The Dividing Line - Al Mohler, Chris Pinto, Strange Fire and Manuel

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Welcome to the Dividing Line, my name is James White. It is time to dive into all sorts of things, including your phone calls at 877 -753 -3341.

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877 -753 -3341. Are we ever going to do Skype again? Maybe not yet.

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Someday, possibly. I mean, it was easier for people overseas to use that. That's true. If I can find a round -to -it around here somewhere,

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I'm fresh out of them. Oh, okay. All right. Just wondered. We just hadn't done it in months.

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So anyways, 877 -753 -3341, yesterday morning,

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I would love to have been a mouse in the corner at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, when

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Dr. Albert Moeller of the

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Southern by the way. He didn't just show up, like certain people showed up at the

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Strange Fire Conference just to pass out stuff, which I found about,

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I don't know, about a 7th grade level activity. But anyway, here is some of Dr.

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Moeller's comments, and I want to start the program off with these. I have come to Brigham Young University. I think

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I said Brigham Young University there. I have come to Brigham Young University. There we go. Because I intend with you to push back against the modernist notion that only the accommodated can converse.

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There are those who sincerely believe that meaningful and respectful conversation can take place only among those who believe the least.

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That only those who believe the least, and thus may disagree the least, can engage one other in the kind of conversation that matters.

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I reject that notion, and I reject it forcefully. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker, that is the kind of idea that must not be cast aside.

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And lightly, but thrown with full force. I come as a Christian theologian to speak explicitly and respectfully as a

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Christian, a Christian who defines Christianity only within the historic creeds and confessions of the Christian Church, and who comes as one committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the ancient and eternal

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Trinitarian faith of the Christian Church. I have not come as less, and you know whom you have invited.

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I come knowing who you are, to an institution that stands as the most powerful intellectual center of the

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Latter -day Saints, the most visible academic institution of Mormonism. You know who I am, and what I believe.

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I know who you are, and what you believe. Wow. Wow. And then, it got even more direct later on.

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This is what brings me to Brigham Young. I'm starting to think about back when we used to record these phone messages from Mormons.

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And one night, we were trying to record one that had the name Brigham Young in it.

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It wasn't me that was trying to say it, it was somebody else. But every time we got to it, he couldn't say it right.

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And it turned into one of those things where everyone's just laughing their heads off, and it took three hours to record a ten minute thing.

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That's how I'm feeling about Brigham Young today. This is what brings me to Brigham Young University today.

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I am not here because I believe we are going to heaven together. I do not believe that.

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I believe that salvation comes only to those who believe and trust only in Christ and in his substitutionary atonement for salvation.

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I believe in justification by faith alone, in Christ alone. I love and respect you as friends, and as friends, we would speak only what we believe to be true, especially on matters of eternal significance.

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We inhabit separate and irreconcilable theological worlds, made clear with respect to the doctrine of the

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Trinity. And yet, here I am, and gladly so, we will speak to one another of what we most sincerely believe to be true, precisely because we love and respect one another.

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Then I love this next line. I'm going to have to ask Dr. Moeller when he thought of this one.

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I do not believe that we are going to heaven together, but I do believe we may go to jail together.

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What a line! Wow! I do not believe that we are going to heaven together, but I do believe we may go to jail together.

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I do not mean to exaggerate, but we are living in the shadow of a great moral revolution that we commonly believe will have grave and devastating human consequences.

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Now, the one thing that Dr. Moeller didn't touch on, and I don't know how he could have, is right now we are already hearing the voices coming forward to legalize and establish polyamory and polygamy.

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And what will Salt Lake do if all of a sudden polygamy becomes legal?

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Which could happen like next year at the rate things are going. What do they do now?

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The only reason they stopped, there was no revelation, there was nothing that came down from heaven that made

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Section 132 invalid any longer. That's still right there. So what does Mormonism do if polygamy is allowed under the

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United States Constitution? Well, it's not under the United States Constitution. The Constitution is irrelevant any longer.

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Just give it up, folks. It's gone. It's history. Once it became a living document where the words no longer mean anything, there is one person, well, two, maybe, on the

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Supreme Court that actually believes you should interpret that within the context in which it was written and what the founders meant. Otherwise, everybody else, even the alleged conservatives, it's just sort of Plato, you know, just do with it what you want.

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Sort of like liberals, the Bible, you know, just form it into whatever you want and that's all there is to it. Anyway, that would be an interesting thing to find out what

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Salt Lake would do. We'll see. Anyway, one other cultural thing here from Bill Muhlenberg.

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This was from a little over a week ago, but this just was truly amazing.

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Talking about infanticide, consider the recent case of infanticide.

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If this does not shake you up, then you are already dead. A woman who strangled and killed her newborn baby has been released and will face no jail time thanks to a judge who cited support for legalized abortion in Canada, where abortions are legal and paid for at taxpayer expense.

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Katrina Effert of Wetaskowin, Alberta, gave birth secretly in a downstairs level of her parents' home and then killed her baby son by throwing his body over the fence of their yard.

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Effert, 19 at the time of the infanticide, told the court she worried about what her parents would think of having to listen to the cries of a newborn baby in the house.

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Effert's parents were not aware of the pregnancy and she initially told police that she had not had sexual intercourse. The boy was named

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Rodney and Effert reportedly used a pair of her own underwear to strangle him and take his life before tossing his body into her parents' neighbor's yard.

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On Friday, Effert... I mean, that's bad enough. I mean, that's just so horrific that you just want to stop and ask what is happening that the natural love of a mother for a child could be just so completely abandoned and all this.

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But it gets worse. On Friday, Effert received a three -year suspended sentence from Justice Joanne Veit of the

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Alberta Court of Queen's Bench and because of the ruling, she was able to go free on probation and face no time in prison for killing her child.

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Judge Veit issued the verdict in part because she heard testimony from witnesses that Effert faced severe persecution in prison where fellow inmates called her baby killer.

