BAPTISM DEBATE REVIEW | w/ Trey Fisher @theparishreformed

The Apologetic Dog

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Hello and welcome to another episode at The Apologetic Dog where it's our heart's desire to contend for the gospel of grace.

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My name is Jeremiah Nortier and if you see in the Apologetics logo there, you see 1 Timothy 6 .20, where Paul is telling

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Timothy and all Christians to guard the gospel deposit that's been entrusted to you.

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We do this by avoiding irreverent babble, pagan philosophy, and we avoid contradictions that falsely call themselves knowledge.

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I also serve as a pastor and elder at 12 .5 Church here in Jonesboro, Arkansas. And so I'd love to meet you.

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If you're ever in the Northeast Arkansas area, please search us out. 12 .5 comes from Romans 12, verse five.

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That's a reference to the church body where all the saints, we are called to be one together in the body of Christ.

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So today is a very special episode because I had to call the Fishbone. You out there?

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Oh, woof. Come on with it, come on with it. Hey, what about it? Hi, you're welcome. What about it? I gave you a Michael J.

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Fox eyesore. Cause you know, he called me, he wanted to debate me. I was like, dude, you got to get in line. Got a lot going on.

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We're building a church building, married five kids, but I know somebody who loves to debate and he goes by the dog.

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And so at first he was like, no, I want to, I was like, no, you want the dog. And so he got the dog. I don't think he wants the dog no more.

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Hey, Trey, me, Mike and his son, Jake, they seem to really enjoy 12 .5.

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We're able to meet them with hospitality, show them around a little bit. And they were solid guys.

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We honestly had a really good time. And I hope, hopefully when they left, they were like, you know what, Jeremiah, Nathan Hargrave, those guys were super kind, hospitable.

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And they're not afraid to talk about hard truths, not only in debate, but you know, even in our side conversations, like when we were laughing and joking and having fun, we were able to say like, hey, we understand the gospel differently.

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And these aren't just, you know, flip it matters. And we were able to kind of remind them like, we see this as an evangelism, right?

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Knowing that God's word never returns empty. And there was just respectful disagreement on who man is in light of who

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God is and how he works all things together. So all in all, Trey, we had a blast. Well, I only,

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I've talked to him twice, I think, maybe once or I think twice, Zoom call, good ones.

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Did he say anything nice about me? You know, he did bring you up one time.

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And yes, he had some interesting thoughts about the fishbone.

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And he let me know that he thought you and I were very different. And you know, he knows a little bit about your history.

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So he says, I just let him know that, you know, we all have a history, we all have done things that either we're proud of, or we would do differently.

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And how I'm not really wanting, you know, our interaction to be solely, you know, based around you.

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And he understood that. So it's not like he was trying to take any cheap shots, I thought. So I'm glad he didn't trash you over the phone.

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Not too bad, huh? So he knew some things about me. What does he know about me? So what was the church that you came out of when you were

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COC? White's Ferry. Yeah, I think he knows some people that went there and things like that.

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And so I just let him know that, hey, today is the, yeah.

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There's an interesting, you know, I'm talking to Aaron Gallagher, and he does a show saying, and then I get texts and stuff from people around the country saying the things that he's saying that leaders from there have reached out to him and told him all these horrible things, who

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I am. And now Mike Hysall is doing the same thing. I'm like, come on guys, let's be Christians and let's not gossip and slander.

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We can talk about, look, it's just sad. It's sad, I hate that for him, but whatever.

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I will say, Hysall, I let him know I didn't want to say anything negative.

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So don't know if he was trying to, but he just let me know that he knew a lot of people that you used to know. And I told him, hey,

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Trey will not back down from anybody. He would love to have conversations. And the fishbone gives his number out to anybody.

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So I just let him know that. I'll meet with anybody, they don't want to meet though. I just want to slander.

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You should have heard, I heard some crazy stuff last week about me. I had to go and confront that. Absolutely horrible, but whatever.

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Well, let's talk about Hysall. Let's talk about this debate. Yeah, I just want to remind our audience that. Adam Carmichael, what's up?

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Adam Carmichael. Yeah, so if you're tuned into the Apologetic Dog, if you've ever profited from this ministry, from Trey's ministry, or 12

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Five, the Apologetic Dog, please like and subscribe. If you've not already done that, it's amazing,

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Trey. When you look at the statistics, barely anyone subscribes these days. And I'm like, I need you. So, and what's amazing is if you share it,

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YouTube is like, oh, this content is shareable. So definitely do that. Like I said, if you appreciate the ministry, this allows me to be able to pump out more content out there, especially with the fishbone.

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And Trey, I don't know if you caught it, but it don't mean that. It don't mean that. Hey, Romans 5, 1, don't mean that.

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Romans 4, 5, don't mean that. It don't mean that. We're justified by faith, but it don't mean that. It doesn't mean that. Different things.

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So Trey, I have you on today to do a little bit of a debate review. Love to hear the fishbone's thoughts about various parts in the debate.

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And I want to encourage the audience. Share your comments if you have questions. We'd like to tackle a few of those along the way.

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Just want to acknowledge, my arch nemesis is in the chat, an unapologetic cat,

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Trey. What do you think about that? There's a whole farm of us, apparently. That's crazy, the unapologetic cat. That's awesome.

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Who is that? You know who it is? I have no idea. I love it. I love it, too.

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I just want to thank you all for joining us. We have a pretty lively chat so far.

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Oh, someone gave us a thumbs down. Why? I hope that wasn't Mike Haisal. That's right,

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Jake. That's okay. We love you, fellas. Stephen Reeves, love the dog, keep barking.

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Woof, woof, that's what I'm talking about. All right, Trey, you ready to dive in, sir? Come on, let's go.

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Got some clips, and so they're not super long, but try to chop them up. But Trey, you know what people are gonna do?

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Oh, Jeremiah, you took Mike out of context. Let him finish a whole thought. That's why, look, when

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I've been doing this, the ones I've been doing, I've been showing the whole sermon. Don't take that context. So go ahead, let's get some more of that context.

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I want to encourage people, if you haven't seen the debate, flow over to my channel. It's the first video that you see when you go to the apologetic dog.

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And Trey, it has over 2 ,000 views, man. Been pretty awesome. That's awesome. So I want to play this first clip.

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I believe Mike is making a point in his opening statement. Notice what

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Peter says. Peter says to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, or as it's translated in the

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New Revised Standard Version, so that your sins may be forgiven. And you shall receive the gift of the

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Holy Spirit for the promises to you and to your children and to all that are far off, even as many as the

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Lord our God shall call unto Him. Now, I think that it's almost as instructive to consider what

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Peter doesn't say as what it is to consider what Peter does say. Notice that Peter does not say to those who ask him, what must we do?

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He doesn't say, well, there's nothing that you need to do. Because the fact that you are cut to the heart and you're crying out before God, that shows that God has already worked a heart change in you.

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That shows that you already believe in Him. And there's nothing that you have to do to have your sins forgiven because God has sovereignly wrought forgiveness for you.

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That's not what Peter says. All right, Trey, unleash, man.

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What do you think about that? Did he characterize our position when he said that's not what the text says? No, no, this is just your typical

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Church of Christ stuff. It's, if we're gonna do the whole, like, this is why I love doing with them, is they look at you like you're an idiot, right?

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And like, people are just crazy. Like, look, it says what it says. Just do what it says to do. I mean, how hard is it?

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This is the first sermon ever given. Just do what it says. But I'm like, but wait a second.

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I don't think that's fair because you don't do what it says. It says to repent, be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.

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But you baptize people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Why don't you just do what it says? Who makes you the arbiter of when you can stop, you know, explaining what the text is saying, right?

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Why do you get to do that but you let no one else? It's just their double standard of the typical Church of Christ double standard where they just don't allow anyone else to explain the text except them, right?

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So what's your take? And I'll add on to whatever you got. Yeah, so I may end up replaying a little bit because he says the text doesn't say that God sovereignly works forgiveness of sins into your heart and you don't have to do anything.

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So this is where, in my opening statement, I defined six different terms because people a lot of times think the

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Reformed position is, the people ask what must we do and we are saying nothing.

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And I'm over here saying you can obey a command but it doesn't have to always be with your works.

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And so what I see in Acts 2 38 is two imperatives, repent and be baptized.

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And I would argue repent is not a work. And so I do believe one has to repent, one has to believe, but that's not by your working.

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This has to come inwardly from the heart. And we do say that no one seeks

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God. So God has to do a miracle in the heart for someone to repent and believe the gospel.

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But it's misrepresenting us when we say our position is, well, you don't have to do anything.

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We are saying, yeah, you can add your works to the finished work of Jesus, but what must you do to be saved?

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Repent and believe the gospel. And that's not a call to action in terms of your works. This is a response from the heart, recognizing that you couldn't possibly do anything to be reconciled by your works.

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So that's what I was kind of thinking when I heard this part. Already, he doesn't understand the reform perspective.

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Like Abraham, he did the only work that you can do that doesn't require work, and that's believe.

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This is where, when we get into like John 6, yeah, and we're over here saying, yeah, a work of God means exactly that, that it's

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God doing the work, doing the miracle. But tell me this, Trey, does the work of God in the

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COC world, doesn't it typically, isn't that code for your obedience to be doing the working of God?

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And they mean baptism, they mean repent, confess. These are all the works of God.

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And I'm saying, no, no, no, that's code for your obedience. Look, and he brings up some stuff.

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Hopefully we'll go over it in this review. But he brings up some stuff that we've always said, and it's two things we've always said.

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Church of Christ is just Roman light, minus all the pomp and circumstance, it's Roman Catholicism.

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And it's also Judaism. It's the Judaizers. It's saying, you're taking grace and you're turning it back into law.

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You're taking gospel and you're turning it back into law because you're putting these works on it. And I promise you,

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I'm gonna show it to you in just a second, that he's doing, and not just him, the

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Church of Christ is doing exactly what they did all the way back in the first century when Paul is talking to them in Romans four.

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And you know what's crazy is, I think you did something you don't even realize you did. You did exactly what Paul did in Romans four.

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So if you don't get to it, if you don't have that clip, I'll make sure you bring it up so we can discuss it, because I do have a note on that.

