Radio Free Geneva: A Nearly Three Hour Examination of "Traditional" Anthropology

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00:10

The mighty fortresses are gone.

00:16

The forward cannot win. I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow

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John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them. They're following men instead of the

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Word of God. I'll never be a mistletoe fly.

00:32

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

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He died for all those who elected, were selected. For still our ancient foe doth seek to work

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God's will, His claim, and not live through a day.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the Reformers. On earth is not his safe world.

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

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God so loved the world, that He gave

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His only begotten Son, that whosoever. Ladies and gentlemen,

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

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

02:08

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

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

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

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

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It's a longer introduction than our normal one. And it gets everybody going.

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Somebody on Twitter already said, I can already hear the clanging metal of all those cages as the cage stage

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Calvinists start swinging back and forth inside their cages. But we keep the doors locked for obvious reasons for the safety, not only of the cage stage

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Calvinists themselves, but also of the general public as well. Let's begin with a little bit of a history lesson, and I hope this is going to work.

03:31

I have my little whiteboard here. Back many moons ago, when

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I was in seminary, my professor, Dr.

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Nate Feldmuth from Fuller Theological Seminary, yes, Fuller Theological Seminary, went through a discussion of the soteriological developments in the early church.

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And he drew three diagrams on the board.

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And the first diagram, let me see if I can get this working here. There we go.

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The first diagram looked like this. I guess I need to go down here a little bit.

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It would help if I was on pen mode. All right. Okay.

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So you've got a pit here, all right. And the first thing to discuss was the position of Pelagius.

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These things are hard to write on. Don't, just so you know. And in Pelagianism, man is alive and well, standing in the pit.

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And Christ is up here outside the pit.

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And what Christ provides to the man in the pit is a moral example.

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The moral example of how this man can fashion a ladder and extract himself from this pit by his own work.

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There is no need for supernatural grace. There is no need. The man in the pit is capable and able of saving himself.

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But all he needs is the proper example. He needs to be shown the way.

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All right. In contrast to this, we have this pit.

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And in this pit, man is here in the bottom. And he is dead.

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Let's see if I can draw some closed eyes there. Okay. And what you have is a ladder coming down.

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I imagine Hasim, son of Ramallah, king of graphics is going, I could do a lot better at this.

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He's screaming. Is he screaming? Yeah, yeah. And what you have is you have

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Jesus. This is a terrible drawing. Coming down the ladder.

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And you see man is dead. So there is a, depending on your viewpoint, daisy or a tulip.

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Given that he's dead, it would be a tulip. There is a tulip growing out of his chest. He's dead in his sins, incapable of getting himself out of the pit because he's dead.

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And corpses do not get themselves out of pits. And so Christ has to come and powerfully raise him to spiritual life and extract him out of the pit.

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Okay. This was Augustine's view in opposition to Pelagius's view. Then he drew a third pit.

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And in this pit, man's down here and he is sick.

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He is wounded, but he's still alive. He's able to call for help.

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And so the Lord is able to put down a ladder for him and provide him with the means of being able to drag himself over there.

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And this is prevenient grace. And if the man chooses, then he needs help.

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Rome has always condemned a full -on Pelagianism.

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Yeah, great. Someone is suggesting. This is a Wacom tablet that I'm using.

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So I don't know what that's all about. But anyway. And so if this person chooses to accept the prophet's assistance, that's great.

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But it's all up to this individual down here. Because God's doing this for everybody.

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This is a form of prevenient grace. And so this, of course, is what was called semi -Pelagianism.

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All right. So drew those three on the board. They are theological positions.

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They are important theological positions. They will impact how you do evangelism, how you do church, what you think the gospel is, what you think the power of the gospel is.

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They're very, very important things. It seems today, when you identify where people are in this spectrum, that somehow, well,

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I was listening to a Leighton Flowers thing. And as soon as I identified what was being said in this spectrum, he started, over me, he starts going,

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Boogeyman! Boogeyman! And I'm going, it was the same level of, are you serious, that I had when he posted his two -and -a -half -hour response to last week's program, where I went through the biblical testimony for man's deadness and sin, his inability to respond positively in faith and repentance toward God, which, by the way, is not the same thing as acknowledging that you're a sinner.

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That's one of the major, major, complete collapses. If you go back and listen to Leighton Flowers' presentation, as we're going to be doing, you ought to see what

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I have on my screen here, what you'll hear over and over again is

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Brother Flowers saying, well, certainly we can acknowledge our sin.

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That's not the same thing as repenting. That's not the same thing as turning. That's not the same thing as believing. Anybody who's ever dealt with someone, for example, who's addicted to drugs, know that they will admit it over and over again.

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That's not the same thing as turning. They well know what God's law is.

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They well know what they should do. Not the same thing as turning. Not the same thing as believing. It's not a positive response.

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We'll get to that as we deal with the issues here. But it's the same thing.

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I had the same response to this boogeyman thing as when he posted his response to my presentation.

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And the original name for the video was 50 Shades of White. And I'm like, seriously?

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You just snagged the title of a soft porn movie for a theological discussion.

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And I didn't make a big deal out of it. I'm just like, this just sort of illustrates the level of seriousness that we see in Leighton Flower's exegesis is in this utilization of this type of thing.

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And he changed the title to, I don't want this to distract from anything. And it was one of those classical, modern, political, non -apologetic apologies where, well, if you were offended, then

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I'm sorry that you were offended. But for some reason he said,

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Apologia does that kind of thing all the time. That's not an apology. I just found it really odd.

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And what it said to me was, this is the level of seriousness that the subject is being approached with, and go from there.

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So the boogeyman thing, all because I dared to place the statements that were being made within the historical continuum.

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And as I mentioned a number of times after the Trent Horn debate, I wanted people to hear.

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I want people to understand that what is being argued within this quote -unquote traditionalist movement, whatever you want to call it, it is functionally, when it comes to the nature of man, when it comes to the power of grace, when it comes to really all the issues that surround anthropology, all those things, there's no distinction between it and Rome.

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Where it differs is the sacramental nature of, in Roman Catholicism, that grace being channeled through sacraments.

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But the argumentation is the same. You hear them saying the exact same things.

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Now, they may say, well, we're just taking the best. We're taking the best. You know, Rome says true things, and we're taking the best of what they say.

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Okay, I just again point out that when it comes to the issue of the

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Reformation, the issue of the first written debate of the

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Reformation, these folks aren't on the Reformers' side. And there is a reason for that and why that is.

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So, what I have on my screen today, I have an hour and 31 minutes worth of stuff.

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Now, a portion of that, actually, if I take it out, let me see here.

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Yeah, you know, if I take out some of the stuff I'm not going to be dealing with, then we're a little bit better off.

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But I've got over an hour worth of stuff. Good luck getting through all that.

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But I am going to be playing the material at 1 .2. I always mention that to folks because I just want to make sure that we're up front about that so we can get through it just a little bit faster.

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What I'm going to do, I am going to respond to a portion of what was responded to over the weekend.

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Because I asked folks. I said, I'm not going to spend two hours and 20 minutes listening to a response.

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But did he attempt to do anything with Romans chapter 8? Well, yeah. Okay, for what period?

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So, people were typing stuff in channel. I said, okay, I'll take a look at it. And so we're going to look at just a small portion of the response that was initially 50

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Shades of White on Romans chapter 8. But I decided to do a

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Radio Free Geneva when someone else, that troublemaker from Texas, was telling me about some of the comments that were made in a webcast from last

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September, I believe, where the issue, what about those who've never heard?

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Now, what made it somewhat more useful to deal with this particular webcast is it wasn't directly in response to me.

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Now, I don't think, I'll be honest with you. I have not personally heard

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Leighton Flowers deal with any soteriological issue without having as the primary driver of his language, his illustrations,

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Calvinism. I mean, it is, I don't know that he could preach a sermon without mentioning Calvinism.

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Because I've never heard him do it. I mean, it just, it is absolutely central to interpreting where he's coming from.

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And it is the task that he has been given by the leadership there to be the frontline shock troops, to save our institutions and to save our students from this dreaded infestation of Calvinism.

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And it's a lonely battlefield. And when that's your primary purpose, that's your primary goal, is to fight

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Calvinism, then you start looking at every text in the Bible as if it's somehow relevant to that particular quest.

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And that becomes, I think, problematic over time. And so what was helpful about this, what about those who've never heard?

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It starts off with him taking a Calvinist or a tulip quiz. I think it was on Si Ten Brudenkait's page.

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And so the first portion is about that. But there are some helpful definitions provided.

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What a lot of people have said is, well, you know, you're just not really responding to what the traditionalists are saying.

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Well, I think I have, but okay, we're going to take some time. And if after this you say you're not really responding to what the traditionalists are saying, then

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I'm really going to start wondering if you're actually listening or if that's just simply some type of a script running on your computer, because we're going to be responding to what traditionalists say rather clearly and straightforwardly here.

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Why bother with all this? Well, a couple of things. Aside from the fact that I meet students from seminaries that are deeply influenced by this movement and by this perspective, and they so very often are very, very appreciative of the time spent in responding to these things so that they have encouragement in their own studies.

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You know, I spent a number of years in the SBC, still have a lot of friends in the

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SBC. And apologetically speaking, especially when we get into Romans chapter one here in a while, well, eventually, there's really incredibly important apologetic application to be made.

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Because if you get to the point of saying, as we're going to hear Leighton Flowers saying, Romans one is not about all men.

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That may have been the Apostle Paul's interpretation of Romans three, but Romans one is not all about all men. And because he makes this odd distinction between culpability for sin, that they're all culpable for sin.

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But that doesn't mean that they're calloused. This isn't really descriptive of all men.

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Some of you know that's one of the primary arguments that, and again, this is just pointing out a fact.

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This is one of the primary arguments that homosexuals make in trying to get around what Romans chapter one says about them.

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It's not about all men. This isn't descriptive of all men. Well, we'll have to deal with that.

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We, of course, have dealt with this many times before in Romans chapter one, but we'll have to do it again.

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Now from another perspective. So there you go. So here we go.

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Hopefully I'm all plugged in here again, playing at 1 .2. Here we go.

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How much glory does Jesus get for your salvation? Now, again, the first part here, he's taking this

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Calvinist quiz at Syed 10 Bruggencate's website. There. Okay. Remember, the Conflation of the

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Calvinist is the title of the blog article, as well as the title of a podcast. Earlier, if you haven't listened to those, go back and listen to them, because this is their conflation.

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Because what they do is they label salvation, both man's decision and God's decision. They label it all salvation.

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So man's decision to repent is just as much a part of salvation as God's decision to save the repentant. Now, here we go.

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Here's where we need to understand. Got to have an accurate understanding.

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And for Dr. Flowers, this is one of the most important distinctions that we Calvinists don't get.

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We are conflating something. Well, what are we conflating? We're conflating man's repentance and choice to believe with God's choice to believe.

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And what he'll do is he really is super over -reliant upon the parable, and I like to point this out, the parable of the prodigal son.

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And his statement is, look, the prodigal son was dead, but still had the ability to make the choice to go back to the father.

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That's the sinner's choice. That's his capability, even though he's down and out, he has the capacity to do that.

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And then the father makes a separate choice when he sees the son to forgive him and to celebrate his return.

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The father could have done otherwise is the argument that Dr. Flowers makes.

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The father could have rejected the son. The father could have just given him the job, but not received him as a son.

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These are all things that were within the father's prerogative to do. So, allegedly, because we recognize these are all a part of soteriology, these are all a part of, you can't have salvation without God's choice to save.

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You can't have salvation without an object to be saved. You can't have salvation without repentance and faith.

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Since we see all this part of soteriology, somehow we're guilty of conflation, and we're guilty for bringing all the muddle into this subject.

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Just listen. It's a drumbeat. It's a constant assertion that is being made.

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Now, of course, from the Reformed perspective, we believe that anyone, that if anyone turns to God, this is the gospel proclamation.

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We are commanded to tell everyone, to proclaim the message to everyone.

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God's command is repent and believe. Anyone who will repent and believe will find

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Jesus Christ to be a powerful Savior. So, for us, the choice for God to save the repentant sinner is an eternity past.

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It is a given. It is part of the essence of why Christ died, etc.,

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etc. And so, our focus is, well, why does one person repent and believe?

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What's the nature of that faith? What's the nature of repentance? In light of what the

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Bible teaches about God's sovereign decree, man's deadness and sin, the result of being dead in sin, so on and so forth.

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We're not actually conflating anything, but this is the big drumbeat. This is where they've messed it up, and this is why they're causing confusion and everything else.

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Now, of course, all of this, what stands in the background of all of this, is the fact that there is no sovereign decree in Leighton Flowers theology.

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As we saw last week, one traditionalist leader said, Some of us just deal with the issues through simple foreknowledge.

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Some of us through Molinism. Hey, as long as you can all come out the same place. So, in other words, all of this is very much focused upon man.

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It starts with man. It reasons from man. Dr. Flowers evidently can't even see how deeply trapped he is in this, because he doesn't give exegesis of texts.

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What he does is he'll tell stories. It's like I told my kids.

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Here's an analogy I've used over here. Here's an analogy I've used over there. And the analogies are always drawn from human experience.

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They can never be analogies that have application to the eternal God. And so, that's always behind all of this, is that the direction of all this argumentation will never reach the height of biblical standards, because it's always just on the human level.

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It's never God -centered. It's man -centered all the way through. There's no sovereign decree of God, etc.,

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etc. So, just keep that in mind as you hear what's being said, according to the

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Calvinist in this conflation. See, we draw a distinction between man's responsibility to repent of sin and God, who chooses in His graciousness to save the sinner.

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There's a difference between God's choice to save and man's responsibility or man's choice to repent and humble himself and admit that he needs a

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Savior. There's a distinction between those two things. Not in the Calvinist worldview, however. Calvinists see all of that as one and the same, and they call it salvation, which muddles the water, which makes it difficult to argue with them, because they say things like,

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God's a sovereign over salvation. God is in complete control of salvation. What they mean by that is God's in complete control not only to save the sinner, but He's also in complete control of whether the sinner repents or not.

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Yes, God is in complete control of everything that takes place. That's that sovereign decree of God. But that doesn't mean that we believe that God's choice in eternity is conflated with or identified with man's response in time.

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We recognize the difference between the two, but the one gives rise to the other. Just because we recognize there's a distinction between the two doesn't mean that we're somehow conflating them and saying they're the same thing.

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I'm not sure where a lot of this comes from. And that's conflation. It's just a simple mistake.

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It can get hairy when you're debating with a Calvinist, because they sound like they're taking the higher road by giving

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God all the glory for salvation. But really what they're doing is not giving God all the glory for salvation. They're ultimately blaming God for everything, even the heinous evil, because they have made

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God quote -unquote sovereign over everything. So again, fundamentally, the

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God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament, the God of Ephesians 1, the

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God of Isaiah, no, no, no. God created, and He is the creator of all things, and He can sort of do what

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He wants to do in the big mega stuff. But He doesn't sweat the details. And of course, this is really where this system, well, any one of these systems, it's where it breaks down.