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But part of the ruling that also has pro -life advocates troubled is Judge Veit's decision that Canada's acceptance of legalized abortion entitled

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Effert to kill her child. Judge Veit ruled, according to multiple media reports, that because Canada allows abortions, it reflects how, while many

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Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less -than -ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept, and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.

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There you go. Kill your newborn and walk free. After all, if raising a child is a bit onerous, the obvious thing is to kill him or her.

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That must be great news to millions of parents who find their teenagers to be onerous and a burden as well. Great, we can now just kill them with impunity.

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The case of New York is not much better. A 17 -year -old student and mother of a two -year -old boy shocked security officers at Victoria's Secret Store in Herald Square, New York City on Thursday when they fingered her for shoplifting sexy lingerie but found the decomposing corpse of a baby boy in her bag as well.

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The girl, according to CBS News New York Report, was leaving the store on Thursday with a 17 -year -old friend when they were both stopped by security guards.

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One of the guards pointed out a foul smell coming from a bag, according to police, and the teen mother, identified as Tiona Rodriguez of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, said she had a baby in the bag.

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A security guard alerted the NYPD and Rodriguez later explained to the officers that she had given birth on Wednesday and didn't know what to do with the baby, which had reportedly matured about six months in the womb.

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Other reports say the baby was born alive and then asphyxiated. I, I, I, um,

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I, what, what, what can you say? I mean, you put this together with some of the stuff that Dr.

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Mueller's been commenting on in regards to euthanasia in, in, um, the

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Netherlands and places like that, and where now people are pushing to allow euthanasia for children.

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If children think their lives aren't good enough, they can just kill themselves. This is the culture of death.

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It is ugly, it is evil, and it is a judgment from God. There is absolutely no question about it.

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You, uh, you close your eyes to the gospel, you decide that you're but an animal, um, and well, there you go.

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There you go. Absolutely, absolutely amazing. Um, a couple other things

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I need to get to before we take your phone calls, 877 -753 -3341. I, um, last week

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I mentioned, uh, that I've, once I got back from South Africa, then, um, you know, in my schedule of things,

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I've started preparing for the, um, debate in December, whenever it is in December, I guess

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I need to write to, uh, uh, brother Chris and find out when we've got this thing scheduled.

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But sometime in early December, I assume after the first weekend, and, uh, where, uh,

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Chris Pinto and I are going to be discussing his, uh, documentary, uh, Tears Among the

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Wheat, a sequel to A Lamp in the Dark. Um, and so I've had the opportunity now of going through it a couple of times, um, starting in on the various books that I've collected, um, all that kind of stuff.

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And I was, this, this was the section I wanted to play last week, but I didn't get a chance to get to it.

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Now, what you need to understand is in the documentary, there is a, there, there is no pretense of fairness in the documentary.

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There's, that's not, it's not, this is not a CNN report. We're trying to be journalists, anything like that.

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The attack upon Konstantin von Tischendorf, the representation of him, uh, is just so blatantly intended to create in the mind of the viewer, a dislike of this man, a distrust of this man, uh, a view of his character as being flawed, et cetera, et cetera, that it's just, it's unreal.

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And of course it's grossly unfair, grossly unfair. I mean, if you read his book on the dating of the

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Gospels, you'll find that here is a man who, even though he comes out of German scholarship, he is standing for the inspiration of the

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Bible against the two -binded school. He is defending the dating of the

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Gospels against their radical late dating, um, which of course he turned out to be right in, in regards to the discovery of manuscript

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P52 and things like that. Um, but his, his motives, even within the book that's cited in the documentary, ignored, not even no pretense for fairness here at all.

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It is pure conspiratorial stuff. It is just a shame. It really is. And this isn't just a matter of opinion.

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This is fact. I mean, anybody who takes time to read the books that are even cited, uh, we'll see if this is the case.

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But then you have, I don't know how to describe this. I'm going to call it the spooky music proof, uh, approach.

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What you do is you make some wild assertion and then you put really spooky music behind it or something with a good type of a beat behind it.

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And this somehow is supposed to prove something and it happens all the time. I was going to actually have had time to isolate a bunch of the spooky music examples, but we'll get to that eventually.

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But just to give this one example, just, just caught me.

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And I just started laughing hysterically. The first time I heard this while I was writing, I'm like, seriously, honestly,

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I mean, and again, the thing that's so troubling about this is it's, it's, it's always a mixture of truth that then goes off into NaNa land someplace.

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And when you do that, you end up damaging the truth. For example, it's talking about the theory of evolution, how the theory of evolution has been extremely damaging to people's

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Christian faith. Well, that's a given. But, well, here,

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I just, you got to listen to this. This is, this is from the one hour and 51 minute mark.

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If you want to download the video from YouTube and then you can check these things out for yourself.

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Here's, here's from Terrorism Among the Weak. Get ready for a leap of monumental proportions.

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It might be said that no doctrine has been more devastating to faith in the

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Bible than Darwin's theory of evolution. But was it only coincidence that Charles Darwin himself published

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Origin of the Species in 1859? The same year that Tischendorf discovered

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Codex Sinaticus. And I'm sitting here going, seriously,

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I, did I just hear that? And, and when I listened to the second time, yeah, it was, it was, it was there.

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And that's how it does it. See, conspiratorial stuff is, could it just be in a coincidence?

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Well, and it's so easy to make these things up. Here, I, and so I came up with them.

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I've been reading up about, about Simonides and there's, there is a great controversy over how old he was.

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And every time someone pointed out an inconsistency in Simonides' story, he would claim that it was because people didn't understand what he was saying because he only speaks

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Greek and doesn't speak English and had to go through translation. So, so, well, you know, my biographer didn't get it right, or they didn't understand this, or he didn't translate my letter right, or he always had an excuse.

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Let's just put it this way. I've found a lot of parallels between Simonides and some guy that teaches down in Arlington, Texas.

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You know what I mean? Some real convenient stuff. But interestingly enough, in the biography that was written of him, he was born 1824, which would mean that he allegedly wrote the entirety of Codex Sinaiticus, hundreds of thousands of lines when he was 15.

