, doesn't help at all.

47:18

That's also accurate. What we want people to do is look to their baptism in faith.

47:24

We want them to look to the Word of God in faith. We urge them to listen to the sermons in faith, come to the

47:30

Lord's Supper in faith, not faith in the supper or faith in the paper and ink or faith in the water, but rather faith in the

47:38

God who meets with His covenant people at the time and place that He has appointed to meet with them and to believe the

47:45

Word of God and to come and meet with Him there. And believing that these things are means of grace, these are ordinances that God has given to us, we believe that if people are urged to look to God in faith, sola fide, we are not going to be distracted simply because of the place and time where God said

48:03

He would meet with us. Now, James spent a good deal of time talking about the errors of Rome and how bad they are and how soul -threatening they are and how heretical they are, to all of which

48:18

I say a hearty amen. That's exactly what I think of it. As I said before, I read his book on the

48:25

Roman Catholic controversy, and I do not know any distinctive Roman Catholic doctrine where James and I would disagree.

48:33

Now, there are some things that I would share in common with Rome. I baptize babies, and James would not do that, so I share that with Rome, but that's not a distinctive

48:41

Roman Catholic doctrine. That's not something unique to Rome. Lutherans and Presbyterians and Episcopalians practice infant baptism.

48:49

But those things that are distinctively Roman I believe really are soul -threatening, soul -damning errors if embraced and believed.

48:58

But that's, in my mind, not the issue. In Romans 3, this is the verse

49:04

I cited. I think I may have said Romans 3 .6. It's Romans 3 .4. Paul says, in a similar situation,

49:11

What advantage then hath the Jew? Or what profit is there of circumcision?

49:17

Much and every way, chiefly because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

49:23

For what if some did not believe? Now notice this. Paul says, For what if some did not believe?

49:29

Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid, yea, let

49:35

God be true, but every man a liar, as it is written, that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and thou mightest overcome when thou art judged.

49:45

So Paul is saying every last Jew could not have a clue what circumcision meant, not have a clue what the

49:53

Old Testament law was about, and there were periods in Israel's history where that was exactly the case, and yet they were still

50:00

God's covenant people. And Paul says that doesn't matter because, and this is where we would have a doctrinal disagreement about the nature of baptism because I see baptism as a statement of God.

50:13

God is speaking in baptism, and American evangelicals tend to put the emphasis on baptism as my statement, it's a testimony about my faith in God.

50:22

And of course, if Trinitarian baptism is a statement of my faith in God, and the person being baptized has no faith in God, and goes through his whole life without faith in God, then of course it's nonsensical to talk about his statement of faith in God that's not a statement of faith in God, that's not there.

50:39

But if God says something, if God says something in baptism and he says to the person who's baptized, you belong to me, covenantally,

50:48

I lay a claim on you, you belong to me. Now this doesn't mean that the person is owned by God for blessing necessarily, and this goes back to the question

50:57

I raised earlier, does the new covenant have sanctions, does the new covenant have curses? I believe the

51:03

Bible tells us over and over again it does. Paul says here in Romans 3 that God can be true and every man a liar.

51:10

You could have a church in which every baptized person in there was lying, but God's truth remains

51:17

God's truth. God's declaration remains true even if every man participating in that is a liar.

51:25

And Paul says that doesn't bother me at all. That's not my concern, I don't care. Let them say this, they are just heaping condemnation on their own heads.

51:36

Now this leads to another thing that's very important for me to say something about, because I want us to make sure that we don't equivocate on the use of the word brother and sister.

51:48

I do believe that in the same way that A. A. Hodge said, anyone who's baptized in the triune name is my brother, whether he's

51:56

Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, or people who don't know at all.

52:04

That's the common countersign. That person is my brother. Now Hodge and every faithful Reformed theologian pastor knows that not all our brothers are faithful brothers.

52:15

We have, the world's a sinful place. There are treacherous brothers. There are false brothers.

52:22

And this is very important for us to note, because false brothers, there's two ways someone can be a false brother or a false husband or a false

52:31

Christian. There are two ways. Someone could be, let's say before the Soviet Union fell, someone, a

52:37

KGB agent could go into a church pretending to be a believer and he's a false brother because he just showed up acting like a

52:47

Christian from another part of the country. He's not a brother at all in any sense. He's infiltrating. That's one kind of false brother.

52:54

Another kind of false brother is someone who's baptized and a member of the church, but doesn't believe in God, doesn't believe in the gospel, rejects it.

53:00

He's false in another way. So a false husband is like an actor who's playing a husband on the screen.

53:08

That's a false husband in one sense, but there's a false husband in another sense. That is an adulterous husband.

53:13

A husband who's being unfaithful. Now when I say to a man, if I'm counseling a man who's been guilty of infidelity and I say to him, you're a false husband, and I'm charging him, you're a false husband.

53:25

Now suppose he brightens right up and says, well, that means it's not adultery then. I say, no, no, you are a husband.

53:34

You're a true husband. He says, oh, really? I'm a true husband? That means I'm faithful. No, no.

53:40

You're genuinely a husband. You're really married, all right? You're really married, but you're false to your vows.

53:47

Okay, now this is very important because we don't want to get gummed up. I fully agree with James that the false brethren in Galatia were false brethren in the sense that they were opposed to the gospel, seeking to subvert it, trying to undermine it.

54:03

They were false, and they were as false as it gets. But I'm saying that they were false in the same way an unfaithful husband is a false, false husband.

54:11

Not false in the way an actor is a false husband. They weren't pretending to be baptized

54:16

Christians. They were baptized Christians. They had infiltrated the ranks of the elders and the apostles. They were, well, not in Galatia, but elsewhere that Paul is recounting.

54:29

And then Paul says in Galatians, if you Galatians listen to these guys, these are the false brethren, if you listen to them, what happens to you?

54:39

He says in chapter 5, if you, I testify, verse 3, for I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law.

54:50

Christ is become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.

55:00

Now, these false brothers are propagating a false gospel among the

55:07

Galatians, and if any of the Galatians listen to them, which Paul is genuinely worried about, he says if that happens,

55:12

Christ is of no value to you and you've fallen from grace. I do not believe that someone can fall from efficacious grace.

55:20

I'm a decretal Calvinist. I'm a five -point Calvinist. I believe it all. I'm a black coffee

55:26

Calvinist. I'm a crawl over broken glass Calvinist. I wake up in the morning and I say, ah,

55:32

Calvinism. Another day of Calvinism.

55:39

Oh, boy, oh, boy. At the same time, having acknowledged that, believing in the decrees, believing that the decrees are genuine and real, and believing that no one for whom

55:53

Christ died can fall away, believing that the elect, the decretally elect cannot apostatize, believing that anyone who's born again of the spirit of God cannot fall away.

56:05

Nevertheless, the New Testament is full of passages like this one saying, if you do this, you've fallen from grace.

56:12

Your bodies are scattered over the wilderness, you new covenant people. Back in Hebrews chapter 10, what does it say, here very quickly, what does it say in, at the, after the verse

56:28

I quoted earlier of how much sorer punishment suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden underfoot the

56:34

Son of God and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing and done despite unto the

56:40

Spirit of Christ. For we know him that hath said, vengeance belongeth unto me,

56:45

I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, the Lord shall judge his people.

56:52

The Lord shall judge his people. This is an Old Testament quotation. This is all through the Old Testament.

56:57

God judges his people. He scatters their body over the wilderness and he tells the Hebrews, this is just what's going to happen to you in chapters 3 and 4.

57:06

Paul tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 10, this is just what's going to happen to you. If you go after this golden calf business like they did, if you tempt

57:14

Christ like they did, the same thing's going to happen to you that happened to them. This is an area where the new covenant and the old covenant are in parallel.

57:22

There are differences. The new covenant is much more glorious and there's much more fruit and fruition and glory.

57:31

The new covenant is wonderful. But this is not one area where they are different. This is an area where they run on parallel tracks.

57:38

And the apostles say, if you do what they did, the same thing will happen to you. Because, Hebrews 10, the

57:44

Lord will judge his people. And it's an awful thing to fall into the hands of the living

57:51

God because our God is a consuming fire. What this means is that we are saying that we want to affirm two things.

58:01

The Bible is full of comparisons that make distinctions between the elect and the non -elect and those distinctions run deep back into eternity.

58:11

The wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, the washed pig was always pig, the dog that goes back to its vomit is always a dog.

58:19

So you have all these passages that talk about continuity all the way back. But you also have passages, a continuity of unbelief, continuity of rebellion, and the tares are always tares and the wheat is always wheat.

58:32

But you also have passages that talk about the branch that's cut out of the vine in John 15 and the olive branch that's cut out in Romans 11 and the apostasy passages in Hebrews and so on.

58:44

And what we are saying is that we want to do justice to all of Scripture. We want to do justice to the apostasy passages and we are saying that apostates are falling from the objective covenant.

58:57

And when they fall from the objective covenant, they are proving, as in the verse that James cited from 1

59:03

John, they are proving that in the other important sense, the kind of Christian that goes to heaven when he dies, they were not that kind of Christian and they never were.

59:14

Someone who is not regenerate now never was regenerate. If they didn't belong to Christ, if Christ didn't efficaciously secure their salvation on the cross, then they never had a salvation.

59:25

At the same time, the Bible says that it's possible for these people to fall away from Christ in some sense, to fall away from grace in some sense, to lose their standing with Christ in some sense, and we are simply trying to do justice to all of Scripture.

59:39

I was tired, frankly, of letting Arminians have some of the verses. I didn't want to hide behind our verses and let them have their verses.

59:48

And frankly, the behavior of many Calvinist exegetes on the apostasy passages was nothing short of embarrassing.

59:55

What we do is we do a little song and dance and say, well, it's a hypothetical warning and it might not happen and stuff, but it's very obvious that true apostasy happens to new covenant people.

01:00:05

True apostasy happens to new covenant people. And who will lay a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.

01:00:12

Now, one last comment on grabbing them by their baptism. What we mean by grabbing them by their baptism is this.

01:00:20

We don't mean that your baptism puts you partway there and why don't you come along with me and finish the journey.

01:00:25

That's not what we mean by grabbing them by their baptism. What we mean is what you would say to your next door neighbor if you saw him at a restaurant with another lady other than his wife, you would walk up to him and grab him by his marriage vows.

01:00:39

You would say, you invited me to your wedding. What are you doing here? I heard you. I heard what you said.

01:00:45

You promised that you wouldn't do this. What am I doing? I'm grabbing him by his vow. I'm grabbing him by his covenant commitment.

01:00:52

And the fact that I'm doing that shows that he's in need of being shaken by it. Grabbing them by their baptism is not a term of approval.

01:01:00

What we're doing is we're saying your baptism says that you belong to God and why aren't you living like it?

01:01:07

Why don't you believe the gospel? Why don't you repent? Your baptism says you have an obligation to repent. Why don't you believe in Jesus?

01:01:13

Your baptism says you have an obligation to believe in Jesus. And James would say, well, the Rome says, no, that's not true.

01:01:19

And I would say that baptism means what God says it means, not what Rome says it means. Time.

01:01:27

Thank you, Pastor Wilson. Dr. White now has 15 minutes for rebuttal.

01:01:50

One Saturday morning, you get up. It's not the

01:01:57

Jehovah's Witnesses. And you open the door and there is a little

01:02:02

Asian lady standing at your door. And you greet her and she identifies you by name.

01:02:12

And you say, yes, that's me. And she says to you, I am here to ask you to stop being unfaithful to your covenant.

