June 10, 2004

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

Tim Staples, Mary, and the Meaning of Luke 1:28

Good afternoon. Welcome to The Dividing Line. Good to have you along this afternoon, no matter what you think of me. I tell you, the world has gone absolutely positively nuts. It's gone crazy. I guess all I can say is I'm still saying what I said 10 years ago.

At least I am. I don't just all a bunch of folks just jumping off of bridges, theologically speaking, these days. Last time we were together, we were discussing, well, we were playing a bunch of stuff.

We were playing clips from various Sunday people. And we started listening to some Tim Staples interesting stuff about Mary. And we didn't get them done. We didn't get them finished. I had mentioned some stuff coming up later.

I thought, well, let's at least finish that off. Might be able to get that done in the first half hour and then take your calls at 877 -753 -3341 and see what you think about that. But I believe we were somewhere in the midst of this particular call with Tim Staples on Catholic Answers Live talking about Mary.

Remember, he's come up with a nine-CD series on the subject of Mary. And we had mentioned the fact that his statements concerning Luke's usage of septuagint language stuff were stolen straight out of Gerry Matitick's.

I assume Gerry may have gotten that from someplace, too. I don't know. But I don't know where he got it first place. I heard it. Anyway, it was Gerry Matitick's. And so we had already looked at that. And then another caller is talking about Kakarata Mene, the greeting of the angel when he said, highly favored one.

And Luke 128 really does become the cornerstone of Marian dogma in the Roman Catholic system. The edifice of theology built upon this one verse is absolutely incredible. And to build the kind of beliefs into one word.

I mean, there is so little foundation for these non-apostolic, non-traditional, non-biblical teachings. They really have to pack it into whatever they can find. And so this guy calls up concerning this issue.

And we start listening to this. We'll go ahead and play the whole call so we can have a context for it.

Hi there.

How are you? Good.

How are you?

Good. What's your question for Tim Staples?

Well, Tim, I was reading. I don't have the article right in front of me. The article you wrote about Mary Sainter Sinner, I believe it was called. Yes. And it was kind of a fictitious dialogue between an apologist and a guy named Homer.

Yes. And you referred to the original language word that meant full of grace. Right. And how it was, I think it was past perfect tense. Yes. Yes. And I just wanted some clarification, if you could, on specifically more what that is about.

And when Homer responded with another Bible passage that had the same tense, I didn't fully understand why Mary's perpetual virginity, why it only applied to her, and not the passage Homer referred to.

That's a great scripture that you'll find. You know, St. Stephen is referred to as full of grace. But you don't find the perspective used there. Caecari Tomine. And I guess the most important thing to remember here is that there is a complete.

The angel names are.

Okay.

Let's stop right there for just a moment. First of all, folks, this is a greeting.

Okay.

It's a greeting. It's not a name. It's evocative. It's in the evocative form. It is what you use when you address someone. And all the angel is saying is greetings, highly favored one. Why is she highly favored?

Because she's been chosen to be the mother of the Messiah. Caecari Tomine. It's evocative.

It's a greeting.

It's not a renaming. To read this kind of stuff into, well, it's a perfect tense. Well, perfect tenses have meanings within context. And sometimes a perfect tense will emphasize the completed action in the past.

Sometimes it will emphasize the continuing state. You can have those that emphasize various elements of those things when they're joined with other verbs and within particular context. I mean, this kind of teaching just, I know a lot of folks sit there and go, wow, okay, must be true.

I mean, I have to trust whatever Tim Staples says. But this guy doesn't teach Greek anywhere. I mean, you could not take this kind of thought pattern, this kind of teaching, and translate the rest of the New Testament in a meaningful fashion.

Couldn't do it.

But, hey, this is Mary. And Rome has spoken. Sola Ecclesia.

Now, that word alone, but I think the thing that really takes the cake is when you understand that the angel is actually giving Mary a name. When he greets her, he says, Caere Caecari Tomine, or greetings, she who has been completed in grace.