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Yeah, I don't think so. So then he goes, that was an error.

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And my biographer didn't get it right. And here's all my proof that I was actually born in 1820.

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1820. Well, think about that for a second.

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1820 and 1824. Rich has got it. You see what's going on here? It could be a coincidence.

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Is it just a coincidence that the historical evidence actually proves

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Joseph Smith had his first vision in 1824, but now the

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Mormon church says it was 1820, the exact same dates as in regards to Simonides' birth.

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Proves it. I don't know what it proves, but as long as you say, could that be a coincidence, it proves something.

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Oh my. Yep. There you go.

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There you go. But I didn't have any really cool music. If I just put in a little of that music and that, it would have proved my point.

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I'll have to grab some. You know, it just occurred to me that you could say that that was a leap of titanic proportion.

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That's true, because I know someone else who makes the exact same kind of connections by the name of Gail Ripplinger.

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Is it just a coincidence that there were 16 tiny slits and then six?

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Don't even want to go there. Some of you don't know what I'm talking about, but just go look at stuff like that.

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Oh, you could just go through this and just...

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And every time there needs to be some connection made between scholars being cited and the theory being promoted, they don't quote scholars.

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They go to Mr. Pinto himself to make the transition. He's one of the primary people interviewed as the person making the film, in the film.

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So let's just say there are going to be a lot of questions that I think

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Mr. Pinto is going to really struggle to answer directly. When you really start looking at the sources he's been using and the arguments that he's come up with.

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So it's going to be going to be interesting. But I just thought the 1820 -1824 thing. There you go.

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And I'm sure I can find a Jesuit someplace in upstate New York. So that's the only other thing you need is

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I'm pretty certain that I read somewhere about Joseph Smith encountering a

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Jesuit. So that's it. There you go. There you go. Hi, let's let's go ahead and take a phone call here.

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And I've got some other stuff I want to play and get to and things like that. But let's start off with Russ.

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Hi, Russ. Hello. Glad to talk to you, Dr. White. Yes, sir. I wonder if Rich could find out find the old creaking door for inner sanctum.

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You could open some of those. Yeah, I remember those those great sound effects.

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Good stuff. I have been wanting to talk to you about John 523 in dealing with some

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Jehovah's Witnesses, which I figure is a custom made missionary since they come knocking on my door.

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But 523 says that all should honor the son just as they honor the father. He who does not honor the son does not honor the father who sent him.

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Now, does that verse tell us that we should worship Christ as we worship God the

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Father? Well, in talking with Jehovah's Witnesses, you have to be very, very precise and very careful, because they're going to focus very much on specifics in the text.

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And so they're going to say, well, the term honor that is used here is not the same thing.

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Tema 'o is not the same as proskune 'o, which is not the same as other terms for worship.

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And so my gut feeling is that Jehovah's Witnesses will probably go there. The way to present 523 is to present it in the flow of John chapter 5.

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And of course, this is something I've done some videos on on YouTube, primarily in response to the general abuse of John chapter 5 by Muslims, who will quote verse 19, the son can do nothing of himself unless it's something he sees the father doing, etc.,

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etc. But what you need to be able to do to utilize this text appropriately is to provide the context, which, you know, you recognize the healing at the beginning of the chapter of the man who had been lame for so many years and yet did not seem to even be thankful toward Jesus and tries to sort of report on Jesus.

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And then the Jews attack Jesus for having done this on the Sabbath day. And verse 17 says, but he answered them, my father is working until now, and I myself am working.

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What you need to understand is that the Jews recognized what this statement meant.

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The Jews answered the question, does God break the Sabbath by recognizing that since God upholds the world, then it is appropriate for him to work on the

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Sabbath so the stars continue in their orbits and the planets in their orbits and so on and so forth.

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That is, they recognize that when it comes to the created order, God works on the

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Sabbath day. And so when Jesus says, my father is working until now, and I myself am working, he is claiming a divine prerogative to uphold the creation, and in this case, restore the creation on the

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Sabbath day itself. That's why verse 18 says, for this reason, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he not only was breaking the

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Sabbath, but also was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. Now, the Jehovah's Witnesses say, well, no, the

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Jews were just wrong about that. But that provides the context for what you've got in 519 and following.

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And what you've got in 519 and following, people who deny the deity of Christ will focus on their verses.

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People who affirm the deity of Christ will focus on their verses, like verse 23, which clearly presents a parallel in honoring the

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Father and the Son, which would be utterly inappropriate if we're talking about even the most exalted creature here, is not to be honored in the same way the

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Father is honored. But the reality is, what you need to do is to get past the stereotypes and the surface level dealing with this particular text.

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And what you need to do is you need to put it in the proper context. That is, what Jesus does here is when the

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Jews were seeking all the more to kill him because he had called God his own father, making himself equal with God.

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Jesus never denies that. He never says, oh, you people have completely missed it. What he does is explains that he is not some renegade deity who is in any way, shape, or form detracting from pure monotheism or from the appropriate worship of the

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Father. He is showing us the perfect unity that exists between the

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Father and the Son. And so 519 and following distinguishes the

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Son from the Father, distinguishes the mission of the Son from that of the Father. But in the same way, for example, says verse 19, truly, truly,

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I say to you, the Son can do nothing, and then the term he uses here is af healtu, by himself, unless it is something he sees the

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Father doing. So here the Son, it's not saying that, well, the

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Son has no power in and of himself, but the Son always works in perfect unity with the

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Father. He is fulfilling the Father's will as the Incarnate One. So even in one verse, you have the

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Son can do nothing himself unless it's something he sees the Father doing. You have the supremacy of the

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Father, you have the distinction of the Father and the Son, but then, for whatever the

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Father does, these things the Son also does in a like manner. That cannot even begin to be understood outside of recognition of the deity of Christ.

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He's talking about divine actions here. He says, whatever the

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Father does, these things the Son also does in a like manner. So in one single verse, you have all the balance that all the heretics miss.

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You have the balance that refutes oneness Pentecostalism and modalism.

