Justification by Faith Alone Q&A with Dr. James White

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Well I just want to tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Jeremiah Nortier and I serve as a pastor and elder here at 12 .5

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Church, and Dr. White, I have a lot of love and appreciation for apologetics, so you've been very influential in my life.

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And so the book you mentioned earlier, The God Who Justifies, I was able to read this in preparation for one of my debates a couple years ago against a

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Greek Orthodox. I know they have a little bit different view than Roman Catholics, but your chapter on Romans chapter 4 really emphasized that double imputation, and who is the blessed man whom

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God will not impute sin. You really brought out the fact of that, and God will never impute that sin to you.

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This double emphatic negation, that was very impactful. And so with that, we also had a debate that we hosted here at 12 .5

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just a couple weeks ago. Brother Adam Carmichael, he debated a

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Church of Christ. Okay, and so I want to tell you a little bit about our community here in Jonesboro.

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The Church of Christ are everywhere, and my heart is to evangelize the Church of Christ, because they vehemently oppose justification by faith alone.

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Now something you said over and over again is we believe in justification by faith, and they will say yes all day long to that, but there's a redefining of what faith actually is.

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And so one of the common objections, especially that came out in Adam's debate, was well James 2 talks about faith only is a dead faith.

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And so I believe it was chapter 20 in your book that talked about, well hey yeah, James does address an empty kind of faith, but I wanted you to speak to that a little bit, because I would really like for somebody that's of the

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Church of Christ conviction to hear this properly articulated how James 2 and Romans 4 are actually compatible.

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So what is that dead faith that James 2 is talking about? I think it's really important, and we have to be very brief, and so I've done entire sermons on this, entire presentations on this.

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I think the last time I did it was in London. It was a fairly lengthy discussion, so you might be able to track some of those things down.

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Who knows what's posted out there these days? But I think it's really important to recognize that James is most definitely speaking of a dead faith when he says in James 2 20, do you want to be shown you foolish person that faith apart from works is useless, or there is a textual variant there in the

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Greek, dead, without worth. And then he uses Abraham as our example, and a lot of people will go to that and say see, well first of all a lot of people go to that and say this is

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James disagreeing with Paul. So you just need to be aware if you go looking at commentaries and stuff like that.

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There are a lot of people who teach in seminaries and things like that that do not believe in the consistency of the of the

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New Testament or of the Bible as a whole or doctrines like that. If you believe that the Bible as a whole is a consistent testimony from God, you're in a small minority worldwide.

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You really are. You just need to be, that will help you to understand when you read the tweets from the quote -unquote progressivists and you go, where did they come from?

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Well they don't believe that the Bible actually tells you what you would need to know and it's in a consistent fashion.

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And once you realize that then you start going, oh okay now I now I get it.

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But when we look at James chapter 2, you have to go back to verse 14. You have to get context.

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What good is it my brothers if someone says he has faith but does not have works?

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Can that faith save him? Can that faith save him?

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It is a said faith. It is a faith that makes claims. But then when you look for evidence of its existence, all it is is it exists in word.

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And we aren't saying, and this is this is important, well this is important for me, but this is where, watch your toes, okay?

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Because I'm about to step on a few of them, all right? Not yours, honey. I would never step on your toes. I would never do that. But I'm gonna step on some other toes.

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If you don't believe, if in the first written debate of the

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Reformation, which was between Martin Luther and the Dutch humanist scholar,

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Roman Catholic priest, Desiderius Erasmus. Now Erasmus was a great guy.

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I'm thinking we're gonna see Erasmus in heaven. But he was very much still a part of that mindset.

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You know what the first debate of the Reformation was on? The freedom of the will. Erasmus defended the freedom of the will.

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Luther defended the bondage of the will. And from that came the emphasis, which is found in Scripture, that saving faith is the work of the

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Spirit of God in his elect people. So the faith that saves is a supernatural faith.

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The faith that saves is the work of the Spirit of God, who raises us to spiritual life, and in the words of the

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Old Testament prophet, takes out the heart of stone, and what? Gives you a heart of flesh.

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Ezekiel, Jeremiah, that picture is used more than once. And by the way, there has never been a stony heart that wanted to be taken out.

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That is a radical action of grace by God, to raise us to spiritual life, take out that heart of stone, and give us a heart of flesh.

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So the faith that saves is a Spirit -born faith.

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And the reason it perseveres is because Christ said, that I have come down of heaven, not to my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

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And this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he's given me, I lose none of them, but raise them up on the last day.