01:02:25

You look at this lady. Let's say you're about 24 years old. You've been married for just a couple of years.

01:02:31

You were an army brat. You moved all over the place. And in fact, you were born in an Asian country on one of those military bases.

01:02:41

And you look at this woman and you say, well, what do you mean I'm being faithful to my wife? No, you're not.

01:02:48

What do you mean I'm not being faithful to my wife? Well, you need to understand when you were born 24 years ago,

01:02:54

I was the nurse that took care of you in the nursery. There in that far land.

01:03:00

And she even identifies exactly where it was. So you know she's telling the truth. And she says, you need to understand that I performed a ritual over you that sealed you to my daughter.

01:03:14

And I am here to remind you of the covenant you've been placed into.

01:03:19

But what I did to you as a child, you are being unfaithful to my daughter. Well, what do you say to this person?

01:03:27

What do you say to this person? I made no commitment to your daughter. No, I made the commitment in your place.

01:03:35

And you now must be faithful to the covenant which you've been placed. On the back of Reformed is

01:03:42

Not Enough is I think probably the best summary. I'm not sure who wrote it. Did you write that? Good.

01:03:48

Congratulations. Sometimes it's on the back of a book the author didn't write and sometimes you wish you had.

01:03:53

So I needed to confirm that. I think it's one of the best summaries of what the real issue with the federal vision really is.

01:04:01

And it was the illustration that was just used. When you are married, you're a husband.

01:04:07

And if you're unfaithful to your wife, you're still a husband. That's quite true.

01:04:14

But I don't think the parallel holds. When you're talking about a situation where totally separate and in fact, in complete contrast to the gospel, you have a man who claims to be an alter

01:04:28

Christus, another Christ, who claims a certain sacerdotal power from God, who performs a religious ordinance in the name of that false church unto a false gospel and a false hope within the context of unbelief.

01:04:49

That is the covenant to which a person who receives that baptism has been covenanted to is a false faith, a false gospel.

01:05:01

It has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit of God. And I don't believe what the Spirit of God is, that there is anything that is relevant to the

01:05:07

Christian faith. And I don't believe that it follows to use the illustration that Pastor Wilson uses.

01:05:14

Because when I chose to marry my wife, I married up.

01:05:21

My wife is staying in the back and she's going to kill me for doing this. But you turn around and you'll notice I married up.

01:05:27

No, that's not my daughter. My daughter's over there. Boy, I just get a few brownie points, eh? I chose to enter into covenant relationship with that woman almost 23 years ago.

01:05:47

That is not the same as saying, well, this event took place and we believe what

01:05:54

God says in baptism. Well, okay, that's one thing, but we believe what God says. Why don't we believe what

01:06:00

God says in the baptism of a Mormon? Where do we start parsing these things?

01:06:06

Do we really get the assurance we want, the objectivity we want? Because the fact of the matter is, anybody, everybody in the federal vision movement eventually has to make a decision about what is a valid baptism and what is not.

01:06:20

I really don't believe anyone here believes that I could sit here with a hose and spraying everybody in the name of the

01:06:25

Trinity and that's a valid baptism, right? I'm not saying that mockingly.

01:06:31

I'm saying that honestly. Does someone actually believe that would be a valid baptism? Well, what doesn't? And as soon as you start saying that, as soon as you say, no,

01:06:38

Mormon baptism isn't valid because, because why? Well, what they mean by Father, Son, Holy Spirit isn't the same as what the scriptures mean by Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

01:06:47

I agree a thousand percent. And what baptism means in the

01:06:53

Roman Catholic communion is not what baptism means in the New Testament. And so if there's a parallel to the one, there's got to be a parallel to the other.

01:07:04

Now, I really don't believe that anyone sitting here before me this evening, especially those who know me, would have any surprise that I need to be consistent to my own beliefs and how

01:07:18

I respond to the presentation that was just made. What I mean by that is it has just been asserted that it is the very nature of the

01:07:27

New Covenant, that it is not a perfectly salvific covenant, that in fact it is parallel to the

01:07:32

Old Covenant in having this mixture, a mixture of regenerate and unregenerate people in it.

01:07:38

I don't believe that and I would like to direct your attention to the 8th chapter of Hebrews where the

01:07:44

Apostle defines the New Covenant. And when he defines the New Covenant, he does so in these words.

01:07:52

First of all, please notice in verse 6 he says the covenant has been enacted. Not it will be enacted someday.

01:07:58

Not we look forward and hope someday that this is going to be fulfilled. This is an apologetic argument of the

01:08:05

Apostle saying the New Covenant is superior to the Old. The Old is passing away.

01:08:13

Here is the New. And what is the nature of the New? Well, it has better promises. It has a better mediator.

01:08:19

The word better is used over and over and over again. And in what fashion, in what way? Well, listen to what is said.

01:08:25

For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says,

01:08:32

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah, not like the covenant.

01:08:40

That sounds like an important phrase. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when

01:08:46

I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. Same illustration used by the way in 1 Corinthians. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the

01:08:56

Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

01:09:02

Lord. I will put my law into their minds. If you are a New Covenant member, the law of God is in your minds.

01:09:09

Is the law of God in the mind of a Roman Catholic by baptism? I do not believe so. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the

01:09:17

Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. And I will be their

01:09:25

God, and they shall be my people, and they shall not teach each one his neighbor, and each one his brother, saying,

01:09:31

Know the Lord. For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

01:09:36

Follow the pronouns. The them is the members of the New Covenant in toto.

01:09:43

That's the only way I can see to understand the language itself. They shall not teach each one his neighbor, and each one his brother, saying,

01:09:50

Know the Lord. For they shall all know me, unlike the days of David, unlike the days when you have

01:09:56

Ahab and Jehu, from the least of them to the greatest.

01:10:02

And then here's verse 12. Please notice it. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

01:10:11

This is the same passage that is then cited in Hebrews chapter 10, in the midst of that demonstration that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is once for all, never to be repeated, and it perfects all those for whom it is made.

01:10:25

And that has been the chief argument that I have presented against the Roman Catholic Mass for 14 years, is that the

01:10:32

Mass cannot be the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for one simple reason. It perfects no one.

01:10:40

The sacrifice of Jesus Christ perfects all those for whom it is made, and it is in that very context, within just a few verses of that statement, that they are perfected forever.

01:10:54

Remember, this is an apologetic argument. This is a demonstration of the supremacy of Christ, superiority of Christ. It's within that context that we then have

01:11:01

Hebrews chapter 10, verse 29. And since it's been read in our hearing this evening, let me simply remind you, and we'll get into this in the cross -examination, that there's two ways of understanding this passage.

01:11:15

How much severe punishment do you think he will deserve, who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified?

01:11:25

If you know the original language, you know that there are two possibilities for the he there.

01:11:33

Grammatically, it can be the apostate, or grammatically, it can be Christ.

01:11:39

He is the one who is sanctified by his high priestly offering. And someone as well -known as John Owen, in his massive seven -volume commentary on the book of Hebrews, presents that as the only way to understand consistently the argument of this passage in Hebrews chapter 10.

01:12:00

It has been said, there are apostates in the New Testament. Yes, there are. We looked at them.

01:12:06

They're our false brethren. They're the antichrist who've gone out. But what did they apostatize from? From a perfectly salvific new covenant?

01:12:14

Or did they apostatize from their professed faith in Jesus Christ? You see,

01:12:19

I can't find these parallels to Roman Catholics.

01:12:26

And again, when I say that, I'm talking about people who are involved in a religion that does not have the gospel, and yet it has the terminology of the

01:12:35

Trinity in it. I see nothing in the New Testament about these people, and that's understandable, I guess. But I see nothing in the

01:12:42

New Testament that teaches me that this new covenant that is described in Hebrews chapter 8 as better, as being perfectly salvific, as accomplishing the perfection of those who are in Christ, who are in Him.

01:12:58

I see no evidence that we then should take these teachings, and when we see a false church, and Paul said they would come.

01:13:08

Did he not prophesy to it? Men will arise from amongst your own ranks, he told the

01:13:14

Ephesian elders, Acts chapter 20. They'll be speaking perverse things, they'll draw disciples away, but remember they're still a part of the true church, as long as they do baptism correctly.

01:13:26

But if they forget one of the members of the Trinity, they are no longer members of the covenant. Is that really what we understand to be taught by the

01:13:34

New Testament? Do we really believe that this is what's going on in these contexts?

01:13:40

It's been said, well look, look at Galatians chapter 5. They've fallen away from grace. Who has fallen away from grace?

01:13:47

You who are seeking to be justified by law. Well that means they received some kind of grace.

01:13:54

What kind of grace did they receive? Well, it wasn't salvific grace, okay, so it was some other kind of grace.

01:14:01

It was non -salvific grace. Were they in Christ? Did they know Christ?

01:14:06

Did they have forgiveness of sins? If they're in the new covenant, then He's been merciful to their iniquities. Well no, He's not merciful to their iniquities, but they're in the new covenant.

01:14:13

Well that's not what Hebrews chapter 8 says. You see what happens when what I believe what's going on here.

01:14:19

I understand pastoral concerns. I understand the concern that you don't want people just sitting there gazing at their navels all day long.

01:14:29

I understand the concern of wanting to give assurance. I've encountered that in my pastoral ministry.

01:14:36

I remember a situation where there was a fellow and he was one of those, you know, the trembling reed.

01:14:45

I mean he was very, very concerned about his state before God. Well, what did

01:14:50

I direct him to? He'd been baptized. Well, I directed him to the promises of God, but not just simply in his baptism.

01:14:59

I directed him to the cross. I directed him to the greatest demonstration that God loves in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

01:15:11

I understand the pastoral concern, but you know what can happen when we become imbalanced about a pastoral concern?

01:15:20

We can end up creating a lot of confusion. The fact of the matter is,

01:15:28

Rome, when she baptizes, baptizes without the

01:15:33

Holy Spirit of God because they don't have the truth of God. I hope no one would argue that tonight.

01:15:39

I know, sadly, that there are some, I will have to admit, and I can't hold Pastor Wilson accountable for these, but there are some who have taken his teachings and they've run, and they've run into a whole lot of error.

01:15:57

I think what we've had happen in this situation is we take a valid concern and we come up with a solution, but the solution itself is imbalanced.

01:16:09

That's why, in essence, I see this debate as sort of a reductio ad absurdum. Look, if this viewpoint results in a false gospel creating a true church with people who are really in Christ, who are responsible to a covenant they've never heard of before, and hence we receive covenant curses for a covenant they've never heard of before, if we look at that and go, you know, that doesn't seem to work, maybe somewhere along the long line of if this, then this, we missed the boat.

01:16:42

We made a misstep. We need to back up and address that error.

01:16:49

Thank you. Would you join me in thanking these two gentlemen for preparing tonight for this debate?

01:17:12

Let me give you a few instructions now. We are about ready to take a 10 -minute break. Questioning by mentioning that my wife and I just recently had the honor and the privilege of receiving our ninth grandchild into the world.

01:17:30

One of the things that we do is we go down to the hospital after the baby's born. We go in and our kids tell us what the name of the child is, and I kiss the baby on the forehead and I say, welcome to the covenant, and I want to know if James thinks that's cute.

01:17:51

Okay, then. Well, you know, cute is a very nuanced term.

01:18:01

All right, moving on to another question. I wanted to ask if you were granting my position on the teaching of the early reformers from 1517 down to 1845.

01:18:16

Do you agree with me that this receiving Roman Catholic baptism was the overwhelming position of most of our reformed heroes of the faith?