He actually names her. And that's why Mary is so shocked in verse 29. This is not a common greeting here. Well, you could argue that Tyre is a common greeting. But to call her she who has been perfected in grace, this is why Mary is, in verse 29, greatly troubled at what manner of salutation this may be.

Wow, man, I'll tell you, you know, it's hard to. What can you say? I mean, if this is not just one of the most glaring examples of, let's take our modern theology, some of which has only been defined dogmatically 1800, 1950 years after the fact.

And let's read it back into the text. It's just, wow, ultimate anachronism right here from Mr. Staples.

Because, see, names in Hebrew culture are very significant. Names reveal something about the character, about the ontology of the one who is named. And so when the angel names her, she who has been perfected in grace, there's a couple of things we conclude.

Number one, that is, Mary is completed in grace. Hence, she has no sin. You and I are not completed or perfected in grace. Mary is. But secondly, because this is a name, we understand that it has a permanence about it.

When Abram's name was changed to Abraham, which means father princess, no longer just Abraham's princess, but now she becomes princess of the new people of God.

All right.

So the name indicates two things. She's completed in grace, hence free from sin. And this has a permanent aspect to it.

Isn't it odd? No one ever used that as a name in the New Testament. None of the apostles ever glommed on to that. In fact, isn't it odd that there were so many early church fathers who believed that Mary had sinned and fought and did?

I guess they didn't see this. It's very clear, evidently, sole ecclesia.

Now, the second part of your question, many will bring up the fact that Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 uses the have been saved. And they will say, well, doesn't that mean then the person's time? And the answer is no.

If you look at the context of Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, initial grace of salvation that we receive in baptism.

OK, let's. If Mr. Staples had any idea what he was talking about here at all. Then he would note that, in fact, Ephesians 2, 8. The participle there is a paraphrastic construction. Now, I would love if somebody would show up at one of Mr. Staples talks and ask him to explain the paraphrastic construction.

And give some examples of different tense meanings resulting from the use of the finite verb and the participle and what those tense meanings were. I would imagine the response would be one for the ages, to be perfectly honest with you.

But then what we really get is, well, actually, Paul's talking here about the baptism. I seem to have missed that in the context. Here, folks, is what happens when you have an external system determining what you see in the text.

It's called eisegesis and Mr. Staples is practicing it to the nth degree here.

And how do we know that? We'll just read the first set talking about how we were dead in trespasses and sin. And then, by grace, you have been saved. Perfect tense. Now, when we are saved in baptism, absolutely, we are perfected in grace.

My little baby boy here, Timmy Jr., is perfected in grace. He was baptized a couple of months ago. He's four months old. He's perfected in grace. However, Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 is not a name.

There is no guarantee in that text that you're going to remain that way.

And that's the key difference between Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 and Luke 1, 28. Mary is named full of grace. That indicates permanent. When we are baptized, we are saved in a completed stay that way.

Well, not only do you have wonderful human-centered salvation there, but you have really, I don't get any sense whatsoever that Mr. Staples has seriously interacted with almost any kind of refutation of that perspective.

I discussed, not Staples, but Carl Keating, who makes similar wild claims for Cacare Temene in the Roman Catholic controversy beginning on page 201. And I pointed out at that point in time, Keating had alleged that the Greek indicates a perfection of grace.

And yet, that is, as I've pointed out, a simplistic and untrue summary of the situation. And I point out a number of other places where perfect passive participles appear. For example, in Matthew 25, 34,.

Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Now, upon what basis could Tim Staples argue that I would be wrong to say,. Well, here you've got this particular text. Let me give it to you again. Matthew 25, 34.

I'm going to bring it up here in Bible work 6 .0, which you can purchase at Alpha Omega. 25, 34. Thank you. And so here you have eulogio being used in a perfect passive participle. And why can I not argue that this indicates a perfection of blessing?

Come, you who have been completed in blessing by the Father. Inherit the kingdom. It's even in the context of inheriting the kingdom. So why can't we do that? Well, because Rome hasn't said so. Because, see, that's what determines Tim Staples' interpretation.