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If you don't believe that God can save perfectly in and of himself, you don't believe what

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Jesus said in John 6, 39. You just don't. If you have a synergistic position, it doesn't matter whether you're

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Church of Christ or a Southern Baptist, if you have a synergistic view, you are standing on the other side of the

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Tiber River arguing against Martin Luther, and I would say you're arguing against the Apostle Paul. And so when we talk about James 2, when he says, can that faith save him?

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We say, nope, because it's a said faith. It has no reality to it.

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It's not the result of the supernatural work of the Spirit of God in a person's life. And so as far as I know, the only people who can give a balanced understanding of Romans 5, justified by faith, peace with God.

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Romans 8, we have a mediator that stands in the presence of the Father, and therefore no one can bring a charge against us.

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Who will bring a charge against God's elect? If Christ is standing in the presence of the

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Father in my place, who can make a charge stick against me when Jesus says,

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I've paid it all? No one. No one. But if you don't believe that Christ has a special people, if you don't believe that a special people, not because of anything in them, but because of God's mercy has been given by the

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Father to the Son, and the Father says to the Son, you will be their perfect Savior. My will for you is that you save every last one of them.

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That means Jesus has to be a perfect Savior. He has to have the capacity and ability in and of himself to save perfectly.

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That's the Savior I need, because I'm gonna tell you something. If it's a cooperative effort between me and Jesus, and he's dependent upon me,

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I'm doomed, and so are you. Well, thank you for sharing all that, because verse 18, you spend a lot of time in your book,

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James 2 .18, talks about, show me, demonstrate that faith. But we're not in Missouri anymore.

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We're not in Missouri. It's not that far away. It's not that far away. I crossed the state line today.

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So you're saying it's not a mere said faith, because a mere said faith is what a dead faith actually is, but the justified by faith also live that faith out, and that's what

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James 2 is talking about. The world will see this true living faith put on display, right?

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And so you spend a lot of time in the book, and I definitely recommend the God who justifies. So we want to transition now.

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If you have questions, please make your way to this microphone, and we're gonna do that now.

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So please don't be scared. This is your maybe one shot. That microphone's right next to me.

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I can stare. Yes. Oh, we're done, huh? Okay. So I have another question.

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We have one victim, I mean one person coming up from the back. Yeah, we got a couple, and so as the line continues to grow, because this takes a second,

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I want to ask you another question, Dr. White. Not only are the Church of Christ in Jonesboro, but we have a lot of the evangelical churches.

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You already started alluding to this. I'm talking about the churches that are very synergistic, Arminian leaning, and so you just got done talking about the perfect righteousness of Christ being imputed to our account.

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Now these systems kind of see, well, I got to walk that aisle. I have to pray a certain prayer.

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I need to help God finish His plan of redemption, and so my question is, are these types of evangelical churches able to be consistent with justification by faith alone?

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Well, that's the problem. As soon as you walk away from the foundational reality that salvation is of the

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Lord, that Christ is a powerful Savior, every place where you look in Scripture to look for assurance, what do you find?

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Even in Hebrews 6. You know, Hebrews 6 is a place where people go, see, there you've got apostasy.

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You know, they did all these things, and then they fell away, and there's no way to renew them again to repentance. You go to the end of that, first of all, not only is the author saying, we are convinced of better things concerning you, things accompanying salvation, but the end of that chapter you have one of the most astonishing pictures, where Christ has gone into the holy place, in our place.

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He is our anchor in the holy place, that line that goes right into the presence of God that keeps us, and it's in Christ.

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As long as we look to ourselves, we will never have assurance, because we're not the ones who save ourselves.

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When you look to the passages about Christ, what does it say in Hebrews chapter 7? Because Christ has unceasing life, because He never dies, and because He's in the presence of the

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Father, He is able to save to the uttermost. He is able, not we enable

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Him. There is a vast difference between saying, Christ makes salvation possible, and saying

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Christ actually saves. And if you listen to much of the preaching,

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I was in a church, big, massive Southern Baptist Church, 20 ,000 members.

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We could ever find more than 7 ,000 at a time, but there were 20 ,000 people on the rolls. And even at the time, we joked that to get off the rolls of that church, you had to present your own death certificate in triplicate.

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But I remember clearly, hearing from the pulpit, you want to know how to understand the doctrine of election?

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Here it is. God votes for you, the devil votes against you, and you've got the tie -breaking vote.

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Think about that for a second. Is that found anywhere in Scripture? Does that have any, you walk through Ephesians 1,

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Romans 9, you're going to get that? No. It's a way to get around the reality that God the

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Father has given a people to the Son. And John 6 says, no one can come to me unless the

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Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.

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Because see, there's a lot of people that go, oh yes, we've got to be drawn by the Father. You bet, sure, fine. But what is actually said there is, no one can come to me unless the

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Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. All who are drawn by the

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Father to the Son are raised up by the Son. So you don't run off to another chapter and go, well,

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God draws everyone, because that's not even what the other chapter is talking about in John 12, 32. So the answer is, can they consistently do so?