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We have a request to boost Trey's sound. So I don't know if you can do anything on your end.

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Come on, dude, boost me up. I'll try to boost you. I see what I can do. Okay, I have a question from Carl Henry.

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Carl, you better not be one of the people that did thumbs down, because I actually enjoy our conversations.

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Carl is on the other side of the aisle in this conversation, but he asked

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Jeremiah and Trey, honest question, is there any doctrine issue where you must go to Koine, Greek, to fully understand the doctoral position?

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I can think of an example. So I don't want Carl to think that appealing to the

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Greek is bad. I think it's great, and I actually commend, this is the thing, Carl, I commend

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Mike for going to the Greek in Acts 2 .38. This was new, this was refreshing. We have another friend out there, old

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T .T. You would never in a million years see Travis Thomas go to the

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Greek, appeal to the book of Sirach, deny Mark 16 .16, and so listen,

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I am a kind of fan of Mike Hysaul. I shook that man's hand at the end, and you know what

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I told him, Trey? I said, hey, do you care if I give you a hug? And he said, absolutely. Man, I hugged that man. I was just like, this was enjoyable.

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I feel like, hey, let God be true, and every man a liar. The debate, let it go forth, and let

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God be glorified, you know what I mean? So I can think of one example where I appeal to the Greek to make my case.

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There are many verses that talk about, for God so loved the world, or God desires that all men be saved.

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I'll be the first to say, when you look at the Greek word pas, or cosmos, context gets to determine which usage and definition of those words we go with.

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So I don't, I don't want, and Carl knows me, I mean, this is actually a good question is, our

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Bibles were not written in 1611 Elizabethan English, you know what I mean? Like, it was written in the original languages,

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Koine Greek, and it was written in Hebrew, which has been translated into the

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Septuagint. You know, there's a Greek rendering of the Hebrew. So I think it's a commendable endeavor to go back to the original languages.

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What about you, Trey? Yeah, here's my take on it, because I'm just a redneck, you know?

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I don't think we need the Greek to understand this stuff. I don't use the Greek when I'm teaching stuff. I mean, I think, you know, sometimes you can point words out.

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When I use the Greek, and get down and dirty with the Greek, is when someone's trying to change the definitions of words.

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Then I'm like, okay, now let's get into the Greek. Now you might want to understand what propitiation means, because if you, like you mentioned, you know, all people, whatever the case is, you might want to understand, you know, it's not a typical word we use, so we might need to know what propitiation means.

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The other thing, even when you're reading about the world, and John, I don't even necessarily think you need a lexicon to understand what the

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Greek is there, because when, you know, it's just context, period. Just read the text, and read it slowly, and get the context.

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Like when the Pharisees look at Jesus, and he has a big crowd following him, and the

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Pharisee says, look, there's Jesus. The whole world is following him. Well, I don't need a lexicon to understand what that means, because I know this, the

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Pharisee who said that, he's not following him. The guy who's standing beside telling that to, he's not following him.

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I know that there was, like, Indians over here in America at that time, they weren't following him. So what's the context? Well, just a lot of people were following him, right?

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So I don't even need a lexicon for that. So, you know, it just depends on how deep you want to go into it, but typically, you don't need a lexicon until you rely on the people who change the definitions of words, like the word faith also means baptism.

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No, it doesn't. Oh, we're gonna get into that. And you know what, Trey? You know what the fishbone's gonna do?

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It's not gonna happen. Trey's gonna call you out and say, it don't mean that. It don't mean that.

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If you only knew how many times I heard that from Church of Christers. We were gonna make a show with the hashtag, it don't mean that.

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Yeah, so, yeah, Carl also said that the problem is you guys claim we believe things that we don't.

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Trey, have you ever heard someone say, you really don't know what the Church of Christ believe? Dude, listen to me.

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You know Aaron Gallagher's buddy who does those podcasts with him?

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I forget his name. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah. He actually came to Louisiana and came in my office, him and his wife, and he lied to me.

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He said that, anyway, that's another story or another time and whatever. But the deal is, he's telling me something,

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I'm explaining something to him. He's saying he's gonna speak on 1 John. I said, I don't know. He's like, well, how are you gonna speak on 1 John? He wants to talk about security or salvation.

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I'm like, dude, you have no security. He said, yeah, we do. I said, no, it's all based on your efforts, it's based on your works.

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He said, no, it's not, come hear me tonight. And then he said he wants to talk to me afterwards and ask questions.

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I'm like, okay, if you let him know that you invited me, right? So we go and he doesn't ask questions, he doesn't talk to me and our associate pastor who went with me.

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Just straight up lie. He just wanted me to go just to hear his works based deal because the whole thing was based on what you do. So in the meeting anyway, when he was at the office, he was saying something and I started answering.

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He's like, no, no, no. And I looked at his wife. I said, look, excuse me, let me just say this real quick. It's just funny to me that I went to a

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Church Christ family my whole life, went to a Church Christ high school. You don't know what they believe,

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Trey. I was in the Church Christ for 18 years, met my wife at Harding University, but yet I don't know what they teach.

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I'm like, oh my goodness. I mean, is that just like a get out of jail free card? You just get to say, well, you don't know what we really believe.

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It's just, but I mean, that's what they always say. And then they start slandering and say, that I did this and I did that.

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Just because if you hate the message, you have to attack the messenger. It's the same thing they did to Jesus and Paul and everybody else.

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And then they start telling people all around the country that, oh, I know him. No, you don't, whatever.

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So this is what I'm talking about. Carl said, you said that you must be baptized by elder.

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I don't even, I don't even know what he's talking about. I mean,

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I've never said that. Show me a screenshot. And he seems like he's backing away a little bit here saying there's much more, but I'm kind of limited here.

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Yeah. Okay. Well, here's the thing, Carl. Here's what I'd ask. Carl, don't be so like legalistic.

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Even if he did, maybe he said like, you believe you have to be baptized by like, maybe an elder. I mean, take the context of what he says.

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Like, I promise you, Jeremiah doesn't believe that in order to be a Christian, that the church of Christ believe you have to be baptized by an elder.

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Now, there are some church of Christ that do believe that you have to be baptized by someone in the church of Christ to do that, but not everybody.

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But just be, just be gracious and have a conversation with people. You know, I'm sure you've said things and misspoke in some ways that you didn't mean.

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So maybe you caught him one time, right? But that's, this is the, I mean, this is always like with them.

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Yeah. No, I appreciate that. Hey, we got Paul Day in the building. Let's see what, let's see what

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Paul has to say. Jeremiah, Paul doesn't know anything about the church of Christ. He doesn't know what they really do. Oh, say it ain't so.

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Paul, thanks so much for tuning in, man. Still working on my, my

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Ecamm features. Is that a good picture of Paul or what? I did not know Paul was a model. He's a model.

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Paul Day. So let's see what Paul's saying here. To quote the famous COC debater,

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Pat, we don't have much assurance, but the Calvinist doesn't have any. That's good.

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Well, hey, as more and more people are tuning in, I just want to remind everybody, please like and subscribe and share the content.

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And let me cue up our second clip. You ready, Trey? Bring it. We see the how and we see the when of forgiveness of sins.

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And remember Acts 13, 38 and 39, forgiveness of sins and justification, one and the same thing.

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The how of the forgiveness of sins is the blood of Christ. It's not baptism. It's the blood of Christ.

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There is no merit in baptism. Physical water cannot wash away spiritual guilt.

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The how of forgiveness is the blood of Christ. But the when of forgiveness is water baptism.

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Why? Because Jesus commanded it. Because Jesus has connected water baptism and his blood.

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All right, Fishbone. Don't get me, look, the how and the when is the same. The how and the when is the same.

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So your how and your when is water baptism. Our how and our when is the blood of Jesus Christ, period.

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Done at the cross, over with, right? Trey, Trey, you gotta have your past sins washed away in the water.

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That's where you contact the blood. Yeah, that's Romans 3. It's contacted and received by faith, the blood of Jesus Christ.

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There's a little verse in the Bible that says that you contact the blood of Jesus in the watery graves of baptism. It's just not there as bad as they want it to be there.

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It is right here, though, right? Yeah, let me read this verse and you share with me your thoughts because we kinda start with that there's no distinction between Jew and Gentile for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by his blood. Listen, Trey, here's where you're about to come in contact with the blood.

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To be received by baptism. Oh, sorry, sorry, it said faith.

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It said faith, my bad. But here's the deal. This is when we gotta get the Greek out because then they change the definition of faith to also mean baptism.

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You see, this is where we need the Greek out sometimes. So that's a good point because Roman Catholics do the same thing.

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They will change pistis, faith, into faithfulness. And when you look up, that's the subtlety.

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It's not a human work, Trey. It's your obedience. It's the work of God. And Rome will redefine faith into faithfulness.

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It's not your works. And so it's just kind of the waving of the hand. And Leanne Ferguson's book.

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Hey, did you ever watch my? We did that the same time. Did we plan this?

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No, I was just gonna say how I love the point that she makes is that Rome, like we said,

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Church of Christ is like the little cousin, the little dirty cousin of Roman Catholics, that Rome's blood, you contact it in some liquid, which is the

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Eucharist, right? When you take the Lord's Supper, when you drink the wine, that's where you contact the blood of Jesus every Sunday. And they continue to sacrifice him over and over and over and over again to come into contact with that blood.

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And you know what the Church of Christ does? They say you come in contact with the blood in another liquid, water. And guess what? This is the problem with the

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Church of Christ. I had a man in the Church of Christ come to my office who actually went to the church

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I used to go to. This was five, six months ago. Struggling with something.

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We're talking, I told him, I said, look, you don't know the gospel and you just don't. And I'd like to share with you.

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So we get to talking and I asked him, I said, when did you become a

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Christian? When did you come into the contact of the blood of Christ? When was that applied to you, right? He said, well, when I died with Christ in baptism.

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I said, okay, when was that? And he named the year, right? And I said, what about this guy? When do you think he died with Christ?

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Well, in his baptism. Okay, what about that one? When did he die with Christ? Well, he died with Christ in 1988 at his baptism, you know, somewhere back then.