01:18:27

Well, I didn't argue it simply because unfortunately it would have taken way too much time, and we have somebody who's going to do that a whole lot better than I can tomorrow morning.

01:18:37

So, I would very clearly believe, I know John Knox is very clear on those issues.

01:18:43

At the very same time, I read John Calvin and I see him differentiating between Christians and Papists with great regularity.

01:18:52

And so, while accepting a Roman Catholic baptism so as to not re -baptize because of the detestation that you noticed of Anabaptists is a given with the when things changed or when the northern -southern

01:19:09

Presbyterian split is most clearly seen, there also seems to me to be another element to their understanding of what the

01:19:18

Roman Catholic Church was really all about when I read Calvin. So, my concern has been much more their view of Rome than an issue of just simply the fact that we all know they didn't like Anabaptists.

01:19:30

They would have had a real hard time with it. Okay. So, basically, can we agree that I would echo what the

01:19:39

Reformers said about the false gospel and I don't have any problem with a Roman Catholic today saying

01:19:45

I was baptized in infancy and then when I was at college my roommate shared with me and I became a Christian. I know exactly what it means.

01:19:51

He was defectually called and heart was changed and I don't want to argue with that at all. So, I would use the word

01:19:57

Christian in various senses just like Calvin would. I understand that you use the word Christian in various senses.

01:20:03

That's one of the reasons why we made sure the thesis was a little more specific than just the word

01:20:09

Christian. That is brothers and sisters in Christ because from my perspective you don't have, well, as you pointed out and Reformed is not enough.

01:20:17

There's only three uses of the term anyways. Try to drive a massive doctrine from three passages is difficult to do, but brother and sister in Christ I consider to be,

01:20:28

I'm not sure if you do, covenantal language. Okay. And so, that's why we made the thesis that way.

01:20:34

Yes, I do think it's covenantal language and I do think that the new covenant has an objective sense.

01:20:40

These people are brothers and sisters in an objective sense and then they are brothers and sisters in a fundamental sense depending on whether they've responded in genuine faith.

01:20:49

Do you agree with A. A. Hodge's statement that all these people, whether they be

01:20:54

Greeks or Arminians or Romanists or Lutherans or Calvinists or the simple souls who do not know what to call themselves, are our brethren?

01:21:01

No, I do not. You don't agree? No. What do you understand sorer punishment to mean in Hebrews 10?

01:21:12

I don't doubt that we would have any difference whatsoever as to the fact that a person in the context of the book of Hebrews who is in the congregation and who has tasted the heavenly gifts and Hebrews chapter 6, so on and so forth, and who knows who

01:21:30

Jesus Christ is, who goes back to Jerusalem and offers sacrifices, is going to be a person who is sinning against the greatest light that any person could possibly sin against and is trampling underfoot the blood of the

01:21:42

Son of God. But you're maintaining that the sorer punishment is not a covenantal punishment.

01:21:48

It is not the punishment of the New Testament, the New Covenant, because of the fact that Hebrews chapter 10 has already said that those who are in that New Covenant are perfected by that sacrifice.

01:21:58

And so I believe that when we talk about curses in the New Covenant, Jesus Christ bore all of them in his body upon the tree so that I do not have to.

01:22:05

So if it's not… Well, again, you're talking here about someone who you seemingly believe that this individual,

01:22:16

I suppose you could put them in the context of only Judaism. I would actually like to extend that beyond that because I think the book of Hebrews application is not just to Jews of that day.

01:22:27

And if you'll allow me that extension, then I think it's a misnomer to actually try to attach that term to the phrase punishment.

01:22:39

If you could show me where any punishments in the New Covenant do not fall upon Jesus Christ in Hebrews chapter 8 and Hebrews chapter 10, then

01:22:48

I might have a category into which to fit that. But I don't think it's a fair question to ask of the text.

01:22:55

How many covenants are there? Well, it depends on what you're talking about. I mean, obviously, in the Hebrews chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9, you have the old and new covenants discussed.

01:23:06

Then we have the issue of the covenant of grace, which is not a biblical term in that sense, in that context.

01:23:13

And so, are you asking me exegetically in the context of the writer of Hebrews language? Are you talking about an overall reformed theological sense?

01:23:22

Are we talking about covenant of works? I'm wanting to know whether you're saying the sore punishment that these people receive, is it a covenantal?

01:23:33

That is not connected to any covenant at all. Or if it is covenantal, what covenant is it?

01:23:42

Again, I answered that question before by saying I don't believe that the text discusses the nature of the punishment to the point of attaching it to a quote -unquote covenant.

01:23:54

It refers to the fact that this is a person who knows who Jesus Christ is, knows what

01:24:00

Jesus Christ has accomplished, and knowingly goes back to the old ways. And that person, therefore, receives a tremendous punishment because of the light against which he sinned.

01:24:11

I suppose it would be like asking, well, what kind of covenantal punishment does

01:24:16

Chorazin and Bethsaida receive in comparison to Sodom and Gomorrah? I just don't see it as being an element of the text.

01:24:25

Okay, well, Capernaum and Jewish cities fall under the Mosaic covenant.

01:24:31

They are judged according to the law that they were under. And Sodom falls under the covenant of life, as the

01:24:38

Westminster Confession says, or sometimes called the covenant of war. Is that a question? Well, I was answering the question you raised.

01:24:46

In verse 30, if we know him that hath said, vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recommend, saith the

01:24:52

Lord, this is the next verse. And again, the Lord will judge his people. Who are his people, contextually?

01:24:59

Well, again, in both Hebrews chapter 6 and Hebrews chapter 10, you have passages that address the people, the gathered people, as a whole.

01:25:08

And in Hebrews chapter 6, you have the very strong terminology used there, and yet it is followed by, for ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receive a blessing from God.

01:25:22

But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and ends up being burned. But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation.

01:25:31

So when you have the preaching of the Word within the body of Christ, I as an elder do not have some special ability to look out here and see who the elect are.

01:25:42

I don't know that. And so my preaching has to be broad -based. And I think that one of the main issues

01:25:48

I have with federal visionist use of the apostasy passages is that they assume that because you address a certain people in a certain way, that that means that you believe that to be true of each and every single individual even when they go out from the fellowship.

01:26:05

John, I believe, obviously addressed the Antichrist in a very different way once they left than he had when he preached to the people on Sunday morning.

01:26:14

What we see in some passages is the Sunday morning preaching. What we see in other passages is once they've left and they've been identified, this is now how they are described.

01:26:22

I see a melding of those two that does not allow the two contexts to stand. In some, and again

01:26:29

I'm trying to be distinctive here, in some of the federal vision preaching.

01:26:36

I think that would even be more so in certain of the federal vision writers. But I have seen that you do not go the same direction that some of them do on some of those issues.

01:26:48

Okay, now, so you're saying his people here are those who are gathered. Yes. But are they covenantally gathered?

01:26:56

They are gathered in the church. I do not believe that the visible church, and I accept the visible church, invisible church distinction, and obviously coming from my understanding of Hebrews chapter 8,

01:27:10

I believe that the invisible church is the elective God. Those are the members of the new covenant.

01:27:16

I don't believe that the external church is identified as being with the new covenant only.

01:27:24

White now has 10 minutes to cross -examine Pastor Wilson. Pastor Wilson, you said in question 58,

01:27:39

I don't know if you have your... No, go ahead. I have your answers, so I will use them.

01:27:45

I stand by them. There you go. Here I stand, and I will do no other.

01:27:53

You were asked, John Calvin recognized a distinction between the individual and the institution. Would you say that the Roman Catholic Church is a true church?

01:28:00

Please elaborate. And one of the things that, at least in the written form you answered, was

01:28:06

Rome is still covenantally bound to Jesus Christ, and consequently she needs to stop cheating on him.

01:28:14

What binds the Roman Catholic Church covenantally to Jesus Christ? Trinitarian baptism.

01:28:21

Trinitarian baptism, and where do you see Trinitarian baptism binding a false church to Jesus Christ in the

01:28:32

New Testament? In the Great Commission, Jesus says, go, disciple the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

01:28:38

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then he says, teaching them obedience. When I look at the disobedience that is rampant throughout

01:28:49

Rome, we don't differ there. I look to the scripture for direction to answer questions, does this ever happen to God's people who are covenantally connected to God?

01:29:01

And yes, the answer is yes, throughout the scriptures, and the New Testament tells us over and over again that new covenant

01:29:09

Christians can fall into the same trap that the Jews did. In 1 Corinthians 10 it says that, in Hebrews 3 and 4 it says that, and in Romans 11

01:29:17

Paul prophesies that Rome is going to be tempted to think that she's the root supporting the tree, and he says no, it's the other way around.

01:29:25

So I believe that the Trinitarian baptism places them in objective covenant relation, and all the sins that you've cataloged and addressed in your book, and which

01:29:34

I agree with you on, are the cheating. So the Trinitarian baptism is the wedding ring, all the doctrines that they've embraced that are unscriptural are instances of spiritual adultery.

01:29:49

What about a Mormon who is baptized in a Trinitarian baptism? I don't think, for example, that someone who's baptized on a movie set, if they're reading, you know,

01:30:01

Robert Duvall was baptized in the movie Tender Mercies, I don't believe that that reenactment of baptism is a baptism.

01:30:10

I don't know, I don't watch those kind of movies, but just kidding. Well he gets saved and he's baptized in a

01:30:16

Baptist church. Didn't seem to take, did it?

01:30:26

The point I'm making is that with the Mormon church, which...

01:30:32

Was that a Reformed Baptist church, by the way? No, I didn't think so. Explicitly, Rome affirms the doctrine of the

01:30:39

Trinity, and they defend it and hold to it. I don't think they can continue the track they're on and continue to be faithfully

01:30:50

Trinitarian. I think a day is coming when Mary is going to get her big promotion, and when that happens, and they're dealing with a quaternity, or as in mainstream denominations, where they'll baptize in the name of God the

01:31:02

Mother, that sort of thing. Those things are not baptism at all. Mormonism retains the formula, the phrase, but Mormonism explicitly, formally, judicially denies the doctrine of the

01:31:15

Trinity. Now, I think, I do believe that what I would probably do in,

01:31:21

I've not been confronted with rebaptizing someone who's been baptized as a Mormon, but one of the things that is a possibility under ambiguous situations is something that I've done once with a young man who, just this last year,

01:31:35

I baptized a young man, and we didn't know if he'd ever been baptized before. The church where he thought he was baptized didn't have a record of it.

01:31:42

His parents weren't sure if he'd been baptized. It was a pretty pathetic situation, and he might have been baptized, and we didn't know.

01:31:50

So, we brought him down to the front, and we offered a question, whether this young man is baptized or not.

01:31:56

We sure don't. If he is baptized, then please let this serve as a wet dedication.

01:32:03

That wouldn't have happened if he was a Baptist. He would have known. That's true, and this takes me back to my question of whether you think infant baptism is cute or not.

01:32:16

So, basically, what we did is, if he's baptized, then we just want to renew his covenant, and we're asking

01:32:24

God not to consider it. We're not trying to be impudent and trifle with this, but if he's not baptized, then we would like to be obedient and baptize him in the triune name.

01:32:32

So, is it fair to say, then, that from your perspective, a correct Trinitarian theology results in a valid baptismal joining to the covenant of the blood of Jesus Christ, whereas a false gospel does not vitiate that baptism?

01:32:52

So, as long as you've got the right Trinitarian theology, your baptism is valid, but you can have a false gospel, but that doesn't do the same thing as having a false god.

01:33:04

Not exactly, because I think that someone can—I'd go back to John Calvin's point, where he would receive baptism if it were administered by the devil himself, and that is a characteristically reformed position.