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You have the balance that refutes the Arians. Every error that people have made, the balance is found even just in one verse, and it continues on from that.

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And that then becomes the context that makes 523 so compelling. But the problem is, when you're standing at the door, the temptation is to get into a verse -against -verse shooting match, and it generally doesn't accomplish anything.

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What I have discovered is that when you actually can settle down into a text and walk through it, that's the whole test, really, of false teaching, is that it cannot survive a verse -by -verse analysis.

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It might survive a single -verse analysis, but it cannot survive a contextual analysis.

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And that's why when I'm presenting people with the doctrines of grace, I want to walk through John 6, I want to do the whole chapter,

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I want to go all the way through it. When I'm talking with a Muslim or Jehovah's Witness, I want to go through John 5, I want to follow it all the way through.

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I want to go to the Karmic Chronicle with Jehovah's Witnesses and explain the relationship of the Father and the Son. Instead of just my verse versus your verse, let's do a whole section and see who can walk through it consistently.

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And once you establish that context and what's really going on, that Jesus is saying, I'm not this renegade deity out there trying to get my own followers.

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That's when it has its real power. So I'll listen to the MP3 about six times there.

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And am I right in saying that since Jesus is God, that Jesus never worships

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Jehovah? Since you worship something that is greater than yourself?

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No, no, no, no, no. Jesus is the God -man, and the God -man's not going to be an atheist.

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So the Son worships, honors, and prays to the Father. But when you say— He does worship.

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Yes, but when you say Jehovah, be careful. It's the area of the cults to turn

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Jehovah into a Unitarian name. The name Jehovah refers to the being of God that is shared equally by three co -eternal and co -equal persons.

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So Jesus would not refer to the Father as Jehovah, as if Jehovah was a

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Unitarian individual. That's why the New Testament authors can identify

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Father, Son, and Spirit with that one name Jehovah, is because they're not Unitarians.

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And that's why the Unitarians, like Anthony Buzzard, have to so desperately attack the texts that identify

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Jesus as Yahweh. They just have to, because if Jesus identifies as Yahweh, it's all over with.

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Their system's over with. And sometimes, after a very fruitful discussion,

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I want to beat my head on the table, because I simply do not understand. But since you have so much spare time now,

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Doctor, after you're back from Africa— Yeah, which is why I'm going to Canada on Friday. Yeah. The Jehovah's Witnesses have had so many big changes very recently, including throwing

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Charles Taz Russell under the bus. And of course, you referenced their new Bible in one of your blogs.

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Would you ever find time to review what they have done and give us a program on that?

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Well, I'll be honest with you, as I said when I noted it on the blog, the 2013

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NWT, I said, I will look for those who focus upon these things publishing materials, because keeping up with Jehovah's Witnesses, there are a few people who do that.

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There was a gentleman I encountered in Germany who keeps up very well with Jehovah's Witnesses, and it's just not something that I can do at this point in time.

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He has a website? I don't know. I don't think so.

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No, well, I could be wrong. I could be wrong. But what I was saying is,

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I would imagine if he were to publish something on some of the new developments that I would probably be aware of that and bring that information on the program.

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But yeah, no, I wish I had the time to keep up with the

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Watchtower Society the way that I did many, many years ago. But many, many years ago, all I was dealing with was

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Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses, and yeah, I could keep up with that. But doing a little bit more than that now, and if I had a staff, and if we sat here talking about money and making everybody feel guilty all the time, then maybe

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I could. But yeah, the chances are I will be a secondary source on that.

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But I'll keep an eye open and see what happens, and certainly will let folks know when it does happen.

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Thank you very much. All right. Thanks for your call. All right. God bless. Bye -bye. All right.

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We'll get to that call in a moment. I wanted to make sure some of you noticed that I posted an article in response to Dr.

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Shabir Ali having posted an article about our debate at Pretoria.

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And I put the first part up yesterday. I still have to write the second part. Still working on that. Really not sure how deeply

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I want to get into some of the citation of sources and things like that. But I think it's useful.

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And one of the things I mentioned was that when I gave the report on the South Africa trip, I did not have time.

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I went too long in giving too many details, and I didn't have time to play everything

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I wanted to play. So I wanted to just briefly fix that so someone could at least hear the actual dialogue that is behind the central issue in the disagreement that Shabir and I are having over the subject of that debate.

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So it was during the Q &A, where this was as close as we get to cross -examination, that he asked me a question.

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And I picked up on it during my part of the Q &A. So I want to play the question he asked me and my response, and then play my questions of him that then became the foundation for the comments

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I made, where I said, I think Shabir has conceded this debate. And I continue to believe that that's the case, even more so in light of Shabir's article.

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Because, well, listen for yourself. Here's the question that Shabir asked me and my response.

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Now, we've recited the Parmenchristi from 1 Corinthians chapter 2, where Paul is obviously referring to the book of Isaiah chapter 45.

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Now, are you aware that Paul has actually taken a reference to Yahweh and then made that a reference to Jesus?

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And so he has, in fact, here modified the original belief in one

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God, Yahweh, and now he has made Jesus this Yahweh. And if Jesus is this

34:18

Yahweh, then how would Yahweh be Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? Because in that case, Jesus is not part of the

34:25

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. You have Yahweh who is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and then you have Jesus.

34:30

Explain that. This is the essence of what you're going to have to come to understand in our book, Shabir. This is what we've got to talk about, because this is what, my friend, you do not understand what we believe here.

34:39

You do not understand it. With all the love in my heart, I pray for you, but you don't understand what we believe here.

34:45

Yahweh refers to the being of God. There are three persons that share that one being. Therefore, they are identified with that name

34:52

Yahweh. You are assuming Unitarianism with the name Yahweh, that Yahweh can only apply to one person.

34:58

That is the fundamental erroneous assumption of Islam that I just cannot get my Muslim friends to recognize.

35:04

You've got to get past it and realize what we're really saying. You are exactly right. I don't think Paul did, because he didn't hear my statement on this.