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And the answer is no. And partly because what you have in a synergistic system is an attempt to bridge that gap.

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Luther said to Erasmus when he wrote his On the Bondage of the Will, you of all my opponents have put your finger upon the hinge upon which all this turns.

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Luther recognized the Reformation was about this. And yet most of the people who call themselves

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Protestants today actually disagree with Luther and agree with the Roman Catholics on this subject.

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I forgot I was up here. I thought I was listening to another radio -free Geneva. So thank you for that fire,

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Dr. White. So we're gonna do the audience Q &A, and so how we're gonna do this is, please don't preach a sermon.

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Just ask a simple question. We have muting power, right, back there. So if we need to mute you, we will.

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And we strategically placed Adam Carmichael to assist you back to your seat if we need to.

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So hopefully we will. And you may actually just fly back to your seat. Not ever touching the floor.

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It's great. Okay, go ahead. I'd like to hear you expound upon something. So you were reading from Romans 4 about he that works, what he gets his wage, it's not grace.

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So a lot of the what they call anti -lordship salvation people, you know, the

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Stephen Anderson type and the pre -grace, now they'll use that. Oh don't, don't, don't, don't, don't try to connect poor old

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Stephen Anderson. I mean, I've debated Robert Wilkins. Let's just use him because attaching

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Stephen Anderson to almost anybody is a little bit of an insult for everybody. So some of you who don't know who we're talking about, just go to YouTube and you'll go, okay, yeah, that's fine.

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Yeah, yeah. So go ahead. I'm sorry. No, yeah, no, he's definitely on the fringe. But there is this anti -lordship salvation segment and so their idea is if we're justified by faith alone, they would say, well that means not even repentance is required.

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You don't have to do anything. In fact, you could be an atheist after being a Christian. Right. So I'd like for you to elaborate on your position versus theirs.

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Yeah, for a much fuller discussion, like I said, I did debate

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Robert Wilkins in 2009, 2010, somewhere around in there on this very issue, on that very subject.

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So it's available on YouTube. It was a frustrating debate, but at least the issues would be laid out.

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But again, the only balanced way to do so is from the

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Reformed understanding of the fact that saving faith is the gift of God and it is not alone in what is given to the individual.

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So the issue is, what brings about justification? What brings about justification is faith and faith alone, but is justification all that happens within us in the plan of God?

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Because when you read Ephesians 1 and you hear about the eternal predestination of people and the fact that they are to be adopted into the family of God, and you look at Romans 8 and the great golden chain of redemption, what's the purpose of all that?

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That we might be conformed to the image of Christ. And so to be conformed to the image of Christ is going to involve all that sanctification, all that work within ourselves.

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But that's not what justifies us. What normally happens is that people think of...and

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I was raised this way. I wasn't introduced to the language that helped me to understand what we call the ordo salutis, the order of salvation.

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The fact...in my mind, justification was the same thing as just being saved, but sanctification was the same thing as being saved and adopted the same thing as being saved.

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The fact is, Scripture distinguishes between these things. And so when we talk about justification, we're talking about that act whereby upon our regeneration, we are given the gift of faith.

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We believe in Christ. We continue to believe in Christ. We continue to be looking at Him because we've been made new creatures.

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And as a result of that faith that does not bring anything in its hand, we are declared right.

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I didn't have time to do it, but if you really want another just...if

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you want to see how to connect these things together, Romans 8, after the golden chain of redemption, you have the picture of the law court.

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Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God's the one who justifies. Who's the one who condemns? Jesus Christ, who died, yea rather, who was raised.

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He intercedes in our behalf before the Father. So who can bring a charge against God's elect?

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No one can. There's no grounds to do so. The Father has declared us righteous. The Son has died in our place and intercedes in our place.

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What more do you need? Why would you think that your puny work's going to add to that?

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But that doesn't change the fact that the purpose of all this is that we might be made conformed to the image of His beloved sons.

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He might be the firstborn amongst many brethren. And that means there's a whole lot more the Holy Spirit of God does amongst us.

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And so those people that say, you just get your ticket punched, you go to heaven, become an atheist, do anything else, have completely missed that the whole reason that saving faith is given to anyone is so that they might be made like Jesus.

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And it's a lifelong process. However long God gives you, it's a lifelong process and that's why we're still here.

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Otherwise, God could just simply save us and then take us off the planet. That would be the easiest way to do it, but that's not how

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He does it. Yes, thank you for that question. Yeah, I'm in agreement, you know, that we're justified before God at the point of faith, that James is the demonstration, the outward demonstration before man of that faith.