We have 1 Thessalonians 1, 4. Knowing, brethren, be loved by God. There's another excellent one. Completed in love. 2 Thessalonians 2, 13. But we shall always give thanks to God for you, brethren. Be loved by the Lord.

And that's in the context of eternal election. So there has been a completion in love. And these are all names now.

Why not?

I mean, we weren't given any reason why we should view these as names. It's just, well, if it's about Mary, then everything is fair when it comes to Mary. Well, obviously that's not the case, but that's what we have going on.

And, you know, people look at that and go, wow, that's just, wow, I never thought of that. That's awesome.

That's incredible.

It's not really any of those things. It's not awesome or incredible or any of that stuff. We continue on with another call.

Praying to Saints, Revelation, and the Meaning of Death

Yeah, I did.

Oh, by the way, I have no idea. It sounded like, what is that? It sounded like a cop car started up right next to this guy. There's some odd noise in the background here. Try to ignore them.

Yeah, I did. I was visiting a Christian store.

Maybe it's a heresy alert.

The guy who was running the store, I noticed, had a bunch of his Catholic books in the cult section. So I engaged him in some conversation, and one of the things he kept going back to was, you can't pray to Mary and the saints.

They're dead. And so I tried talking to him about Moses and Elijah coming back and showing some scriptural references that way.

Moses and Elijah coming back. I don't remember Peter praying to them. I must have missed it.

Is there anything in the Bible that helps us to establish that relationship to where we can interact between the saints?

What about the book of Revelation, which is so clear in terms of the bowls of incense being filled with the prayers of the saints?

Oh, absolutely.

Absolutely. Remember this one, folks? If you remember both the debate with Patrick Madrid, and then this also came up during the debate with Mitchell Pacwa on the subject of the priesthood. We've gone over these in some of the debates, but keep that in mind.

I would recommend several. In Revelation 6, verse 9, the Scripture says the martyrs who had, obviously, they are martyrs, they're dead. In the earth there, in Revelation 6, 9.

Let's look at some of these passages. Revelation 6, 9. When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained.

And they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

Hmm.

Now, that doesn't sound like what Mr. Staples just said. Let me replay that and see if that makes any sense.

Fine. The Scripture says the martyrs who had, obviously, they are martyrs, they're dead, praying for what's going on in the earth there in Revelation 6, 9.

Really?

Hmm. 6, 9 doesn't say that. And 6, 10 says they cried out with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

That doesn't sound the same thing as what Tim Staples is saying. That's why you always need to look them up.

6, 9 are mentioned. And what are they doing? These are human beings. They're in heaven. And the Scripture says each one of them have golden hearts.

Of the saints.

Of the saints. And they're taking them to God.

Isn't it interesting that Mitchell Pacwa agreed with me in our debate that these elders are actually heavenly beings? Where does he get that these are human beings? He doesn't bother to say. It's just his ipsedixit.

And all I can see is not Revelation 8, 5. Revelation 8, 3. Another angel came and stood at the altar holding a golden censer. And much incense was given to him so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne.

It seems like the saints' prayers have gone to the presence of God. Not to anybody else. And the smoke of the incense with the prayer of the saints went up before God out of the angel's hand. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire of the altar and threw it out to the earth.

And there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. And there's nothing here. I guess he got the wrong reference again. That's a shame. But even I know it does appear that there is one place where the elders have these censers.

But what does that have to do with assuming that therefore somehow these prayers went to them? Upon what basis would you make that? I don't know. There's no reason to. But so far we're not doing too well with the book of Revelation.

Many others. Luke 20, 38, Jesus says, remember, very important, Jesus says, referring to those who have gone before us, he says, God is not the God of the dead but of the living. For all live unto him.

And one of my favorites is verse 35 -39. We need to understand this.