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If you've listened to the radio programs and the debates we've done, it's right here where you start asking, well, then how can you have specific prophecies, 700 years, all the free will choices of man?

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You know, how does God, well, you know, we're not so sure about that. You know, it could just be simple foreknowledge.

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And if it's just simple foreknowledge, then God rolled the dice, and wow,

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I win, praise me. If it's Molinism, then, you know, you have the supercomputer in the sky running all the possible worlds, and you have the divine card player out there doing his thing, and all the rest of that kind of stuff that comes with it.

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But we just don't sweat that stuff, because what's more important is the autonomous will of man. You know, whether God's will is autonomous, all that kind of stuff, but the important thing is got to have the will of man right.

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Okay. Which means in control, meticulous deterministic control over everything within the Calvinistic definitions of terms with regard to sovereignty.

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Instead of understanding sovereignty as the Bible describes it, God sits in heavens and does whatever he pleases. That's what

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Psalm 115 verse 3 says. That is sovereignty. God does whatever he wants. The Calvinist assumes that God wants to control everybody's choices and everything that happens in the world.

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That's not what God's pleased to do. As we look on down in verse 16 of that same chapter in Psalm 115, it says,

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God sits in the heavenlies, but he has given the earth over to man. He has given dominion. Dominion in the

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Greek and in the original language of Hebrew means liberty or strength or power. God has given a level of strength, power, dominion to creation.

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Now, I heard that, and I thought, well, that's important.

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Let's see what's going on there because Psalm 115 verse 3,

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I normally use Psalm 135 verse 6, but they're pretty much the same. Our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases.

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Their idols are silver and gold, the work of man's hands. In other words, a contrast is being drawn between the idols, who are toevah, that cannot accomplish anything, and the true

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God who is in the heavens, and he does whatever he pleases, and there is continued mockery below this.

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They have mouths that cannot speak. They have eyes that cannot see. They have ears that cannot hear. They have noses that cannot smell. They have hands that cannot feel.

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They have feet, but they cannot walk. They cannot make a sound with their throat. Those who make them will become like them, everyone who trusts in them.

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And so Psalm 115 is an apologetic psalm. It's contrasting the false gods of the peoples with the true

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God, Yahweh. So, okay, so he says, well, if you go down to verse 16, the heavens are the heavens of Yahweh, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.

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And then he makes this claim that there's something here about dominion. And here again, here's what he said.

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As we look on down in verse 16 of that same chapter in Psalm 115, it says, God sits in the heavenlies, but he has given the earth over to man.

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He has given dominion. Dominion in the Greek and in the original language of Hebrew means liberty or strength or power.

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God has given a level of strength, power, dominion to creation. Okay. First, he mentions

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Greek. Then he mentions Hebrew. He says something about dominion and something about God sitting in the heavenlies.

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It says the heavens are the heavens of Yahweh, but the earth he has given to the sons of men.

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And so I stopped and I looked at the Hebrew and I looked at the

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Greek Septuagint. And I'm like, what on earth is he talking about?

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There's nothing about dominion. There's nothing about power. There's nothing here. So what's he talking about?

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So I went to Twitter and I had unblocked his personal account. And I provide the

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Hebrew. I provide the Greek. And I said, so where's this dominion thing?

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Because I'm honestly wondering. The reading he gave was odd. This is a podcast.

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It wasn't a debate. I'm going to assume he has notes or something in front of him. Maybe he's just going off the top of his head. I don't know. Well, finally, about an hour and a half ago or so, something was posted on Facebook.

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It's a video. He's going to some meeting someplace. And so he responded on video and basically said, well, if I said that the word dominion is in Psalm 115 -16, then

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I was wrong about that. But it's just one of the verses we use to establish the overall concept that's found elsewhere.

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It sure sounded like he was saying that if you go down to verse 16, it's talking about dominion being given to the creation.

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But there's nothing there that says that. And, of course, all you have to do is contrast the statement that was just made here in this recording with the 33rd

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Psalm. And I keep bringing this up. I don't know. Maybe someone can tell me if Dr.

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Flowers has attempted to respond to this text.

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But in Psalm 33, verse 9, Now, if you wanted to present something where God does what

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God wants to do, despite what mankind wants to do, how else would you put it than that?

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It's purposefully meant very clearly in the Hebrew, in the

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Greek, doesn't matter what language it's in. It's clearly meant to provide to you a direct contrast between the idea that man is sovereign over his ways.

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God says, no, that would be me. So, I believe that what's in Psalm 115 has to be consistent with what's in Psalm 33.

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And when you put them together, you have what we believe in regards to the sovereignty of God.

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So, I attempted to get a response, and I guess the response was,

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I was wrong about that. Because that was all I could understand from what he was saying.

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But, you know, it's off the top of my head. I'm driving. I don't want to crash. I get that. But there's nothing about dominion in Psalm 115, verse 16.

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It's just not there. So, there we go. Now, did you catch it?

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Autonomous choices. We are autonomous. Autonomous means self -lawed.

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We are our law unto ourselves. And thus, liberty to make our own choices.

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As A .W. Tozer is famous for saying, God does not determine which choices that we will make, but that we will be free to make them.

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A God less than sovereign would be afraid to create libertarianly free creatures. And so, God creates us with libertarian freedom under his sovereignty.

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By his sovereignty, he creates libertarianly free creatures from our perspective. And so, when they ask this question, how much glory does

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God get for your salvation? I can say absolutely all of it. Because I'm not conflating man's responsibility with God's.

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And so, it's easy for me to say all. And so, I click on all. Well, guess what comes up? Okay. Now, did you follow that?

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Do you understand what was just said there? Because I don't. I mean, I understand what was said there. I understand what the argument is.

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But do you see how it doesn't work? It's dodging the question.

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It's not answering the question. Because to say, well, we can't really answer the question of, well, what he's saying is

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God's trying to save. And that's his choice.

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His choice is to save those who believe. And our choice then is whether we will believe or not.

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That's the argument. So, what they've done is they have limited the scope of God's choice to a generic default position of being a potential savior.

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God has chosen to be a savior if we choose to enable him to do so.

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That's what they're saying. So, when you say, who gets the glory?

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What they're saying is, and this is the same thing. Again, if you're familiar with Roman Catholic encounters, this is the same thing

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Roman Catholics say. When we talk about soli deo gloria, when we talk about sola gratia, grace alone.

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Oh, yes, grace alone. We believe in grace alone. What do you mean you believe in grace alone? Well, grace, if it weren't for grace, then you'd never have the opportunity to use the sacraments and baptism and confession and penance and indulgences and purgatory.

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It's all of grace because grace made it possible. That's not what we believe grace is.

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We believe grace actually saves, not just makes salvation a possibility.

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We believe grace actually saves. I'm truly troubled.

38:01

I'll be honest with you. Go listen without my playing it. Go listen to this one about what about those who've never heard.

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I think it's 157. Soteriology 101, what about those who've never heard, I think is the rest of it.

38:19

I only have part of the title up there on my audio note taker screen.

38:25

Go listen for yourself. There is precious little about grace as a powerful, saving, purposeful thing.

38:36

There's a lot about our abilities. There's a lot about us. There's a lot about us acknowledging stuff.

38:42

Not much about grace actually saving, but we need grace to be able to be saved, but that's that other decision.

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That's God's part. What about us? What about our decisions?

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As we're going to see, when you get down to asking the question, well, what made you to differ? The answer is going to be partly, well, you

39:10

Calvinists contradict us because you think God has made you to differ because he changed you. That's not the question. The question is, we believe in something called unconditional election.

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There wasn't anything in me that drew God's saving grace, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't get away from answering the question.

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Well, he does. He dodges it. Why? If two people are presented with the gospel, one rejects and one accepts, similar background, similar education, what's the difference between the two?

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The answer from Layton Flowers is not to be found in God.

39:55

It's found only in man. It's found in his predilection, his humility. Who has made men to differ?

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Not God. Man. It's all about man. That's the answer. And that's

40:09

Rome's answer too. And that's why I say this is important.

40:16

What makes you different from the lost? Now, this is what

40:21

I was talking about, the number one argument of Calvinists on the blog. And this is the big thing they always go to, is what made you different from the lost?

40:28

In other words, the questions often posed, okay, why did you choose Christ, but your lost friend refused

40:34

Christ? Both of you are presented with the gospel. You chose to accept Christ, but your lost friend didn't. What makes you better?

40:41

What makes you more humble? What makes you smarter than they are? Well, here we go. And the answer is fairly lengthy, so if you don't mind, for those of you who listen to this fast, this will be even faster.

40:54

I'll go to 1 .4 because it's that long, but I want you to hear all of it in its context without me interrupting.

40:59

And this, again, it's begging the question because it's asking what determined your choice and what determined your friend's choice, as if a deterministic answer is required.

41:07

When the truth of the matter is, an affirmation of free will is the affirmation of self -determination. In other words, what determined the choice is the chooser.

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The determiner determined his determination, and so to ask what determined it, as if the person themselves didn't choose or make that determination, is assuming a deterministic answer is required, which is begging the question.

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And so, though a person can list reasons, like this is what I felt, this is the circumstances that happened, we can list influential factors that contributed to why we made the decision we made.

41:32

None of those factors are determiners. We are determiners. People are determiners. God is a determiner. In other words, we are the ones who make determinations based upon influential factors.

41:41

Within the Calvinistic worldview, desire is a determiner. In other words, the way R .C. Sproul explains it in his book,

41:47

Chosen by God, is that we always make a choice according to our greatest set desire. Well, that's really called animal instinct. That's what animals do, who are instinctively acting upon the greatest inborn natural desire they're created with.

41:57

They eat meat because they're coniferous. They're made that way. We are free moral creatures. We aren't dictated to act according to our greatest desire.

42:04

We can choose to act from among competing desires. So desire for a free moral agent, someone who is created in the imago dei, the image of God, image bearers of God, we have the ability to weigh options.

42:14

We have the ability to choose from among the competing desires and decide which of the desires we are going to fulfill and that we're going to seek to make either a fleshly desire or a moral desire or a desire to stay healthy or a desire to eat tasty food, whatever it is.

42:27

We, as free moral creatures, have the ability to deliberate and to decide what is right and wrong.

42:32

We have the ability to see good versus evil, even in our fallen condition, obviously, as Genesis teaches us. And so we have an inborn conscience, as we learn in Romans chapter 2.

42:40

We have the ability to see and understand both good and bad and make moral decisions. And that's why we're held morally culpable for those decisions.

42:47

We're not dictated by our greatest inborn instinctive -like desire that's ultimately determined by the circumstances, the stimuli that forces us, in a sense, to make that particular choice without real ability to choose otherwise.

42:58

And so that's why we really contend with what many compatibilistic or Calvinistic -type scholars try to say when they speak of this concept of God ultimately determining all things or bringing all things to pass according to His preset plan and desire and His own self -glorifying will that He's bringing to pass every little detail that's ever happened throughout all of history.

43:17

That's brought about for God's own glory. That's according to the Calvinists. We just simply deny that. Yes, you do deny that.

43:23

Now, I just want to note a couple things in passing. First of all, anyone who has read

43:28

Sproul's discussion, which you know he's derived from Edwards, who likens that to animals being carnivorous clearly doesn't have a clue what

43:38

Edwards or Sproul were saying. Because then he follows up with, well, you know, our desire whether we want to be healthy or something like that.

43:47

That's his whole point. You may have – I have a terrible sweet tooth.

43:52

I really – I love my chocolate. And yet, if you look at pictures of me now in comparison to 2004, you will see a huge difference.

44:08

I was a weightlifter back then. I'd get up in the middle of the night and drink protein shakes. Weighed 254 pounds.

44:16

But my desires changed. My desire became

44:23

I wanted to be as cardiovascularly fit as I possibly could be, and I want to be as lean as I can be.

44:31

So, sadly, that means the amount of chocolate that I can consume is very, very small.

44:39

And whether I will dip into what my wife and I call the drawer of death in the refrigerator, which

44:48

I keep restocking, okay? Those Ghirardelli chocolate squares,

44:53

I'm going to tell you, they are just – But what will determine how often

45:01

I dip into the drawer of death is going to be how strong my desire is.

45:08

So, for example, I was really excited just last week to discover that for the first time in six, seven years, the triple bypass bike ride in Colorado is only one week separated from the

45:25

Mount Evans Hill Climb. For those of you who know, I've been doing two of them for the past three years.

45:31

This will be the third year now. And that involves sometimes multiple trips or really long trips because they're two weeks apart.

45:43

So, you've got to get up there and get acclimated. So, you're talking almost three weeks. It's most of July. Well, they're only one week apart.

45:49

I thought I was only going to be able to do one simply because how much work I've got to do. Well, now I can do both. So, I'm doubly motivated again because especially

45:59

Mount Evans, three hours, a little under three hours, hopefully, of abject agony.

46:08

That's all there is to it. If you can imagine pushing yourself to the ragged edge and then climbing to 14 ,000 feet on a bike uphill, pushing yourself right at the rivets all the way up, that's what

46:23

Mount Evans is. Now, a lot of people don't like that. A lot of people go, why would you want to suffer in that way?

46:29

Well, I'm weird, okay? That's just the way it is. But since that is something

46:35

I really, really, really, really want to do, I'm not digging into the drawer of death nearly as much as I did before.

46:42

The point is that's my strongest desire. And so, the week after I get back from Colorado is tough because, man, that's a year away to do that again if I end up doing it again.

46:55

But this idea that all we're talking about is something as silly as being carnivorous or something like that, way, way, way, way off the mark.

47:08

Then, the last portion of that, no Mullenist could agree with.

47:17

His presentation of the libertarian nature of the will seems to me to be very incompatible with the idea of middle knowledge.

47:29

So, I'd be interested if he has actually taken a stand on Mullenism and simple foreknowledge and stuff like that because that didn't seem to go along those lines there.

47:46

So, okay, here we get back to it, back down to 1 .2.

47:52

And so, when the Calvinists ask what makes you different from the lost, what they're trying to ultimately get you to say is that, you know, how are you better than the lost person who rejected

48:03

Christ? And see, what he doesn't realize, though, is that he's actually refuting his own...

48:09

He said, well, we're the determiner. So, I think what he's doing is he's saying, yes, there are people that are more humble, more sensitive.

48:19

The reason certain people go to heaven is that they were just the better people. So, the better people end up in heaven and the bad people end up in hell,

48:27

I guess. You're admitting, yeah, we are the determiners.

48:32

God doesn't determine it, we're the determiners. Because within the Calvinistic worldview, the elect person is different from the lost, sufficiently different from the lost, because the regenerate person, made regenerate by God's effectual grace in the

48:47

Calvinistic worldview, can say, I'm different than the lost person in so much as God has irresistibly made me better than that lost person, that reprobate over there.

48:55

Now, notice the complete confusion of categories here. And I think Dr. Flowers understands this.

49:01

I think he realizes he's sort of playing a little bit of a game here, because you notice that everything has shifted now.