01:33:17

And so, suppose you've got a pastor in the church who, in his heart of hearts, is actually Unitarian, or has gone into this openness theology, and he's well down the road, and he hasn't admitted it to anybody yet, but he's treasuring this in his heart.

01:33:32

Well, I believe that the baptism administered in what's generally recognized as an

01:33:40

Orthodox Christian church, a Trinitarian church, should be received and treated as such. There is a point where churches become synagogues of Satan, to use the expression of the

01:33:51

Westminster Confession of Faith, and I do believe there comes a time when you have to cut it off and say, no more.

01:33:57

Didn't Westminster use that in Rome? Yes, yes, absolutely. Okay, so what would you say to the person who would respond to what you just said?

01:34:07

That sounds very arbitrary that you say that as long as they have the right

01:34:15

Trinitarian theology, but they can have a completely false gospel. If the Judaizers, who are anathematized in Galatians 1, went off, and as long as they just kept the right theology, but they had everything else wrong, they would be a church that would be a part of the body of Christ, and they would be our brothers and sisters in Christ, even though they're anathematized?

01:34:35

Because baptism is God's statement, not the statement of the people officiating at the baptism.

01:34:42

So the question is, did God say anything different at this event? Now, I do think that, for example,

01:34:49

Augustine would receive even Mormon baptism, and this goes back to the early church.

01:34:58

They had to deal with baptism administered by heretics, and there are thorny pastoral problems to be sorted out here.

01:35:05

I'm not denying that. And I said earlier that I've not always been of the same mind about this, because I do believe the errors of Rome are horrendous.

01:35:14

But once you apply a doctrinal litmus test, I would have as much problem, if there were a doctrinal test, receiving baptism administered by evangelical

01:35:25

Arminians, who believed that God voted for them, and the devil voted against them, and they broke the tie.

01:35:32

If someone thinks that, and they were thinking that when they were baptized, and the man administering it was thinking that when they were baptized, if you have to be orthodox to a certain level, then whose baptism could we receive?

01:35:47

I mean, all of our baptisms would be suspect. Well, aren't you doing that about the orthodox level with Mormonism?

01:35:55

Haven't you just arbitrarily taken a particular standard and said, this is it?

01:36:01

I mean, you've got to have some standard. You'd agree with me that just spraying the audience with a hose in the name of the

01:36:06

Trinity is not baptism, right? Right. I'm saying that in a stage play, it's not baptism. In mocking, sort of a mockery of it, it's not baptism.

01:36:17

I would say in an organization, an institution like the Mormon Church, which explicitly avowedly denies the doctrine of the

01:36:24

Trinity, and they use the name of the Trinity, I don't think it's a magic word. I don't think the phrase is a magic phrase.

01:36:30

I do believe, however, the phrase, coupled with a belief in the

01:36:35

Trinity, which Rome still retains, as long as she retains it, and they say the words that Jesus said to say, what

01:36:42

I want to do is receive baptisms that are administered that way, not because I approve of what they do, but rather because we want to nurse that person back to health.

01:36:52

What would you say to someone who would basically say, it sounds to me like you are separating baptism from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

01:37:03

No, what I'm doing is insisting upon them being put together. So the reason I would receive someone's

01:37:09

Roman Catholic baptism is because I wouldn't send them back. I wouldn't say, oh, that's Roman baptism, go back.

01:37:15

What I want to do is say, now come here and we will faithfully teach you that your baptism is something that has to line up with your life, your manner of life, the way you live, your profession of the gospel.

01:37:27

We want a faithful understanding of the gospel to line up with what baptism says. So that's mandatory.

01:37:33

God requires that. Pastor Wilson now has 10 minutes to cross -examine

01:37:39

Dr. White. Okay, in 1 Corinthians 10, in the passage

01:37:44

I read earlier, what was Paul's point in your view? When Paul was saying they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, they ate the spiritual food, they had a spiritual drink.

01:38:00

In what way is Paul comparing the Old Testament Jews in the wilderness to the

01:38:05

Corinthian church? In what way is he comparing them and in what way is he not? Well, I think the same application that you have elsewhere in regards to the preaching to the people of God in Romans 11, where you have the danger of arrogance, you have the danger of of self -assuredness, and in both situations you have the exact same kind of warnings being given there.

01:38:28

And we are told that the Old Testament was written for our edification, for our example, and so Paul is using it in that very fashion.

01:38:36

And he does so, I don't think, to confuse the betterness of the New Covenant with the

01:38:43

Old. But when I preach to the people of God, I want to be able to preach everything that God says, and that includes the warning passages and the fact that the one attitude that Jesus hated most was

01:38:58

Phariseeism. It was pride. It was arrogance. And here you have the example of people who had seen all sorts of great spiritual things.

01:39:07

They had seen God at work, but that's not what changes the heart. Don't trust in what you've seen.

01:39:13

Don't trust in your spiritual pedigree. And there's only one kind of person that's going to respond to that kind of exhortation, and that's going to be the person in whose heart the

01:39:23

Holy Spirit of God is dwelling. And I don't believe that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in any heart but that heart which is regenerate.

01:39:30

Now I'm interested in your statement that these people had seen great spiritual things. It seems to me that the text says that they ate and drank spiritual things.

01:39:40

What do you mean? They did eat and did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was

01:39:51

Christ. So these Jews whose bodies were scattered over the wilderness did not see great spiritual things.

01:39:58

They ate and drank spiritual things. Well, I think that especially since those things were provided supernaturally,

01:40:04

I was simply referring to the fact that those in the wilderness saw God's miraculous events and that they are based upon that.

01:40:13

Paul is warning people to flee from idolatry and not to drink the cup of the

01:40:19

Lord and the cup of demons and provoking the Lord to jealousy and all the rest of these things. Again, Paul is writing to a very difficult church that has extremely difficult things going on within it, and I don't see the application to the subject this evening simply because I don't see any parallel between where the gospel is being preached, which it would be in 1

01:40:41

Corinthians in the church in Corinth, and Rome, where the gospel isn't being preached at all. In fact, you have the exact opposite of the gospel being preached.

01:40:49

That's one of my major confusions as to where the connection is. In verse 3, what did they eat?

01:41:00

They all ate the same spiritual food. They were all baptized into Moses and clouded in the sea. In verse 4, what did they drink?

01:41:06

They drank the same spiritual drink. They were drinking from a spiritual water to follow them, and the rock was Christ. Were the Jews in the wilderness partakers of Christ?

01:41:13

In what sense? Covenantal. Again, in the Old Covenant sense, all the

01:41:20

Jews who were circumcised partook of the Old Covenant. And partook of Christ, therefore. In the sense that Christ is the one providing for them the food and the drink, of course.

01:41:31

He was the God that called them out of Israel. He is identified as Jehovah God.

01:41:37

So they partook of the Christ, who was not pleased with them, and who scattered their bodies over the desert. In the sense that they received blessings from His hand, yes.

01:41:44

I don't believe that they partook of His redemptive work, no. Well, neither do I. I don't think that's

01:41:50

Paul's point. Okay, so in what sense were these things to be an example for the Corinthians? The Corinthians are having a major problem.

01:41:59

As you'll notice in verse 7, he answers that question. Now, these things happen as examples for us that we would not crave evil things, as they also craved.

01:42:09

Do not be idolaters, as some of them were. Do not let us act immorally. Do not let us try the

01:42:14

Lord. Do not grumble. I mean, the list goes for quite some distance all the way down to verse 13. So were the

01:42:20

Corinthians compromised with idolatry, just like Rome is? No, I do not believe that they were. So why does he tell them not to be idolaters in verse 7?

01:42:28

That's not the same thing as having a system that, in and of itself, sense as its central aspect of worship idolatry.

01:42:36

That's not what was going on in Corinth. He's warning them. He says, do not be idolaters. He doesn't say, stop being idolaters.

01:42:43

He says, do not be idolaters, as some of them were, to be a Roman Catholic. I'm sorry if there are any Roman Catholics in the audience.

01:42:49

I'm not trying to be brusque here. I'm trying to answer a question briefly and not waste time. But I believe that most

01:42:57

Roman Catholics would agree the central aspect of their worship is the Mass. Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

01:43:02

And that is, we have both agreed, idolatrous. It is definitional of the system.

01:43:07

This would be going against what is being preached from the pulpit every day. For a Roman Catholic to go to Mass is what is preached every single day.

01:43:15

That's the difference. So incidental idolatry does not remove you from the new covenant, but central idolatry does?

01:43:22

I didn't see the phrase new covenant here. From the church?

01:43:28

We certainly should. Those who engage in regular idolatry should be removed from the church, but I'm not assuming one -to -one correspondence.

01:43:35

Is the visible church a covenant entity? In the sense of people covenanting together as a body.

01:43:43

No, with God. A covenant with God. Not the new covenant. I believe that the invisible church is.

01:43:49

I believe that the visible church includes those who have merely a said faith, and that's why they go out from us, so it may be shown that they were not truly of us, 1

01:43:58

John 2 .19. But let's say you have a faithful church that might have a few reprobate people in it. That happens.

01:44:04

Yeah, it happens. But it's generally a faithful church, God honoring. It's a visible church. You go to it every Sunday. Is that church in covenant with God?

01:44:12

In the sense of being the church of Christ, yes, but I'm differentiating very specifically between that language, and this is one of the problems.

01:44:20

I think that unfortunately the term covenant gets thrown around in non -biblical contexts, and so it just sort of becomes a peanut butter phrase and all of a sudden gets defined in a different direction.

01:44:33

I'm trying to be very careful because one of the issues that does separate us is the nature of the new covenant and the fact that I believe the new covenant is perfectly salvific, and since Rome has a false gospel, the idea of a

01:44:48

Roman Catholic who is purposefully embracing a non -salvific gospel, in fact not just one that can't bring salvation, but in fact brings the anathema of God, and to say that person is then in the new covenant at the same time

01:45:01

I find to be directly contradictory to what I see in Hebrews chapter 8. Certainly we agree that a

01:45:06

Roman Catholic who's saved, and I know Roman Catholics who are saved people, are saved in spite of the system that they profess to hold, not because of it.

01:45:17

They're saved because they're holding the true gospel, the true gospel sola fide, which anathematizes them from Rome's perspective.

01:45:23

Correct. We agree on that. Now my question, but I'm curious, is if the visible church is a covenant community, what covenant?

01:45:33

Again, I don't see any use of the term covenant in the sense of new covenant, old covenant.

01:45:40

The church is the body of Christ, and if you want to talk about the covenant of what marks the church,

01:45:48

I would have to direct you to the person of the Holy Spirit, that it is a spiritual covenant that is created by the fact that all those who are in the true church are indwelt by the

01:45:58

Holy Spirit of God, and that is why they cry out, Abba, Father, and that is why they confess Jesus Christ as Lord, and that's what the unity of the church is.

01:46:05

But now you're telling me that the invisible church is the new covenant, and I know you think that. I want to know what you think the visible church is.

01:46:12

Well, the visible church is made up of all those who profess faith in Jesus Christ.

01:46:17

That is the covenant relationship they have as they profess faith in Jesus Christ. Then some of them prove to be false to that profession, and they go out from us because they were not truly others.

01:46:28

So the visible church is not a covenant, then. It's just a profession of a covenant. Again, did you say the true church or the visible church?

01:46:36

The visible church is a profession of a covenant, not a real covenant. The visible church as we see it is created by a profession of faith in Christ, yes.