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I just would like your commentary on how would you respond? One of the passages that makes me kind of toss around in my head and just kind of, okay, what's being said here, what's going on here, is

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Cornelius. So Cornelius is told by the angel, your prayers and your alms have come up as a memorial before God and to send men to Joppa and that you're going to receive basically words by which you and your family will be saved.

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I couldn't get my Bible up, there's no service here. But anyway, something like that.

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So I just wanted your commentary on that passage. Sure. Well, there's a number of things in the Book of Acts.

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For example, you have in those early periods, you have people who do not receive the

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Holy Spirit until the apostles come down and lay hands upon them. That's not how it happened in Corinth.

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That's not how it happened during the rest of Paul's missionary. So what's going on there? Those very, very early chapters are establishing the very boundary markers of what the church is going to look like.

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And with Cornelius, you're dealing with God -fearers that, interestingly, existed all across the

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Roman Empire, thanks to the Jews establishing synagogues in many places. And they were people who didn't become circumcised and didn't become part of the congregation, but they were attracted to the morality, the monotheism, etc.

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And obviously, that became a very fertile field for the early Christians to bring the gospel to.

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But the point is that part of the reason that Cornelius has to do what

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Cornelius has to do is so Peter has to do what Peter has to do. In other words, why is

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Peter up on the housetop and has to be called down and immediately have an application of the vision he had?

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So part of it is just the unique situation that you're still dealing with a Peter who's still got very strong Jewish traditions that, even though he walked with Jesus and heard all this stuff, still had to have his head beaten around with a fry pan a few times before he figured all these things out.

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And we still don't even know... In fact, I think we probably do know that Peter still withdrew table fellowship from the

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Gentiles in Antioch, and Paul had to face him face -to -face, Galatians 2. So part of it was not so much for him, but for Peter.

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But the other aspect is, if you've ever read Spurgeon's discussion of his conversion, there was a lengthy period of time when

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God was dealing with him before he feels that he was actually brought to regeneration.

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And so the American experience often is sudden conversion on a certain day, boom, and that's what most people's normative experience is.

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But there are others that that's not their experience at all. And so when we see God working with someone and then using means to bring the message of the gospel and stuff, we're like, well, that's not the normative way.

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Well, Acts up through about 14 isn't normative.

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And then once you get the establishment of churches, you start seeing things changing. I'm not sure if anyone's ever noticed, but there's a whole lot more miraculous at the beginning of Acts than there is at the end of Acts.

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And in fact, once you get into the epistles, it should strike all of us as a little strange.

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You've got the situation with Paul's traveling companion who has fallen ill and Paul leaves him behind.

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Well, Paul, why didn't you just heal him like you used to do? Well, because there's a transition taking place.

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And so I guess the fundamental commentary is making the experiences in the first half of Acts normative for the rest doesn't even work with Acts, let alone with the rest of the epistles.

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So that's how I'd answer it. And I'd like to hear your thoughts on this. I believe Calvin even...

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But he wants to ask a question. Calvin made the case that Cornelius was regenerate under Old Testament standards.

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And so I didn't know if you could maybe speak to that or how he developed... I've not read what Calvin said about that, so I can't say.

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That John Calvin stuff, so... So as long as there's no rules against it,

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I'll do this Ligonier Q &A style, and I'll stay here for the answer. But so you kind of touched on debating a

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Catholic priest who seems to hold to Scripture, to the authority of Scripture a little bit.

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Well, you mean Mitch Pacwa? Well, just in general, you said you have Catholic priest friends.

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Mitch Pacwa is about the only Jesuit that I know of who actually believes that Scripture has authority in and of itself.

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So yeah, that was unusual. On a normal scale, I've had Catholic friends,

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Catholic co -workers, and such, that don't hold to the authority of Scripture. So as far as the imputation of sin...

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They're not even Orthodox Catholic, if that's the case. I mean, look, Roman Catholicism has everything in it, okay?

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They have just as wide a range of viewpoints as Protestantism does. But the dogmas of the

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Roman Catholic Church do fundamentally subjugate Scripture to tradition, but to be an

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Orthodox Roman Catholic, you cannot question the supernatural nature of Scripture and its authority. I know that Roman Catholic priests and things do that.

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That's one of my arguments. I say to Roman Catholics, when you guys start kicking the people out of your church that don't believe the things you actually teach in your dogmatic statements, then

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I might start taking you seriously. But you don't do that. And right now, how can you? Your pope doesn't believe a lot of those things.

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So that's the real problem at that point. But I think it's important that we recognize that the

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Roman Catholic dogmatic statements is that Scripture is inspired and authoritative.

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And it wasn't until Vatican II that you start getting wishy -washy about that kind of stuff.