49:09

The question was, what makes you to differ from the lost person in where you finally end up?

49:18

And from the Calvinist perspective, there isn't any. We do not deserve any of God's grace. We did not deserve to be chosen.

49:26

Unconditional election. Now what he switched that over to is, ah, but if God chooses you, then he works within you to make you one of his children.

49:35

He changes your nature. It becomes your nature to want to follow after him, to do what is good. So now you are, quote unquote, better than that other person.

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Not as the basis of your salvation, but as the result of the fact that God wants to conform you to the image of Christ. Completely different topic that has nothing to do with this.

49:53

And I think he knows that. I really do. I mean, I don't see how he couldn't, given his background.

49:59

But it's a completely different issue. So hopefully you recognize this and realize when someone has just proverbially pulled the wool over your eyes and completely shifted the ground of conversation, while trying to make it sound like he's actually dealing with your issue, which he isn't.

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He has made me wiser, more humble, through supernatural, inward, regenerative means. He has made me now able to do something that guy over there cannot do.

50:24

So whenever he's asking the question, what makes you different from the lost? Though he can say, well, yeah,

50:29

Jesus made me better by irresistible means. But he can honestly say, I am better than that guy over there.

50:35

And that guy over there can't come to Jesus. He can't believe the revelation of God. He can't confess his sin because he is born by God's decree, mind you, under the imputed sin of Adam, and thus incapable of even spiritually understanding and willingly coming to Christ, even when he calls.

50:53

Now did you catch that? So much of the exegesis, well, interpretation, it's not really exegesis, but so much of the argumentation, it all has as its background, there can never be a decree of God.

51:11

There can never be any such thing as federal headship. Again, I don't know what they do with the reality of the fact that if you don't believe that you're fallen in Adam and that his guilt is imputed to you, how do you believe, again, that you receive the righteousness of Christ?

51:34

How does that work? I mean, that's Paul's idea in Romans 5 that, you know, one Adam, the other

51:40

Adam, the first Adam, second Adam, right? So it's scary what some of this results in, knowing that if they were ever to take this stuff out into an apologetic context with really sharp people on the other side, they would really fall apart.

51:59

Perfect excuse, by the way, for that person, I would think. What better excuse is there than I was born hated by God and unable to believe the gospel and unable to believe a clear revelation of who

52:07

God is. It's the best excuse in the world, and Calvinists give that excuse to all the repubes of the world. Now, this is a very, very, very common claim, and I wanted to deal with it here.

52:16

Are we giving an excuse to anyone? Well, first of all, ever heard that before?

52:22

I mean, the irony is that's pretty much exactly the objector in Romans 9 again, and we tried to have a debate with Dr.

52:32

Flowers on Romans 9, and, you know, he says, well, I've gone through all of it now, and it's all out there.

52:38

Well, you know, okay. When someone's actually there to cross -examine, that's the important part.

52:50

The person stands before God. If you are

52:55

Reformed, then I hope you are critically hearing what is being said here, and you are automatically identifying the category errors that are being made by Dr.

53:11

Flowers. Specifically, when he says you're giving an excuse to the reprobate, he's going to be able, at the day of judgment, he's going to be able to look at God, and he's going to be able to say,

53:25

I was born reprobate. I never had the opportunity. You precluded me from doing what was right before you.

53:35

Now, is that really something that they're going to be saying? Aside from the fact that, you know, in this life, that's ridiculous because we don't know the identity of the elect, but in the final analysis, is that going to be an argument that's going to fly?

53:52

Well, once again, we have to ask the question, upon what basis does

53:59

Dr. Flowers conclude that the condemned are going to be individuals who ever desire to do what is right before God?

54:12

Are they really going to stand before God and lie and say, I wanted to do the right thing, but you kept me from doing it?

54:18

No, and they stand before God, and absolute honesty is the only thing that's going to be allowed.

54:25

They could never make this argument because they would know that they never possessed within their breast a true desire to deal with His holiness and their own sin in the first place.

54:35

They're going to see in the perfect light of His own truth, the selfishness and self -centeredness.

54:42

What about all those religious people? Even those who claim to be

54:49

Christians, Lord, Lord, did we not? And when they're cast away in the perfect light of eternity, are they going to be able to...

54:59

See, this would be a lie. This excuse would be a lie because the only way that that excuse could have any meaning is if they had desired to do what was right before God, which we deny that they ever do.

55:14

They desire the effects of God. They desire the benefits of God without dealing with God.

55:25

If you believe Romans 3, if you believe there's no fear of God before their eyes, if you believe there's none who understands, if you believe there's none who seeks after God.

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And look, I know the vast majority of people who call themselves Christians don't actually believe Romans 3. I know that.

55:40

It is a crushing thing to come to actually believe Romans 3.

55:46

I get it. I understand that. But there you go.

55:55

That's what's behind this. There's no excuse here. If the heart of man is being accurately represented, which at the judgment seat of God, it will be.

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So no one would ever bring this up. No one standing before God would ever question his right to judge them and to not choose to extend grace and mercy to them.

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It will be understood by every person that stands before the law court that grace and mercy are undeserved and cannot be earned, cannot be demanded.

56:30

You cannot say God has to do these things. There will be absolutely no lying in front of the throne of God.

56:41

None whatsoever. What I think we'll probably do is cue up something at the bottom of the hour, maybe.

56:54

And because as I look at where I am here, I'm all the way to 9 minutes and 33 seconds.

57:02

So we're looking at sometime into tomorrow. At this rate, but I can accelerate a little bit.

57:12

Either that or dominoes, something like that. Yeah, just order it in.

57:19

Y 'all wouldn't mind if I was eating pizza between clips, you know. Just a second here.

57:26

Can I have some more ranch sauce there, Rich? You wouldn't mind that, would you? See the difference?

57:33

Whereas I would say, if they were saying, what makes you different from the lost? Well, the lost person made a bad decision, and thus he's culpable for it.

57:40

Now, here's the next thing we got to get to. The lost person made a bad decision.

57:47

You know what's missing? You know what's missing in Leighton Flowers' understanding of sinners, rebellion, the sinfulness of sin.

58:02

I cannot imagine he ever got much use out of the Valley of Vision. I can't imagine he ever found the

58:10

Puritans overly interesting to read. Because what's missing in Leighton Flowers, and he's got enough stuff out there now that you can check, is the sinfulness of sin.

58:21

Is man's love of sin. Man's love of rebellion. The unholiness of mankind.

58:33

His rejection of holiness. His rejection of what is good. His perversion of what is good.

58:40

All you see man presented as, hey, made a bad choice.

58:47

You mean he followed his heart in continuing in his rebellion against God. He spit in the face of God.

58:55

He demonstrated his detestation for the one who gives him everything.

59:03

The lost man in Leighton Flowers' world is this poor...

59:14

The lost person in this scenario is this poor individual that has all these capacities but doggone it, he made the wrong decision.

59:30

Is that really what... Theastu, guys. Theastu, guys.

59:37

Off the top of my head, it's toward the end of Romans chapter 1.

59:44

And I think it's... Every time

59:49

I try to... Okay, okay, yes, I know. Accordance, please. When it's

59:55

R -O -N -M, guess. We're on 129.

01:00:01

129. 130, I'm sorry. Theastu, guys. Haters of God.

01:00:10

Haters of God. Now, there is an argument out there that because of the form that it's in, it might be better translated as hated by God.

01:00:22

But given that it's slanderers, insolent, these are things that man does, okay, let's go with the normal translation.

01:00:30

I don't see that in Leighton's understanding of the lost.

01:00:37

From their perspective, they're just lost as in the poor little lost boys and Peter Pan needs to help them to come back to Neverland or whatever.

01:00:45

Instead of rebel sinners in love with their sin, seeking to destroy the creation around them, that God has to actually restrain them from their own self -destruction and destruction of everything around them.

01:01:04

I don't see that anywhere in Flowers' understanding. Anywhere. At all.

01:01:10

And that absolutely changes everything. Helpful to go back to the audio notetaker program.

01:01:18

But he could have done otherwise. In other words, that lost person over there is not so much worse than I am that he could not have accepted the gospel.

01:01:25

He doesn't have that excuse. He's not so much worse than I am. Now, we're going to get into this a little bit later on, but he will keep using

01:01:32

Romans 120 there without excuse. But he has fundamentally misinterpreted the text.

01:01:39

Fundamentally. We're going to show that when we get to it. That God made me better than he did in some supernatural way or created me even from the womb better in some natural way.

01:01:47

Either one. That he over there is at the same capacity as I am with regard to how he can respond to the revelation of God.

01:01:55

So, in other words, everyone's at the exact same point. Are they really? That's real easy to say sitting in your nice air -conditioned home somewhere in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas.

01:02:12

With all of the gospel witness you could ever want to have had all around you.

01:02:18

You really want to say that you are in the identical same position as every other unbeliever alive on this planet right now?

01:02:25

Really? Haven't traveled much, have you? You think you're in the exact same position as people in the inner cities in North Korea?

01:02:40

Where even possessing a Bible can get you executed by an anti -aircraft gun?

01:02:46

Which just sort of blows you into a number of different pieces. Do you really think that's the same thing?

01:02:53

Exact same spot, right? No. The fact of the matter is the witness of history in the

01:03:01

Bible itself demonstrates that not everybody has been at the exact same point.

01:03:09

And I'm not even talking about some wild, wacky theory of prevenient grace here either.

01:03:17

Whereas somehow this prevenient grace brings us all to the same point, which again is just untenable in the real world.

01:03:24

It just isn't true. So this whole discussion just falls apart upon consideration.

01:03:32

For he has no excuse and I have no reason to boast because both of us are on the same level playing field with regard to our ability to respond to the sufficient revelation of who

01:03:42

God is and what he has made known to us. But if you respond to it, if you submit to God's command to repent and believe, if you turn from your sin, which is a part that's almost never—

01:03:55

I really have to wonder if part of what we're seeing here is the devastating impact of a non -repentance -filled gospel somewhere in the past in this individual's experience.

01:04:07

But you choose to do those things. The other person doesn't.

01:04:14

You don't see that that speaks fundamentally to who you are, that you are a better person, that you are a more sensitive person, you're a more spiritual person, you're a more humble person, that the reason you are saved is you're better than that other guy.

01:04:27

It doesn't matter how much revelation you've got. He may have more revelation than you. There have been people who've said, Look at some of these atheists that I've interacted with who've read the

01:04:37

Bible five, six, seven times. They had more revelation than many people

01:04:44

I know of who've been saved on the basis of a tiny fraction of what that atheist has.

01:04:52

What made them to differ? I say God. I say the Bible says

01:04:58

God. That's what Ephesians 1's about. That's what John 6's about. That's what it's all about. You say, man,

01:05:04

God was trying equally with each one. No, he wasn't. No, he wasn't. Isn't it obvious he wasn't?

01:05:11

No, anyway. What makes you different from the lost? We can honestly say nothing makes us sufficiently different from the lost person that would preclude or would prevent them from making the same decision that I made.

01:05:25

There's no reason for me to boast in the decision because anybody could have made it. Why would you boast in an ability that everyone has?

01:05:31

You wouldn't. If everybody has the ability to go to a particular party or to do a particular thing, then you wouldn't boast about your decision to do that.

01:05:38

I don't know. I'm sorry. This just isn't addressing the issue. The question is not, well, we all have equal capacities.

01:05:47

Okay. Even leaving the equal capacity thing, let's grant that.

01:05:53

Why then, when presented with the same message, do you bow?

01:06:00

It's interesting. He doesn't use this language. It's another area of difference. I would say, why do you bow the knee to Jesus Christ?

01:06:07

He would say, why do you accept? Why do you acknowledge? Okay. I see a difference there.

01:06:14

But the answer keeps coming. God's grace and his goodness is common to all men.

01:06:22

It's made common through general revelation and through special revelation that's sent to all peoples. Special revelation sent to all peoples?

01:06:31

What do you mean? I mean, there have been generations of people who have lived and died after the cross that never received a word of special revelation, unless you're redefining special revelation as something outside of scripture.

01:06:46

So, I don't know how you can even begin to say that. That God has chosen in his graciousness to make known his revelation so by which all people may believe.

01:06:56

And thus, there's no reason to boast in believing because anybody can do it. And so, if I say, what makes you different from the lost person?

01:07:02

I would say, nothing is sufficiently different between me and that lost person to make them unable to do exactly what

01:07:07

I've done. And therefore, I cannot claim that I was made any better by my creator than they are. They are made sufficiently responsible, able to respond to the truth of his revelation.

01:07:17

Thus, they stand accountable to it. And so, when I get this question, what makes you different from the lost? What do you mean?

01:07:23

You're still not answering the question. All you're talking about is, well, we all have the same ability. Okay, you went the right way, they went the wrong way.

01:07:31

What's the difference? Oh, it's just a bad choice. Just a bad choice. What Jesus did, what

01:07:37

I did. Then if I put on here what Jesus did. Remember, he's still taking the Calvinist quiz. I'm sorry, tulip quiz or whatever it's called.

01:07:45

The salvation, it's God's choice to save. It goes back to the conflation that we talked about just a minute ago, in which

01:07:51

I used the example of the prodigal son, that the choice of the son to come home is independent from the choice of the father to accept him when he does.

01:07:58

Just as the choice of Jesus to save. By the way, that's a distinction really without any meaning in this situation.

01:08:06

Okay, God has chosen to save. All right, the real question is, is he able to save in and of himself?

01:08:12

Because by making this, see, we're not complaining, they are creating a disjunction.

01:08:19

So they can have, so on the one hand, they can say God chooses to save, but then avoid what that then means.

01:08:26

Because in Ephesians chapter one, the object of his selection is individual.

01:08:32

It's a group, yes, the elect as a whole, but it's never impersonal because of everything is included in it.

01:08:40

Justification, forgiveness, et cetera, et cetera. They're all a part of salvation itself. So we were chosen in him before the foundation of time.

01:08:49

Not just a group, not just a nameless, faceless group, but we were chosen in him.

01:08:56

And so what they want, if you're going to allow God to have a choice, it needs to be a vague, general, non -specific thing.

01:09:04

So you let God's choice be simply to save. And the specific choice is reserved for man.

01:09:12

So what you call a conflation is actually simply the recognition of biblical teaching.

01:09:19

You chop that up, and that way you can avoid the unpleasantry of biblical revelation when it runs into your tradition anyways.

01:09:27

It's distinct from the choice of the sinner to repent in faith. There's distinct choices there.

01:09:32

And if you conflate those, if they're all one choice and call it salvation, then you have the muddled waters of the Calvinistic viewpoint.

01:09:38

And so when you separate those things out, then it's almost like with the prodigal son. Who made the difference of whether that son was restored or not?

01:09:45

The son or the father? Was it the son's choice to come home that got him the fatted calf and the golden ring?

01:09:51

Or was it the gracious choice of the father alone to accept him back when he deserved actually to be punished and maybe even stoned to death for his rebellion against his dad?