35:10

I don't think it's Paul that made this up. He's recording it for us, but the only way this could be a sermon illustration to Philippians is if they already know this fragment of a hymn.

35:17

So what the early church before Paul was already confessing was that the language used of Yahweh in the Old Testament is appropriately applied to Jesus of Nazareth.

35:25

I know, Shabir, that that's an amazing assertion, but that's the whole assertion of Christianity. That's the only thing that makes sense.

35:31

You see, you're telling us this text of mine is filled with contradictions right and left. Why? Because you demand to enforce this view of God upon it.

35:39

When you don't make that demand and allow the writers of the New Testament to define their own categories and their own position, all those contradictions all of a sudden disappear.

35:48

And that's exactly what you request for the Quran. That's what we have to have for the New Testament. So how do I explain it? You're exactly right.

35:54

To me, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. To what? All to the glory of God the Father. Who is this one

36:00

God for Paul? We saw it in the Shema verse Corinthians 8. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, all identified by the one name

36:05

Yahweh, has become flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. That is the whole primitive message. You just demonstrated it right there.

36:11

So there was his question to me, and my response. And yeah, I'm playing at 1 .2 speed, even though I can't talk that fast.

36:17

And so he had the first section of questions. Then I had the opportunity of asking him questions.

36:24

And I think I did two on this subject because I felt it was so much the core of the actual debate.

36:33

So here's what happened. Now, given that our debate was on what are the earliest sources? Do these early sources indicate that the followers of Jesus viewed him as God?

36:42

I gave you the Karmic Christi. And in your question, you seem to have admitted that what we have in the

36:49

Karmic Christi is a view of Jesus as deity.

36:56

Not just in the utilization of a passage about Yahweh, but also in the assertion, I would assume, that he eternally existed in the form of God, so on and so forth.

37:04

If, in point of fact, that is the Karmic Christi, a hymn to Christ as to God, that predates Paul's utilization of it, does that not establish?

37:13

Let me put it this way. Can you show me anything earlier than that data that would demonstrate that it somehow is not showing that the earliest

37:23

Christians believed in the deity of Christ, and hence fulfilling my burden in this debate? The earliest of this, as I mentioned, is the

37:29

Old Testament. We do not have any earlier New Testament writings than there are writings of Paul. And Paul has represented

37:34

New Testament Christianity as the winner, writing, after a conflict.

37:40

If you want to know the other side of that conflict, we have to start with the realization that the original disciples of Jesus were Jewish monotheists.

37:46

They would have gotten their theology from the Old Testament, and in the Old Testament there is only one God, and this is the central teaching of the

37:51

Old Testament. The most important teaching is the first and second commandment of the Ten. Paul is representing this

37:59

Christianity as a hymn that he somehow stumbled upon or received. But from whom?

38:05

At some unknown source. We cannot, based on some unknown source, construct our theology, even if he did.

38:10

That's up to him. Now, in Paul using this hymn and representing

38:16

Jesus in this way, we can see that he has actually departed from the Old Testament, because he has taken an Old Testament passage that referred to Yahweh, and he has made that refer to Jesus.

38:24

He is now departing from that original commandment. Jesus was a human being, and the book of Numbers, chapter 23, verse 19, he somehow,

38:44

Yahweh, as Paul is now doing in his letter, even in a tantalizing way, Paul is teaching from any man.

39:10

Second, the debate was the earliest sources, which represent the earliest disciples of Jesus, believe the deity of Christ, and you just confirmed that the carbon

39:32

Christi does that. And when I asked what earlier sources you have, you went to the Old Testament, which was finished being written 400 years before the

39:40

Christian church began. So why can't I now say that really your whole argument is that I simply won't accept what the early

39:48

Christians believe, because I interpret the Old Testament differently than they did, but the fact is the earliest

39:54

Christians did believe this. I just say that they were wrong. I did not have to debate to you.

40:03

I've argued that when we know for a fact that they were Jewish monotheists, and this is not disputed by anyone, we should not assume that they held to anyone being

40:12

God other than Yahweh without documentary evidence. As you rightly have said, let's look at the documentary evidence.

40:18

So what do we have before the disciples? It's the Old Testament. What does the Old Testament teach? All Jews. And he was not

40:29

God. Jesus had limitations in his power when he tried to heal the blind man twice, for example.

41:12

By the way, he began preaching that Jesus is the Son of Man. Between Matthew and Mark we see

41:35

John Apostle saying that Jesus is a monotheistic son. So there he gave his evolution presentation as well, which

41:45

I addressed, I think I addressed in the first part. I've already started the second part, so hard for me to remember which part's which.

41:52

But that was the foundation. Then I made the comments I played last time, and I'm looking forward to having the whole thing out there, because I'm, look,

42:04

I'm very confident that when a person just analyzes what was said and the data that was presented, that they'll see the point that I made.

42:13

And I don't have to try to force it on anybody. It's pretty straightforward, pretty clear.

42:20

But I'm enjoying having the opportunity of interacting with the points and maybe clarifying some things and things like that in the article, and should have the second one up as Lord willing before I get out of here this afternoon.

42:34

We'll hope that I don't get interrupted by too many things. Anyways, 877 -753 -3341.

42:42

Let's talk to Manuel. Hello, Manuel. Hi, Dr. White.

42:47

How you doing? Good. Good. I heard you call the oneness a cult there, so I really wanted to say something about that, kind of defend that.

43:01

I'm willing to come on here and talk with you any time about those sort of things. I guess

43:10

I can ask you a couple of questions, if that's okay with you. Well, was there something about what I just said that you can,

43:17

I mean, I don't remember specifically using that terminology, but I think I talked about the cults as a whole, and certainly the denial of the distinction that is made between the

43:32

Father and the Son in verses 17 and 19. That would probably be the best thing to focus upon.

43:38

Oneness doesn't deny that distinction, Dr. White. Well, obviously, if you think that there was one person who was both the

43:47

Father and the Son, right? What we deny is the Trinity, because there's no such thing in the

43:53

Scriptures. That's an oral tradition passed down by man, and it's on the same level as mariology and potpourri.