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And you look at the papal biblical commission, and it's filled with leftist progressivists. It really is.

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And that's what's made me laugh over the years. Sorry to do this. But I did a debate with Jerry Matitix on the papacy, actually two debates, when the pope came to World Youth Day in 1993 in Denver.

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And Carl Keating and Patrick Madrid of Catholic Answers, the night I was debating Jerry Matitix at Denver Seminary, did a debate with two fundamentalists.

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And they just wiped him out, just wiped him off the planet. It was just terrible. But one of the questions they asked was, how do you know

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Matthew wrote Matthew? And the fundamentalists responded, because in the King James Bible, it says the gospel according to Matthew, which isn't really a good answer.

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But I would have loved to have been able to be there because most of the people on the papal biblical commission don't believe

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Matthew wrote Matthew. So there have been changes in Roman Catholicism.

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So you have to differentiate between the dogmatic teachings, which would still affirm, at least dogmatically, the inspiration of Scripture versus what you're experiencing.

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And that is, man, there's just…you can find anything amongst Roman Catholics, especially amongst

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Jesuits. Yeah. So it's mostly just a lack of being able to answer something is what

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I'm more getting towards. So would you have any pointers to somebody, that individual who does not hold…

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When you present Scripture to them, and they're like, well, I don't believe that sin was imputated to Mary.

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You know, they believe that Mary was sinless. You point out that, okay, for all have sin fallen short of the glory of God, you know, there are none who please

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Him, there are none who are righteous. How do you work with somebody like that who doesn't hold to that?

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But even as a Roman Catholic, they believe that Adam's sin is imputed to them.

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So I don't…okay, they can say there's an exception to Mary. We can get into Mary on all sorts of other grounds.

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I wrote a book called Mary, Another Redeemer. It's on Kindle. It's available in various places. But from a

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Roman Catholic perspective, that's not relevant to them. Adam's sin has been imputed to them, so they still have to deal with it.

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So it almost sounds like you're dealing with people that just pick and choose. They call themselves Roman Catholics, but they're picking and choosing.

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Yeah. And even Pope John Paul II spoke against cafeteria -style Catholicism, where you pick and choose what you want to believe.

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So they're being an inconsistent Roman Catholic, and they may not care about that. In our day where truth is just whatever you want to make it to be, it can be very difficult to deal with that just like with a secularist.

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And so at that point, you're really just dealing with a lost person. And as you're dealing with secular lost people, you press the image of God upon them.

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You press them for consistency. And that's the same thing you do with an atheist or anybody else.

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Okay. Thank you. Thanks. Acts 2 .38.

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Oh, my. Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

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The word for is often disputed in regards to what exactly that word means in that verse.

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So is there anything in the media context that would just help our case to… that would help us understand that it means because of, just in the media context?

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I would like to say that anybody who can do three nights of debate on one verse probably isn't actually dealing with the text anymore but their own traditions.

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And the reality is the key thing to keep in mind in Acts 2 is that you're dealing with Peter's first presentation of the gospel to the

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Jews. And he has just said to the Jews, You, crucified by the hands of the

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Gentiles, your Messiah. And what normally gets lost, especially, you know,

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I don't know that I've… to be honest, it's not like I've spent a whole lot of time reading them, but I've never heard in these never -ending debates with Church of Christ folks in Acts 2 .38,

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a recognition of what's actually going on in a covenantal context because they don't have a covenantal theology.

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They don't know what covenants are. They don't understand the language that's being used. And so Peter has demonstrated,

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For David did not ascend to the heavens, but he himself says, The Lord said to my

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Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your hands your footstool. Again, God's favorite Bible verse because he keeps repeating it.

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From Psalm 110. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both

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Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.

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Why? You crucified your Messiah. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles,

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Brothers, what shall we do? Who's the we? See, almost all the time the conversation is, you know, this is general means of salvation for everybody is to be baptized, so on and so forth.

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These are Jews saying to fellow Jews because they call them men and brethren. We've crucified our

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Messiah. Is there any hope for us? Is there any hope for us?

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That's the context. If that's not central right at the beginning, then we're not actually dealing with the text to begin with.

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And so the answer has to be understood and I don't think that it is a matter of dealing just with Greek prepositions because repent be baptized every one of you the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you'll receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. What was that saying to Jews who are literally staying there going?

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We're toast. There is no hope for us. We could never be saved.

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There may have been people staying there who had yelled out crucify him, but they certainly recognize that at least the federal principle that their leaders had crucified the

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Messiah and therefore they stand guilty of what their leaders have done in their place as their representative.