01:09:57

See what I'm saying? Well, you could honestly say, what's the father's doing? The father is the one who chose to restore the son. He didn't have to do that based upon the son's return home.

01:10:03

The son deserved punishment, not mercy. The son certainly didn't deserve a party being thrown for him. That was all of grace.

01:10:08

So I can honestly say, it's the father's choice alone that made the difference. Because even though the son decided to come home in his humility, in his humiliation, he decided to come home, that decision in and of itself did not merit or earn or obligate the father in his choice to restore his son and to throw him a party.

01:10:28

So I can honestly click this link and say what Jesus did. Well, when I do, it puts me into a circular loop.

01:10:33

Did Jesus do the same for everyone? And I obviously say, well, yes, Jesus obviously did the same for everyone in that he provided the means by which all may be saved.

01:10:42

And so when I push yes, it goes back to the same question that was asked before. What makes a difference from the lost?

01:10:49

What makes you different from the lost person who rejected? What Jesus did or what I did? Now, if you're ever thinking you're going to get to the conclusion, you're not going to.

01:10:58

It's just the nature of the beast. But I do want to comment in passing about the use of the prodigal son parable, the parable of the prodigal son.

01:11:14

I think there's a lot of misuse of this text. And you'll notice that almost all the preaching on this text is focused upon this son, the prodigal himself.

01:11:33

And yet what's interesting is Jesus' teaching of the parable ends up using that as background for something that most people just skip.

01:11:46

And that's the second son. The second son is angry.

01:11:52

The second son says, I've been with you all this time. And the father's statement to him is, well, you're with me always.

01:12:00

Everything that I have is yours. And we're never told what that second son does.

01:12:08

Does he let go of his anger? Does he have forgiveness in his own heart?

01:12:14

And I think there's far too little, far too little thought put into why is it that Jesus raises the second son and in fact finishes the parable with it.

01:12:30

And then does the parable in such a way that we don't have a conclusion given to us?

01:12:41

I don't think the prodigal son parable is about salvation in the first place. What is it about?

01:12:48

Well, in the sense of individual salvation, the way it's being applied here, what's it about? Who's the second son?

01:12:57

It's the Jews. Obviously, it's the Jews. When they see the

01:13:03

Gentiles coming in, this is a prophetic and there's a number of them in Jesus' teaching, a prophetic parable about the nature of God's forgiveness and how the

01:13:17

Jews view, well, the Jews view in the first century, the

01:13:24

Jews view the Gentiles in such a way that, well,

01:13:33

Romans 1. The argument normally is made is, well, in Romans 1, every

01:13:39

Jew would have agreed, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those Gentiles, they've gone off and they've done all this stuff and so on and so forth.

01:13:49

Well, that's exactly how they did view it. And the attitude of the second son is the attitude of the

01:13:59

Jews toward the Gentiles. And I think the reason that you don't have a conclusion that tells the story of what happens is that it was

01:14:12

Jesus' purpose to force those individuals in the church who would, remember,

01:14:21

Matthew's writing this long after Pentecost, force those individuals in the church that had a temptation, because remember, who's, well, that's actually

01:14:37

Luke, isn't it? I'm thinking it's Luke. The Gospels are written after Pentecost, obviously.

01:14:46

They're written to a church that's having some real issues.

01:14:52

I mean, Acts chapter 15, Jerusalem Council, Judaizers.

01:14:59

And I think the reason there's no conclusion is that that forces the individual to think through their own attitudes.

01:15:08

And so to try to derive from a parable about the two sons, which is about Jews and Gentiles in the church and the forgiveness of God that is going to be given to the

01:15:21

Gentiles. And of course, you know, there is a bit of self -righteousness on the part of the second son.

01:15:29

To try to expand that out to where you'll just overthrow the clear teaching of Romans chapter 8, we're going to get to that later on, there is no meaningful exegesis offered of it, is really part of the problem.

01:15:44

It really does represent part of the problem that we have here. And I think people need to think about that parable a little bit more closely than they have in the past.

01:15:55

I think it's very frequently missed. Cy has just come and channeled. Maybe he heard we were talking, because I assumed it was his website that that was on.

01:16:03

But anyway, we press on. Through a fallacious logic like this and get them into a, kind of back them into a corner to say, try to take credit for your own salvation.

01:16:14

As if taking credit for your humility and your repentance is the same as taking credit for your own salvation. Again, that's conflating because repentance and belief doesn't earn your salvation.

01:16:23

And God's not obligated to save the repentant and the humble. He chooses to do so graciously. Any obligation that God has, it's an obligation he's put on himself.

01:16:30

And so hopefully that's clearer in your understanding. Now, this is the big thing. You need to understand.

01:16:36

We want to be able to say, you know what? We understand what you're saying.

01:16:42

You are accusing us of conflation. You want to distinguish between God's choice to save and man's choice to repent and believe.

01:16:50

Okay, we recognize they're not the same thing. We believe, however, that the Bible connects them intimately.

01:16:56

And the Bible teaches that no man will ever choose to repent and believe, not just acknowledge his sin.

01:17:03

That's not the same thing. You keep using that terminology, as we're going to see, that's not biblical. We're going to assert very clearly that God's choice to save is not just some vague, general thing limited out to creating the possibility of salvation.

01:17:22

God's choice to save is individual, and it's specific, and it's personal, and it creates the elect of God.

01:17:29

So you're not really dealing with the issue, and we've sort of recognized that and hope that other people will recognize that as well.

01:17:40

Deny the concept of total inability, that we affirm instead the concept of original sin in the sense that mankind is born under the sin of Adam and under sin nature, but not incapable of admitting that they're under the bondage of sin.

01:17:52

And to catch it again, I mean, just in this one webcast, I'm not sure how many times, and I'm not playing the entire webcast.

01:17:58

I marked things up. It would take literally four or five hours to do that. Did you catch that?

01:18:05

Acknowledge. I'm going to play it again. Catch the word here. Not repent from. Not turn from.

01:18:13

Not see the heinous rebellion of. Just, yeah, I acknowledge. Deny the concept of total inability, that we affirm instead the concept of original sin in the sense that mankind is born under the sin of Adam and under sin nature, but not incapable of admitting that they're under the bondage of sin.

01:18:30

And that's where Calvinists and some Arminians go so far as to say, we're not only born sinners, we're born incapable of admitting we're sinners, even in light of the law and the gospel.

01:18:38

Admitting we're sinners. I know so many lost people that admit they're sinners.

01:18:45

Has nothing to do with repentance and faith. Nothing at all. There's this whole new category.

01:18:51

I've never seen in the Bible anywhere is now the category of traditionalist thought. We have the capacity to admit we're sinners.

01:19:00

Okay, that ain't going to get you anywhere. There needs to be something more than that. And I simply don't find that taught anywhere in the text of Scripture.

01:19:08

I believe mankind is responsible for the revelation of God because they are actually able to respond to God's revelation.

01:19:13

And never in Scripture is it ever mentioned that we lost our free will because of Adam's sin. In fact, you see quite a bit.

01:19:21

You know, it does concern me. I saw some comments online that a lot of people will listen to that kind of rhetoric and they'll go, oh, the

01:19:30

Bible never says we lost our free will. Where does the Bible ever talk about the free will of man in this context in the first place?

01:19:39

Where does the Bible ever use that term? It uses the term of free will offerings, which just simply mean they're offerings that are not commanded for a specific sin.

01:19:48

And then did you see, wow, one of the leading traditionalist pastors,

01:19:53

I think he pulled the tweet eventually, actually tried to use the father's right over his virgin daughter to prove autonomous will.

01:20:04

All these texts about man's incapacity, man's inability, not able to do this, not able to do that, oh, we don't worry about any of those things.

01:20:13

The Bible never says that man lost his free will.

01:20:19

Well, it never even talks about man's free will in the first place. So, wow. Okay. It's seemingly indicating exactly the opposite of that.

01:20:29

You see Adam actually responding to Jesus after the fall. You see, I think he meant God, unless you're just being very

01:20:37

Christologically centered that Jesus was walking in the garden. But whatever it might be, Dr.

01:20:45

Flowers has complained because I pointed out that he misrepresents, last week

01:20:53

I pointed out that he misrepresents our position in stating that mankind can respond to God.

01:21:04

And we say, well, of course he can respond to God, but he responds to God universally negatively in many different forms, religious hypocrisy, apathy, hedonism, whatever else it might be.

01:21:14

There's lots of ways, but there's going to be a response. Well, I'm, oh, come on, come on. I meant to respond positively.

01:21:21

Really? You didn't say it there. In fact, we're going to hear over and over and over and over again, not only in this podcast, but in numerous others, never making that distinction.

01:21:34

In fact, if you did make the distinction, your words wouldn't make any sense. So the reality is you have been guilty of consistently misrepresenting us at that point and saying we don't believe that man can respond to God.

01:21:47

Right there is a good example. Adam responded to God? You mean in repentance and faith by hiding from him?

01:21:54

Sowing fig leaves together? Is that what you're talking about? Seriously? Cain and Abel are being talked about as being responsible for their interactions with God and responding to God.

01:22:03

Responding to God? In what way? In two completely different ways because Abel was righteous and Cain was not, and Cain responds with anger and sinfulness.

01:22:14

Again, this is not an argument as long as you recognize that we do believe that man responds to God, just not in the way that is necessary to respond to God, in a positive way, but as a rebel sinner.

01:22:28

Your whole argument here would make no sense if you were to use the proper categories, which you now say, well, of course, that's what

01:22:35

I meant. Then your argument makes no sense. That's what makes a lot of us just go, you seem to be making this up as you're going along sometimes.

01:22:45

It's weird along those lines. In those interactions. I don't see any reason why if mankind can respond to the verbal or external voice of God, why they could not respond to the inspired words of God as well.

01:22:58

There's nothing biblically which suggests that mankind is born incapable of responding to God himself. That's just not a biblical concept in my understanding.

01:23:05

We can tell that that's not a biblical concept in your understanding, and that's the problem. That understanding is in error.

01:23:12

The gospel is an appeal to repent and believe in Christ, so as to be rescued from this much -deserved just punishment.

01:23:19

Now, he's now shifted over to the article that he wrote on this subject.

01:23:24

I can tell by the tone of voice. But I wanted you to hear that. The gospel...

01:23:30

Let me play it again. Oops. The gospel is an appeal to repent and believe in Christ, so as to be rescued from this much -deserved just punishment.

01:23:42

What do you notice about that? I mean, a lot of people would say, Yeah! Woohoo! Yes!

01:23:50

Is that... Is that a... What kind of a definition of the gospel is that?

01:23:57

It's a man -centered one. It's not about the triune God. It's not about... There's nothing in there about God's self -glorification.

01:24:04

There's nothing there about incarnation. Yeah, I know. Sadly, in western nations, that that would be pretty much what you'd hear from folks.

01:24:15

It doesn't make it biblical. The gospel is the proclamation of what God did in Jesus Christ.

01:24:22

It does include within it a command that you repent and believe. But when your whole focus is upon man, now the gospel has to become focused upon man.

01:24:36

When people have heard me say over and over again for decades, there is a vast difference between God -centeredness and man -centeredness when it comes to the reading of Scripture and to the understanding of the gospel.

01:24:48

You're hearing it right there. You're hearing it right there. God does not owe salvation or even the means to be saved to anyone.

01:24:58

I'm going to repeat that sentence because non -Calvinists and Calvinists alike need to hear this. God does not owe salvation or even the means to be saved to anyone.

01:25:09

It is wrong -minded, therefore, to approach this question as if any sinner deserves more than divine justice.

01:25:17

Well, I certainly can agree with that. I just wish you would continue consistently from that point.

01:25:22

He is a loving and gracious God who does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance, as 2 Peter 3, 9 teaches,

01:25:28

Ezekiel 18, 30 -32, and many other texts teach us. Now, you'll get this all the time.

01:25:34

You get this in the Universal Catholic Catechism in the exact same context.

01:25:41

Let's just throw out 2 Peter 3, 9, 1 Timothy 2, 4, Matthew 23, 39, Ezekiel 18, and you're on.

01:25:48

We have challenged the interpretation. Well, let's just put it this way.

01:25:54

We have provided an exegesis of those texts over against just the assumption on the part of everyone else that, well, it's obvious.

01:26:09

It just means this. That's what's being stated here. Well, that's not what's being stated there.

01:26:16

And if you can take texts like 2 Peter 3, 9, that talk about God's graciousness in gathering

01:26:21

His elect people and turn that into a universal salvific will, okay.

01:26:27

If you can take 1 Timothy 2, 4, which is specifically talking about Christ's intercessory work, and apply that to beyond the category that's in the text of kinds of people to every individual, you're going to end up creating insuperable difficulties.

01:26:44

But you just get this rat -a -tat -tat just throw that stuff out there. And so it's just going to be a given that there is a universal salvific desire.

01:26:53

Not, again, in the decree. Well, there is no decree here. So I guess there's no way around this for the traditionalists because they can't have the decree of God in distinction to the prescriptive will of God.

01:27:07

Because obviously, in God's prescriptive will, everyone's commanded to repent, everyone's commanded to believe, etc.,

01:27:14

etc. That's His law. That's what His law says. But you end up with a very flattened view of not only divine sovereignty, but scriptural revelation if you don't recognize the distinction between those things.

01:27:44

Whenever you start with while, the other shoe is about to drop.

01:28:02

Okay. I didn't understand that. And I don't understand that.

01:28:10

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding something. While this is certainly true, nothing in the pages of Scripture suggests that mankind is unable to respond to such revelation by either, quote, exchanging the truth in for lies.

01:28:24

Truth in for lies? What's being said there? I mean, we're talking about Romans 1 now, okay?

01:28:35

If you want to get your mind focused on Romans 1. In Romans 1, natural man responds to the clarity of revelation because he is in rebellion against God.

01:28:45

Because he refuses to give thanks to God. Because he refuses to acknowledge God. By exchanging the truth of God which he possesses for a lie.

01:28:54

Okay? So, man's response is to exchange the truth of God for a lie.

01:29:01

So I think that's what he just said, but... Romans 1 .25 says, or retaining the knowledge of God, as Romans 1 .28

01:29:08

says. Huh? So I go over to Romans 1 .28

01:29:13

and, you know, we've already had to go to a few passages like the Psalm 115 -16 thing, and what he said very confidently was there wasn't.

01:29:24

Romans 1 .28, and just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper.

01:29:34

Uh, so where is this? What? Retaining the knowledge of God, as Romans 1 .28

01:29:41

says. Retaining the knowledge of God. Um, that's nowhere in Romans 1 .28.

01:29:49

Uh, let's back up to 1 .27, maybe. Is he going after acknowledge?

01:30:06

Well, to have in knowledge.

01:30:14

Epinosus. I guess that's what he's going for, yeah. But, it's ook.

01:30:23

It's not. Just as they did not documadzo, they did not see fit to retain

01:30:33

God in their knowledge. Well, yeah.

01:30:39

Well, they still do. I mean, obviously, men know that God exists. I'm just trying to figure out.