44:01

I don't even see how you can fight the Catholics with this stuff. Okay, well, that's obviously false, but let's try to focus...

44:08

No, it's obviously true, Dr. White. Manuel, are you even capable of focusing upon one verse or not? Of course

44:13

I am! Okay, then let's try it. Let's try it. Let's try it. Is Jesus both the

44:19

Father and the Son? Is Jesus both the Father and the Son? Well, I'll tell you, Dr.

44:25

White, the Father existed before the Son. The Son was born of Mary. Is that true or false?

44:31

Was the Son born of Mary or not? Jesus Christ was born of Mary. The Son of God has eternally existed.

44:38

We're asking a question about your position. Is it your position that Jesus... Okay, that's just...

44:45

We try. It's worthless. Manuel cannot engage in dialogue. We've tried.

44:50

That's at least the second time. It's worthless. He cannot do it. Just don't even bother.

44:56

The man has no self -control. It would be useful because I'd like to be able to point out that what

45:01

I said was true. What did I say that was true? They deny the distinction by making Jesus one person.

45:08

The Father and the Son. The Son's is human nature. The Father is the divine nature. And 17 and 19 destroys that.

45:17

But we've debated one of the Pentecostals who can actually control themselves and can engage in meaningful discussion.

45:25

Manuel is not one of those people. So don't even bother. I wish...

45:32

It'd be useful. It'd be useful. But he's beyond that kind of discussion.

45:38

Anyways, 877 -753 -3341. Going back to the situation in regards to the debates, there was one thing that I did point out, and that was that, you know,

45:52

Shabir said that James normally is very quick to post a review saying how well he did.

45:59

And I took that a little bit personally because, look, if you look back over the...

46:07

I've done a lot of debates. I've done more debates than Shabir has. And if you look back over the blog over the past...

46:15

since we started blogging in 2004, you won't find that to be the case. There have been times when years afterwards, remember what we did with the

46:24

Jimmy Akin debate? Non -debate. The non -debate debate. The Bible Answer Man thing.

46:31

You know, they just kept throwing that out there and calling it a debate. So what do we do?

46:37

Years later, over a decade, well over a decade later, we played the whole thing and responded to the whole thing, did the whole thing, timed the whole thing, and what you end up with is a review a decade down the road.

46:57

Then what'd we do with the Patrick Madrid thing? We played the whole thing. We did it fairly.

47:02

But was that right after the debate? No, it was about a decade later too. So when debates come back up and they're advertised and stuff like that by opponents and things start being said, we might review it.

47:17

It might take some time. If something interesting happened at the debate or something like that, you know,

47:24

I'll give a report. But the idea, it's pretty obvious. I think any fair -minded person will say,

47:32

I would rather just let the debate speak for itself. Let people listen to it. Let them make decisions on their own.

47:38

You know, after we had the debates with Adnan Rashid in London, you know, what'd

47:43

I tell you about? I told you about how we had more Allahu Akbar -ing going on in the second debate than we had ever had before.

47:57

And, but I didn't go through it. So to say, and oh, and I got him on this.

48:03

And oh, and I got him on that. And so what I did when I gave the report was I felt like that last debate was the most forceful exchange that we had of all of them.

48:18

And so I, again, I am

48:23

Shabir Ali's utter superior in technology. And there's no way that he would ever, ever deny that.

48:33

And the reason that I have these recordings is because, did you hear at the end?

48:40

I almost stopped. I didn't want to do it. I almost stopped. When Shabir was talking, because did you hear something in the background?

48:49

You heard that it's a pen. I'm using it to write.

48:54

You're actually hearing as I'm writing with it, as it's recording stuff. That's what, that was the sound in the background while he was speaking.

49:01

Because I was making notes on what I wanted to include in my next rebuttal section and, you know, stuff like that.

49:06

Because it's the actual pen that I'm, that I'm writing with my notes and stuff like that. So that's why

49:13

I was able to play those sections. And I thought people would find that interaction to be very interesting.

49:19

I was not trying to do that to try to say, ah, I got Shabir because I want people to watch the debates.

49:25

I want them to make the decision for themselves. Look, I do the debates for the long term.

49:33

I do the debates for the long term. Sometime around age 40, I've told people this a bunch of times, sometime about 10 years ago.

49:40

Woke up one morning and realized, you know what? This life is short and I'm halfway through it. And what you do is you live your life to try to make a difference even after you're gone.

49:55

And so I am trying to produce a body of material, debates, books, dividing lines, teaching, whatever that will have relevance after I am dust.

50:11

So, doing silly things like playing games with the debates right afterwards would detract from that, not add to that.

50:21

So I have no interest in doing it. I have no interest in doing it. Are you getting numerous phone calls now? Just out of control.

50:29

Just, you know, amazing. All right, let's talk to Ryan in Phoenix.

50:35

Hi, Ryan. Hey, Dr. White. How are you? Doing good. Hey, I just wanted to get your take from a

50:40

Reform position on this whole John MacArthur and the Strange Fire conference, which is blowing up the

50:47

Twittersphere and the social media. So my background is actually former Latter -day Saint.

50:52

You've been a tremendous help to me and my family over the years. Oh, great. And I kind of feel with Joseph Smith when he went out to the

51:01

Grove of Trees, supposedly, to learn which religion was right. I kind of find myself now siding with his view somewhat on, man,

51:09

I'm just a little confused. I've been studying you and R .C. Sproul and John Piper and MacArthur and the Reform guys for quite some time, and that would be my born -again position.

51:20

But I just see how to respond to this Strange Fire thing. I'm a little bit confused on the right and the wrong way to reply or to engage on a local level.

51:32

I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts on the conference and some of these people that I hold as heroes of the

51:39

Christian faith. All right. Well, a lot of people have been asking. I heard very little of the conference.

51:49

I've actually somewhat resisted the temptation to cut into my study time to download all the presentations and things like that.