The Dead in Christ and the Prohibition of Contacting the Dead

Okay, now here's where, and what month was this? About, I don't know, a week or so ago, we had a Roman Catholic in channel. Actually we had a couple at one time. We had one that we call martyr. And we call him martyr because that's what he wants to be.

He wants to be a martyr. He just loves eventually getting kicked out of channel for misbehaving and that's, I don't know, I think he gets indulgences for that or something, I don't know. And very, very emotional.

Once you start pushing on any type of logical point, just explodes and it's really ugly. So anyway, he was in channel and we had an attorney in channel who remained nameless because, you know, attorneys, you know.

So the attorney, however, asked a perfect question. What's going on is the Roman Catholics are saying, well, they're not dead. They were saying exactly what Tim Staples and the host of the program here are saying.

Is that, well, all that stuff about not communicating with the dead is irrelevant here. Because saints are alive in God. Well, of course, to God, aren't they all? I mean, so that means that the prohibition of speaking to the dead is only for certain of the dead.

Or was it the prohibition of speaking to the dead in reference to us on earth, not making any comment about whether they are alive in heaven? Isn't it dead within the context of us communicating with someone who is no longer here on earth?

That seems to be the obvious meaning of the text. And so we were going around and around and our attorney friend came up with a perfect question. He said, what specifically makes the dead that you're not supposed to talk to different from the dead that you are allowed to talk to?

He couldn't get an answer to that for nothing because it would expose the entire double standards being used. See, they'll look at the passages and in the context of the dead, that is, from our perspective here on earth, they'll say, well, that's not relevant to us.

Because, yeah, we know that the saints are dead to us. We don't have contact with them. But we can still pray to them because they're alive in God's sight. So in other words, as long as someone is alive in God's sight, then it's okay.

It's okay to talk to them. You can no longer define what dead means, can you? And he couldn't. The guy couldn't. He eventually left channel because the question was just too clear. So here you're going to hear on a national program people using this double meaning, which basically means dead doesn't have any meaning at all.

And all the prohibitions against contacting the dead are irrelevant because everybody is alive to God, right? I mean, was Lazarus not alive to God? Didn't God know that Lazarus still existed down there in Hades?

And you can come up with any way around anything using this kind of reasoning. But we're going to hear it on Catholic Answers Live.

St. Paul says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress or famine or nakedness or peril or sorrow? Nay, in all these things, I'm skipping a couple of verses, we are more than conquerors through him who has loved us.

For I'm persuaded that neither death, nor light, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

If you can get that point across that, look, we are members of the body of Christ.

Wow, what a complete misuse of Roman. Can you believe that?

Can you believe that?

How far can you twist a passage? We cannot be separated from the love of Christ. Therefore, you can pray to dead people. That's great.

And as such, we need one another. I need your prayers. I need the other members of the body, just as I need my hand, I need my feet, I need my legs. And as members of the body of Christ, we don't somehow get cut off from each other when we die.

No. In fact, if we die and go to heaven, we are more radically joined to Christ, and therefore, we're more radically joined to one another. So, of course, the saints in heaven, what are they going to be doing when Christ, according to Hebrews 7, verses 24 and 25, the scripture says, he ever liveth to make intercession for us.

What do you think the saints are going to do?

Check this out now.

Gee, you know, Jesus is sitting over there praying. I wish we could pray, but I guess we can't. No, they're going to be doing what Jesus is doing.

Did you hear that?

Again, it's just like, wow.

You know, remember last time we played the clip where Tim Staples was talking about how he could quote half the New Testament as a Protestant, but it was only once he became a Roman Catholic that it was a whole new world that opened up.

No kidding.

Yeah, a whole new world of no longer having to be concerned at all about the issue of context or original meaning or anything else. That is just absolutely positive.

Oh, look, there's Jesus over there. He's praying.

I wish we could do that.

Wow. Tim, one thing I never understood being a cradle Catholic and when I really started to study the faith, I never had a problem with that because we believe in everlasting life. If you believe in Jesus, if you believe in everlasting life, my response to some of my Protestant friends has been, well, if you say they're dead, then you don't believe in everlasting life because if we believe in God and we accept Him, then we're going to have life everlasting.