01:30:46

It sounds like he's saying the opposite of what the text is saying. Let me try it one more time here. Retaining the knowledge of God, as Romans 1 .28

01:30:53

says. Retaining the knowledge of God. But there's an ook in front of it. It's a negated phrase.

01:31:00

I mean, this is just, I mean, if what you're saying is that man has the capacity to retain the knowledge of God, then you're turning the text on its head.

01:31:11

You're doing what Joseph Smith did in Romans 3 when he couldn't understand how God could be the one who justifies the ungodly, so he put an ook in.

01:31:18

He put a no that does not justify the ungodly. We don't want to do this. Okay, let me finish this up and we'll take a break.

01:31:26

Such inability to respond to this revelation would nullify the point of the apostle in verse 20 in declaring that we are all without excuse.

01:31:35

Okay, there we go. That has to be dealt with. That was one of the main things

01:31:41

I wanted to get to. What we're going to do in an unusual way is we've been going for an hour and a half and so we're going to take a brief break and come back and press on.

01:32:02

We've even still got some commercials from, I don't know, 10 years ago, something like that, maybe completely irrelevant, but it will be an interesting trip down memory lane.

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We'll be right back. More than any time in the past,

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01:33:19

What is Dr. Norman Geisler warning the Christian community about in his book, Chosen But Free? A New Cult?

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Secularism? False Prophecy Scenarios? No, Dr. Geisler is sounding the alarm about a system of beliefs commonly called

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Calvinism. He insists that this belief system is theologically inconsistent, philosophically insufficient, and morally repugnant.

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In his book, The Potter's Freedom, James White replies to Dr. Geisler, But The Potter's Freedom is much more than just a reply.

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01:34:22

Breaking news from the White House and the issue, gay marriage. For a lot of people, you know, the word marriage was something that evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs.

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This comes two weeks after the President announced his support for same -sex marriage. Under the guise of tolerance, our culture today grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

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Anyone opposing or questioning this today is quickly shouted down, called a bigot, a homophobe, a hate monger, threatened and accused of discrimination.

01:35:02

It's become commonplace to see people who take a biblical stand against homosexuality ostracized to the point of losing their job.

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How soon will it be before we will also see people losing their freedom? Now more than ever, Christians need to be equipped to be an approved workman of God, correctly dividing the word of truth, as we are told in 2

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And don't forget to search for other resources, like debates and past Dividing Lines, dealing with this very provocative issue.

01:36:05

And remember, theology matters. And welcome back to The Dividing Line on an extended edition of Radio Free Geneva.

01:36:32

We are considering the perspective of a synergistic presentation on the nature of man, and we simply press right on with Professor Leighton Flowers and his statements in regards to, for, what about those who have not heard?

01:36:55

We're getting to that statement, finally, that particular issue. Without excuse. For example, the old saying,

01:37:01

I was born unable to respond to God's revelation, as the Calvinistic view of man would be.

01:37:06

That they were born incapable, by God's decree, to willingly to want to respond, even to God's own appeal to be reconciled from the fallen condition.

01:37:15

So, again, it's always in the background. There is no decree. They can't escape this.

01:37:24

Because, from their perspective, whether they are Molinist, whether they're simple for knowledge, when

01:37:30

God created man, he knew who was not going to respond to him. So, if his knowledge was unfalsifiable at the time of creation, then, when they were created, that was what was true of them, one way or the other.

01:37:41

So, you can either have God creating, knowing these things, but not having a purpose in them, or God creating and having a purpose.

01:37:49

So, it's a rhetorical bat that, obviously, is very effective for a lot of people.

01:37:58

But, when you think about it, it's a bat that, when you hit the other guy, it bounces off and hits you worse. So, that's always behind the way of thinking.

01:38:10

Understanding that no one was righteous according to the demands of the law. Absolutely no one, save Christ himself, no human being, save Christ himself, was righteous according to the demands of the law.

01:38:19

Everyone fell short of the law's demands. That does not equal, however, that all people are unable to believe

01:38:26

God's revealed truth so as to be credited as righteous in the imputed righteousness of Christ by the grace and the goodness of God.

01:38:33

Paul taught that no one was righteous in Romans chapter 3, yet he turns around and declares in the very next chapter, Abraham believed

01:38:38

God and was credited as righteous. Now, how can that be? Was Paul contradicting himself, as we talked about before? First, he declares that no one is righteous, and then he tells us

01:38:46

Abraham was righteous? Is he double -talk here, Paul? You say no one's righteous, and in the very next chapter you say Abraham was righteous.

01:38:51

Well, which is? I was amazed when I heard that. I guess maybe

01:38:57

I've encountered somebody in the past who's tried to create a contradiction between those two statements.

01:39:05

But, this first assertion. Understanding that no one was righteous according to the demands of the law.

01:39:13

Absolutely no one, save Christ himself, no human being, save Christ himself, was righteous according to the demands of the law.

01:39:19

Now, here's where I'm very thankful for my own confession of faith, which is a subordinate standard.

01:39:31

It is not perfect in all things, it's not scriptural, it's not inspired, but some of you know that the

01:39:38

London Baptist Confession of Faith says something very specifically. Let me pull it up here since I have it on, let me see, which yeah, here we go.

01:39:58

Here we go. Now, to my

01:40:03

Presbyterian brethren, hey, we had the opportunity of improving upon things a little bit.

01:40:11

You would not say improvement, but we would. Section 1 of the chapter on justification, which is chapter 11, says this,

01:40:25

Those whom God effectually calleth, he also freely justifieth, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous, not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but for Christ's sake alone, not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness, but and this is where the

01:40:48

London Confession expands from the Westminster, by imputing

01:40:53

Christ's active obedience under the whole law, and passive obedience in his death for their whole and sole righteousness.

01:41:06

They receiving and resting on him and his righteousness by faith, which faith they have not of themselves, it is the gift of God.

01:41:13

Now, why do I mention that? The statement that I just played there, let me remind you of it very quickly.

01:41:27

Understanding that no one was righteous according to the demands of the law, absolutely no one, save Christ himself, no human being, save Christ himself, was righteous according to the demands of the law.

01:41:37

If you recognize that the demands of the law are not just simply don't, but also do, you will see why

01:41:54

Leighton Flowers' understanding of imputation, the nature of righteousness, and the nature of sin is so problematic and leads to so many problems.

01:42:08

I guess problematic and leading to many problems is the same thing, isn't it? What I mean by this is, what did

01:42:16

I say earlier? I said Leighton Flowers' doctrine of sin is shallow.

01:42:25

It's missing the rebellious element, the element of sin, of true sinfulness, of unholiness, of love, of depravity, and this is cast into its proper biblical light when we recognize the nature of Christ's righteousness and that the fact is that the righteousness imputed to us is not just the removal of having done these things, but also all the things that we were supposed to do that we didn't do.

01:43:04

To love God perfectly, love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. The perfection of the righteousness of Christ speaks about the perfection of the depravity of man.

01:43:18

When the solution has to be so extreme, it speaks very clearly to the extremity of the condition of those that need that solution.

01:43:31

And that, indeed, is I think an illustration of why it's important to see the lack of the real focus upon the sinfulness of man in Flowers' theology.

01:43:47

Everyone fell short of the law's demands. That does not equal, however, that all people are unable to believe

01:43:55

God's revealed truth so as to be credited as righteous. Now remember, here again is where I'm sensing some serious anti -lordship stuff because there's nothing about repentance.

01:44:07

The full -orb doctrine of faith just not there.

01:44:12

It's just acknowledge, admit, believe. Rather than turn, repent, cast oneself for mercy.

01:44:22

There's a vast difference between those perspectives. "...and the imputed righteousness of Christ by the grace and the goodness of God.

01:44:28

Paul taught that no one was righteous in Romans 3, yet he turns around and declares in the very next chapter, Abraham believed

01:44:34

God and was credited as righteous." That Abraham believed

01:44:39

God, and the whole point that he's making in Romans 4 is he did so prior to receiving the sign of circumcision, so he could be the father of both those who were circumcised and those who were not circumcised.

01:44:53

In other words, focus upon keeping the one church together because there's one means of justification.

01:44:58

It's always been faith. One thing's for certain. I don't know how dispensationalists can go along with the traditionalist movement.

01:45:10

I really don't because if you listen to what he's saying, it seems to be quite contradictory to that perspective as well.

01:45:19

Paul is drawing, clearly, the distinction between a righteousness by works, Romans 3, 10 -11, and a righteousness by grace through faith,

01:45:26

Romans 3, 21 -24. The former, the righteousness by works, unattainable. But the latter, righteousness by faith, by grace through faith, that has always been very much attainable by anyone, which is proven in chapter 4 by looking at Abraham.

01:45:40

That's where the classical dispensationalist goes, no, I don't think so. Different dispensation, different way of doing things.

01:45:48

One problem I do have here is it's almost like he's talking about two different kinds of righteousness. There's only one kind of righteousness. The question is, how do you obtain it?

01:45:55

Is it by the keeping of law or is it by the grace? Paul in Galatians 5 makes that point.

01:46:05

There's only two ways. Either you're going to go the way of law, which requires perfect obedience, or you're going to go the way of grace, which is found only in Jesus Christ.

01:46:12

You can't go both directions. It's not two different kinds of righteousness. It's not that the

01:46:18

Jews were seeking a different kind of righteousness. They were seeking God's righteousness, but they saw it in the wrong way. Not two different kinds of righteousness.

01:46:26

"...who was credited as righteous because of his faith. And so what was unattainable, righteousness by works, is true.

01:46:33

No one is righteous by works. Everyone has fallen short, and even their good stuff they do is as filthy rags because of the debt due to their sin."

01:46:40

Not just to the debt due to their sin, but to their nature. Again, I don't get the feeling that there is the idea in Dr.

01:46:52

Flowers' idea that we are filthy in God's sight, that we are repulsive, and that that's why we need a holiness from outside of ourselves.

01:47:06

"...attainable. And what has always been attainable from Enoch and Job and all these others that we mentioned here, what's been attainable from the very beginning is that they may believe and be credited as righteous by the gracious work of God."

01:47:16

This is, again, why all are without excuse in Romans 1 -20 because anyone can believe, even the general revelation of God, anyone can believe at least the clear revelation of what

01:47:26

God has revealed about his identity. Okay, that's what I skipped earlier. I apologize. Came back, lost my track.

01:47:34

It was up here. Let me see if I can find it. Of the Apostle in verse 20. There it is. Okay. I said this is what we needed to address, and when

01:47:40

I came back, that's what commercial breaks do for you. Have you ever noticed that? I notice that a lot. People go into commercial break, and then they come back out, they're on a completely different subject because they've been talking in the studio, and they've moved on, and you wanted to hear what was going on.

01:47:52

That's what happened to me. Here's what we needed to address. "...such inability to respond to this revelation would nullify the point of the

01:48:00

Apostle in verse 20 in declaring that we are all without excuse. For example, the old saying,

01:48:07

I was born unable to respond to..." Okay. To catch that, Romans 120.

01:48:12

I know this is a long program, folks. I'm sorry. I had a bunch of people telling me that, well, you really haven't responded fully.

01:48:22

You're not really listening to what they're saying. Well, I think I have, but okay. It's an important enough subject to go ahead and take a look at it.

01:48:33

One of the key issues here is the assertion that if you believe that man is incapable of doing what is right before God, subjecting himself to the law of God, doing what

01:48:48

God commands, says, etc., etc., which the Bible teaches, then you are, in essence, undoing the argument that Paul made in Romans 120 and giving someone an excuse.

01:49:07

For since creation in the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.

01:49:15

Now, we've already heard it used at least once or twice. Now it's been used twice in this one.

01:49:23

The idea being you're giving people an excuse. That is, well, I was born this way. Right?

01:49:31

Is that what Romans 120 is talking about? The term that is used there is unapologetus.

01:49:40

Unapologetus. Without an apologetic. In Romans 120, why is it that they are without an apologetic?

01:49:52

Because of the clarity and sufficiency of general revelation.

01:49:58

What are they without an apologetic in regards to? Even though they knew

01:50:04

God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks. So there's two things that general revelation is sufficient to do.

01:50:12

It's to hold men accountable, to acknowledge that God is God, honor Him as God, and to acknowledge they need to be thankful toward Him for the provision of the things that they have.

01:50:23

That's it. There's nothing about anything else. There's nothing about the gospel and the stars and all that stuff is ridiculous.

01:50:35

Natural revelation, general revelation, in creation, renders man accountable to acknowledge

01:50:43

God and to give thanks to Him. Okay? So, when it says they are unapologetus it is because His eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made.

01:51:03

So that they are without an apologetic. They do not have a consistent argument against the existence of God.

01:51:11

It has nothing to do with capacity for repentance, submission to the law of God, or anything else.

01:51:20

And yet, I lost track in the podcast I was listening to how many times

01:51:25

Flowers used Romans 1 .20 in a completely different context and said, see, there it is.

01:51:33

There it is. And now we just heard it. Now we just heard it. That's not what Romans 1 .20

01:51:38

is about. Let's stop abusing it and misusing it as we'll hear one more time here.

01:51:46

This is again why all are without excuse in Romans 1 .20 because anyone can believe even the general revelation of God, anyone can believe at least the clear revelation of what

01:51:55

God has revealed about His identity through general revelation and mankind is held responsible. Anyone can believe.

01:52:03

Remember, nothing about repentance. But believe. There are all sorts of people.

01:52:11

Look, the fact is they don't just believe, they know. They know. And they suppress.

01:52:18

The question is, how do you get them to stop suppressing? That's something maybe he'll do it later on.

01:52:24

I don't remember him doing so. But how do you get the natural man who knows to stop suppressing what he knows?

01:52:32

Again, that aspect of suppression holding down, that's not something

01:52:38

I hear a whole lot about either because that's that negative side. You know, that's that spiritual stuff that people do.

01:52:46

To acknowledge God as God through general revelation. And if they don't, they are justly punished for not doing so because they could have.

01:52:51

They have the ability to do so. So for him, it's the ability to properly respond that's the issue, not the clarity of the revelation.

01:53:02

But that's Paul's point. Paul's point is clarity of the revelation. He changes that into the capacity to respond.

01:53:10

It speaks of in Romans chapter 1, of all mankind being without excuse, I always like to ask the question, well, without excuse for what?

01:53:17

What are they without excuse for? What do they not have an excuse for? Well, they don't have an excuse for unbelief.

01:53:23

That's what they don't have an excuse for. They cannot say, as the Calvinist system would give them the ability to say rightly, that I was born unable to believe.

01:53:31

I was unable to willingly believe the truth of the revelation of God. I was unable to willingly believe the general revelation or any other.

01:53:40

So, you take a text that is specifically about the clarity of general revelation and the fact that mankind living in the context of that revelation is unapologetus, without a consistent argument against the

01:53:59

God that he knows exists and that he's suppressing the knowledge of that God.