51:57

What I want to do is I have the book on pre -order for Kindle, and once it comes out,

52:04

I think sometime late November or something like that, early December, then I'll record it and listen to it because I can do that fairly quickly.

52:13

I just need to be wise with my time. I listened to the

52:19

Michael Brown program yesterday with Phil Johnson and then with Adrian Warnock and Sam Storms, and I've exchanged a few emails.

52:28

Not really so much on that topic, but sort of touched on it with Michael. I guess

52:35

I need to take a stand here and be consistent. Here's my feeling. I've been going around the

52:41

United States for a couple years now trying to impress upon Christians the necessity to recognize that we cannot do to the

52:53

Muslims what the Muslims generally do to us, and that is they throw us all into one big old pile and they say, this is what

52:59

Christians believe. This is what Christians are. They try to hold me accountable for what the Pope says. They try to hold me accountable for what some

53:06

Looney Tunes guy does in burning Qurans or whatever and things like that. And I go, I don't appreciate that.

53:11

I don't appreciate when I am thrown in with the wacky guys that show up at funerals.

53:21

Those guys, you know, I don't appreciate that. And so we have to be,

53:26

Westboro Baptist, we have to be consistent in making proper, clear, and careful distinctions in regards to anyone that we are criticizing.

53:38

So when we talk about Islam, then we need to differentiate between the

53:44

Salafi and the non -Salafi, between the Sunni and the Shia, between the Muslims who've done some reading and those who have not.

53:50

I try to make clear distinctions between my opponents who actually listen to what I'm saying and try to form their arguments in light of what they understand of my position and those who don't care at all what my position is.

54:01

And unfortunately, that's the majority of the people that I debate. They try to push their understanding upon me, so on and so forth.

54:08

And so I have to be consistent. What I heard of the conference, what

54:13

I've heard of the conversation yesterday, the proper distinctions in regards to the wide expression of the charismatic movement were not maintained.

54:23

And so when you liken all charismatics to Mormons, you're leaving yourself open to easy refutation.

54:32

When you say the charismatic movement as a whole has never done anything sacrificial or anything good for morals or ethics or the rest of those things like that, you're leaving yourself open to easy refutation by simply pointing out the fact that there are people who have done these things.

54:51

The problem is, I am not a continuationist. Unfortunately, even those terms

54:59

I've seen a lot of confusion on. I thought I was as much of a cessationist as you could be until a number of years ago

55:07

I found out that there are actually some Reformed folks who believe that even the gifts of the

55:15

Spirit to the Church in the sense of discernment or the gifting of certain men, for example, for preaching things, they think even that's done away with.

55:26

I would call that almost hyper -cessationism or something like that. But there are people who hold that position. So I believe that the specific miraculous sign gifts which were given to the apostles to verify their ministry for a specific purpose, and that specific purpose is laid out by Paul in 1

55:46

Corinthians in regards to a testimony to the Jewish people, that once that nation no longer existed, and it ceased to exist in AD 70, those gifts would no longer have any purpose.

55:56

The Holy Spirit is the third person of the God of purpose, and therefore there would be no reason to be giving gifts when the purpose of those gifts had now been completed.

56:07

So I am a cessationist in that sense. I am not a continuationist like Piper or Grudem or others along those lines.

56:15

And so I just got back from South Africa, where what's called the

56:20

Christian Church in South Africa has been devastated by Word of Faith teaching.

56:26

Word of Faith is a blasphemy. It cannot be denounced in strong enough terms for the destruction that it has wrought amongst simple people of God.

56:40

And the destruction has brought to, for example, the presentation of the Gospel to Muslims and things like that.

56:46

Many of the Muslims I talk to, I couldn't even fault them for not understanding what I believe, because they never talk to Christians who even understand the doctrine of the

56:53

Trinity, because it's never taught on in their quote -unquote charismatic churches. And so I do believe that the large portion of the charismatic movement, as it is expressed in the world today, is far removed from anything even close to biblical

57:08

Christianity. But I have to make distinctions. I have to recognize that I can't say, that's everybody, because I know serious

57:17

Christians who believe in the Gospel, who live godly lives, who are orthodox in their beliefs, and they have a prayer language.

57:25

Now, do I think that comes from the Holy Spirit? No, I don't. I think it's emotional. I think it's primarily something they were taught or something that has something to do with them, but I don't think it comes from the

57:34

Holy Spirit of God. So we're going to go along here, because I don't want to cut this off. Is that all right?

57:40

Just we'll do all this. So my concern is that when you make the appropriate –

57:48

I mean, people like Creflo Dollar and Benny Hinn and Hagin and Capps and all these people need to be named, they need to be warned about, their teachings need to be exposed, the

58:01

Church needs to stand up and say, stop giving these people your money, they are leeches on the outside of the boot of the body of Christ.

58:12

That needs to be said with clarity. But the problem is, when you say that and then don't make the distinctions that need to be made, your argument against them becomes muted because it's too easy to refute the broad -ranging comments that you've made without making the proper distinctions.

58:33

And so, again, basically what I wish had happened is some much finer -tipped brushes had been passed out at the

58:40

Strangefire Conference so that the appropriate distinctions could be made. Because what has the vast majority of the conversation been about over the past couple days?

58:51

Has it been about coming up with a strategy to help the simple believers in Africa who have been absolutely pummeled by these false teachings to come to know the truth and to free themselves from this kind of stuff?

59:08

Hasn't been about that. It's been about, are there charismatics in other countries or in this country who are doing good things because of the broad brushstrokes that were used?

59:18

Yeah, and Michael Brown used that exact same phrase with the broad brush. Oh, well, everybody has.

59:23

Everybody has. I'm not the only one that has voiced this tremendous concern.

59:30

Now, I will say, since I've criticized the broad brushstrokes of the conference, my dear brother

59:38

Michael Brown cannot possibly minister in these churches without knowing what's going on in these places and knowing the teachings.

59:49

Because he's talking about being in churches that have bookstores. Does he look in the bookstore?