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So they're thinking I have no hope and Peter says actually you do repent and to be baptized as a

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Jew is to do what that is a public proclamation of your identification with Jesus not only as the

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Messiah, but what is the method of what's the what's the baptismal formula baptized into the name singular of the father and of the son and of the

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Holy Spirit that's recognizing that Jesus is more than merely a prophet or anything like that that's identifying him with divinity.

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So to be baptized in that way what we're saying to you brothers is that you can have salvation, but it's only in Jesus Christ and it's no half -hearted commitment.

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This is just addressed to the Jews as to what they can do. This isn't the discussion of the mechanism.

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You want you want the mechanism go to the places where Peter and Paul lay out how salvation takes place.

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This is dealing with a single question the single historical context and that is the people who are going.

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Oh, no, we are hopeless. Nope. Actually repent be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ Jesus the

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Messiah. We think Christ is Jesus last name. It's not I think it's much better to render that as Jesus the

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Messiah because that is a statement of confession for the forgiveness of your sins.

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They needed to have forgiveness of sins and they're not going to get it from the temple. Once you know who Jesus is those sacrifices do nothing.

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You go to Christ you repent you be baptized every single one of you and you will receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit. They are sitting there going we're doomed and in one sentence you will receive

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God's gift of the Holy Spirit. The way is still open for you for this would get skipped.

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The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off who everyone whom the

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Lord our God what calls to himself. That's who the promise is for everyone whom the

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Lord our God calls to himself. Now me and my Presbyterian brothers lock horns on this one because my

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Presbyterian brothers I'm going to have to pick on you because I've got the microphone and you don't okay, but my

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Presbyterian brothers go for the promises for you and for your children believe you after that.

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No you and your children that is you and your children you have not been cut off.

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The wrath of God is not going to abide upon you. It will upon those who don't repent and believe and in approximately 40 years.

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It was really going to come down heavy in AD 70, but their promises for you.

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And for all those who are far off who's that the Gentiles as many as the

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Lord our God will call to himself. It all comes back to God's Sovereign calling and you recently preached many sermons on baptism.

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And this was one of the I'd recommend go look up the sermon on as many as the Lord calls himself because you deal with this.

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Yeah. Well, yeah, I did a series on the ordinances of the church. We did five on Lord's Supper and about 13 on baptism.

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And so I covered every single reference to baptism in in the New Testament.

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And then we dealt with all the covenantal issues in regards to the Old Testament and that's because I listened to Doug Wilson. And so I know what

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I have to do in the area of justification.

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Are there any similarities between Roman Roman Catholicism and Christianity like is there any who are truly saved in Roman Catholicism?

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And if there are how come they don't just abandon Roman Catholicism Catholicism altogether because it seems like when

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I think of, you know, Roman Catholics and stuff like that. I put a big X in my mind because I'm like that's definitely a no -no but like it seems like when you when

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I scroll past a video or something and a Roman Catholic is talking what they say almost sounds like it sounds really good and biblical, but they're wearing a collar and it's just like so are there any not just Roman Catholics that wear collars you want to just do these last two.

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So you're anyone who comes up behind you kick him in the knee. Got it.

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Okay. All right. Okay. So here's here's my answer to you brother. You walked away, but hopefully you'll be able to hear me.

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Okay. All right. Good. All right. First of all, there's nothing wrong with collars.

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There's nothing about in the Bible about it. So we we need to be careful. I I make the point I've written a book on the subject called the

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Roman Catholic controversy and one of the things I pointed out is I have Anglican friends who wear collars who believe in justification by faith and sola scriptura and they even cross themselves.

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Okay. Now at the Reformation. There were people the Zwingli was a was a classically trained organist when the

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Reformation took place. He got rid of all musical instruments in the church. Okay, there are some people that go there, but I think

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God made those things to glorify him. And so I think that instruments are beautiful.

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They were used in God's people in the Old Covenant. So we have to be really careful that to make sure that we realize that the issue with Roman Catholicism fundamentally is it doesn't have a gospel that gives peace.

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The sacramental system and especially their doctrine of the mass. They have no finished work of Christ.

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And so that's the issue. Now papacy very important denial of sola scriptura calling a priest and alter

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Christos another Christ very important purgatory. Oh my there's all sorts of issues.

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There's no question about it, but there are all sorts of issues outside of Rome as well.

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And so when you ask how could anyone be saved who is a

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Roman Catholic? My response is the grace of God you go, but they don't believe the right things.

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There are certain things that need to be believed. And like I said, if anyone within the

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Roman Catholic Communion is going to receive eternal life. It's not going to be because what they were taught specifically by Rome.

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But by the things they heard in other contexts, maybe just reading the Bible. I've met people that honestly they went to the

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Roman Catholic Church, but then when they told me what they thought Rome taught I'm like, how did you get that?