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I said, do you see what you're doing? He said, no. I said, how many times has Christ died? He said, once.

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I said, right, once for all percents, right? Yeah. Well, you see what you're doing is you are crucifying

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Christ every time somebody is baptized. So you think baptism in your baptism, that Christ dies with you.

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That's what you really think. And then Christ died with Jeremiah at his baptism. Christ died with Mike at his baptism. Christ died with Billy at his baptism.

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No, Christ died once. And if you read the text slowly, it says you died with Christ. He didn't die with you.

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As Christians, because of propitiation and because of the atonement, right, the penal substitutionary atonement that he died in our place.

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So in the eyes of God, when Christ died, I died. When he was buried, I was buried. When he was risen from the dead, I was risen from the dead in the eyes of God because he was our substitute.

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And so that's what it means to die with Christ 2000 years ago in Calvary. We don't crucify Christ every time somebody gets in the water just like Roman Catholics.

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We don't crucify Christ every time we take the Lord's Supper either. Does that make sense? When you were in the

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Church of Christ, though, I mean, you told me you were blinded from it, but what do you think the

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Church of Christ here when you bring up that point that you're basically re -crucifying Jesus every time if you're causing him to go back into the watery grave?

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Yeah, that blood's in that water's in that water's in that water. And it's every time somebody gets baptized, that's where they're contacting the blood.

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Now, the blood is to be received by faith. It was a propitiation by his blood at the cross.

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And he died in our place. It's substitutionary atonement. So I don't think they think anything like it breaks my heart for them because they don't know.

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And they really they just don't know. They have leaders who don't know. They don't understand it and they don't believe it. And so these people are just raised in it.

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And they just it's just such a common sense type religion. You know, it's so it's very

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Americanized, which started in America in 1811 in Kentucky. So it's just this, you know, look, if you can't if you want to be pretty, then you better go work out, eat right, and in the end, you'll be pretty.

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If you want to be smart, then go to school, work hard, do all your grades, go to college and work hard. And then one day you'll be smart.

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And guess what? If you want to be a Christian, go to church every Sunday, every Wednesday, do this, this and this. And once you do all these things, then you'll become a

31:55

Christian. If you want to be saved, keep doing these things. It's just this work -based whole thing is works -based. That's right.

32:01

They're not thinking that way. They're not. They're not like, I just want to say, they're not consciously thinking that. Now your best friend,

32:08

Orange Oaky, says this is nonsense. I think he's meaning we don't actually teach that. So do the

32:13

Church of Christ actually teach that they're re -crucifying Jesus' blood into the water of grace for baptism?

32:20

So it's not that we're saying. Yeah, yeah. That's the whole point. We're saying this is the logical entailment of re -crucifying

32:28

Christ. The way that Church of Christ treat baptism is akin to how Roman Catholics treat the

32:35

Eucharist. You can call it a sacrifice that's not bloody, but we're saying Jesus' once sacrifice was for all time, right?

32:45

So I appreciate you speaking that because there's other proof texts about the blood of Christ and your cousin,

32:53

T .T., never quotes from Romans 3 that we just talked about how it's to be received by faith.

32:59

And then as we're gonna see, Mike Hysall says, but Paul really is meaning faith to be a synecdoche.

33:05

He doesn't say that, but we know that they want to for baptism. Yeah, well, he says that faith is really baptism to Paul.

33:12

He believes that Paul means baptism when he says faith. Well, that's great that you believe that, but that's just, Paul knows what the definition of baptism is.

33:19

He says it, he writes it down. And when he's arrested, they knew that he knew Greek as well. So yeah,

33:25

I mean, I would say that, look, nobody in the Church of Christ is saying, hey, you want to get baptized? You want to go crucify

33:30

Christ again? Nobody says that because they're not thinking that. I mean, they're not, we don't understand. They don't even know what substitutionary atonement means for the most part, most of them.

33:40

So just not talking. I want to be kind to my friend Gavin James here, but he says another heavy -handed straw man.

33:49

So Gavin, I want to be charitable and say that I don't, we're not saying that you teach this.

33:54

We're saying it's a logical entailment. So that's different than a straw man. Now, if you can back up and tell us which premises that we actually say that you affirm, because we're saying, now tell us if this is a straw man.

34:06

I would be curious. Do you not believe that you contact the blood of Jesus in the watery graves of baptism?

34:14

Now, if you don't believe that, then you could actually charge us of a straw man argument, but we're trying to take it to its logical conclusion and extension.

34:23

So you can't call that a straw, you can deny our conclusion, but you can't call it a straw man.

34:30

So as Gavin - You can deny the conclusion, but it's true. I mean, this is what they would even say about Roman Catholics, why they're wrong is because they're saying this is really the blood of Christ and it's at the

34:40

Eucharist and this is, but they would be like, well, we're not saying it's really water. Well, then if it's not really in the water, then you're not really contacting the blood of Christ in the water.

34:49

I mean, you can't keep it both ways. I mean, you gotta either say it or don't say it, but this is one of their bad teachings.

34:58

This is not even biblical. I mean, there's nowhere in the Bible does it say that you contact the blood of Jesus at baptism.

35:04

All right, Trey, so we're talking about the blood being contacted in the water. Now, what the

35:10

Church of Christ now say is we're not meriting our salvation. Quit saying that we believe in works righteousness.

35:17

Let me show you where Mike Hysall seemed to not appreciate me bringing up the parable of the

35:24

Pharisee and the tax collector. But I do wanna start with something that he did say at the end, referring to Luke chapter 18 and verse one, or verse one, verse nine, where Jesus said that, or where Luke wrote that Jesus said to certain ones who were trusting upon themselves that they were righteous and were despising others this parable.

35:48

The idea that someone who believes that water baptism is necessary for justification means that someone who submits to water baptism under those terms is trusting upon themselves that they are righteous is something that is totally foreign to what

36:10

I preach. Hey, he don't preach that, Trey. He don't preach that.

36:18

No, this is the thing. Not explicitly. That's my whole argument.

36:25

So I wanna bring up the passage of the Pharisee and the tax collector because I wanna make a few points about this,

36:33

Trey, and I would love. Is my volume up? Gavin, can you hear me?

36:41

Oh, Leanne Ferguson, Leanne, did you see us promote your book both at the same time without even knowing it?

36:47

Did you actually see that? Oh yeah, I think she. That was so cool. She was laughing. She saw it. So here's the thing.

36:54

Jesus gives this parable. So we are in Luke chapter 18. So Mike said,

36:59

Jeremiah, I've never preached that you have to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and merit salvation.

37:06

And I'm over here like, kind of doing this like, you can't. You cannot explicitly say those words or you'll get booted out of your.

37:14

It happens to be Christianese. Yeah, and so you know who else said that they were holy men of God, being obedient, doing all of what

37:25

God has commanded them? The Pharisees. And they would not say, oh, we are working really, really hard in order to obtain heaven and righteousness.

37:36

But in this parable, the writer Luke tells us that Jesus sees the heart and he can tell us their true intentions.

37:44

And here's how you know someone's true intentions if they're trusting in their righteousness or not. If they believe your working participation in a ceremony is necessary.

37:55

You can tell me all day long that you don't believe that you are meriting it. And Trey, I wanna be charitable on one point.

38:02

I think it's possible for someone to call themselves Church of Christ, be taught wrongly like we're talking about, and then genuinely be trusting alone in Jesus Christ.

38:12

That's why we do these videos, because Christ's sheep hear the voice of the Good Shepherd and he would save them out of it.

38:19

And so verse nine here says, he told this parable to some, the Pharisees, who trusted that they were righteous.

38:28

You know what I mean? And that's the whole point of the debate. If you think your works are necessary, not just synecdoches and works of God is just code for your obedience.

38:37

We're saying anything that you get up and do, anything that falls under the domain of Ergon, or gods of mine, that cannot be added to your faith for justification.

38:49

If you affirm that, then we're saying, okay, this is a works righteousness gospel.

38:55

We can go to Titus 3 .5, we can go to Colossians 2 .12, and we can talk about the context of those things, but that's not going to undo the fact that you believe in a five -step formula with the last one being you must be baptized in order to get into Christ and contact his blood.

39:12

Sorry, I had to preach a little bit there. No, that's okay. Let me ask you this. Of course the Pharisee and the

39:17

Judaizers would not say, yes, we are working to merit our salvation. They would not say that, okay?

39:24

But let's just look at this cat. Let me turn this microphone up. Let's just look at this guy right here in Luke 18.

39:32

Two men went up to the temple, okay, to pray. One Pharisee and another tax collector.

39:39

The Pharisee standing beside himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other men.

39:45

Stop right there. What? Like, if I had to ask this

39:50

Pharisee or a church of Christ or Mike Hysall, hey, Mike, why are you not like other men? Why are you not like other men who are not saved?

40:00

If God doesn't get all the glory, yeah, there you go. I have an obedient faith. If it's not

40:05

God getting all the glory that he has done it, he has given me a new heart. He's given me a spirit. He has called me to his son,

40:10

Jesus Christ. He has paid for the price. He's given me the gift of faith. He's molding me by the

40:16

Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is sanctifying me. God's doing it all, right? If I don't have that understanding, who am

40:22

I like? God, thank you that I'm not like other men. Is it you? Are you the reason why you're not like other men or is it

40:30

God? Extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

40:36

See, like, why are you not like those people, Mr. Pharisee? If I had asked him, he would say, well, because I don't do this,

40:42

I don't do that, I don't do this. And then he says this in verse 12. I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get, right?

40:52

That's what, look what all the things I do. This is why I'm so glad I'm not like them who don't get baptized, who don't go to a

40:59

Church of Christ building on whatever street name it is called. I'm not like those people because I do this, this, and this.

41:07

Like, this is the verse that's really not fair when you bring this up to Mike. I mean, really,

41:13

I mean, he has no, there's no answer for this. I mean, he can word judo and do scripture gymnastics all he wants. You mean the question

41:18

I asked him later in the cross -sex? Yeah, yeah, because look, he goes, look, but the tax collector standing far off, he wouldn't even lift up his eyes, man.