01:54:04

You take that and turn it around and say, well, at the final day they will have a valid excuse because they will at that point know about the truth of God's divine decree and they will use the existence of his divine decree as their excuse because they wanted well, wait a minute, they didn't want to well, we'll pretend that they wanted to keep them from doing that.

01:54:36

I've said many times that the confidence of Christian truth comes from applying the same standards of hermeneutics and exegesis to whatever subject it is you're addressing.

01:54:50

And when you are honestly dealing with God's word in that way and allowing the truth to come forth from the text rather than forcing it onto the text, when you're doing exegesis rather than eisegesis, you will be able to consistently deal with the scriptures throughout the whole from Genesis to Revelation.

01:55:12

But there are times when very plainly it becomes clear when someone has an agenda that is determining what they're going to see in scripture and then they begin to use scripture.

01:55:29

That's what is being done here with Romans 1 .20. That's not what Romans 1 .20 is about. And you didn't get that from Romans 1 .20.

01:55:36

But you wanted to find a way of saying, hey, they're giving people an excuse. And that's how you do it.

01:55:42

God holds mankind responsible for all his revelation. General, special, it doesn't matter.

01:55:47

You are held responsible for every part of his revelation, not just part of it.

01:55:53

You're held accountable for all of it. And therefore, there's no reason to believe we're not responsible, able to respond to all of it.

01:56:00

So, here is a classic statement. Now, by the way, do you really think Aborigines are going to be held accountable for knowing 1

01:56:09

Corinthians 7? No, they'd be held accountable for general revelation. But, did you see the connection that was made?

01:56:16

This is a connection that I talked about last week that we specifically hear. If you're held accountable, you must be capable.

01:56:26

If you're held accountable, you must be capable. So, if this is most vast majority of people say, well, of course.

01:56:39

You bet. I agree with that. Okay. Let's think that through for just a second.

01:56:46

He did go on to talk about, you know, the fact that we do talk about God's law, but he totally missed why we talk about God's law.

01:56:55

God's law reveals to us God's prescriptive will, what he prescribes for mankind.

01:57:06

For the lost, that law acts as a curb.

01:57:11

It acts as a boundary because it says this is what's going to bring

01:57:17

God's wrath and this is what's going to bring God's blessing. For the saved, that law reveals to us what's pleasing to God.

01:57:29

Therefore, if we desire to be pleasing to God, then we will do those things that are pleasing to God. In this instance, when we look into the law of God, we hear the greatest commandment.

01:57:48

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And we are humbled by this.

01:57:57

We are bowed down by this because we know that we do not do that.

01:58:04

We know that each and every day we show much more love for ourselves in many instances than we do for God.

01:58:12

And even when we do show love for God, how often is that love for God imperfect, tainted by selfishness, tainted by ignorance, tainted by our fallen state?

01:58:27

Knowledge of the law does not mean that we have the capacity to fulfill that law.

01:58:37

We have the capacity to understand what God's will for us is, but again, and this is where probably in an 18 -hour response it will be posted by tomorrow that by the end he'll have almost a full bigger beard as a result.

01:58:56

But somewhere along the lines, when I say this, he's going to take the time to go, boogie man, boogie man. This was the issue with Pelagius.

01:59:05

This is the issue of grace. This is the issue of the revelation of God's law, the revelation of what his will is, man's capacity, man's incapacity, the necessity of grace, all the rest.

01:59:18

This is where it comes in. And you can dismiss that all you want, but I'm putting it in the historical spectrum here.

01:59:31

This is where it hits. And if you accept this idea that knowledge of God's law implies capacity of the fallen sons and daughters of Adam.

01:59:49

That's where, again, I find Flowers' anthropology to be extremely weak.

01:59:56

He'll admit, oh yeah, original sin, sin nature, but you don't have the idea of rebellion, love of rebellion, love of sin, haters of God.

02:00:08

I never hear him using that terminology. Haters of God. Because if he did, he'd have to recognize it's going to take something more than just, oh,

02:00:17

I think I'll admit I'm a sinner. That there's a fundamental corruption in the nature of man that only a supernatural act of God can change.

02:00:31

That's what slavery to sin is all about. That's what enmity toward God is all about.

02:00:38

But there you have it. There's a perfect example of, well, if he commanded this, I guess that just means we all have the capacity.

02:00:44

There are some biblical scholars, however, who teach that mankind is born unable to respond to any revelation of God without first being born again or some kind of pre -faith regeneration or something like that.

02:00:56

That God has to change one's heart to make them capable of doing something because of something that happened in the fall that's never talked about in Scripture, at least anywhere explicitly that I can read.

02:01:04

Now, there's some inferences that may seem to, kind of like if you look at Lazarus, the story of Lazarus, the narrative of Lazarus dying in the tomb, and you somehow draw from that narrative a sociological position that we are all born dead, corpse -like dead, which we cover in another, maybe you can infer, some kind of total inability.

02:01:21

But the Bible never draws that comparison. It never draws that analogy, as we've talked about before with the prodigal son. Back to the prodigal son.

02:01:28

So you have clear statements u dunatai, not able, not able to hear, not able to subject, not able to come, not able to believe.

02:01:41

Over and over and over again. In the discussion of salvation. But because we have a parable where we ignore the second half, we've got you.

02:01:55

There you go. And this is where my confidence comes from.

02:02:03

It's not in me. It's not in my ability to argue people into stuff. When people say, how do you put up with a lot of the stuff that gets thrown in your direction all the time?

02:02:15

They see stuff online, you go to Google, and oh my goodness, I've said many times and I believe a tenth of what I can see about myself on Google, I'd slap myself.

02:02:22

So, how do you put up with all that? Because I'm very confident in God's truth, and I'm confident that His sheep will hear

02:02:31

His voice, and He's going to accomplish His purpose, so I can just try to be consistent and faithful in doing what

02:02:38

He calls to do, and just go from there. If I can argue you into believing something, somebody else can come along and argue you out, unless you are firmly committed to the

02:02:50

Bible as the Word of God, and you've thought these things through, you know, I just trust

02:02:57

God and His Spirit, and His Word, and you go from there. Now, is it right to hold someone responsible to something for which they are unable to respond?

02:03:06

Really, deal with that question. You've got to handle this question. Is it right, is it just, to hold someone responsible to something for which they are unable to respond?

02:03:16

If a man, for example, had a dog that was born deaf, and he punished this dog harshly for her lack of response to his verbal commands, would anyone consider such actions good or just?

02:03:26

Well, obviously not. Not even for a dog is this kind of treatment deemed acceptable. Should we conclude that God, however, would act in this manner towards His own image -bearers, those

02:03:36

He loves? I can't fathom that our perfect Father would treat people in this manner, and I have yet to find anyone who can show me an example from Scripture of God holding men responsible for that which they are never given the moral ability to respond.

02:03:54

Wow. Remember the illustration that Norman Geisler used, that you know, over the years,

02:04:10

I've, I'm starting to get, I'm old enough now that I can look back and I can see, you know, when

02:04:24

Chosen but Free came out, all I could think of was the number of people that would be confused by Geisler's willingness to overthrow terminology and language that had been used for hundreds of years and just completely confuse the issue.

02:04:44

In the 17 years since that time, I can look back and I look at the illustrations he used.

02:04:53

Remember the illustration he used, the boys that, it was the three boys that went in the farmer's swimming pool, watering hole, and they start to drown and, you know, the farmer throws out a line to only two of the three, or one of the three, and tries to make an analogy that this is what

02:05:14

God is doing in salvation from the extreme colonist perspective.

02:05:24

When I first read that, I was like, but you know what?

02:05:30

17 years later, I can't tell you how many people have been able to see the errors of Geisler's position simply because the analogy was so bad that it gives you the opportunity educationally to correct that really, really, really bad analogy.

02:05:48

Well, here's another one. The deaf dog. Beating the deaf dog.

02:05:55

That's what the Calvinist is saying. Remember the counter analogy that I offered to Geisler in The Potter's Freedom?

02:06:07

It was, the illustration shouldn't be some good old boys swimming the swimming pool. It should be people, rebels, who invade the king's castle, take it over, kill his servants, bar the doors, and then fight against anyone that the king sends to call them to do what's right.

02:06:34

Even to the point of killing the king's son when the son comes to the castle.

02:06:42

That would be the appropriate analogy. Well, same thing here.

02:06:48

We're not talking about some poor deaf dog and some mean, nasty person that beats the dog up for not doing what they say.

02:07:04

The Bible says that man knows God exists, refuses to acknowledge him as God.

02:07:10

That means the dog hears and knows what the commands are and is in open rebellion against that.

02:07:18

Oh, but God has a sovereign decree. Man is held accountable for what man does.

02:07:26

I immediately thought of Isaiah chapter 10 when I heard this. I can't think of anywhere in the

02:07:31

Bible. How about the king of Assyria? Remember king of Assyria?

02:07:39

God brings the Assyrians down against Israel to punish that nation.

02:07:47

To bring covenantal curses upon that nation.

02:07:52

Specifically. Then he turns around and punishes the king of Assyria and the

02:07:59

Assyrians for what? For the attitude of their heart. For the attitude of their heart.

02:08:05

That's what he holds men accountable for. He doesn't hold men accountable for his decree. That's why it's simply a lie to say this is an excuse.

02:08:16

That any person will stand before God with a knowledge of God's decree and use

02:08:22

God's decree as an excuse. Because they're not going to be held accountable for God's decree.

02:08:28

They're going to be held accountable for the thoughts and intentions of their own hearts. That's how you put the two together without throwing half the

02:08:37

Bible out in the process. And that's why I'm concerned about this because Dr.

02:08:44

Flowers talks about doing apologetics. Well, what kind of apologetics? Well, when you look at the people that he's partnering with, you can see it's going to be mere

02:08:52

Christianity apologetics because you can't give a full throated biblical defense when you're making this kind of argument.

02:09:02

Now, side note here. Often times Calvinists will point to the law at this point and say, well, God demands perfect holiness and we can't be perfectly holy.

02:09:10

Therefore, we also cannot admit that we can't be perfectly holy. That's ultimately where they're catching in.

02:09:17

Not repent. Admit. Just admit. What is that all about? And so what they're doing is they're using the fact that we are incapable of fulfilling the demands of the law to prove that we're also incapable of admitting that fact and trusting in Christ who fulfilled it for us.

02:09:31

Which, again, is just never taught in Scripture. But they think that somehow if they can show in the Bible that God demands perfection and we can't be perfect that that proves that we can't humbly admit that fact or that proves that God can hold us or tell us to be accountable for something that we can't do.

02:09:48

So again, we keep saying what we're talking about is I cannot take out my heart of stone and give myself a heart of flesh.

02:09:58

God haters do not become God lovers overnight. But he's saying, oh, you can be a

02:10:04

God hater and then just simply choose to become a God lover. Yes, you can do that. And you can perform surgery upon yourself and remove the heart of stone.

02:10:14

You can do that. And you can be in the valley of dry bones. You can just be a bunch of dry bones and just those dry bones could just choose to just become, you know, living things because that's just the way it is.

02:10:26

Being fallen. So even after becoming a sinner who deserves hell, he is still held responsible to God's revelation from that point forward, still.

02:10:34

Okay, now this is where we get all kinds of conflating and problems. Okay, so when some scholars speak of man being responsible to God's revelation, they really mean that man is justly punished due to their sinfulness even though they can't respond to God's revelation.

02:10:47

Did you follow that? So Calvinists, when they say, oh, no, no, we believe man's responsible to God's revelation, what they mean is that God is just to punish all of humanity because they are sinful and they deserve hell because of the imputed sinfulness and the guilt of Adam.

02:11:01

Not just imputed, because they themselves are sinners as well. And because they are

02:11:06

God -haters and because they rejoice in their sinfulness and they rejoice in the destruction of God's creation and all the rest of that stuff.

02:11:14

See, he just doesn't, his depth of view of sin is just sadly shallow.

02:11:23

There is just no moral element to it. It's just, well, they're sinners, but they can admit that and just go from there.

02:11:33

There's nothing about defilement, nothing like that. It's just like, yeah, but you're not really all that impacted by that.

02:11:41

You can just freely do what you want to do. Make the right decision. It doesn't go any deeper than that.

02:11:48

It's a very, very, very shallow view. They don't really mean that mankind is actually able to respond to the revelation of God.

02:11:54

That's not what they mean. Again, did you catch it again? I mean, we've heard it now so many times, I almost don't even bother to stop.

02:12:00

But did you catch it again? This was the accusation of inaccuracy I made last week that he bristled at.

02:12:07

It's obvious that I meant respond in a positive way. Where does it say positive way? He just simply says respond over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

02:12:19

It's not, there's no reason to have bristled about that. It's just an error that he makes about every 14th sentence.

02:12:25

God is justly punished. God is just to punish people even though they are born incapable of believing and responding to God's revelation.

02:12:33

Remember, this incapacity requires grace because of the fallen nature.

02:12:39

What he's objecting to is the freedom of grace. I just hope everybody catches this. What the traditionalists are objecting to is a

02:12:46

God who is sovereign over his creation, a God who can accomplish his purposes in spite of man's desires, a

02:12:52

Jesus who saves those for whom he dies. These are all the things that they are objecting to.

02:13:02

And as long as you understand that, as long as you're hearing that, then we're accomplishing something.

02:13:09

Play this back if you have to until you get it because it's got to sink in. You've got to understand the distinction and the conflation of the

02:13:15

Calvinist to get this. Now this is confounding two separate issues causing much confusion over this topic. We must separate each of those points, the sinfulness of man and their deserving of hell, and separate from that is that sinner's responsibility to the revelation of God since they have fallen.

02:13:30

There's two distinct points and they cannot be conflated. We have to understand the distinction between those two things because I think a

02:13:36

Calvinist cannot truly say that a fallen sinful person is responsible to the revelation of God. Because remember, how does he define responsible?

02:13:44

Response ability. An ability to respond. Again, mankind always responds.

02:13:52

The point of Romans 1 is he does so by suppression of the truth. That's Romans 1. He's missed it.

02:13:57

That's why he's just not even on the page with the biblical writers at this point. He can say instead that fallen humanity is justly punished even though they can't respond to the revelation of God.

02:14:08

But they cannot say that fallen humanity is really responsible to the revelation of God since the fall. That just doesn't make any sense.

02:14:14

While it's certainly true that all fallen man is deserving of hell, it is certainly untrue that fallen man is born unable to respond to God because of that fall.

02:14:25

Look at Genesis 3. You can see that the first man is able to respond to God after he sinned.

02:14:30

Again, this is almost getting repetitive, so I may speed things up, but respond positively, repentance, etc.,

02:14:38

etc. It's just respond, respond, respond. The very thing he said, I wasn't misrepresenting you, is just, talk about documentation.

02:14:44

You can see that the first man is able to respond to God after he sinned. In verse 10 of Genesis 3, he answers

02:14:52

God when he talks. The Lord calls out, where are you? And he answers, I heard you in the garden. I was afraid and I was naked, so I hid. He was honest with him even.

02:14:58

He responds to him. Now, I'm going to try to get down to I'm going to go to 1 .4.