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And I realized they were reinterpreting what they were hearing in light of what they're reading the Bible. Now is that extremely common?

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No, but I hope it's more common than I think it is. But I still have to evangelize them because I want them to know the truth of what because I don't want them to be pseudo

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Delphoi false brothers. And if you're truly committed, you know, some of you may know there was a young guy who had a

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YouTube channel as Christian apologist guy who couple months ago was it months or weeks?

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Yeah, it's very very recently converted Roman Catholicism. Well, I had called that in May or April of 2020.

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When I first heard him dialoguing with a Roman Catholic about John 6, I knew then and he just dragged it out that long didn't have that foundation.

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But when someone has professed the truth and now they seek to deny that truth, that's a different thing than having never professed the truth and maybe believing the truth just not knowing that you did.

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So we I I was raised I'll be honest with you. I was raised within a independent fundamentalist

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Baptist context that basically taught me that I actually could judge people's hearts. I can't

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I can only judge what is taught and so I can warn about false teaching.

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I can't see into the heart. I can hope and I can pray but because when

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I hear false teaching, I am concerned that that is going to lead someone to have a false faith itself and that's why

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I have to evangelize those folks. But I have I have great love for the

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Roman Catholic people. I have no animosity toward them at all and they don't a lot of them don't believe that because I stand against Roman Catholicism as a whole but it's sort of like when

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I speak on the King James only issue. You hate the King James Bible. No, I don't. I hate the misuse of the

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King James Bible. It's a very different thing. Evening, Dr.

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White. I had about a hundred million questions in my head. So I had to pick the best one and I'm well, we'll judge as to whether it was a good one or not.

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So if you get done they go that was your best one. Then you're going to be like, oh man.

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Well, it's I guess more prevalent, you know everyday conversations I have and in reference to perform theology that I've had with some of my friends and pastor friends and everything.

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First John chapter 2 verse 1 and 2 reads my little children. I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin.

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And if anyone sins we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous and he himself is the propitiation for our sins not for ours only but also the for those of the whole world.

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So I'd like to get your commentary maybe on the original language of what the whole world is specifically referring to because I've heard an extreme that this is a universalist passage, but I've also heard a provisionist idea of this as well.

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Let's not give the provisionists much credit. They haven't been around long enough to bother with.

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I know I was a product of your great friend Layton Flowers. Yes, yes, but to be honest with you, you'll get a much more in -depth discussion on this not only in I believe in the

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Potter's Freedom, but I have done a number of dividing line programs specifically on this text where I get to spend you know 45 minutes not three or four because we're wrapping up here.

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But the my fundamental answer aside from the fact that when it says we have an advocate with the father

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Jesus Christ the righteous if you understand advocate and what the advocate is doing that is a reference to particular redemption and to the perfection of the work of Christ from the book of Hebrews that he saves the other most those drug night night of God by him.

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So there's be an inconsistency there, but the idea is they're trying to say well, he is the propitiation.

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Now. What is propitiation that which removes the wrath of God for our sins and not for ours only but all for the sins the whole world.

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Well, if it's actually propitiation, then this doesn't work for a synergist or a provisionist or something else.

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It only works the Universalist because it means that God's wrath has been removed for the whole world.

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If you if you're reading this through Western eyes, and that's the problem when we we are such individualists, especially

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Americans. We read these texts and we read them in such a fashion that we're seeing them individualistically.

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That was not the mindset of the writing of the New Testament. They did not see it in that way.

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And when you talk about the whole world, the whole world for them is not some extensive.

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What did we just pass eight billion individuals? It's classes and categories.

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And so the point of first John two is we we cannot sit and be complacent and apathetic because we've accepted this message.

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This has to go out to Jews and Gentiles, to all people that there is a means of having peace with God.

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There is a propitiatory sacrifice, knowing that as Jesus himself taught, no one could come to me unless the father who sent me draws him.

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So who experiences that propitiation? Only those for whom Christ died, who is united to him, those given by the father to the son.

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This text isn't even addressing that. It's saying my little children. This is how we should live in light of the theology.

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They've already been taught. And so I've just noticed and I've said this many times down through the years that those who try to come up with these these teachings instead of being able to go to extended sections of scripture that are specifically on the topic.

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Hebrews, for example, man, I do not know why Hebrews is not just one of the most, you know, everybody just loves

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Romans. Well, not so much Romans five, but everybody just loves Romans. But Hebrews is the book of the

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New Testament that has the longest extended discussions of the atonement and why the atonement took place and what it accomplishes.

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And I honestly think one of the reasons that it's not at the forefront of everyone's thinking is it assumes, you know, the

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Old Testament like the back of your hand. And I have said for a long time, evangelicals tend to be canonically challenged.