01:46:44

That's the only thing that creates it, isn't it? I don't know of anybody who joins my church who comes in saying,

01:46:50

I don't believe in Jesus. We sort of don't allow that. In our church, we receive all sorts of little bundles of sin, and we baptize them, and we say, glory to God, kid, you have nothing to do with this.

01:47:07

I think we just passed in the night at that point. I think we're talking about two very different things because at that point

01:47:14

I was talking about someone who comes as a person making a ... We were talking about professions of faith in the previous question.

01:47:21

Let me grant the pato -baptism point to you and say that you're right in your baptistic convictions and I'm wrong, and deal with a false professor who comes to your church professing faith.

01:47:33

He wants to join a church because that's where the pretty girls are, and he goes through the motions, and he gets baptized, but he's not born again.

01:47:41

Does that false professor who joins your church belong to a covenant?

01:47:50

Does that false professor belong to a covenant? If you're asking, yes,

01:47:56

I believe he does because I believe the church creates a covenant by asking people to profess faith. If you're asking for a biblical name of that covenant,

01:48:04

I don't see the Bible using that terminology in that way. It's a human covenant. Okay, we now have 10 minutes for Dr.

01:48:10

White to ... Yes, technical difficulties.

01:48:33

I'd like to go back to where we ended in the previous section.

01:48:50

When we talk about baptism and the gospel, wouldn't you agree that when you cited from Matthew 28 that it is part and parcel of what

01:49:01

Jesus is saying when he says, baptize the nations, that discipling is communicating to them the gospel of Jesus Christ?

01:49:11

Certainly. All authority is given to me, therefore go, disciple the nations, and that's done by me.

01:49:17

If we look at the rest of the New Testament to see how that's done, it's done by gospel proclamation, telling the people to repent and believe.

01:49:25

Yes, absolutely. If you have an organization that specifically by its teaching perverts the sacrifice of Christ, perverts the blood of Christ into something that cannot save perfectly any individual, denies the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, has a false doctrine of repentance because it turns it into sacramental penances and things like that, perverts every element of the command from Matthew 28, yet despite all of that, the baptism that they practice unites a person to Christ, puts them in the ...

01:50:17

Makes that group, that church, a true ...

01:50:23

Genuine church. A genuine church, and places the individuals who hear only this false message under requirements that they've never heard and will never hear from the people who baptize them and from their own families.

01:50:41

That is correct. They are under obligation to repent and believe even if every person they meet in the course of their lives lies to them about the gospel.

01:50:51

Aren't all people under requirement to repent and believe whether they've been Trinitarianly baptized or not?

01:50:57

Yes, and all people are covenantally connected to God under the covenant of creation because Adam rebelled against God, and the fact that Adam rebelled against God doesn't abrogate that covenant.

01:51:10

We're still under it, and we must repent and believe. God commands all men everywhere to repent, but when someone comes into a redemptive covenant, like the

01:51:20

Mosaic covenant was, as a shadow and a type of Christ who is to come, or the new covenant, and they still have an evil heart of unbelief, as the author of Hebrews says, brethren, don't have an evil heart of unbelief.

01:51:33

When that hypocrisy develops, what you have is an additional covenant condemnation, which is why

01:51:41

Capernaum is judged more severely than Sodom and Gomorrah, because they had two covenants working against them instead of just one.

01:51:49

So the reason for Capernaum's greater condemnation was not that she had seen the ministry of Christ, but it was a covenantal thing?

01:51:56

Well, yeah. Christ was their covenantal Messiah, and he shows up and they reject him.

01:52:02

So to whom much is given, much is required. So it'd be far better to be a pagan atheist than to be a nominal

01:52:10

Christian. And part of the reason that people are so nervous about this federal vision thing that we're talking about is people persist in thinking that we think that God's here and you're here, and if you're baptized, it doesn't get you all the way there, but it gets you partway there.

01:52:23

What we're actually saying is if you're baptized and you don't have faith, it puts you farther away under greater condemnation.

01:52:30

So of how much more severe punishment do you think we're going to receive if we trifle with holy things that way?

01:52:38

So the new covenant baptism that is upon you, that you don't live up to, and you don't repent and believe, then there's a more severe judgment for that, just as there was with the

01:52:52

Jews. So a church that, well, let me just use an illustration you used in chapter 17 of the

01:53:04

Auburn Avenue book. I have more of your books here than you do. I just thought you might want to know that. Since you don't have it,

01:53:13

I'll just mention lines 232 -242. You present a

01:53:19

Hindu getting saved and a Presbyterian getting saved.

01:53:28

I forget what the age is, but let's just say 22 or something. Yeah, they're both adults. Okay, they're both adults.

01:53:35

And you said, it says, and thus he assumes the baptism of the unconverted

01:53:42

Presbyterian was fundamentally superfluous because the Presbyterian didn't get any more saved than the

01:53:48

Hindu did. It seems obvious that the Presbyterian had no head start. We thus disparage the meaning and efficacy of baptism, shuffling it off to the side.

01:53:56

We either ignore it entirely or we acknowledge that it is a subsidiary means of edifying grace. We relegate it to a separate watertight realm of sanctification and act as though sanctification had nothing to do with our salvation.

01:54:07

But if we wish to be historic Protestants in a Reformed tradition, we cannot do this. The confession teaches that something different was happening to the

01:54:15

Presbyterian. Here's the key phrase, he got saved because the grace of his baptism was finally kicking in.

01:54:22

So, this grace that kicks in, every child receives it?

01:54:37

The grace or the baptism? In baptism, does every child receive this grace that kicks in?

01:54:42

No, only those, as the Westminster Confession says, those who are worthy receivers, that is, identified by faith.

01:54:50

But not by faith at the time of baptism? No, because the Westminster Confession says that the grace of baptism is not limited to the time of administration.

01:54:58

So, in the larger catechism, question 161, it says, how do the sacraments become effectual means of salvation?

01:55:05

This is the Westminster Confession of Faith. How do the sacraments become effectual means of salvation? The sacraments become effectual means of salvation not by any power in themselves or any virtue derived from the piety or intention of him by whom they are administered, but only by the working of the

01:55:20

Holy Ghost and the blessing of Christ by whom they are instituted. And that doesn't have to happen at the time of administration, and it makes it clear that it only happens, the effectual call only happens to those who are worthy receivers, that is, those who have faith, which itself is a gift of God, lest any should boast.

01:55:36

So, the grace that the Presbyterian received at baptism kicks in adulthood, but the

01:55:43

Hindu just gets it without baptism later on in life. Correct. When you said we trust

01:55:49

God for the salvation of our children as opposed to the children of the atheist across the street, is this the difference between the atheist across the street and the

01:55:59

Catholic? As a parent, I can believe

01:56:04

God's promises concerning my children. I can't believe God's promises on behalf of my neighbors, whether they're atheists or nominal

01:56:13

Christians or Catholics. But Catholics aren't believing those promises for their children, are they?

01:56:19

Correct. The promises are always apprehended by faith, always. And so, in that context, the baptism is substantially different than the baptism within your context, is it not?

01:56:32

Oh, absolutely. Baptism that is not received with evangelical faith is a curse.

01:56:40

Baptism is, it makes things worse. Stop baptizing immediately. Absolutely. It should absolutely, it should terrify them.

01:56:48

Should we call on Rome to do that immediately? We could write a joint statement or something. We could, but the

01:56:56

Vatican quit returning my calls. I don't think we'll get through.

01:57:03

You know, I wouldn't doubt for a second you tried calling. I really wouldn't. But you see, the point that I'm trying to, that I continue struggling with is this idea that we just agreed on all those things.

01:57:18

We just agreed about all that stuff, and yet still, the

01:57:24

Roman Catholic that I'm debating on justification by faith, who is seeking to bind people to a false system, you would say

01:57:37

I should approach him and call him to faithfulness to a covenant he's never heard of, and I should call him my brother in Christ.

01:57:48

I would say to him something like this, brother, if you want to be a faithful brother, you have to stop contradicting your baptism.

01:57:56

Stop defiling it. Stop adding things to it. Not only does

01:58:02

Rome add things to the holy water to make it holy water, but they add doctrinal, they've got all these incrustations that are overlaid, and yet the

01:58:11

Protestant reformers, to a man for 300 years and more, said there are the remains of a church within the papacy.

01:58:18

Buried under the rubble of the papacy, there are the baptism, and that's simply the position

01:58:25

I'm articulating and defending. Do you believe that Paul would have identified those that he anathematized as his brothers in Christ?

01:58:35

I think he would have said, well, actually, I think that this is a different subject, but I think Paul wrote

01:58:40

Hebrews, and in Hebrews, he says, beware brethren. James even, probably. Beware brethren, lest there be found in any of you an evil heart of unbelief.

01:58:54

Brethren and an evil heart of unbelief. Right there, and that's the point at issue.

01:59:01

Okay, we're now going to move into our closing statements, and just for the purposes of logistics, we're not going to take the love offering right now.

01:59:09

What we're going to do is we're going to place our baskets at the back of the hall, and as you leave tonight, if you feel so led by the

01:59:16

Lord, if you could leave an offering in the baskets. They kind of look like Easter bunny baskets, and you'll see them right by the doors over there.

01:59:23

So, if you feel so led, that is for these two gentlemen, and they will be splitting that equally between each other.

01:59:29

Okay? So, okay. Pastor Wilson now has 10 minutes to close.

02:00:00

Well, let me again thank Alpha and Omega Ministries for this time.

02:00:06

I've enjoyed myself thoroughly. I've enjoyed our interaction, and I've been very grateful for the reception

02:00:13

I've had here, and I do believe that this is an important issue for us to work through. I want to reiterate some of the things

02:00:21

I said before, come at it a little bit differently, and then summarize my central concern.

02:00:28

The French Confession of 1559 says this, yet nevertheless, because there is yet some small trace of a church in the papacy, and that baptism as it is in the substance hath been still continued, we confess that they which are thus baptized do not need a second baptism.

02:00:48

John Knox, who could hardly be accused of being soft on Rome, said, no more ought we to iterate, let me repeat, no more ought we to iterate baptism by whomsoever it was ministered unto us in our infancy, but if God of his mercy should call us from blindness, he maketh our baptism, however, how corrupt that ever it was, available unto us by the power of the

02:01:13

Holy Spirit. So, John Knox said, however corrupt it was, that doesn't matter, the power of the

02:01:18

Holy Spirit ministers it to us when we come to true faith. Now, in principle,

02:01:26

I alluded to this earlier but didn't have a chance to develop it, in principle, could anything happen in the future that would make

02:01:34

Roman Catholic baptism unreceivable by faithful Protestant churches with or without a

02:01:40

Protestant ecumenical council? I said earlier that what I'd be looking for is something that happened to Rome that was similar to what happened to Jerusalem in 70

02:01:50

A .D., where God had the temple destroyed, that's not happened yet, or you could have a

02:01:56

Protestant ecumenical council, which is the sort of thing that, for example, evangelical third world bishops among the

02:02:02

Episcopalians are preparing to do to the apostate American, Canadian, and English Episcopalians.

02:02:09

If you have a genuine ecumenical council that puts out a corrupt branch of Christendom, then

02:02:16

I think that would be an appropriate way to go, but is there any sort of action that Rome could take, you know, how far could you push me, what are my limits, where I would say that's it, we're not receiving baptism at all with or without a

02:02:30

Protestant ecumenical council? Well, yes, there is, and I don't know honestly if it's far off or not.

02:02:41

The Roman Church is shot through with theological liberalism, which is a completely different problem and quite as serious.