41:26

You know why? Because he knew he was a broken sinner in the face of a holy God. And so when Mike Hysall gets these phone calls from my elders and teachers and people from White's Ferry Road and tells them how, what a sinful, horrible person

41:37

I am and how I've done this and that. Well, you know, it's always a little juicier when you get it secondhand because whoever tells this case first seems right until the other side's examined.

41:46

But listen, bro, that's biblical. That's Proverbs 18, by the way. When Aaron Gallagher gets phone calls from elders and teachers and leaders and people from White's Ferry Road and tells them,

41:55

I'm this, I'm this, I'm that, I'm that, don't listen to him, right? See, you have to attack the message. You have to attack the messenger if you hate the message.

42:03

And if the message is give God all the glory and you can do nothing apart from Jesus Christ, and if you really hate that message, then you can't attack that and still play the

42:11

Christian game, but you can attack the messenger so people don't listen to that message, right? But see,

42:17

I was a broken sinner. Thank God by His grace and by God's grace, He revealed to me how self -righteous, disgusting, sinful

42:23

I was. And I confessed my sins to everybody and He opened my heart and eyes and gave me faith.

42:29

And I was like, oh my gosh, you love a wretch like me? Amazing grace, how sweet the sound. Whatever I got yours, buddy, let's go, you know?

42:36

And this is what the tax collector says standing off. He said, look, look at his eyes, man, beat his breast saying,

42:42

God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I deserve nothing. I pray that you give me mercy because I don't deserve it.

42:49

That's it. We're done. We can shut it down. We don't even have to review anymore. Like this is, that's what it is.

42:56

And that's what he can't answer. And nobody in the church of Christ who believes that system. And what breaks my heart is there's so many good people in the church of Christ who

43:04

I do believe do love the Lord, but they are holding this work of heavy yoke of works on their shoulders and they're miserable, but they don't know any other way.

43:14

And I thank God that he's put, you know, he's called me and you to this because we've had hundreds and hundreds come to Christ and leave the church of Christ.

43:22

We've had seven preachers. One was 44 years of a preacher and he wants to do an exile with us.

43:27

But he was 44 years as a church of Christ preacher, but we've had seven of them leave. And I mean, it's amazing grace.

43:33

Only God can do that. I can't convince anybody. You can't convince anybody. Not at all, but the word of God will open your heart and set you free.

43:42

So that's what our prayer is. I'm not here to win debates. Yeah, real quick.

43:49

But I mean, I don't think that it's God that does it. Go ahead. You may go to your sure mic and turn up your gain a little bit, but people are hearing you better in the chat.

43:58

I just wanna echo a few things that you're saying because you know, the

44:04

Pharisees were legalistic. And you know, I already see Carl bringing up the fact,

44:11

I want you to respond to this, Trey. So he's saying the context of legalism and Colossians definitely in the gospels is not knowing the why on what you do in appealing to God, but it's in the context of full assurance of knowledge.

44:26

And I would say this misses the heart. This misses the heart. It's the Pharisees that obeyed the external works of the law but they miss the spirit of the law.

44:38

And that's what we're contending with the Church of Christ is it's about the heart. That's why God sees the heart. The Pharisees were justified before men and not before God.

44:48

So I don't know if you wanted to encourage Carl at all because he's a regular watcher and we've had our moments where I thought he never wanted to talk to me again and he let me know like, hey,

44:58

I'll keep tuning in. And I think he would like to meet me in person one day. He lives in Arkansas. And so I told him, absolutely, like, it's okay.

45:05

Go meet the dog. Go to the dog. Well, I'm glad you touched on that because...

45:12

So that was that section. I wanted to point out that when he says that right after he gets done with this section, he says this right here.

45:18

This is, I'm gonna quote, no one is water baptized believing that it's a condition for justification.

45:25

No one who is water baptized believing that that is a condition for justification thinks that they are being such good boys and such good little girls that they are meriting their justification before God.

45:39

Like, of course, you're not gonna say that. You can't say that. But look, he says, no, they all understand they are only doing that because Jesus commanded it.

45:49

And they are only doing it, relying wholly upon him and upon his death and upon his resurrection to save them.

45:55

See, you're not relying wholly on him to save you. You're relying on what he did and what you're doing.

46:02

Faith plus works. See, I mean, even in his explanation, he contradicted himself. Like, nobody goes and gets baptized because it's commanded and because we have to get baptized in order to be justified before God, made right before God.

46:16

Nobody thinks that we're doing it and meriting that. We're just doing it because he commanded us to do it because we truly, truly believe wholly with all of our heart that God saves us through Jesus Christ.

46:26

No, you don't. You believe it's Jesus plus you, that he's not the author and the perfecter of your faith.

46:32

He is the co -author and the co -perfecter of your faith. That's what you're really believing and teaching people. Yeah, well, this kind of brings us to the next clip where I was accused,

46:44

Trey, of just superimposing my systematic theology onto clear verses.

46:50

And you notice the different strategies of the debate, right? So when the thesis says water baptism is necessary for our justification before God, what's

46:59

Mike Hysall gonna do and the COC crowd? They're gonna go to all the baptismal proof texts, and I'm not gonna fault anyone for that that wants to defend it.

47:07

I would say that's the best strategy. Now, for us, I would say the best strategy is building a case on justification, and that is by faith apart from works.

47:18

And so I defined six key terms in order to make my case, and I referenced many verses along the way to show when you have the right foundation, when you know who

47:27

God is, when you know who man is, when you're equipped with these terms, then these verses are very easy to understand.

47:35

And so, yeah, I want you to tell me your thoughts on how the lid doesn't fit with my systematic theology.

47:42

Are y 'all like me? You've got a cabinet full of all these Tupperware containers and over time, you lose the lids, you don't know what lid goes with what, and so you get out a

47:51

Tupperware container and you look for a lid that matches and you put the lid on it and you push it down and it works except for one corner.

48:00

And I mean, you struggle, you just try to force it, you try to force it. Well, listen, if the lid doesn't fit over the whole lip of the container, it's the wrong lid.

48:12

If it won't go over one corner, it's the wrong lid. And I would suggest to you that the systematic theology that Jeremiah's using, it's the wrong lid.

48:22

You know, I'm not gonna fault him for this analogy. I was like, I may have to use this again one day.

48:29

I kind of liked it. Now, here's the thing though. Well, before you tell me why you didn't, let me tell you why

48:35

I didn't. Because this, I can easily use that illustration to illustrate that I think that's what he's doing.

48:44

Now, you know, I've been combating the full preterist world right over here in the deep south maybe.

48:50

And you know, they're guiding hermeneutic as 70 AD, 70 AD, Flavius Josephus, 70

48:55

AD, right? So they start there and everything gets reinterpreted in light of 70

49:00

AD. With the Church of Christ, and I'm gonna paint with a broad brush here, it's

49:07

Acts 2 .38 at all costs. We hang on to it at all costs, no matter what comes afterwards, no matter what comes beforehand.

49:14

And I can be accused of strawmanning, but I'm just saying like, you watch how fast somebody wants to go to Acts 2 .38,

49:20

and when you explain the context, they're gonna move on to another proof text. And so I would say that my systematic theology don't work because he's forcing

49:30

Acts 2 .38 to be understood by his tradition. So that's gonna affect the entirety of how he sees the scripture.

49:38

And I would actually argue he's going to disconnect from the Old Testament. That's all we're gonna see here in a little bit, a major discontinuity between how

49:47

Christians are justified and how Abraham was justified. Yeah. So here's what

49:52

I didn't like about it. Cause see, this is, you know, as bad as they want to say, convince themselves and everybody else of slanderous things.

50:01

And on top of that, I don't really know what the Church of Christ believes. Because it just reminds me of 2

50:07

Corinthians when Paul's going up against these super apostles, but in chapter 10, he says, look, we're gonna destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive, obey

50:17

Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. And he goes on down, talks about these super apostles, super apostles, they're coming in, these men, the orators, these great orators, and they're good at rhetoric, okay?

50:31

And they're twisting the things that Paul's teaching. They twist it just a little bit, right? And so then Paul goes on to defend himself.

50:37

And he says that, look, no wonder for even Satan disguised himself as an angel of light. I mean, think about it. Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.

50:44

If an angel of light walked in, you would think it was an angel of light. Nah, it could be Satan. So it's no surprise if his servants also disguised themselves as servants of righteousness, because these guys are twisting the gospel that Paul is preaching.

50:57

And everybody knows that Paul preached the gospel of grace through faith, period. Everybody knows this, except some

51:03

American folk religions that twist it, right? But when I think of that, I think of what rhetoric is, the art of effective and persuasive speaking or writing.

51:12

It's a language with persuasive or impressive effect, but often lacking sincerity or meaningful content.

51:19

And so it's a way that people do things. And so there are a lot of analogies and things like that to make their point.

51:24

So they're not gonna go to scriptures. They're gonna go to Tupperware. And then that makes sense to people. It's just, to me, it's, man, it's just, you're twisting

51:33

God's word. And that is a very serious, serious thing. And another thing is when he talks about systematic theology,

51:38

I think in that section, he talks about how I love systematic theology. I have nothing against systematic theology. I'm just like, would you show me your book?

51:45

Can you show me a Church of Christ systematic theology book? I don't know. I've never read one.

51:50

I don't know if there's a Church of Christ systematic theology out there, because it's just such a buffet.

51:56

It's like a buffet of theology. It's the Bible, Trey. It's the Bible only. Well, he talks about the systematic theology.

52:01

He loves studying systematic theology. What book are you studying of systematic theology from the

52:07

Church of Christ? Because they don't have it, because it's a, and maybe, listen, hey, maybe you got me. Please show it to me if you got one.

52:13

But it's a buffet. It's like the golden corral of theology. Like they like this, so they'll take that.

52:19

They don't like that because they've never tasted it, so they don't want that. They'll take some of this. They'll take a little scoop of that. But there's no system to their theology, because it contradicts.

52:27

When you take the Old Testament and say that doesn't apply to you, we got problems. I mean, that's a big, big deal.

52:35

I wanna answer this question, because maybe this is sincere. I know Carl maybe thinks this is a gotcha, but maybe he really doesn't understand how we would answer someone that has with mere words.