02:15:05

Sorry, folks. I'm going to go to 1 .4. You see, babies are not born with calluses on their hands, and they're certainly not born with calluses on their hearts.

02:15:13

Scripture warns us all not to allow our hearts to grow hardened or to become calloused in this manner.

02:15:19

Hebrews 3 .8. Now, here we're starting to get into some important stuff in Romans 1.

02:15:26

And there, Hebrews 3 .8, this idea of becoming calloused.

02:15:35

He says, babies are not born with calloused hearts. And so what he's saying is they are born of a sin nature, but they're not really guilty before God.

02:15:49

So you can have a sin nature, and that's not reprehensible before a holy God. Well, that's a problem, but that's the traditionalist position.

02:15:57

But what he's saying there is, well, but you don't want to become... Hebrews 3 .8.

02:16:03

It was Hebrews 3 .8. Do not harden your hearts, as when they provoked me, as in the day of trial in the wilderness.

02:16:09

So, it's another due of babies, and it is one of those many places in Scripture where you look back upon where people did something, and a warning is given.

02:16:20

And again, the assumption is, well, if a warning is given, then everyone has the capacity. The warning passages exist when, first of all, as restraints, when

02:16:31

God's Spirit in what we would call common grace allows those things to restrain people, as they have in many, many cultures, especially in Europe in the ages past.

02:16:41

But for the person who is a new creature in Christ, they become the very signposts that tell us what is it we should be careful about, what is it we should see about the nature of our

02:16:52

God, His holiness, what's pleasing to Him, etc., etc. The different uses of the law that have been explicated down through the years.

02:17:00

Hebrews 3 .8 doesn't have anything to do with this particular text, but we press on. That actually would help, press on.

02:17:06

Whenever I go over to the Bible program and do something... They were calloused, the Israelites of this day, they were calloused by their own choosing, not

02:17:15

God's rejection or lack of revelation. Where do... The way that's stated is if the

02:17:22

Calvinists are saying there's a lack of revelation, and it wasn't their own choosing. God uses ends, you know, means to get to His ends, and the reality...

02:17:35

Are you really saying that, for example, Pilate, Herod, the

02:17:42

Jews, and the Romans, Romans chapter 4, all had different reasons for their involvement in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

02:17:50

Are you saying that we don't think they should be held accountable for that? Of course we believe they should be held accountable for that, and they all had different motivations.

02:17:58

Herod was a loon, Pilate was a coward, a political coward, the Jews were filled with hate, and the

02:18:05

Romans just liked killing people. So they all had different motivations, and yet...

02:18:11

And this is where God -centered theology versus man -centered theology comes in. The cross was

02:18:17

God's intention, predestined, absolutely central to His purposes. Had to happen right then, that way, that time.

02:18:25

So their actions, according to Acts chapter 4, were predestined by God. You don't think that we see that God utilized the kind of person

02:18:35

Pilate was, the kind of person Herod was? You don't think they were held accountable? Of course they were.

02:18:41

God holds men accountable for what's in here, not for knowledge of His decree.

02:18:48

If you don't like that, take it up with the Bible. Stop believing the Bible, then, if you don't like that.

02:18:54

But please don't twist the Bible to try to remove that from it because you don't like it. That's not a good thing to do.

02:19:02

As Romans 10 .21 teaches, as Matthew 23 .37 teaches... Matthew 23 .37. Did you catch that, how fast it went by?

02:19:08

Say that again. They had become calloused by their own independent, free choices.

02:19:14

Their own independent, free choices. They become calloused. There's no question about that.

02:19:21

We believe that they did what they desired to do. That doesn't mean, it does not follow, that this was some autonomous thing outside of God's decree.

02:19:33

Because, again, apply this to Acts chapter 4. Listen to the early church. Listen to what the early church said.

02:19:41

They recognized that what Pilate and Herod and the Romans and the Jews did, in regards to Jesus, God's hand had predestined to take place.

02:19:50

Period. End of discussion. Just straightforward. Could have done otherwise, in other words.

02:19:56

They had what they needed. Ah, they could have done otherwise. Herod could have thrown the whole thing out.

02:20:02

Pilate could have stopped the crucifixion. The Jews could have repented and all would have been well. The Romans could have said, no, we're not going to do it today.

02:20:12

Do you realize what the result of all this is? That even the central redeeming act of the triune

02:20:18

God in accomplishing the gospel was an uncertainty, consistently in light of this perspective.

02:20:24

And the only reason this perspective exists is to defend the almighty will of man.

02:20:31

There is a reason why the Reformed, upon the rise of Arminianism, said this is popeless

02:20:38

Catholicism and it is an idolatry of the will of man. And it is.

02:20:44

How could you say that? We thought you were the nice guy. I simply present to you the truth.

02:20:52

And you say, but if you really believe that, then you could never even shake an Arminian's hand. No, yes, actually,

02:20:59

I could because I'll be straightforward and say it is the idolatry of the will. And if you want to get mad at me and never shake my hand,

02:21:06

I leave that to you. But I'm not going to disassociate from you.

02:21:11

I'm going to talk to you about this. I'm going to explain to you why I believe that. And hopefully, well, you know, a lot of folks read this, and I said some pretty straightforward things in there, and lo and behold, they ended up agreeing with me.

02:21:28

I can't tell you the number of people who come up to me. I hated you when I first heard it. The number of people who come up to me, when I heard you on the

02:21:33

Bible Answering with George Bryson, man, I was driving down the road, and I was yelling at the radio, and oh, I was pounding on the windows, and now

02:21:40

I'm a Calvinist. Well, you know, okay, that's could have been anybody else.

02:21:48

It doesn't make me special. It's just when I'm given the opportunity, I'm just going to keep trucking down the road.

02:21:54

No excuse. Like, I was born hated by my God, or I was born without the nature to be able to respond to God's revelation. They don't have that excuse.

02:22:00

They became calloused by their own doing, not God's rejection before the foundation of the world, not

02:22:06

God's decree or anything of that nature. You're starting to see how many windmills Leighton tilts at in pretty much every episode.

02:22:14

I mean, it's just a constant thing. And it's sort of depressing, actually.

02:22:20

It's sad. This is why we can affirm the concept of original sin, that man is born with a sinful nature and in need of a

02:22:27

Savior while still denying the Calvinistic doctrine of total inability that, quote, God has somehow decreed for man to be born unable to see, hear, understand and turn, even in light of God's clear appeal to be reconciled from their fallenness.

02:22:37

It's just never taught in Scripture. So why is all this relevant to the question at hand? We were starting to wonder about that.

02:22:44

Because this is supposed to be about what about those who've never heard? How much of this ended up being another anti -Calvinistic diatribe?

02:22:54

I... You know, people have just been... A few people. Not many. Most people recognize what

02:23:00

I'm talking about. But people have been like, You're just so mean to Leighton Flowers. You said he's a one -string banjo. Listen!

02:23:08

I mean, even in answering... I mean, the extreme example of this was

02:23:16

Steve Tassi. Remember what happened in the non -debate with Steve Tassi? And I asked him,

02:23:23

Okay, look. Ignore me. Ignore Calvinism. Just explain to us what

02:23:31

John 6 means. He couldn't do it. It was not possible. What if this was before Calvin?

02:23:39

Couldn't do it. Couldn't do it. I can guarantee you something. I don't care who

02:23:44

I'm debating. If you ask me to deal with a text, I can tell you what that text says without having to make reference to Roman Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, Arminians, Synergists, whatever else.

02:23:55

And if you can't, you've got a problem. You may be suffering from Anti -Calvinist Rangeman Syndrome.

02:24:02

And there's some books that help with that. Because it speaks to the natural man's abilities to respond to the light of God's revelation, whether general or special.

02:24:11

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I'm getting through this as quick as I can, folks. President for dialogue. So here's the key point.

02:24:16

Both the Jews and the Gentiles are equally culpable for being sinful. Okay, now here's where it got weird.

02:24:25

Romans chapter 3 contains an apostolic interpretation of Romans 1, 2, and 3.

02:24:35

Because what do you have in Romans 1? Well, it's the Gentiles. Suppression, sin, rebellion.

02:24:43

Romans chapter 2, well, do you think you're better off just because you possess the law, mere possession of the law, yet you still break the law?

02:24:50

Only brings you greater condemnation. Jews aren't righteous either. Well, they've got great advantages.

02:24:56

Romans chapter 3 at the beginning, oracles were committed to them, etc., etc., and yet it's those very same oracles that then give us

02:25:03

Romans 3, 10 through 18, the catena of passages. None that does good. None that understands.

02:25:09

None that seeks after God. Poison of ass under their lips. No fear of God before their eyes.

02:25:16

And then what is the apostolic interpretation? How does Paul interpret what has come, beginning at Romans 1, 18?

02:25:24

We have concluded that all are under sin.

02:25:30

All! It was his intention. Why? Because one of his main concerns is that there not be a

02:25:41

Jewish Christian church and a Gentile Christian church. And if there is a difference, if the

02:25:49

Gentiles are worse off than the Jews, then are they going to be in a lower position of the church?

02:25:56

Do they need a different way of justification? No. The ground is level at the foot of the cross. It doesn't matter whether you're

02:26:01

Jew or Gentile, you stand in absolute need of the righteousness of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

02:26:08

That's why there's only one Christian church. This is going to be emphasized over and over and over and over again in Paul, and if you missed it, you've missed it badly.

02:26:16

You've missed his concern. Badly. If you've listened to Romans 3 .23,

02:26:25

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If you don't know the context, that means all Jews and Gentiles.

02:26:31

All have sinned. We're all on the same basis. Then you've missed what

02:26:36

Paul was really trying to get at. Yes, it does teach you the universality of sin, which is normally how you're using it, but he's making sure that you understand it's

02:26:44

Jew and Gentile. So there you've got it. So what's the apostolic interpretation of all of that stuff?

02:26:53

It's universal. Universal. With that in mind, listen to Leighton Flowers, President for Dialogue.

02:27:03

So here's the key point. Both the Jews and the Gentiles are equally culpable for being sinful. Romans 1 .3

02:27:09

.20 all the way through chapter 1, verse 1 through 3 .20 is teaching everyone,

02:27:15

Jew, Gentile, culpable for sin, deserve punishment of God justly because they have fallen short of God's glory.

02:27:24

Now, here is where his deficient view of sin comes in. Culpable. Is that the same as guilty?

02:27:32

Is that the same as reprehensible in God's sight? Is that the same thing as vile? I don't think so.

02:27:38

It's just sort of a category that allows God to say, yeah, they're guilty, but still, there's still some capacity.

02:27:49

Listen to the rest of it. They have fallen short of keeping the demands of the law. All are justly under condemnation.

02:27:57

Both Jews and Gentiles, they are absolutely sinful, but they are not equally calloused in their self -righteousness.

02:28:07

Did you catch that? Both are equally sinful and deserving of hell. Both are not equally calloused in their self -righteous rebellion against the revelation of God, which is what makes it so difficult for the

02:28:18

Israelites of this day to respond to God's clear revelation, one, because they have been given over to this callousness, judicially hardened.

02:28:26

You know, I knew that he argued that the Jews are judicially hardened in Jesus' day. That wasn't about Jesus' day, was it?

02:28:34

That's up to this very day. He's saying that there is a judicial hardening. Because his argument has been in the past, they were judicially hardened so that the crucifixion would take place.

02:28:47

Well, we're a little bit past the necessity of that now, so I'm not really sure.

02:28:53

Now we have a different callousness level found in this.

02:29:01

Why do you suppose Jesus referred to a child as an example of what we must become like to enter his kingdom?

02:29:07

In Matthew 18, 3, for example. What is the difference in the condition of a child's heart and the heart of an older man?

02:29:14

Aren't they both equally hardened from birth, decreed by God to be dead, corpse -like dead from the very beginning, as some impose onto the text?

02:29:22

Clearly not. The heart of a child, while fully capable and culpable for sin, has not yet grown calloused and stubborn in his rebellion.

02:29:32

That's the distinction. So, callousness is what...

02:29:40

You gotta give the man credit. He does seem to just ransack the Bible looking for things he can link together to come up with his ways around the stuff here.

02:29:49

We saw that in the Romans 9 debate. I mean, here's somebody putting out some serious effort.

02:29:55

Give him his kudos for that. Can't say much for exegesis, but give him serious kudos for that.

02:30:03

I thought it was the simplicity of faith and the trust in God, but callousness.

02:30:10

Let's continue. Now, that addresses the ability of man to respond to the special revelation, but what about the general revelation?

02:30:18

Is there any biblical reason to suggest that man is not able to respond for that which God holds him responsible? Paul's declaration of one being without any excuse, in light of God's clear revelation, certainly suggests no good excuse exists.

02:30:32

Any doctrine that teaches man is born unable, by God's own decree, mind you, to respond to his clear revelation certainly seems to be giving back the very excuse that Paul is attempting to move in this passage.

02:30:43

Now, how many times have we now heard this? This is the third time he's returned to the same thing. There's nothing in Romans 1 .20

02:30:50

about an excuse based upon God's decree. The anapologetus has to do with the clarity of the revelation that they are unwilling to submit to and the term that is used, which we've never heard him use so far.

02:31:03

Maybe he did and I missed it. But the only way you could ever deal with Romans 1 .20 in a meaningful way is to address katakanton, suppression.

02:31:14

Suppression and then alexon, to exchange. Suppression, exchange.

02:31:20

That's Romans 1. And again, let me just mention, you know, well you're just picking on this poor guy.

02:31:28

No. How many of you know how I'm sitting here pulling up stuff out of Romans 1 without even having to bring it up.

02:31:36

You know why? Did you see the debates on homosexuality I've done? How many times have

02:31:42

I had to go to Romans 1 off the top of my head with no preparation whatsoever because of the fact it's so central to dealing with that?

02:31:52

I really wonder how Leighton Flowers would do that. And that's why I think this is so important because this is what's being taught to seminary students at certain major seminaries who are then going to be expected to go out and engage with the world.

02:32:09

That concerns me. Concerns me a lot. And I'm much more concerned about those students than I am anyone else.

02:32:17

We're getting there. But what better excuse is there for not responding than the innate inability to do as determined by one's own creator.

02:32:24

Keep in mind that Calvinists must conclude that God has never desired, really.

02:32:30

What? What? You had a thought a second ago, and I don't want it to get away.

02:32:38

You're talking about Romans 1, you're talking about debates with homosexuals, or on homosexuality, and then you go back to Leighton Flowers, the one -string banjo concept, the point that needs to be driven home, and this is what you saw me going back and forth with a guy on Twitter all day

02:32:55

Saturday about, was that look, the illustration is that Dr.

02:33:01

Flowers has never had to actually deal with someone who thinks like that in the context of Romans 1.

02:33:08

And so his consistency would be affected by that argument, recognizing he's using bad argumentation, that would blow up in his face in that environment.