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We have pretty much only 27 books in our Bible. The other 39 are just storybooks. There are things to keep the, you know,

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Daniel in the lion's den and David and you know, Goliath and so on. It's just to entertain the kids.

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But a lot of us really do think that the Old Testament's authority is not what the

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New Testament's authority is. And so we don't spend much time in it. When you read Hebrews for what

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Hebrews is really saying, it gives us extensive long discussions of these very issues.

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About what the atonement accomplishes and the priesthood of Christ and all the rest of stuff. We take those big ones and then interpret the small ones in light of the long discussions.

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And the other side tends to take these read stuff into it and say that stuff just can't be saying that because of this.

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And I think that sort of tells you what's going on. Yeah. And like I said, verse 1 really helps interpret verse 2 and I believe it's first John 5 19 that uses whole world and another context to show it shows different categories of people.

48:41

Well, John uses cosmos in at least 14 different ways between the gospel of John and his epistles.

48:47

So, yeah. All right. One last question. Mr. Randy, you made it. Yes, sir. First of all, kudos on Reliant.

48:57

The problem is I can't remember what the code was. I tried to memorize it once, but I can't remember.

49:02

Do you remember? No. Yeah. No. But I did reference the sixth movie in my sermon this weekend.

49:08

That's it. I congratulate you for that. But did you but you but but do you know who would know that code

49:13

Jason Lyle probably so Jason Lyle is the biggest Star Trek geek on the planet.

49:20

I can believe that he really really is. He's an astronomer. What do you expect? Well, I think he's looking for the

49:26

Enterprise up there. You may not want to get into this. So, okay. All right, so we're done. Just say sit down dummy or whatever, but I only mentioned this because you mentioned right in your presentation.

49:37

Yes. And I don't know who is familiar with right probably even less with done probably even less with Sanders. So but this stuff is seminarians are reading these books are being influenced.

49:52

So just real quick. I know you're wrapping things up. What would be a quick summary of what he's doing with the gospel and maybe some key phrases that if you hear a preacher say this phrase you may want to ask them.

50:06

Hey, what's your relationship with right? What is yeah. Yeah. So you kind of go you kind of get where I'm going with that.

50:13

So yeah, have you heard me and right? I'm sorry. Have you heard the interaction between right and myself staring at you face to face?

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If I said yes, would you believe me? I don't know. It's online. It's no, no,

50:28

I have not. No, I have not listened to it. I'm sorry. Okay. All right. Well, I'd recommend it because we did get into a lot of that stuff for those that are wondering what the question is about.

50:38

There's something called the new perspective on Paul. It's not all that new anymore. Sanders done and there's differences between them a lot of differences between them and probably the best known modern.

50:55

Presenter of this is Bishop NT right? Who's a brilliant guy.

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The problem is NT right knows he's brilliant and he honestly believes he's come up with a way to heal the schism of the church on the subject of justification.

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And that is to say that both the Catholics and Protestants got it wrong and he figured it out and he really does does believe that and that's sort of hard to deal with but fundamentally what he's saying is that justification is not a salvific category.

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It is a fellowship category. It is about who is in the fellowship of the church. It's not how you're made right with God. Right actually says that even though he thinks the

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Reformation went the wrong way to get to its conclusion that they got to the right conclusion and that you can get there other ways than the ways they did.

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I don't know how he's actually laid that out to do that to be pretty honest with you but fundamentally for example when

51:53

I quoted earlier he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf that we might be raid made the righteousness of God in him for NT right that's only about the

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Apostles. That's not about us. And so it is highly problematic.

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But most of Wright's critics have not actually understood right and half of that's his fault and half of its theirs.

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So it's extremely complicated. It does tend to attract the seminarian student who is seven in seminary for the wrong reasons who wants to be very wise and not necessarily for the right reasons for being wise ministerial reasons.

52:43

I would say and so what phrases will you hear? Well, I'm not sure exactly what phrases would would bounce out of that.

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But what you what you will hear is words that sound rather universalistic.

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He's not trying to be universalistic but that's sort of what ends up coming out of it. It's very complicated and very

53:11

I did a series of programs on dividing line on it. If you look up NT right you probably pull them up our archives go back to 2000.

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We were podcasting before there were pods. We really were we start we literally started online podcasting before the iPod was made.

53:33

So right around 2000 and in fact the dividing line I started in the 1980s and so there's thousands thousands and thousands of them in there.

53:44

So we have covered it in there at some point should should pull up in the front Dr. White. Thank you so much for coming out to twelve five charts if you would give a hand for Dr.

53:52

White. So if you would do you mind to please close us in a word of prayer be happy to do so.