So are you dead or are you alive in Christ Jesus?

So there it is. That's what we talked about before. So, well, if they've got eternal life, then there's no such thing as death.

Context, context, context.

The difference between dead to us. I can't talk to President Reagan. He's gone. There's a context issue here, but it's just completely whatever.

I think one of the biggest problems is they will take text of Scripture from Ecclesiastes chapter 9 and some of the thoughts that talk about the dead not having anything to do with us.

They don't know.

And they're taking Old Testament passages because, as we know, as Catholics in the Old Testament, they didn't have, they could not have the beatific vision.

That's odd.

I wonder why they then use 2 Maccabees about purgatory.

So they did not have the illumination that the saints have now. The only way the saints in the Old Testament could be involved with us is by a particular revelation given to them by God, and we see examples of that in Maccabees.

Jeremiah and Onias, the high priest, and so forth. But now, given the incarnation, Christ, 1 Peter 3 .19 says, went down into Sheol, in Greek, the holding place, and he liberated those saints. Now they have the beatific vision, and they are able to do more than you and I could ever imagine.

Have you noticed we haven't seen any New Testament examples of actually anybody praying to these folks? All the Revelation stuff fell apart, and any other passages were completely irrelevant, but that has not slowed down the steamroller train.

Don't let, those of you listening, don't let some of the talk about the limited abilities of Old Testament saints before the advent of Christ deter you from seeing the New Covenant revelation that we have, where the saints are clearly depicted in Revelation 5 .8 as having the power to take them to God.

Ah, now we have the dyslexia cleared up, and we have Revelation 5 .8, when he had taken the book, the four living creatures, and 24 elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which were the prayers of the saints.

Now, where does that say that the prayers of the saints were directed to them? Because in Revelation 8, they're at the altar, and they're directed to God. Well, again, the whole thing, obviously, is a wonderful example of why, despite all the times people say,.

Oh, you're wrong about that,.

Sola ecclesia, sola ecclesia. That is what drives this kind of interpretation. Now, the next person called up, and it was very interesting what they had to say.

I'd like to ask a question related to the last question. If death is the separation of the body from the soul, as one Protestant said to me, then how do we answer that? She said, you know, the definition of death here is separation of body and soul, so that's why you can't pray to saints.

Yeah, they're alive in Christ, but they're dead on earth.

Right, well, there's no reason to believe that if they were separated from their body, then they would not have cognitive abilities.

Well, yo, Tim, Tim, bro, you just fell off the bus again. He's not going to answer her question. She asked a perfectly good question, and that is, if we define death properly, the saints are dead from our perspective, and therefore we're not to communicate with them.

Well, there's nothing about that that says they can't communicate. That wasn't her question, now was it?

In fact, our cognitive abilities reside in our souls, our intellect, and our will. We're creating the image and likeness of God. We have a spiritual nature, and therefore that spiritual nature, which includes our intellect and our will, will live on after we die.

So there's absolutely no reason, philosophically speaking, metaphysically speaking, to say that separation from soul and body means you can't think anymore.

Wow, talk about answering a question that nobody ever thought of asking.

Absolutely not.

So when contacting the dead is prohibited, that means contacting those who are dead in Christ. Yep.

Now see, I interpreted her correctly. I suppose someone could argue that Mr. Staples didn't. But the fact remains, she's asking, how do we respond to the biblical definition of death? And his response had nothing to do with it at all.

They're talking about witchcraft and sorcery, and our faith also prohibits that, talking about asking for the intercession.

Absolutely, that's a great point that you brought up. Deuteronomy 18 .10 is that reference there, and it clearly references sorcerers and witches and so forth.

Fortune tellers.

So in other words, what we've got going on here is we can't contact the bad dead, but we can contact the good dead, who aren't really dead, see. The only dead dead are the bad dead, but they're not really dead because they can still communicate, see.