52:46

Says, Jeremiah, I put my trust in Christ alone. I'm not trusting in my works.

52:51

I believe in him only. But you know what, Trey? I don't really wanna get baptized. So would we conclude that the person that claims, says that they love

53:03

Jesus, but is not willing to bend the knee and take essentially the first steps to demonstrate that faith, would we have firm confidence that they are truly justified before God Almighty?

53:14

So here's what I would say. We don't have a baptismal or a theology problem at this point. We have a heart problem at this point.

53:22

Let me ask Carl. Let me ask you this, Carl. If somebody came in late to work, say you're his boss, and he came in late to work, and you're like, dude, why are you late to work?

53:32

He said, you're not gonna believe this, but I was trying to cross the street to come into the office like 10 minutes ago, and an 18 -wheeler hit me.

53:41

Like I was standing in the middle of the road, standing there, and this 18 -wheeler hit me, going 80 miles an hour.

53:48

You would look at him and go, you showed no signs of evidence of that. I do not believe you.

53:55

There's no evidence, there's no sign, there's no evidence that you were hit standing in the middle of the road by an 18 -wheeler.

54:02

What makes you think I believe you? You can say you've been hit by an 18 -wheeler all you want. You can say you have faith all you want.

54:07

This is what James 2 is about. If you show no signs of an 18 -wheeler hitting you, ain't nobody gonna believe you.

54:13

Right, because James 2 - We don't have a theology problem, we have a heart problem. James 2 is dealing with person -to -person interaction.

54:19

Show me, demonstrate to me your faith by your works. Now here's the thing that we would also push back and tell

54:26

Carl, I can't see the heart. What if he's misinformed, right, and we're sitting down, we're talking through these things, and then he had a misunderstanding of the gospel.

54:35

He thought it was a mere ascent only. Well, I prayed that prayer. I walked that out, and we're over here saying, no, those are just going through the motions.

54:43

That's just as works righteousness as someone trusting in their obedience to be baptized.

54:49

Now they're gonna say, we're not trusting in our obedience. I'm like, reminder, that's the entailment of the position.

54:55

It's not a straw man. So I appreciate you - Hold on, look at Richard Park's comment right there to Carl.

55:02

Just pull that up. It says, Carl, why would you refuse to be baptized? Right, you see that? So here's what I wanna say to Richard, and this is what

55:09

I tell people at our church when I'm preaching all the time. When you read the Bible, read it slow, then slow down, read it again, and then a third time, read it slower, okay?

55:18

Because what you said here is, I'm assuming, I've seen some of your comments, I'm thinking you're Church of Christ, but you said,

55:24

Carl, why would you refuse to be baptized? Richard might be Lutheran. Please clarify that, Richard. Well, it says,

55:29

Jesus Christ rose from the dead. His last words, all power, go, preach the gospel, teach them to obey, baptize them.

55:38

See, what we're gonna do here in a minute is show you where, it's the same thing when King Hysal gets mixed up, he gets the order of things mixed up, just like the first century

55:47

Jews, and the Jews got mixed up, the order of things. So Paul addresses them, but it's not, it is, here's the actual order of the

55:56

Great Commission is, I have all power and authority over heaven and earth, right? So go make disciples, go make disciples and baptize them, and teach them to obey every word

56:10

I've commanded you, right? So you see the order, you got a little bit mixed up there. And I think, if this is what we believe, and we don't really know the word, it's almost like that's the order that just morphs into our head, that we think it's saying that.

56:24

And then you read it slower and you're like, oh my goodness, I did get a little mixed up.

56:29

And I'm gonna show you that here in a minute when he gets to this main point. All right, so this next clip,

56:34

Trey, is where I believe Mike redefines the word faith.

56:40

And I believe that when Paul says that we're justified by faith, I believe that in Paul's definition of faith, he's including water baptism.

56:52

I didn't know that. This is how you get the Greek words out. Yeah, no, you make an excellent point about one of the main reasons to study the original language is if you don't define your terms, your enemies will, right?

57:07

And so they're gonna hijack, they're gonna hijack terms. And you know what? So pistis in the

57:12

Greek is firm trust. And I wanna point out, let's see here, one second.

57:20

I was gonna say, I wanna pull up Hebrews chapter 11, because let's say someone doesn't have a

57:29

Greek lexicon, right, handy, then the scripture doesn't leave you without knowing what biblical faith looks like.

57:39

Not only does Paul contrast faith with works throughout the book of Romans and Galatians, works of law, whatever works you wanna put in that placeholder, if the works of the law, the works of Moses wasn't going to allow someone in heaven, no other works that exist will, that's the point.

57:57

You can't go back even in principle to the old covenant, the covenant of works, the covenant of death that only condemns, you don't wanna go back to that.

58:06

You wanna put your trust in the savior of the new covenant because he saves to the uttermost. So Trey, I just wanna tell people, you don't need a

58:13

Greek lexicon for the Bible to clearly tell us what faith is. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

58:26

And so when you read Hebrews 11, you see a people that just shall live by faith.

58:33

And so by faith, those that are walking with God, that have their sins forgiven, that have been justified.

58:40

The writer of Hebrews is, by faith we see Abel, Moses, Abraham, the heroes of faith living out their faith.

58:49

And Paul would say by their works in sanctification. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, right?

58:55

This is putting your trust in something you know is real even though you can't see it. So let's do this.

59:06

Go to verse two, 11, chapter 11, Hebrews 11. Bring up verse one and two.

59:13

So everybody can see. I got you cuz. Look at this. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen, period.

59:24

That's what faith is, okay? For by it, it, for by it, what's the it?

59:30

Faith. The people of old received their commendation, their approval. How?

59:36

By it. What's the it? Faith. What's faith? Assurance of things hoped for, conviction of things not seen, not doing anything.

59:44

But their doing showed their faith to everyone else. Exactly. It proved their true faith.

59:50

Like it would be like the guy who walked in. If a guy walked in late to the office, dead, because he got hit by an 18 -wheeler.

59:56

Like, yeah, I would believe he got hit by an 18 -wheeler. But that's the point. So I wanna show you this.

01:00:03

Put on the screen just me and you real quick. I wanna show a book review of what we're doing. Before you do the book review,

01:00:09

I was gonna say, verse six says, and without faith that's been defined, it is impossible to please

01:00:14

God. For whoever would draw near to God, what's the context? In faith must believe, not just assenting to facts, but trusting that he exists and that he does what he says.

01:00:26

That if he gives the reward of eternal life, and he says, if the son sets you free, you're free indeed, then you believe that with your whole heart.

01:00:34

If you do that, then the trajectory of your life, that conviction will produce a changed life to the glory of God.

01:00:42

Sorry, I had to get a little preachy there. So it goes back to the thing I always say. Saving faith produces obedience.

01:00:49

Obedience does not produce saving faith. But when Michael Hysall said that he believes that Paul, when he uses the term faith, he also means baptism, right?

01:01:00

So we're gonna be doing a book review on that right there. Bam! Tell us about the turtle.

01:01:06

The turtle, the turtle book. So it's a local guy. My aunt gave it to me for Christmas, and two days afterwards,

01:01:14

I read it twice, and I think I have more notes written in it than's in the book. But it's the same thing.

01:01:21

Typically, they don't write things out like this. Listen, I've reached out to people at his church. I reached out to my aunt. I reached out to him, even texted him, just asking if I could come and just ask him questions about his book.

01:01:31

One part in his book, he says he just wants the opportunity to share with people and talk to people about this. And I'm texting him. I'm like, dude,

01:01:36

I'm trying to give you that opportunity. I will meet with you and your elders. I just wanna ask questions. I don't wanna refute anything.

01:01:43

I just wanna ask questions, because it's really confusing, right? Because it says stuff like this.

01:01:49

Couple things, and I'm gonna get to the definition of faith, right? So he says that he has denominational friends.

01:01:56

This is on page 43. He says, many of my denominational friends have been taught only one definition of the word works.

01:02:07

Consequently, they maintain that no works are part of the salvation process. Many of my brethren, though, so see, one's friends because they're not saved because they're not in the church of Christ.

01:02:16

Then he says, many of my brethren have been taught only one definition. Consequently, they maintain that works are part of the salvation process.

01:02:24

The truth is that some works are essential to salvation and some works are contrary and contradictory to salvation.

01:02:31

Now check this out. I have heard teachers teaching the Epistle of James use the formula, faith plus works equals salvation.

01:02:38

That's not what James says, and it's not true. So faith plus works equals salvation is not true, according to Mr.

01:02:45

Ken here. That formula teaches that my works earn some portion of my salvation, and my faith completes it.

01:02:52

That formula separates faith and works, okay? So remember, faith plus works equals salvation is wrong.

01:03:00

That's legalism, he says. It's separating the two. But he goes on and he says this right here.

01:03:07

Oh my goodness. He says, let me read these two sentences. James defines saving faith, which includes works of obedience, and Paul uses that definition in his epistles.

01:03:19

Let me repeat that. James defines saving faith, which includes works of obedience, and Paul uses that definition in his epistles.

01:03:28

So they use the same definition for the same word. Next sentence, Paul and his epistles and James seem to be at odds.

01:03:37

How could they be at odds if they're using the same word with the same definition, right? Because they are at odds. If you have that understanding, then you are contradicting the

01:03:45

Bible. So he goes on to say this. He says, however, if we allow James to provide us with a biblical definition of faith, you ready for it?

01:03:53

Faith plus works. Now remember, he just said, just said literally the page before this.

01:03:58

Faith plus works equals salvation. Wrong, legalism. That separates faith from works. It's horrible.

01:04:06

Here's the true definition. Faith plus works equals complete saving faith. Boom. So if I said, hey,

01:04:15

Mr. Ken, do you have a complete saving faith? He would say, yeah. So are you saved? Do you have salvation?

01:04:21

Yeah. Why do you have salvation? Because I have faith and I was baptized. Oh, so faith plus works equals salvation is the same thing as faith plus works equals complete saving faith.

01:04:31

I mean, what in the world? And he goes on to say the most clear definition in the

01:04:36

Bible is Romans 4, 5. It says a man is justified apart from works, right? Like has no works, no works whatsoever is involved and simply by believing, he is justified.