02:02:52

The Roman Church is shot through with this theological liberalism, which J. Gresham Machen correctly identified as another religion entirely, and it is interesting to note in passing how

02:03:04

Machen spoke of Rome in this regard. Machen said, yet how great is the common heritage which unites the

02:03:11

Roman Catholic Church with its maintenance of the authority of Holy Scripture and with its acceptance of the great early creeds to devout

02:03:18

Protestants today. The Church of Rome may represent a perversion of the

02:03:23

Christian religion, amen, the Roman Church may represent a perversion of the

02:03:28

Christian religion, but naturalistic liberalism is not Christianity at all. All right, so J.

02:03:36

Gresham Machen, stalwart of the faith, all of you I dare say who have been taught and encouraged to respect him as someone who stood for reformed orthodoxy, says essentially the same thing.

02:03:50

Roman Catholicism is a perversion, it's a twisting, it's bad, but we need to realize that materialistic naturalistic liberalism is worse.

02:04:01

This provides us with a lesson on how these things go. Rome itself, particularly post -Vatican

02:04:10

II, a lot of Protestants I think erroneously have hailed the developments of post -Vatican II as sort of a new reformation.

02:04:17

I don't think it is at all, I think it's the corruptions of liberalism that are getting to Rome just as they got to the mainstream denominations here.

02:04:26

Rome now has a bad dose of that same liberalism. Couple this with feminism, the appeal of Mariolatry to the natural man, and it's quite possible that Mary will eventually get her big promotion and people will be baptized into the name of a quaternity.

02:04:41

When the creedal core has rotted out, the liturgy cannot remain indefinitely the same.

02:04:47

It can remain the same for a time, but eventually the unfaithfulness that is at the heart works its way out into the liturgy, into the forms, into the rubric of baptism.

02:05:00

We see this in the mainline denominations, which abandoned the faith in substance, but kept the old triune name for a time, a form which we should receive in the meantime.

02:05:13

Let God be true and every man a liar. Let God be true, but the rot has to spread and eventually people in the mainline denominations will be baptized into the name of God the

02:05:24

Mother and we see that process well underway, or Allah, or Shiva, and so on.

02:05:32

And of course, all such baptisms are not baptisms at all. The baptism constitutes a word from God and it requires of that person that he repent and believe in the

02:05:45

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, there's nothing wrong in my mind, and this is perhaps a Baptist -Presbyterian divide, the fact that kids aren't consulted on whether they're going to be

02:05:55

Christians or not, I think is the coolest thing in the world. Because I love saying to my kids and I love saying to my grandkids, as for me and my house, we will serve the

02:06:06

Lord. I'm going to heaven and you're coming too, kid. And we're going to bring you up in the faith, we're going to bring you up in the nurture and admonition of the

02:06:13

Lord. We're not going to do this by works, we're going to trust God's covenant promises and we're going to raise you faithfully in that covenant, trusting him to save us and you.

02:06:26

And reapplying a verse of scripture where we say, here am I and the children you have given to me.

02:06:33

So, baptism constitutes a word from God and it requires of that person that he repent and believe, requires of him that he repent and believe in the

02:06:43

Lord Jesus Christ. If he does not, then he's a covenant breaker and God will remove him from the covenant.

02:06:49

If he repents and believes, then he's keeping covenant through the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, the only perfect covenant keeper.

02:06:58

So, someone who has faith, a gift of God, lest any should boast, is trusting in Jesus, the only one who keeps covenant, the only one who kept covenant.

02:07:06

And because Jesus kept covenant and I am in him, and I am in him efficaciously as one of the elect, nothing can separate me from him.

02:07:17

So, if someone who's in the covenant people of God, if he repents sometime after his baptism, he does not need to be baptized again.

02:07:27

This is the position of our reformed forefathers. This is the Westminster Confession of Faith, this is

02:07:33

John Knox, it's John Calvin, it's Turretin, it's Beza, it's all these men. Now, I can understand and respect, honestly, the position of the reformed

02:07:42

Baptists who say, you know, our reformed fathers got a bunch of glorious things right, but we think that they stopped short and they should have reformed a few more things.

02:07:53

That is a defensible, conscientious, and honest position which the reformed Baptists hold. I think the reformers should have taken it a little bit further.

02:08:02

At the same time, the reformers, even though they didn't take it a little bit further, were reformers. They were the ones who accomplished great things in the kingdom of God, and they accomplished great things in the kingdom of God while holding this position.

02:08:15

So, consequently, I don't believe that this position today, this division between Baptist and Presbyterian and classical

02:08:23

Protestantism and the Baptist position today within the reformed world should in any way represent an issue of heresy or fundamental division.

02:08:34

And that's one of the reasons I so appreciated how this debate was framed and contextualized. These are important issues.

02:08:41

We're not trifling. It's a big deal, and I think that ideas have consequences, theological ideas have consequences.

02:08:48

And so, we have to be very careful to work these things through. And as we work these things through, one of the things we need to do is keep a right understanding of where we are contextually.

02:09:02

I came to the Reformed faith in 1988.

02:09:08

I became a Paedo -Baptist in 93 or thereabouts, and I fell down the

02:09:13

Reformational stairs, hitting my head on every step, and some of the doctrinal shifts that I went through were no fun at all.

02:09:20

And becoming a Paedo -Baptist was no fun at all. It cost me a great deal.

02:09:26

But I believe it to be a precious truth now, and I love seeing how the promises of God and what

02:09:33

I believe about child -rearing, I love seeing how that all lines up. And God promises these things, and we don't just say, oh, it's mine automatically.

02:09:42

What we do is we must respond to God's word always and everywhere the same way. Tota et sola scriptura gives us tota et sola fide.

02:09:52

All faith and only faith, and faith responds to the sovereign word of God who gives gracious covenant promises.

02:10:04

Thank you, Pastor Wilson. Dr. White now has 10 minutes to close.

02:10:22

I just learned a few things. I learned that I became Reformed before Douglas Wilson did.

02:10:27

I now feel very old. Thank you very much. I also have decided that the best way to convince my opponent of the error of his ways is not to debate him.

02:10:39

I'm going to find a way for him to debate Robert St. Genes and Jerry Matitix, and I think that will take care of it.

02:10:46

If you have not heard any debates of those gentlemen, I think the up -close -and -personal thing would really help in this particular situation.

02:10:57

Believe me, I have their phone numbers. We could arrange it. I just don't know if they want to fly to Idaho.

02:11:08

The issues this evening are extremely important, and I appreciate much of what was just said in regards to why we have the differences that we have and why we can really discuss this issue the way we have this evening.

02:11:25

No one has gotten up and thrown anything. There's been no violence, and that's going to continue during the question and answer period afterwards, but I hope in the dialogue that, first of all, if you are a

02:11:42

Roman Catholic here this evening, I would like to say something to you. Maybe you saw the title, and maybe you're sort of wondering, wow,

02:11:51

I'm not really sure what to make of all this. Let me tell you something.

02:11:57

If you're a Roman Catholic here this evening, it is my firm belief that the Gospel of Rome can never give you peace.

02:12:06

It is my firm belief that the treadmill of penances and works that Rome sets you upon can never, ever, ever, ever give you the peace that Paul talked about in Romans chapter 5 when he said, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace.

02:12:23

We have shalom with God. I cannot convince you of that, but I have this wonderful belief that when the

02:12:30

Holy Spirit of God moves upon your heart and convicts you of your sin, all of the penances and sacraments of Rome will never be able to quiet that conscience until you come to cling solely to Jesus Christ and to Him alone.

02:12:48

Now, the problem I have, of course, this evening is if you're a Roman Catholic, you're saying, you all are telling me what my baptism allegedly meant when

02:12:56

I was a child, but that's not what my parents told me, and that's not what my priest told me, and so you're telling me that they lied to me.

02:13:05

Well, maybe they just didn't know. I have a real problem with the idea that a religious activity just because, and I really believe that this has basically been arbitrarily chosen because it uses the right theology proper, even though, from my experience, the vast majority of Roman Catholics I've talked to don't know what the doctrine of the

02:13:25

Trinity is. They're not Trinitarian. They may, the confessions say it, but they themselves don't experience it.

02:13:35

They don't understand what it is. The point is that even though they have received this act in an externally, formally proper way, my whole problem is that that act was undertaken within the context not only of ignorant unbelief, but of direct contradiction to the gospel itself, and we ran out of time in the cross -examination, but I wanted to point out that I do not believe that the

02:14:07

Apostle Paul would have referred to the men he anathematized as his brothers and sisters in Christ. I do not believe that he would have said that they were a part of a true church.

02:14:17

The answer that was given went to, well, because the situation in Europe at the time of the Reformation, the Magisterial Reformation, this is what we do, and I thought we believed in Semper Reformanda, and the answer to the question had to do with something way before the

02:14:32

Reformation, and that is the fact that I don't believe that the Apostle Paul would have referred to those men that way.

02:14:38

The answer that was given was, well, Paul wrote Hebrews, and you have this, unless there be this deceitful heart found amongst you.

02:14:45

Again, a warning passage preached to the people of God is not the same as Paul having anathematized these people, saying they have a false gospel.

02:14:54

Now, how does Paul respond to them? How does he deal with them? Does he seek to restore them by grabbing them by their baptism, or does he refute their teaching and announce

02:15:06

God's wrath upon them, which is what he did. I don't believe that the terminology of saying that Roman Catholics are my brother and sister in Christ is helpful in proclaiming the gospel to them, because you see, they've already had enough of a gospel that says, well, there are probabilities and possibilities here.

02:15:29

They've already had enough of a gospel that says, well, if you do these things, then yes, you're in.

02:15:36

Pastor Wilson is not trying to add works in that way. He's not trying to do what some people say are trying to do in adding some sort of personal faithfulness to the righteousness of Christ.

02:15:48

Let me just say in passing, I recognize why there's confusion here. I recognize why there's confusion here.

02:15:55

I really appreciate the fact, especially since I've gotten a whole lot of trouble recently for defending the imputation of the positive, the active and passive obedience of Christ to believers as the grounds for justification, as definitional to justification.

02:16:09

I've gotten in trouble for that recently, as some of you know, and I really appreciate the fact that Pastor Wilson says,

02:16:14

I believe in that. I affirm the imputation of the active and passive obedience of Christ in justification.

02:16:22

Is that not the case? If you want to go to heaven, I'll let that one sink in for a moment.

02:16:34

But there are other people who are identified in this movement who specifically deny the active obedience of Christ as being imputed.

02:16:44

That's where some of the confusions come in. I've tried to at least respond to only what

02:16:50

Douglas Wilson believes. I appreciate the fact that Douglas Wilson said that justification is the article of the standing or falling church, and he didn't call that hooey and hogwash.

02:17:01

I'm glad that unlike certain students of Pastor Wilson, that he hasn't said that preaching sola fide and sola scriptura is sloganeering and has no effect in regards to Roman Catholicism.

02:17:13

But you see, those things are being said, and that's what concerns me. I am concerned that the people of God know what the gospel is with clarity and know that we, if we love those who are involved in the

02:17:28

Roman Catholic Church, need to bring them the gospel because they've never heard it. And the fact of the matter is, calling them my brother and sister in Christ, saying that they are in some sense united to Christ when they've never heard the gospel, they've never heard the gracious message of a completed sacrifice of Christ.

02:17:47

I don't believe anyone who has never heard of the perfection of the sacrifice of Christ is in Him in any way.

02:17:54

We are in Him by faith, not by something that happened to us in the past. I have many serious questions we haven't been able to get into this evening about what does it mean to be in Christ?