02:33:18

That's why being a one -string banjo is a bad thing. That is the point of the one -string banjo argument, or point that you've made about him, in that he, as I was trying to point out to the gentleman on Saturday, he's never interacted with Mormonism that we know of, he's never interacted with Jehovah's Witnesses on the street level like you have, where you're recognizing, hey, when

02:33:40

I throw these arguments out, they come flying right back in my face, and I'm not going to use that again!

02:33:46

You learn your lesson the hard way. Thank you. Relax. Deep breath.

02:33:54

Deep breath. I can actually see the end of this podcast on my screen, really, so trust me, we're right there.

02:34:01

I know you're probably not trusting me because we're two and a half hours in, but... The salvation of those who don't hear the gospel, which

02:34:07

I think is biblically indefensible. In other words, what the Calvinist has to conclude is that because God sovereignly never brought the gospel presentation to certain people, that must mean that God didn't really want and desire their salvation.

02:34:19

Of course, that flies in the face of 1 Timothy 2 -4. It flies in the face of Ezekiel 18 -33 -31. It flies in the face of 2

02:34:25

Peter 3 -9. It flies in the face of none of them. None of them. Not properly exegeted.

02:34:30

Not consistently exegeted. Here we got somebody... So, you're telling me that God wanted to save the

02:34:37

Amorite High Priest in the days of Moses as much as he did the people of Israel. Prove that biblically. One of us is willing to allow the

02:34:44

Bible to speak to this. The other one... 1 Timothy 2 -4? Really? So, Jesus is the intercessor for the pagans who were wiped out in Ai, right?

02:34:56

God wanted to save them equally as everybody else. If you want to try to go there, good luck.

02:35:02

It's a mess. But we continue. Okay, so follow this. In Romans 1, Paul taught that men's thinking has become futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

02:35:13

Therefore, God gave them over to the sinful desires. Verse 21 -24.

02:35:19

They were not born futile, darkened, and given over. Did you notice that? Did you see the word become?

02:35:26

Did you see the word grew? I love this because this would be the stuff of cross -examination.

02:35:34

This would be the stuff where, okay, let's get the text out, Leighton, and let's look at it.

02:35:41

For even though they knew God, the foundation of the statement is that there is an automatic, already existing knowledge of God.

02:35:57

They knew God. They did not glorify Him, nor give thanks.

02:36:03

But, and what's interesting here is, he said, did you see the word became?

02:36:09

There is no word became. It's an English helper because the

02:36:16

Greek word that is used, oh, I'm not feeding this to you. Sorry about that. The matayao means to, see, we don't have an active verbal form in English that means to make futile.

02:36:33

So we have to use a helper verb. It's a helper word. It's just one of our deficiencies in English, not in Greek.

02:36:42

It's simply an heiress describing the result of the refusal to act upon the creative knowledge that we have.

02:36:54

It's not like they were going along and they weren't hardened or calloused.

02:37:03

They were still good old boys, but they were just young or whatever.

02:37:10

This idea of the good old boys swimming in the pond type thing. That's what we've got going on here. Almost different levels of sin, where there's some sin that's not really not reprehensible to God.

02:37:21

No. When it says they became futile, that is just a helper translation.

02:37:28

They were futile in their reasonings, and their non -understanding hearts were darkened.

02:37:36

So to try to build into that the idea that, well, before then they weren't, but is to, again, completely go against what was

02:37:44

Paul's final conclusion? Universal sinfulness. Universal depravity.

02:37:50

Not just culpability, but reprehensibility in the sight of God.

02:37:56

Did you see the word they became darkened, or they were darkened over time, it talks about here? Where?

02:38:03

Over time. Can't find over time. Let me see here.

02:38:12

Nope, no time in there. There wasn't any dominion in Psalm 115 -16.

02:38:23

Hmm. Strange. What Greek text are you using, Leighton? So Paul is revealing the natural result of those who continue by their own free volition, by their own libertarian choice, if you will, those who choose to ignore

02:38:38

God's revelation and trade that truth in for lies. Not, he's not talking about everyone who's ever lived.

02:38:46

Catch that? Catch that? Leighton Fowers just joined everybody who says

02:38:52

Romans 1 isn't about everybody. This isn't about everybody who's ever lived. Let me repeat that again so you can catch it.

02:39:02

Those who choose to ignore God's revelation and trade that truth in for lies. Not, he's not talking about everyone who's ever lived.

02:39:10

Because not everyone who's ever lived matches the description of the apostle in Romans 1. Not everyone became homosexuals, not everyone traded the truth in for lies, not everyone throughout all of human history has done these things.

02:39:19

Some people did fear the Lord, some people worshipped him in earnest and they believe in the revelation they received. We see this with Lydia, we see it with Cornelius, even in the

02:39:25

New Testament time. Okay, okay, just stop. This isn't, this it's hard to figure out which of the two pits this is.

02:39:36

It ain't the Augustinian and it's crawling out of the semi -Pelagian and heading for the

02:39:42

Pelagian. Boogeyman! Yeah, I can hear it now. Did you just hear what we just heard?

02:39:49

Romans 1 isn't about all people. That's Paul's interpretation of Romans 3, but we don't need to worry about that. Well, they didn't all become homosexuals.

02:39:58

When was the last time you heard that? I've heard that from almost every homo, I hear that from Matthew Vines, I hear that from Graham Codrington, this is the standard homosexual interpretation of Romans 1.

02:40:09

And evidently, Leighton Flowers agrees. What's he gonna do when he debates a homosexual, I wonder? Where's he gonna go?

02:40:15

Huh, interesting. Because, you see, it's been a given, it's been a rather simple element of our providing a response to the claims of homosexual interpreters of Romans 1 that you're missing the point entirely if you think that this text is saying that every single human being engages in every single activity to the same point.

02:40:50

Romans 1, before you get into the list of sins, where, again, there are some people who are disobedient to parents on a level that other people are not.

02:41:03

So, when you get into the list of sins, there are people who have indulged in some sins far more than in other sins.

02:41:11

But the point of, for example, Romans chapter 1, verses 26 and 27, regards to homosexuality, is to emphasize the fact that the exchange of God's truth for a lie, the darkening of the heart, and the fundamental impact of sin upon mankind goes to the very core of man, even to his sexual identity.

02:41:33

And that is relevant to every single person, because every single person's sexual identity has been twisted by sin.

02:41:41

And once you start telling people that this isn't about everybody, you are destroying the foundation of the

02:41:48

Gospel in Romans 3, and that's why this is important. And that's why people in the

02:41:53

Southern Baptist Convention need to know that this is what is being taught just so, just so that you can get away from Calvinism.

02:42:02

That's the only reason. Amazing stuff.

02:42:10

Amazing stuff. Look, we've gone way over time. I had more stuff here.

02:42:17

What I'm going to do really quickly, is I'm just going to jump down to just one little short section from the 2 hour and 20 minute, and we've only gone 2 hours and 13 minutes, so I suppose

02:42:32

I need to go at least 7 or 8 more minutes, just so I can say it was equal amount of time. But, 2 hour and 20 odd minute response to last week, which is a lot of repetitive stuff.

02:42:46

What I wanted to find out was, does he deal with Romans 8? Let's take a listen to just a little bit of what is said about Romans 8.

02:42:53

Okay, first of all, I wanted to pause there, because notice what he's trying to do, I think, what he's trying to do here, is he's trying to take away any semblance of human responsibility in this process, because if you say the mind set on the flesh, it seems to imply that a person has something to do with where he sets his mind.

02:43:07

I mean, that's the natural reading of the text. It's not only the natural reading of the text, it's the interpreter's reading of the text. In fact, even the

02:43:13

ESV, let me just pull this up, okay, on Blue Letter Bible, there, Romans 8, 5, for those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, and where he was referring to,

02:43:24

I think, for an AO, which is, if you open it up and look at the possible, it's obviously a part of speech as a verb, and then it gives several, you know, obvious ways in which you define it.

02:43:35

The last would be the one that most commentators, I would think, all interpreters, or translators, have landed on this one, to direct one's mind, to set one's mind on a thing, or to seek, or to strive for.

02:43:46

And so, those who put their mind on the things of the flesh, they cannot please God. So keep that in mind as you're looking through this entire text, because he's trying to, in whatever way he can, get away from the human responsibility implicit within this verse, is that you have something to do with whether you set your mind on the flesh or on the spirit.

02:44:03

As a regenerate man, you have that. The carnal breath... So, you can have a text that specifically says no one is able.

02:44:19

No one is able in verse 8.

02:44:26

Those who according to flesh are not able to please God. The mind of the flesh is amnitude toward God.

02:44:34

For it is not subject to the law of God, for it is not able. Those in the flesh are not... So you can have all this not able, but what it's really about is the ability of man.

02:44:45

Because it says minding, and that implies that you can choose what you mind.

02:44:53

No. According to Romans chapter 8, if you're according to the flesh, you're not a

02:45:00

Christian. That's what it says. I mean, hello, we pointed this out, but you seem to have missed it.

02:45:09

However, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you, but if anyone does not have the

02:45:16

Spirit of God, he does not belong to him. Missed it. Completely missed it.

02:45:24

I mean, listen, listen, this is the last section. Even as a regenerate man, you have that. The carnal brethren in 1

02:45:30

Corinthians chapter 3, they were called carnal. They could not receive the deep truths of God. They couldn't receive the meat of the Word. And he called them brethren still, but he was calling them carnal or fleshly.

02:45:38

Could they please God if their mind is set on the flesh? So, let's not worry about the context of Romans 8.

02:45:44

Let's not worry about right there, he is making a firm distinction between being the flesh and being the

02:45:49

Spirit, because he's specifically talking about the Gospel here and the results of the

02:45:55

Gospel and the work of God in Jesus Christ. No, no, no, no. We've got to fight Calvinism. So let's bring something in from another discussion.

02:46:02

Let's bring something in here and confuse the situation. And we, well... Of course not. Anybody who is seeking or striving or directing your mind towards the things of the flesh and not on the things of the

02:46:12

Spirit through faith, you can't please God. You can only please God through the Spirit and through faith. That's true of Christians, therefore it would be equally as true for those who are not yet Christians.

02:46:21

So if you can make the exact same statement to a Christian that you can make to a non -Christian about the fact that you can't please

02:46:28

God as long as your mind is set on the things of the flesh, that proves that this verse does not say enough to establish the

02:46:34

Calvinistic biblical interpretation. That mankind is somehow incapable of setting his mind on the spiritual revelation brought by the

02:46:42

Holy Spirit, power of God into salvation, the Gospel. When the light comes to a fleshly person, he's incapable of setting his mind on that or responding willingly to that.

02:46:50

He's incapable of doing it. That's just read into the text. There's nothing in this text that even mentions the Gospel 1. And there's nothing in this text which even comes close to suggesting that mankind is incapable of responding to the

02:47:01

Holy Spirit wrought truth of God. It just does not exist in the text. Let's look at the next one. Okay. It is hard to even know how to respond to this.

02:47:13

I wrote something on Facebook yesterday about some other stuff that came after this that we're not going to have time to get to.

02:47:21

But did you just hear? It's just read into the text. There's nothing here about man's inability. Really?

02:47:29

So what does U'dunatai mean? U'dagar Dunatai.

02:47:35

U'dunatai. There isn't any other Greek way of saying incapable. I mean, when your traditions are so strong that you can be staring at the words and go,

02:47:47

I don't see it. It's not there. Don't see it. It's not there. You want to see what lenses can do? Lenses of tradition can do to Scripture?

02:47:54

I mean, this is so blatant. It reminds me of this one time I talked to a former Mormon missionary.

02:48:00

A guy who had been saved. He had been a missionary and he said, you know what's really weird is after I became a

02:48:06

Christian I went back over my missionary Bible that I had read while I was on my mission and marked stuff and all the stuff that directly contradicted what

02:48:15

I believed I never marked it. I marked stuff that really wasn't even relevant someplace else, but when

02:48:21

I got to those parts that were directly contradicting what I believed it's like I couldn't even see them. Yep.

02:48:27

That's what tradition does. That's what tradition does. And here you've got something, there's nothing here nothing here at all about inability at all.

02:48:37

You can say this to a believer or non -believer. It doesn't matter if in the context it specifically says,

02:48:43

I'm talking to believers if you're in Christ you have the Spirit you're not according to flesh.

02:48:49

It doesn't matter if he defines those categories because that doesn't help our narrative so we just dismiss it. And then you say, there's nothing about the

02:48:57

Gospel here at all. I pointed out either on Twitter or somewhere else he could have done a rather brief search for the root yuang epsilon, epsilon alpha, gamma.

02:49:15

Just do a quick, that would catch pretty much all the forms and it's found

02:49:24

I put it in Twitter I'm not going to do the search right now but nowhere in chapter

02:49:31

I think it goes from 1 .18 to 10 .15 without ever using the term.

02:49:38

So you're telling me chapter 3 is not about the Gospel? Chapter 4? Chapter 5? It's not about the

02:49:44

Gospel? This passage, it talks about peace and righteousness I said, no, not about the

02:49:51

Gospel. Not about the Gospel at all. Wow! This is not exegesis.

02:49:59

Okay? The comments we just heard right now have nothing to do with exegesis.

02:50:04

This is not how you'd ever defend the deity of Christ. This is eisegesis driven by tradition.

02:50:12

You just listen to it. And I listened all the way to where he started dealing with the next thing that I said on the response.

02:50:20

Never did he give us a positive exegesis of Romans chapter 8.

02:50:26

Just like he never gave us a positive exegesis of Romans chapter 9 in the debate. Well, it would have taken too long.

02:50:31

I managed to do it and you had all the time in the world on your own podcast to do it.

02:50:38

When someone comes to you and all they can tell you is what a passage cannot possibly mean this is not someone you want to follow.

02:50:49

They need to start with what the text means and then explain why it cannot mean other things.

02:50:55

But if you can't tell me what it does mean that's a problem. That's a problem.

02:51:02

And that's the problem we see here. Well, we have gone a very long time.

02:51:09

I don't know that I think once we did a 3 hour and 20 minute but that was that Christology thing. So we're getting close.

02:51:15

Getting close there. Getting close there. The sun is setting and I'm just starting to get warmed up.

02:51:22

Finally started to hit my stride, huh? Thanks. Appreciate that. Why did we do this?

02:51:32

Believe me there my despite what many many people want to say about me that's untruthful the whole reason is when

02:51:44

I heard those comments about Romans chapter 1 I said if this is what is being taught to students they're being set up for a disaster in leading their churches in this culture today all because of anti -Calvinist derangement syndrome on the part of the leadership of certain seminaries.

02:52:05

And I know that we have people in those seminaries that are holding fast despite the buffeting of the waves but not just for them but for the many others there needs to be a warning about just how bad isogetically this kind of argumentation really is.

02:52:32

And so we spent a lot of time I know it's probably too long for most people you may have to break it up into parts.

02:52:39

You may not want to listen to all of it. I get it. But for those who need this kind of information, hopefully, this has been very helpful to you.

02:52:47

We appreciate your watching, listening. We'll see you next time on The Dividing Line. God bless.