01:04:47

That's what he says next. And it's just so confusing, but this is what you do. I mean, you have to, there's so many contradictions in this.

01:04:54

So me and Jeremiah are gonna be breaking this down since nobody there wants to talk to me and he doesn't wanna talk to me. But I promise everybody in the world, if I ever write a book and I put my name on it and somebody locally wants to talk,

01:05:04

I'll be like, dude, the door's open, let's talk. So Trey, everything you said, I think this comes out in Carl's statement here.

01:05:12

So he's going to give us his interpretation of Hebrews 11, 6. But without faith, a little question mark on what he means by faith.

01:05:20

I'm sure it's faithfulness as we're gonna see. It is impossible to please him for the one who comes to God must believe he is, that's conviction,

01:05:29

Trey, that he is the rewarder, that's trust, of those who diligently seek him.

01:05:34

That's your obedience. And so you see the subtlety of how they're trying to shoehorn your works back into just firmly from the heart, believing in the unchanging promises of God.

01:05:46

The reason I wanted to display that is I want to show people how the subtlety they're gonna bring in works to the gospel of grace.

01:05:53

And it's under the term obedience. That's why my six definitions, I've been in this world long enough to know you better explain how obey means to submit to, to hearken, to give attention to, to submit and follow instructions.

01:06:10

There's many commands given in scripture for us to obey that do not require our works.

01:06:15

Like when 1 John tells us that it's his commandment for us to believe in the

01:06:21

Son of God, that's not saying to do your works, to do X, Y, and Z. It's saying put your heart, not trusting in the things of you do, turn and look to King Jesus who's the author and the perfecter of our faith.

01:06:33

I'll say this real quick. I remember when we broke down Aaron Gallagher, when I was explaining on cultish what hippocuo means to obey, right?

01:06:42

And it means from the heart, it means to look at something with all and like, oh my goodness, and to accept, to hearken to, to hear and to believe, basically it's a change of heart, right?

01:06:51

And so I was giving those definitions on cultish, but then your brother, Aaron Gallagher and his friend, who came to my office and lied to me, said that that was crazy.

01:07:03

So they did their little show and they brought up like three lexicons and they said, that's never in there. I don't know where Trey's getting this from.

01:07:09

I don't know what kind of obscure lexicon he's getting this from. So remember me and you did this and we got the three that they got and about 17 other ones and showed everybody on the screen what the word means in the

01:07:20

Greek and just proved that they're absolutely lying to these people, trust me, trust me, trust me. But we actually showed 17 lexicons and the ones that they used as well.

01:07:30

How did you go to BDAG? Yeah, I used BDAG as well. I say that to say this, probably three weeks ago,

01:07:36

I had a guy in the Church of Christ call me up and said when he saw that, he had to go back and watch it twice because he realized, oh my goodness,

01:07:43

I've been duped. Is that awesome? He said, cause I'm not sure. Oh yeah, praise God. They always told us, that's what he told us.

01:07:48

I mean, that's what, I'm like, I get it, man, but I'm just telling you. He's like, I had to go back and watch it twice and he's out.

01:07:55

So our next clip actually involves going to BDAG to define our terms like you did and I love your point of a part of your study,

01:08:04

I mean, the scripture has a clarity to it, right? As Reformed Protestants, we believe in the perspicuity of scripture, that scripture is clear enough to illumine the eyes, right?

01:08:15

By the power of the Spirit. But when people want to redefine words, well, hey, we'll go back to BDAG.

01:08:21

We can show how, let me get my, it don't mean that, right,

01:08:27

Trey? It don't mean that. So this next clip, this is actually the cross -examination with me and Mike and so I actually really, really appreciate this.

01:08:38

So he stood up and I've done a few debates, right? So he stood up and walked over. I didn't know if he was about to slap me across the,

01:08:44

I was kind of like, hey. And so he hands me the printed out definition of baptizo from BDAG, which honestly,

01:08:53

I had that exact same slide on my computer, but he handed it to me now and I'm like, oh,

01:08:59

I can see this so much better than having to flip through my pictures on my computer.

01:09:05

And so I want to bring up this because this to me sets the tone for how

01:09:10

I engage with Mike and how a lot of these conversations with people that are astute, I'm at least willing to give honor where honor is due.

01:09:18

Mike is willing to appeal to church history and look at the lexicography, the lexical meanings and usage of words.

01:09:26

Like to me, I can have an awesome conversation with someone like this. And so he's wanting us to look at BDAG and so look with me here at this next clip.

01:09:38

And I believe that when Paul says that we're justified by faith, I believe that in Paul's definition of faith, so you've said several times that baptism cannot be necessary for initial justification because it is by definition a ceremony and thus a work.

01:09:55

Yep. All right, so here's BDAG, which you've used to gain that definition from. And so number two definition defines baptizo as to use water in a rite for purpose of renewing or establishing a relationship with God, plunge, dip, wash, baptize.

01:10:14

And then we go through. Real quick, what does it continue to say? Could you keep reading it? The transliteration baptize signifies a ceremonial character.

01:10:26

I think you were so mean to make him say that. It's of a ceremonial character. Yeah, well, you noticed he shrugged it off like, that's no big deal.

01:10:35

And I was like, I cannot believe he's not gonna give us the full range of the definition here because that ceremonial bath, that ceremonial character,

01:10:45

Trey, guess what? It signifies a relationship with God. And I wish

01:10:51

I had, oh, so in my opening statement. So look, did you see me in the debate hold up this picture?

01:11:00

No, because I was working on something, I was just listening. But that's okay. So in my opening,

01:11:06

I told people, look, if we're gonna define baptizo, this is a ceremonial rite in water that signifies the forgiveness of sins, that signifies a relationship with God.

01:11:17

And I go on to say that when something signifies something else, that it means it's a representation of, it's a visible sign.

01:11:27

And I said, and then I brought up this picture. I said, this is a beautiful picture of my family that God has blessed me with.

01:11:33

And if I were to ask everybody, is this my family? Everyone would say, yeah, that looks like you with the beard and they see the apologetic puppy down there and my smoking hot wife,

01:11:44

Allie Nortier. But if I were to say, is this literally, now Trey, is this literally my family?

01:11:51

No, because your family is bigger than that. And they can hug you. Yeah, and everybody's like, who in their right mind,

01:11:58

I mean, you would be going to a mental hospital if you thought that was literally my family because it signifies the reality.

01:12:07

And our whole critique to the Church of Christ is they have confused the representation with the reality.

01:12:14

And then the critique we get is, oh, so we believe that baptism is an empty sign and symbol.

01:12:22

Now I say timeout because what the Lutheran or the Church of Christ is meaning is the

01:12:27

Holy Spirit is not present in regeneration. And I would say, well, no, we need to go to the actual scriptures that talk about being born again and regeneration, right?

01:12:38

But the reason why I would deny that it's an empty sign is because if we are participating in it, then we have, as a believer, the indwelling

01:12:48

Holy Spirit. Therefore, it's not an empty ceremony because this is a sanctifying work that grows us more into the image of Christ.

01:12:55

It grows us together in the body. But I would say that baptism properly belongs in our sanctification, not our regeneration or our justification, what do you think?

01:13:07

Oh, I love it. So, I'm looking for something real quick.

01:13:14

So, I mean, at the end of the day, here's the definitions are, you know, number one, wash ceremonial for purpose of purification.

01:13:21

At the very top, before he even gives the definition, he explains that it says in our literature, only in a ritual or ceremonial sense.

01:13:27

I think it's very ironic he says to use water in a rite for purpose of renewing or establishing a relationship. Like he wanted to really go over that word rite really fast.

01:13:35

Oh, yeah, well. And then he goes on to say transliteration of baptize signifies the ceremonial character.

01:13:41

And so I'm explaining this to people, like, when did you, like, how did you graduate high school? Is it because you walked across a stage in a graduation ceremony?

01:13:49

Or is it because you did all the requirements with the state of Louisiana, Arkansas, wherever you live? That's why you graduated.

01:13:55

Like when you got married, when did you get married? It wasn't because you had a marriage ceremony. That was to show everyone that what you've done, it was you were actually legally married because you went to the court of clerks and you filled out the paperwork and handed it to them.

01:14:09

And now you're legally married. But the ceremony always points to the true reality. And every time God made a covenant with man, whether it be

01:14:16

Noah, it doesn't matter what it is. He always gave a visual picture, a physical visual for us to see the spiritual reality.

01:14:26

And so again, when it talks about here in this baptism was a work of righteousness that Jesus says it is a work of righteousness, right?

01:14:33

Well, guess what? You know what Jesus also says? A good tree cannot bear a bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

01:14:41

So what now? If this baptism is a work of righteousness, according to Jesus, it is a work of righteousness.

01:14:49

Although you wanna say it's not, according to Jesus, it is. And that means you must be a

01:14:56

Christian before you get baptized because a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. And here's the thing I wanna ask.

01:15:01

I think I even asked Mike, I saw this one right here when we were talking on the phone. Romans five, can you bring up Romans five?

01:15:09

Oh yeah, before you do, I was gonna say, you mentioned Jesus's baptism was a righteous act.

01:15:15

I mean, this is the lead example, right? He said that his baptism was to fulfill all righteousness.

01:15:22

And so here in Titus three, me and Paul Dave, me and you, us three have talked about how, that God saved us not because of Ergon that we have done in righteousness.

01:15:35

Righteousness by its very definition is a behavior of moral character. And so it is your obedient works to a list of commands.

01:15:45

That's your righteousness being displayed. And it's just wild how you have to go to all the proof texts to show that it don't mean that the way that the

01:15:53

Church of Christ are trying to, it don't mean that. That deserves, gotta flash that up there real fast.

01:15:59

But yeah, I just saying that here in Titus three, if you look at Titus one, two, and three,

01:16:05

Trey, you will see so many verses telling us as Christians to go do good works.

01:16:11

And the point is, is when we have been saved, now we are to live out our progressive sanctification in good works, right?

01:16:20

Showing the world why we are set apart, why we, now we're not doing these things to maintain our salvation.