02:18:06

I don't think that you're in Christ without being indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, without being regenerated. If you're in Christ, you have forgiveness of sins.

02:18:12

If you're in Christ, you have adoption. What do we say about all these things? Why do we have to keep making all these extremely fine distinctions when if we would just simply accept the idea that this covenant is perfectly salvific, we wouldn't have any of these problems and we would be able to proclaim the gospel clearly to Roman Catholics and say, here it is.

02:18:34

It's a perfect work. This partial little thing you're getting in the mass is never going to save you.

02:18:41

It's not by your works. It's not by your faithfulness. It's not by grace prompting you to do things.

02:18:46

And then you've got all these things you add. It's none of those things. It's all of Jesus Christ and it's perfect in him.

02:18:54

That's the message that I want to bring to the Roman Catholics. And one of the reasons that I felt we needed to do this debate this evening is if I'm going to say that in future debates with Roman Catholic apologists,

02:19:05

I know that many of my opponents are going to bring up this very controversy against me in those contexts.

02:19:11

See, your own people don't agree with you. Your own people don't think that this new covenant of yours is perfectly salvific.

02:19:20

And I'm going to at least be able to say, look, I have attempted, I have in public debated this issue.

02:19:26

I have sought to bring clarity to these issues. I have been consistent in where I stand, even when it's not a popular thing to do, even when it's a costly thing to do.

02:19:39

Those of you here this evening, if you walked in here knowing a little bit about this issue, you know that we've barely scratched the surface.

02:19:45

If you walked in here not knowing what the issue is, I hope you realize that each one of these debates, my heart's desire is that the people of God will come from this place, and they will go to the

02:19:59

Scriptures, and with a clearer understanding of what the issues are, they will be able to go to those

02:20:05

Scriptures, and the result being an increase in your confidence in the

02:20:10

Word of God, in the teaching of God, in the Gospel, resulting in you being a more zealous witness for our

02:20:18

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you for being here this evening and participating. Would you join me in thanking both of these gentlemen for participating tonight?

02:20:50

Okay, we will now be moving into our Q &A session. We'll keep the questions to about 15 -20 seconds in length.

02:20:59

If you do not abide by that, we'll take you to a chair out back, tie you, and let you listen to old Reba McIntyre songs until you repent of such an infraction.

02:21:09

We'll begin on this side here with a question for Pastor Wilson. You can come, yeah.

02:21:16

We want you to come to the center here so we can have you on film. Hi. Hello, Pastor Wilson.

02:21:22

My name is Jeremy Kidder. I was wondering, in addition to having a proper understanding of the

02:21:27

Trinity and the meaning or purpose of baptism, what else would be necessary? Would a zealous church member going into an infant ward, would that count as baptism?

02:21:37

Would the parents' consent be necessary? What else, aside from a proper understanding of the

02:21:42

Trinity, would constitute legitimate baptism, in your view? So, if I get this right, let's say some zealous nurse baptizing kids in the maternity ward, that sort of thing.

02:21:57

When you baptize, you can't just do the fire hose thing because you have to have scriptural warrant for what you're doing.

02:22:06

So, you don't just baptize willy -nilly. What you have to do is have, when someone professes faith, as it happens in credo -baptism, they profess faith and you baptize them, which is the pattern in Acts.

02:22:19

I believe covenant promises, which are given to parents, are the warrant for baptizing infants.

02:22:27

So, I would say no. Those sorts of baptisms, baptisms on the sly, secret baptisms that the infant knows nothing about and nobody else knows anything about,

02:22:38

I think are not lawful. Is there a rebuttal with the

02:22:50

Q &A? A 30 -second rebuttal sounds nice and brief.

02:22:58

Obviously, I have a problem with what seems to be the arbitrariness of establishing standards here, especially when the desire is to provide an assurance.

02:23:18

If your standards are arbitrary, then the assurance can have no more reality than the authority of the person who arbitrarily decides what the standards are.

02:23:28

So, I see this as another issue where we don't have that kind of basis really being provided.

02:23:35

Dr. White, it sounds like the assumption from Pastor Wilson is that the way the

02:23:40

Roman Catholics understand the Trinity would be equal to the way we as Protestants would understand the

02:23:50

Trinity. My question for you is, in all your interaction with Catholics, do you see them understanding the one true

02:23:59

God in three persons as the same one true God in three persons that we identify, or would you say they have a false

02:24:06

Christ, which makes their Trinity a false Trinity? Two things. Clear here.

02:24:15

I do need to disagree with something with Pastor Wilson. Shock of all shock. I've written a book on the subject of the fifth

02:24:25

Marian dogma, and Mary is co -redemptrix, co -mediatrix, advocate for the people of God. I do not believe there's any possibility of a quadernity or an elevation of Mary to that point.

02:24:35

While there have been some who have spoken of Mary as the incarnation of the Holy Spirit, there's certainly no push to have that kind of thing dogmatized.

02:24:44

So, I don't really think that that's a possibility. I'd want to mention that first. Secondly, though, the vast majority of Roman Catholics that I interact with are ignorant of the early church.

02:24:54

They're ignorant of the early creeds. They're ignorant of the doctrine of the Trinity. Then again, sadly, a lot of evangelicals I know, likewise, are ignorant of all of those things

02:25:01

I just mentioned. The problem that I have is the official position of the

02:25:06

Roman Catholic Church is certainly true on the doctrine of the Trinity. The problem that I have is that I think the doctrine of the

02:25:13

Trinity goes farther than just simply the bald statement of the confessions or the old creeds. I think that it goes to the issue—I see the

02:25:21

Trinity and the gospel absolutely intermixed with one another, and so I just can't separate it out and say, well, as long as you got this part of the

02:25:29

Trinity right, you're okay. But if you miss the soteriological element of the Trinity, then you're in Christ, your baptism is valid, all the rest of that stuff, but if you mess anything up over here, then it's not.

02:25:41

I find that to be an arbitrary distinction. I just don't understand it. The answer to the point that's raised to the objection that this is sort of an arbitrary thing,

02:25:52

I would simply point out that pastoring the church, governing the church, making these decisions is a messy business, and it always has been, and it's a messy business for everyone.

02:26:04

So of course we have to make decisions. What about this? What about this? But I'm not the only one that has to do this.

02:26:09

So James has said that there are a lot of evangelicals who don't have a clue when they come to baptism.

02:26:17

There are a lot of Protestant evangelical denominations that are semi -Pelagian. Well, do we receive their baptisms?

02:26:25

What about that? Well, the question of making decisions is something that we both have to do.

02:26:31

The arbitrariness is not just limited to us maintaining this position, it applies to all of us.

02:26:44

Pastor Wilson, tonight you've rooted a lot of what you've said in church history and John Knox and John Calvin.

02:26:53

When John Knox stood before Mary Queen of Scots on several occasions, those were amazing opportunities.

02:26:59

He thought through very, very carefully what he was going to say. On none of those occasions did he call her a sister in Christ, but what he did do was he pleaded with her to repent and to turn from her popish religion, and never at any point did he give any indication that he saw any credence in that religion or in the baptism.

02:27:21

Having read as much of John Knox as I can get my hands on, having read Calvin's Institutes and dabbled in most of his commentaries, am

02:27:31

I missing something? Is there extensive writings? Do you have some source full of indications that they took what you're saying to the conclusion that you're taking it to that they actually called extensively, rather than just little arbitrary statements here and there referring to baptism?

02:27:53

Did they speak? Am I missing something? Did they say brother in Christ, sister in Christ? Because I haven't seen that.

02:28:00

I would want to answer that I think very simply. You're absolutely right. I've loved

02:28:07

John Knox. I wrote a biography of John Knox. I love the man. I think he was great, and you're exactly right.

02:28:14

He stood before Mary Queen of Scots and he said you must repent of your popish religion, but he did not say repent and be baptized.

02:28:27

I'm highly tempted to respond using an accent right now, but I won't do it. And all of you who just clapped,

02:28:39

I'm taking names, but that's why I wanted him to keep going. I just love listening to that.

02:28:44

That was great, but one of the problems I have here is I see a vast difference between a discussion of receiving baptism and calling someone a brother or sister in Christ and saying that they're in Christ and the covenant issues and things like that.

02:29:02

I see a huge difference between those two things. One, not wanting to re -baptize because of the stigma of anabaptism.

02:29:08

The other saying these people are in covenant with Christ. Those are, I think, are two separate issues.

02:29:21

Are you from Scotland also? No, but my name is Scott and I don't have an accent.

02:29:28

Can you talk like he did? Dr. White, I have a question about how you consider the children of believers in your own church who have not yet professed

02:29:42

Christ. That's my question, but to add to that, my statement is that it appears that your definition of who is your brother and sister in Christ, i .e.

02:29:51

professing believers who are truly elect, predisposes you to reject

02:29:56

Roman baptism before you consider their theology because you would also reject any infant baptism of those churches that you would agree with their theology because you would not consider anyone to be your brother in Christ who is not yet a professing believer.

02:30:17

So back to my question, when do children of believers within your church become your brother and sister in Christ and receive

02:30:26

God's promise that they are indeed God's children? An excellent question and one that since Pastor Wilson got to be personal,

02:30:42

I get to be personal as well. I had the opportunity, the gift of grace over the past two years to do something that any father would be absolutely amazed at, and that is

02:31:03

I baptized both of my children. My son Joshua was about 17 years of age.

02:31:10

My daughter, who is here somewhere, maybe she's taking care of kids out back, at 15 years of age.

02:31:19

And both of them are raised in our home. We called them to faith and repentance in Christ.

02:31:26

We proclaimed the gospel to them. And when I wrote a book recently called

02:31:33

Scripture Alone, I wrote a dedication to my son. I sat down with my children one day and I told them my next book

02:31:42

I was dedicating to Josh and my next book after this would be dedicated to my daughter, Summer. At the end of my dedication,

02:31:50

I said something along the lines of, thank you, my son and my brother,

02:31:57

Joshua. I believe that a person is united to Christ by only one thing, faith.

02:32:06

And my son was united to Christ when God, by his spirit, opened his eyes to his sin and gave him new life.

02:32:17

And the same thing with my daughter. I did not understand the question in regards to the predisposition about Rome's baptism because I can assure you of one thing.

02:32:26

Maybe I was backwards. But my study of Rome began with her gospel and moved from there to what else she believed.

02:32:33

So it wasn't an issue of being predisposed by some preexisting issue. I started with that issue.

02:32:41

And in fact, the man who forced me to deal with Rome, I didn't want to.

02:32:47

He's standing in the back and he can wave at you right there. Go ahead, Benny. Go ahead. You wave. There he is. Anyone who's heard the three dozen some odd debates we've done and you're angry about it, talk with him.

02:33:02

Just a quick response on the sola fide aspect of that. Obviously, it's wonderful when any of our children come to faith.

02:33:09

I grew up in the Southern Baptist Convention and a godly Christian home.

02:33:14

I was baptized when I was 10 years old. And yet I believe that covenantally in 1

02:33:22

Corinthians 7, 14, prior to that time, I believed in Jesus and I trust in God. My parents'

02:33:28

God was my God. And consequently, I don't see the need for a separation or keeping away that long.

02:33:38

But it's glorious whenever it's affirmed. The thing that's important is when James says that there's only one thing that unites us

02:33:45

Christ, and that's the instrumentality of faith. I absolutely agree with that. But we both believe, for example, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

02:33:54

So when you say there's got to be a gospel preacher, you're not watering down sola fide just because someone has to preach the gospel.