And, ah, man. Wonderful examples of what happens when the Bible isn't your source. The Bible is not the source of Roman Catholic theology. It's this tradition that has developed over time. One more, 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, if you would like to comment on anything we've played over the past hour and a half now of the program, because we started back on Tuesday morning with a little bit of Bill Maher and his hatred of religion, and then we continued on with the discussion of John chapter 8, and it was interesting, we had at least one Roman Catholic in channel who agreed with the synergistic reading of Romans, did I say Romans 8?

John chapter 8, verses 40 through 47, it bopped back to John 6 for a while, and then we've been dealing with Mr. Staples ever since that particular point in time. If you'd like to get in touch with us, 877, it is toll free for those of you pinching pennies these days, so you can fill up your gas tank, 877 -753 -3341.

I don't mind, you know, if the gas prices just go completely to the ceiling, at least I have a motorcycle, and I figure there's going to be a lot more motorcycles on the road before long. Of course, mine's a fairly large motorcycle, and when I was down in Brazil, I discovered that all the motorcycles down there, the biggest one I ever saw was like a 175, and mine's a little bit larger than that, like about 10 times larger, but anyway, there'll be more motorcycles on the road, and we tend to, I've never had a close call with a motorcycle when I've been on a motorcycle, because we see each other, we look for each other.

It's all you other folks who ain't looking for us that we have to dodge out of the way. Anyway, this next call was very, very interesting. It was right toward the end of the hour, and this is the one I hadn't come up with last time around, so it's sort of work that we did this particular dividing line, and here a caller's talking about Hank Hanegraaff and the Bible Answer Man broadcast, which is ironic, and he's basically saying, can't we get somebody on there to debate Hank Hanegraaff on Roman Catholicism?

And so Tim starts talking about the five hours that he and I have been on Bible Answer Man, and he makes some very interesting comments in the process, so let's go ahead and listen to this and take earphone calls.

We already have one person online at 877 -753 -3341. Let's listen to the last clip here.

I listen to Hank Hanegraaff. He's a Catholic, ex-Catholic, Protestant, always asking the same question, did Mary have kids, and is she a sinner? And his line is always, yes, she was a sinner, and yes, she had kids.

So my suggestion was, is there any apologist, would he be willing, or any other Catholic apologist be willing to sit with him and at least give their biblical perspective and historical perspective? Because it hits me to the core of my being when I hear him say that, especially when Catholics listen to him and say, oh, good, yeah, he confirms this, and they accept that as gospel.

Oh, yeah. Well, I tell you, I've been on his broadcast. We did five hours. Back in 1996, I did two broadcasts with him. We actually taped them both at once, and they were run two days in a row. And then back in 2000, I was on for three hours, and it was a blast.

One deal, it was James White and Hank Hanegraaff.

You had both of them? James White, oh, my goodness.

Oh, my goodness.

It was a blast.

I've got to play that one again. Check out, you can tell that the host is sort of sitting back, and she isn't up to her microphone. Check this out.

You had both of them? James White, oh, my goodness.

I've got to turn that into a wave file for the channel.

Oh, my goodness.

Well, you know, you all probably, those of you who've listened, might want to remember that what Tim kept trying to do was he kept trying to make it, he kept trying to divide Hank and I up. He kept throwing out the free will stuff.

And this is in 2000, and Hank had not yet grabbed onto libertarianism with the zeal that he now has grabbed onto it with. And so Hank wouldn't go there. And he just kept trying and trying and trying and couldn't get there, just couldn't get that to work.

So it was sort of funny.

You had both of them? James White, oh, my goodness.

But it was a blast. And, boy, any time, if he ever gives me a call, I'll be there in a heartbeat. I think it's wonderful. Any time anybody wants me to come on any broadcast, I am always ready to go. I think Hank, having sat down with him just a couple of times, I think he's a good man, not real learned theologically.

I don't think he has the background. But I appreciate him. I found him to be a likable person. And I hope that I will be invited back sometime to be on that broadcast again.