01:16:26

Once again, the Church of Christ, they're not gonna tell you this, so I'm gonna get accused of straw manning, but they are gonna tell you to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

01:16:36

I'm not gonna say it like that, but they're gonna tell you to try your best. Are they not? Right, right.

01:16:41

Oh yeah. And so when they say that, when they tell you to try your best, they're not gonna say in order to keep your maintention, but that's what they mean.

01:16:50

And we're over here saying, we try our best to represent Christ, not because we're afraid we're gonna lose it, because we wanna honor him so much with our life.

01:16:59

So there's a difference of a worldview, a different heart motivation for while we labor hard to contend for the kingdom.

01:17:07

Some might even be post -millennial in doing that. Check this out. That would be me. Check this out.

01:17:13

When I was talking to Mike, I saw, I wish Mike was on here. He's probably on here, he's just not chatting. Hey, can

01:17:18

I, no, no. No, can I tell you what Mike messaged me a second ago? You're gonna appreciate it. He said,

01:17:24

I'm not gonna watch y 'all's debate review live so I can keep my blood pressure under control.

01:17:30

Okay, I wanna encourage him not to partake in slander and gossip either.

01:17:36

So next time they call him, tell him, look, I'm a preacher, I'm not gonna do that. But, or just a

01:17:41

Christian, huh? So when I was talking to Mike, kinda stumped him when we were talking.

01:17:47

And I said, Mike, let me ask you something. And for every Church of Christ person listening to this right now, I want you to think of something.

01:17:53

I want you to think of the same question I asked Mike. When are you reconciled, maiden right, you know, like, reconciled to God?

01:18:00

Like, you're reconciled. At what point, when? Jeremiah, the dog, what do you think a

01:18:06

Church of Christ person would say if I asked a Church of Christ person, when are you reconciled to God? In the watery graves of baptism when

01:18:14

I contacted the blood. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. That's what Mike Isaw said to me when

01:18:20

I was on the Zoom call with him. And so, this is the importance of understanding the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ and what took place at the cross.

01:18:27

Go to Romans five, and let's make this make sense for a Church of Christ -er. See if they can make this make sense, chapter five.

01:18:34

And look at verse 10. And just read verses six through this whole section right here, but just look at verse 10.

01:18:44

For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God, how?

01:18:51

Go up, son, go up. Verse 10, right there. Verse 10, there we go. For while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by baptism.

01:19:02

Nope, by the death of his son. Substitutionary atonement. That's when you were reconciled, as an enemy.

01:19:09

So, I said, Mike, so are you telling me that when somebody comes up out of the watery graves of baptism, they're still an enemy of God?

01:19:16

Are they still an enemy when they come up out of the water? I mean, what do we do with this, you know? And it's just a hard question for them to answer because they don't believe in substitutionary atonement.

01:19:25

They laugh at substitutionary atonement. They hate the doctrine of substitutionary atonement. But, I mean, that's not good to not like that, right?

01:19:34

So, the truth is, we were reconciled to God, exactly. We were reconciled to God by the death of his son.

01:19:40

That's how we were made in right relationship with him. So, put it back on the main camera here. I want to explain this to you.

01:19:45

Okay, okay. What substitutionary atonement is. Okay, here's what God has done for you, whoever you are out there listening.

01:19:55

Imagine you, wherever you live. I live in Louisiana. So, imagine I'm back paid on my taxes $10 ,000 for the state of Louisiana.

01:20:05

I've not paid them. I know I'm guilty. I have been summoned to court. I have to go to the courthouse today.

01:20:11

And I don't have the money. And I owe it. And I know I'm guilty. And I walk in that courtroom.

01:20:18

And here's what I didn't know. I didn't know Johnny has already went to the state and paid my fine for me.

01:20:26

He paid the $10 ,000 for me. But I don't know that. I'm already, before I even walk in the door of this courtroom,

01:20:32

I'm already made in right relationship with the state of Louisiana because my debt's paid. I just don't know about it. I don't know.

01:20:38

So, I go in the courtroom and the judge says, hey, are you Trey Fisher? Yeah, that's me. And you owe $10 ,000 to the state of Louisiana?

01:20:45

Yes, sir, I am guilty. And I don't know what to do. I have no money. I have nothing. I mean,

01:20:51

I'm at the mercy of the court. And the judge looks at me and says, well, I've got good news for you, good news.

01:20:57

I'm like, well, what kind of good news do you have for me on this? Johnny, who's

01:21:02

Johnny? Well, Johnny, doesn't matter. He came and paid your fine for you. And he throws down his gavel.

01:21:08

He says, you're justified. Do you believe the truth here? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, why else would you lie to me?

01:21:14

You're a judge in the state of Louisiana courts. Like, why would you lie? I believe you, but I'm just overwhelmed. Like, are you kidding me? He said, yeah, so you're justified.

01:21:22

You owe nothing innocent. And throws down his gavel. And I leave. And guess what I do? I go out of that courtroom.

01:21:27

I tell everybody about this guy, Johnny, who did this for me because I didn't deserve it. It was such a gracious gift. But see, this is what happened with the atonement of Jesus Christ, that Christ died for his people.

01:21:38

And when we hear this good news of this, we didn't know it. I was already made in right relationship with God then at the cross.

01:21:46

I just didn't know about it until I heard the good news. And you know what you do with news? You can only believe it or not believe it.

01:21:52

There's nothing you do with news. When you watch the 10 o 'clock news at night, it doesn't, the broadcast doesn't end by, now, if you want to accept this news, go do something.

01:22:01

No, you either believe it or you don't believe it. That's it. But if you believe it, once you truly believe what

01:22:06

Christ has done for you at the cross, that's the good news. And it makes me want to serve him. It makes me want to do this to show other people what he's done for me, to show my community and my family what

01:22:17

Christ has done. That's what changes. And so saving faith produces good works. It produces good works.

01:22:22

Does that make sense? That's good. I mean, we believe that Jesus is the perfect savior, right?

01:22:28

He didn't die a potentially saving death for everyone. No, it's personal.

01:22:34

We've sung the song. My name is graven on his hands. And what do you say,

01:22:40

Trey? If you don't believe it, don't sing it, right? And so if my, or pray it.

01:22:46

Yeah. Don't pray for your lost people, it's up to them. Don't pray. So this next clip, we know we've been talking about Lutheran theology.

01:22:53

And so Mike is cross examining me. And so he's taking me to definitions and we should be, we should be contending.

01:23:00

I knew we better be contending for definitions. I had six. I was prepared to go to bat four.

01:23:06

And so he just wanted to choose one out of the six, be baptized, baptizo. And we rightly should.

01:23:11

And I drew that circle around that it signifies this reality. And so listen to this clip, because then he went somewhere that was really shocking to me,

01:23:21

Trey. I want your thoughts. Okay, so from a Lutheran's perspective, understanding that Lutherans primarily are the ones, and a

01:23:27

Lutheran had his fingers on this last, what does sacrament mean to a Lutheran? Baptismal regeneration.

01:23:34

That's why I would say, every time you appeal to the Greek lexicon, you're taking your worldview with you, including

01:23:41

Lutherans. And everybody has presuppositions and traditions. And so I'm able to ask, okay, a ceremonial bath into what context?

01:23:50

And I would say, God, who has the sole infallible rule, his word gets to contextualize these definitions.

01:23:58

Does that make sense? So I get that he's Lutheran, and I'm saying he's wrong, not on defining the ceremonial bath.

01:24:05

I think he's wrong about the immersion of the Holy Spirit with the ceremony, because that contradicts so many scriptures.

01:24:12

So we can't trust Pete Agdin because it's a Lutheran in this regard? Okay, so forgive me if I misspoke.

01:24:17

I think he's doing good on the definitions. It's his systematic theology that he's presupposing with these terms.

01:24:23

So when we look at this, we interpret it different. I'm saying it's a good definition, but what they already said is it signifies.

01:24:31

Okay, so to a Lutheran, though, sacrament doesn't mean the grace of sanctification. It means the grace of justification.

01:24:38

And regeneration. And regeneration. To which we both would reject their entire theology.

01:24:45

So this was an interesting moment because I did not think that he would appeal to the word sacrament, which just simply means means of grace.

01:24:57

And so, Trey, you and I can affirm that baptism is a kind of sacrament.

01:25:04

Us being Reformed Baptists, we like to use the term ordinance because I think it better grounds the signifying of the reality.

01:25:12

But the thing is, what those Lutheran scholars would not want you to do is take our word as the sole infallible rule of faith.

01:25:21

They're giving us the definition, sacrament. Now it's up to you to take that, go to the scripture and build your case what kind of sacrament.

01:25:30

What does a Lutheran think that is? Baptismal regeneration. That the Holy Spirit is present in a very specific way in our baptism, meaning regeneration.

01:25:39

Now, I would say, I believe that baptism is a means of grace, but it's a sanctifying means of grace.

01:25:48

And so this is where I think Hyssaw shot himself in the foot. And I don't think he realized it.

01:25:54

And I tried to bring it out a little bit in the debate, but to me, it was just so obvious. I was like, dude, you know, you're going to differ with Lutheran theology.

01:26:03

You know what I could have done to Hyssaw? I didn't think about it in the moment until afterwards. I was just like, I could have took him to diakonos or diakosune, the term for justification and then asked him, how does a

01:26:16

Lutheran believe one is justified? And you know what Lutherans, going all the way back to Martin Luther himself would have said, justification is by faith alone.

01:26:27

Now, I'm over here saying that I do not think Lutherans are being consistent with baptismal regeneration and justification by faith alone.

01:26:37

They don't deny salvation by faith alone. Therefore, I don't say they're outside of orthodoxy.

01:26:42

But I do think they have a wrong view of baptism. They inherited a lot from the Roman Catholic Church. And so I think they're holding two things in tension, but it's a merciful inconsistency.

01:26:53

My point is, Mike, do you think Lutherans are infallible? He would say, no.

01:26:59

Hypothetically, Mike, can I take you somewhere in BDAG where you're going to differ with the Lutherans application of these definitions?

01:27:06

Absolutely. And he already started talking about one, how we were defining baptizo and how it says dip, immerse, right?

01:27:14

And we chuckled because we know Lutherans typically sprinkle and we're saying, hey, we would differ with them on that.