02:34:01

Neither are you watering it down sola fide with the water of baptism. Faith is the instrument that God gives, which sees

02:34:09

Christ in all of God's means. The word, the preaching, the sacraments, that's what we do.

02:34:23

Allow me to be personal as well. I was baptized as an infant in the

02:34:28

Roman Catholic Church, and I was again baptized in 1998 in a

02:34:37

Baptist church. And I presume that you, Doug Wilson, would call my baptism in the

02:34:46

Roman Catholic Church the more genuine of the two baptisms. Based on that, would you baptize a new believer in your church, or would you baptize a new believer in your church if they, would you not baptize a new believer in your church if they did not, if they wanted to be baptized again?

02:35:11

So if someone was baptized in infancy in the Roman Catholic Church, and they came to faith, and they also came to Baptistic convictions, and they wanted to be baptized again.

02:35:20

Would you baptize them? I would not do it personally, but I would arrange for it. I have friends who are Baptists, and I would arrange for a

02:35:28

Baptist friend who was ordained who could baptize them again without violating his conscience to do it.

02:35:35

But I could not do it without violating my conscience, but I could help. I have contacts.

02:35:51

No, my parents went and brought me this shirt. But is it a sign of something?

02:35:58

Actually, with the Scottish gentleman, when you said, can you speak in his accent, I thought he'd say, what accent?

02:36:06

Anyways, Pastor White, this is for you. I understand what Doug Wilson believes about John 15, but I'd like to get your response to this, and I'll just give one verse as an example for the crowd here.

02:36:19

John 15, 6, if anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up, and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

02:36:30

Could you explain your position on that? Thank you. Yeah, for anyone who wants to go a little bit farther into this, there is a, and especially since this seems to be ubiquitous today, if you go to my website, there's an article on John 15 if you want to have something more than just the one -minute version of it.

02:36:48

Calvin's commentaries on, there's John chapter 15. There was nothing

02:36:54

I could find in there that I disagreed with, because he emphasizes the fact that one of the dangers in this passage is, let him remember the rule which ought to be observed in all parables, that we ought not to examine minutely every property of the vine, but only take a general view of the object to which

02:37:09

Christ applies that comparison. Now, there are three principal parts. First, that we have no power of doing good but what comes from himself.

02:37:16

Secondly, that we having a root in him are dressed and pruned by the Father. Thirdly, that he removes the unfruitful branches, they may be thrown into the fire and burned.

02:37:23

The point of this passage is to give joy to his disciples, and according to John chapter 15, all those who are in him, verse 8, my

02:37:33

Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. If there is no fruit, and think of all of Jesus' parables.

02:37:41

Think of the parable of the soils. Think of the parable with the fig tree, when he curses the fig tree. What is the common element in each and every one of them?

02:37:49

No fruit. Where there is no fruit, there is no spiritual life. And so, in each one of these situations, you have that coming out.

02:37:58

Now, some people want to say, well, this is actually talking about the covenant. The word covenant is never found in there. The word baptism is never found in there.

02:38:05

It is, I think, a misapplication of this passage, which is talking about the centrality of the

02:38:10

Holy Spirit being the means by which we can do anything. And our need to have the Holy Spirit within us and to be united with Christ through that means of the

02:38:19

Holy Spirit, I think, is a tremendous misuse of this passage to try to apply it to a completely different issue of what baptism is and covenant issues and all the rest of this stuff.

02:38:28

The issue of John chapter 15, very briefly, is that the person who is truly in Christ bears fruit because the

02:38:35

Holy Spirit is within his life. That is the whole point of what it's all about, and people have been missing it for a long, long time by trying to apply it to things it was never intended to be applied to in the first place.

02:38:47

I'm game, and I'm happy to leave covenant and baptism out of John 15, but notice there was a subtle shift.

02:38:54

He said those who are truly in Christ bear fruit, but the text says those who are permanently in Christ bear fruit.

02:39:01

The branch that bears fruit remains. The fruitless branch is in the vine, and the vine is

02:39:09

Christ. There is such a thing as fruitless connection to Christ, and that is removed.

02:39:16

That's one of the things that John Calvin points out. That's the third element. Fruitless connection to Christ, fruitless branches are taken out of Christ, and were taken away and burned, and that's the text.

02:39:27

So you've got permanent abiding, and you've got temporary abiding, temporary connection, and these people are taken out of Christ.

02:39:36

I don't know exegetically how to jump up and down on it anymore. I am the vine.

02:39:42

You are the branches. Bear fruit. You remain. You don't bear fruit. You're taken out. You have to be in to be taken out in Christ.

02:39:58

This is to Pastor Wilson. This is a three -part. I'll try to make it brief.

02:40:05

It's kind of a philogistic question if there is such a thing. Isn't the wedding ring or sign of marriage only as good or valid as the oath or vow in which the institution or covenant in this case is established?

02:40:21

The other question kind of parallels to that. Number two, isn't the concept or institution of a civil union, domestic partnership, or to be more explicit, a same -sex marriage an invalid institution whereby the oath would be false and therefore the ring also being invalid and void of any meaning?

02:40:43

And lastly, part three, so then can't we conclude that Rome, while embracing a false gospel, would by necessary inference have an invalid relationship or union in regards to any meaningful covenant before God, therefore rendering any sign it has to be void as well as also false?

02:41:02

Yes, I agree that there are unions, marital unions, that are not marital unions at all.

02:41:08

And they are such perversions that although people want to call them a marriage, they are not a marriage at all.

02:41:17

But that's not true of adulterous husbands. And the Bible is full of charges against God's people for idolatry who are guilty of all the sins that Rome was guilty of.

02:41:28

In the Old Testament, the people of God returned to these sorts of sins again and again. And they are charged with adultery, spiritual adultery.

02:41:36

They are not charged with, you know, sodomite perversion. That's not the illustration.

02:41:42

The illustration of idolatry is spiritual whoredom, harlotry, that sort of thing.

02:41:47

So I believe that what we saw with the Jews in the Old Testament, the warning that was given to Rome, don't be like the

02:41:53

Jews, is the warning that Rome failed to heed. And that's why I believe Rome is guilty of spiritual adultery.

02:41:59

But they're married. That's why they, that's the only way they could be adulterous. The Church of Rome may have been married in the

02:42:08

New Testament, but the divorce took place a long time ago when Rome started killing the people of God. I just don't believe that because a relationship once existed generations and generations and generations ago, that the mere repetition of words that no longer have a meaning that is created by a living

02:42:28

Holy Spirit and the Gospel itself, any longer makes that a Christian activity. And hence, I just cannot believe that a person who goes through that is my brother or sister in Christ based upon those principles.

02:42:40

Okay, Pastor White, 1 Corinthians 15 -12 has Paul reporting that some of the

02:42:46

Corinthians are denying the resurrection. And elsewhere in the same chapter, Paul says that if Christ died but did not rise, our faith is in vain.

02:42:55

So the resurrection is pretty important to the Gospel. This being the case, were the

02:43:01

Corinthians that Paul was rebuking in this chapter non -believers who needed to repent and be baptized, or were they early in the epistle brethren who were simply denying the false

02:43:12

Gospel? And if the latter, how is this not parallel to the Roman Catholic case? Actually, 1

02:43:17

Corinthians 15 -12 says now if Christ was preached that he has been raised from the dead, how does some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

02:43:24

The some among you could refer to those, of course, who are false preachers. They were false preachers in Galatia as well.

02:43:31

That's the same type of context. And again, this question illustrates one of the things

02:43:36

I tried to briefly say before, and that is there is this tendency amongst the writers that I have read in the federal vision movement to say, well, if Paul addresses a church and he addresses them corporately and he says that they're in Christ, well, that means that they're in Christ.

02:43:56

And so that gives us our foundation for saying when some of end up proving to be false teachers or they go out from us, that that means there's two different ways of being in Christ rather than recognizing that you address the gathered people in a particular fashion.

02:44:12

And then when someone like the Antichrist in 1 John 2, the false brethren in Galatians 2, when their false teaching is brought to light, then you address them for what they are, as false teachers, false brethren.

02:44:28

But the fact of the matter is, as I said briefly, when John preached Sunday morning to the church, he preached to the church as a whole.

02:44:37

And to take that and mean, well, what that means is he is affirming that what he's saying about salvation is true of every single person sitting in front of him is the unwarranted leap that leads to the need to make all these very fine distinctions that causes all of the confusion.

02:44:54

Where are we? I don't believe that proclamations of salvation and redemption apply to every covenant member distributively to every last person.

02:45:04

But I do believe that those expressions have genuine meaning for every last person so that when an apostate falls away, he falls away from grace or from Christ in some very real sense.

02:45:20

We're just going to take one more question from each side. I actually had three questions, but they all got answered.

02:45:26

So the last question is, I believe Dr. White gave a pretty good exegesis of the Hebrews 8 passage in which it defines the new covenant, specifically in that God's doing all the work.

02:45:37

One of the evangelical type things that's often said about the gospel is that the difference between the

02:45:43

Roman religion or other religions and the evangelical Christian religion is that it's a do religion versus the done religion.

02:45:52

And I find that Hebrews 8 really expresses that very clearly, and I believe that Dr. White exegeted that properly in that sense in a positive way.

02:46:00

I'd like to know how, given that understanding and what he says in Hebrews 8, how we can define the covenant as being non -salvific specifically given what he says in Hebrews 8.

02:46:13

Thank you for returning to that because I wanted to say something about it. The Jeremiah 31 passage, the famous prophecy of the new covenant, is treated in its greatest extent in the

02:46:27

New Testament, in the book of Hebrews. It's quoted in its fullness in Hebrews 8, and then he returns to it and quotes it in two pieces in Hebrews chapter 10, but I regard the entire book of Hebrews as a commentary on Jeremiah 31.

02:46:44

So if the whole point of the entire book of Hebrews is to keep these people from apostatizing and falling away from Christ, returning to the blood of bulls and goats, going back to Jerusalem, if that's the whole point, it would be bizarre for him to be doing this if the members of the new covenant cannot fall away, if the members of the new covenant are the elect, if it's an impossibility for him to cite the new covenant promise and argue from that to them saying, therefore you must not fall away, you must not get on that boat going back to Jerusalem, simply seems to me to be incoherent.

02:47:23

So he makes his initial statement in Hebrews 8, defining it, you are the new covenant people, and then in Hebrews 10 when he returns to this subject, in Hebrews 10 he says, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through his veil, that is to say his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having a heart sprinkled, love that word don't you, sprinkled, from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water, let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful that promised, and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.

02:48:10

The author of Hebrews is really concerned that these people are going to forsake, fall, stumble, and they are the new covenant people, and he applies

02:48:19

Jeremiah's prophecy to these people twice. Of course he never refers to them as new covenant people, and the problem here is that what they're apostatizing from is from the external church, their confession of faith, not from the new covenant.

02:48:32

His whole argument is there's nothing to go back to. You can't go back to the old covenant. The old covenant is passing away, and there's no reason to go back to it because the new covenant is a better covenant.

02:48:42

It has been enacted, and it is as described, as we mentioned earlier in the debate, it is a perfectly salvific covenant, so it fits perfectly into his argument.

02:48:52

It fits perfectly into Hebrews chapter 10, and it makes perfect sense that its perfection would be part and parcel of the presentation to those who were under pressure to go back to the old ways.

02:49:03

There's nothing to go back to. The new covenant is a better covenant with better mediators, better promises.

02:49:10

It's been enacted, and that's what we have in the New Testament. Well thank you gentlemen, and thank you folks for being so patient and so kind and sticking with us through the evening here, and once again could you thank these gentlemen and Steve Camp as well.