59:54

I look in the bookstore churches I go to. I see what books they have there. So when he says,

59:59

I don't listen to these guys. Michael, I know you're busy and I know you're focused on other things, but I've got to criticize you there because you have to have discernment to recognize what's going on at these churches and that these people are promoting these kinds of things.

01:00:21

So, you know, listening especially to the program yesterday when Phil Johnson was on was just painful for me.

01:00:26

I love them both. Phil and I have bunked together in Brisbane, Australia and watched the ashes together and gone to the wilds of Alaska together where he didn't even get a fish and I got a bear.

01:00:41

But anyways, we've done all this stuff together and I've got pictures of him wearing some of my bow ties and he's a good friend.

01:00:51

And so is Michael Brown. We haven't been able to do stuff like that. We've pretty much either debated together against Anthony Buzzard and Joseph Good or against each other on a number of programs at Southern Evangelical back in February.

01:01:07

But still to listen to that and to find myself at some times going, Phil, you're changing the subject.

01:01:14

And then, Michael, really, seriously, you don't know what these guys are talking about was very painful for me. It was very conflicting.

01:01:19

Well, and I can think you've ministered to LDS for years, and my point was I was raised to believe we have the one true

01:01:27

Church. And obviously four years ago when the Lord got a hold of me and showed me the errors of a false god and a false religion, you can see me coming out from a

01:01:36

Latter -day Saint perspective that I feel kind of, gosh, that one true Church. I mean, where is the one true

01:01:43

Church? It's harder, Dr. White, for me to unlearn than it is to listen to debate with you and Michael Brown to learn new things.

01:01:52

I hope you can feel my pain with that. So my heart goes out to everyone involved with this, because I love people on both sides, just like I love you and Michael Brown.

01:02:00

I've listened to you guys debate on YouTube for a while now, and I just feel like, gosh, this

01:02:06

Strange Fire conference really shook me to the core, and I'm just one of the small guys in local Phoenix just trying to find a local body that I can be plugged into, to be honest with you.

01:02:15

Well, I don't think it should cause that kind of angst.

01:02:21

I think the angst that it should cause is, this is an important subject and the distinctions need to be made appropriately so that we're not doing friendly fire rather than strange fire and things like that.

01:02:35

But at the same time, in your situation, I'm not sure this is an issue that you need to be focused too much on anyways.

01:02:44

I mean, if you're still looking for a place to get plugged into, that's something that is more primary.

01:02:52

I mean, unless the issue of tongues and tongues speaking and things like that is forefront in what you're encountering...

01:03:00

Well, and it has been with the charismatic movement with some of these mega -churches out in the Valley. When I left Mormonism, as you can know,

01:03:06

I just thought, well, everyone's a part of the body of Christ. Now I'm slowly starting to learn, obviously, about the

01:03:13

Reformation and the five solas. Like, my knowledge in the past five years, the Spirit's really gotten a hold of my heart through the words of Christ, and specifically the

01:03:22

Old and New Testament, and obviously with you and a lot of my heroes in the faith. And honestly, I am a little bit let down with the amount of biblical teaching, or lack thereof, in some of the local

01:03:35

Christian churches around the Valley. Well, Ryan, realize I've said many times, I believe we live in a day where this culture is under the judgment of God.

01:03:45

And a discerning, unified, clear -speaking church is a blessing upon a nation.

01:03:53

And I think the reason that we have so much false Christianity and just Christ -denying liberalism in our land is a part of the judgment upon our land.

01:04:06

But remember, biblically, there were those periods of time during Elijah's ministry, for example, where he thought he was the last one left.

01:04:13

There was nobody else left, and God had to, in that still small voice, remind him that he still had 7 ,000 that had not bowed and needed bail, but he had reserved them to himself.

01:04:23

So the point is that if we live during a day when we are called to be a prophetic voice, to be salt and light, to testify of the evil deeds of the generation in which we live, that may not be comfortable, and that may also mean that we have to really practice the art and gift of discernment, that we need to be constantly keeping our eyes on Christ and not looking at men, and not placing our trust in the arm of the flesh, or anything like that.

01:04:50

And you may be getting a rushed education in those things, but trust me, you have it a whole lot better here than some of the places

01:05:01

I've been overseas. Amen, I appreciate it. Where it's even worse. Yeah, amen. Well hey,

01:05:06

I thank you, Dr. White, for all your years of service, especially to my Latter -day Saint friends and family.

01:05:12

At a time I was with Daniel Peterson and the Farms Group, and I was actually pretty much against you and the whole quote -unquote anti -Mormon, and I just have been brought to tears these past four years, and I want to publicly apologize to you.

01:05:24

Well Ryan, trust me, you don't need to apologize to me. I'm simply a minister of the

01:05:30

Gospel, and as such, I cannot take personally the attacks that I've experienced from folks who follow the old farms, which doesn't really even exist any longer, and so on and so forth.

01:05:44

That's just what it means to show love for the Mormon people, to go up to the General Conference every six months and stand there and take the abuse that we did take, because of the fact that, you know,

01:05:55

God still has his people there amongst the Mormons. He's going to call them by the grace of Christ, and you're an example of that, and we know of others as well.

01:06:03

So no need for any— Amen, Ryan, thank you. I love you as a brother in Christ. I look forward to meeting you someday, and God bless you,

01:06:11

Dr. White. All right, thanks, Ryan. Thanks for calling. God bless. All right, bye -bye. All right, well, I went a little over on that, but I wanted to do so just because everybody wants to know what

01:06:20

I have to say about it anyways, so there. Uh, there you go.

01:06:26

But it was an interesting context, actually, for Ryan's call. All right, thanks for listening to The Dividing Line today.

01:06:32

We'll be back on Thursday, headed for Vancouver on Friday. Get to see all of you up there. Get to see

01:06:37

Grey Level, Lord willing, while we're up there. Looking forward to that, and the Sola Scriptura conference up there.

01:06:44

And that's it for October. It better be, because there ain't gonna be much left of October after that anyhow. Hey, we'll see you next time on The Dividing Line.