01:27:21

So we are allowed to look at the good definitions of BDAG, but you still have to build your case.

01:27:30

And so my point is, it's a double standard. If he admits anywhere in BDAG where he's going to differ with how they apply these definitions of terms.

01:27:44

Oh, I just got news that Trey has a bad storm and he is going to restart.

01:27:51

What face is he making, by the way? Oh yeah, he was listening to me intently.

01:27:58

Let me tell him, try to log back in.

01:28:03

We will move onward. So that's the last of the cross X because Mike Hysall, when he was cross examining me, he only talked about Acts 2 .38.

01:28:15

We only looked at two definitions. We went to baptizo and we went to ais or ais for the word for the forgiveness of your sins.

01:28:23

And so I really appreciated that because I spent months preparing for this debate, listened to all of his lectures, his sermons that pertain to this.

01:28:32

I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the iron sharpening iron aspect. I was prepared to contend for six key definitions and go to at least 10 different biblical passages that are proof texts, essentially for baptismal regeneration.

01:28:48

So he spent the entire cross X time on just Acts 2 .38. So anyway,

01:28:54

I want to move on to when I began to cross examine Mike.

01:29:00

And so the very first question that I asked out of the gate was this. My first question is, do you believe that Mark 16 .16

01:29:08

is inspired? No. Hey, Fishbone, you out there?

01:29:17

Fishbone is somewhere out there. But until he comes back, I first asked

01:29:24

Mike if he believed Mark 16 .16 was inspired. And so that verse, the first half of it says,

01:29:30

Jesus, in the red letters in Mark's account, says whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

01:29:37

You know that, Trey? Whoever will... I don't know, but have you ever done a podcast in a tornado?

01:29:44

I have not. Are y 'all okay? That's what I'm doing right now. It is crazy. Well, hey, if you got a dip, you just let me know and I'm not just talking about that thing in your mouth.

01:29:55

Oh, I've got a dip. This question is crazy. Hey, let me replay this clip and tell me what your first thoughts are,

01:30:01

Trey. My first question is, do you believe that Mark 16 .16

01:30:07

is inspired? No. So the reason why

01:30:13

I did this is because Mike explained something to me before the debate that I really appreciated.

01:30:20

He said, in the Church of Christ history, which is not very long, he'll be the first to admit that this goes back to Alexander Campbell.

01:30:30

And so, and he said, since that point, there's kind of four sects within the

01:30:36

COC. You have the far right -leaning, radical Church of Christ.

01:30:42

They deny the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They all talk and kind of sound a certain way. And Mike just told me that drives him crazy.

01:30:49

He would be more right -leaning moderate, okay? Where they care about church history.

01:30:55

They're not gonna hide the fact that they have their roots with Alexander Campbell and the Restorationist movement. They're gonna study church history along with the

01:31:03

BDAG, like Mike is. And so, in all of my study of him, he never mentioned

01:31:09

Mark 16, 16. And I don't know if Gavin is still in the chat, but he has a gospel meeting.

01:31:17

Let me tell you why. Go ahead. Let me tell you why he didn't mention it, okay? The same reason he didn't mention

01:31:24

Zwingli, okay?

01:31:29

You know, he's big on Zwingli on his Facebook, everywhere he talks about Zwingli, he even talked about baptism, blah, blah, blah.

01:31:35

Like, if he'd have done that, he'd have stepped in a pile of doo -doo. He didn't want to step in. Because, I mean, either he knows,

01:31:41

I think, I don't think he's dumb. I think he's smart. And I think he knows what he's doing. I think he knows that he is twisting

01:31:47

Zwingli, trying to make his point. Just like they twist scripture. Just like they twist me, they twist you.

01:31:53

If they're gonna twist God's word, they'll twist anything to make their point, okay? And this is what really irritates me a little bit, because there's people there.

01:32:00

There's people under them who are hurting, you know? That's what I think about. And so, the reason he's not gonna do

01:32:06

Mark 16, 16 and say that, because if he did, I just like to, when

01:32:11

I talk to him, I'm just like, look, I'm gonna make, listen, don't bring up a verse unless you believe it, okay?

01:32:17

Get on me and you right now. And get off that right here. So, I wanna say this. Trey fell asleep.

01:32:24

Trey's in a tornado right now. That's my good friend, RJ Platt. So, here's the deal.

01:32:32

When the Church of Christ bring up a scripture to me, I'm like, look, bring up a scripture you actually believe. So, say he did say, yeah,

01:32:38

Mark 16, 16. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because a lot of Church of Christers like it. And I say, well, you know what? I don't think you believe

01:32:44

Mark 16, 16. So, go to another one that you actually do believe. And they're like, well, no, I believe it. I'm like, no, you don't.

01:32:51

Let me prove it to you. Mark 16, 16. Before we even get in the context, before we even get in the what he's talking about, who he's talking to, let's just see what it says and see if you actually believe

01:33:01

Mark 16, 16. Because I don't believe the Church of Christ actually believes it. Even though they love to use it, but now they're gonna stop using it because I think they've seen some of our videos and dealing with it.

01:33:10

They're like, boys, we better stop using this one. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.

01:33:16

Like, you don't believe that? Well, yeah, I do. No, no, no. Here, let me tell you. Let's put in there what you actually really believe so you'll be honest with everybody.

01:33:24

Whoever believes and is baptized might be saved in the end. Whoever believes and is baptized has the chance to be saved in the end, but not will be.

01:33:33

You can't declare that you will be 100 % saved if you believe and are baptized.

01:33:39

You do not believe that. So take me to a verse you believe. And I don't even play the game with them. I'm not playing it.

01:33:45

Like, I'm gonna take you to verses I believe and that would be the whole counsel of God. But don't bring up this stuff, right?

01:33:52

So, that would be one. Another one of my goals in asking him is

01:33:59

I wanted the Church of Christ to feel the separation with Mike Hysaw because I mentioned

01:34:07

Gavin James earlier. He said he had to sign off because he has, I guess, a tent revival to go attend.

01:34:15

But when I debated Gavin about a year ago, and by the way, I really like Gavin. I would consider him a friend and we still talk through social media and ask good questions.

01:34:23

There's a little sauce occasionally and I'm like, that's okay. But this was a big part of his argument, was

01:34:29

Mark 16, 16. And so, like you're saying, if people want to grant that, we can talk about the context, we can talk about what it says and what it doesn't say and how it don't give you what you want.

01:34:41

And so then, like you said, they have to move on to another proof text. So look, Jeremiah, being that there's a tornado here,

01:34:47

I do want you to get to the point on Sirach where he brings that up because I wanna make a point and I wanna show what he did.

01:34:53

What the first century Judaizers did and you did what Paul did and you didn't know it and he didn't know it. So I wanna make it very clear what just happened.

01:35:00

Okay, so I'm gonna play, I'm gonna play. I'm talking about Sirach. So I don't have the exact clip.

01:35:07

I'm gonna play clip number nine. So this is where I talked to him about the discontinuity he brings before Abraham being justified by ceremony and how in Christians, Abraham wasn't justified by ceremony, but even though we're supposed to be justified like Abraham, Christians are justified by ceremony.

01:35:26

And then so you bring up how he made a point about Sirach and all that too. Is your position to say

01:35:32

Abraham was justified before the ceremony, before a ceremony, but for Christians, even though we're supposed to be justified like Abraham, our point of justification is not until we participate in the ceremony of baptism.

01:35:46

Is that a fair representation of your view? Yes. Okay. Do you wanna defend that a little bit?

01:35:52

Sure. So there's, what you're emphasizing is a radical disharmony and discontinuity.

01:35:59

Abraham, not justified by ceremony. Christians, supposed to be justified like Abraham, later in verse four.

01:36:06

It's not just for his sake only, but for ours. We are justified the same way.

01:36:11

I agree, it's an obedient faith. He was not justified by ceremony. So before you chime in,

01:36:18

Trey, I just wanna say, this is one of the big sticking points with the Church of Christ, is just saying, look, we are not justified like Abraham.

01:36:27

You can't just say he took steps of obedient faith when he left the land of Ur.

01:36:33

Because Paul's whole apologetic in Romans four is Abraham's justification was not just for his sake alone, when you look at the end of chapter four, but ours.

01:36:42

He was justified before participation in a ceremony. Don't forget about that. When I bring up the word baptized into Christ in Romans chapter six, don't get it twisted.

01:36:52

And so, to your point about the book of Sirach, when he was cross -examining me, or maybe in his rebuttal time, he is wanting to make the case, not only do

01:37:01

Lutherans have an understanding of baptismal regeneration, when you look at the word Lutron for washing, or baptizo, you can go to the intertestamental period, and it means exactly like the

01:37:13

Lutheran means. This would be a type of sacramental bath, and God is regenerating in that moment.

01:37:20

So, do you wanna add to that? Yeah, so here's what I wanna say before this tornado rips the roof off. So, Sirach, so the reason, you go to Romans four, there's a reason,

01:37:30

I'm preaching on this actually this week. We're in Romans four, we preach expository preaching.

01:37:36

We're in Romans four, we've been in Romans four verses one through five for three weeks. So, when he says, what shall we say then was gained by Abraham?

01:37:51

And, what shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.

01:37:57

Well, you mentioned the Septuagint earlier, and the first century they used the Septuagint. It's the Bible that Jesus read, it's the

01:38:02

Bible the apostles read, and in the Septuagint is Sirach, okay? And so, in the

01:38:08

Septuagint of Sirach, guess what Sirach does when he talks about Abraham? See, this is their understanding, because their understanding is right here.

01:38:17

I'm just gonna read it to you. I'm gonna read you what Sirach says in chapter 44. He talks about Enoch, he talks about Noah, and then he talks about Abraham.

01:38:26

He says, Abraham, this is in Sirach 44, starting with verse 19, Abraham was a great father of a multitude of nations.

01:38:34

No one has been found like him in glory. He kept the law of the Most High. That's interesting because the law wasn't even there, and he's talking about the

01:38:41

Torah. He kept the law of the Most High, and entered into a covenant with him. He certified the covenant in his flesh, and when he was tested, he proved faithful.

01:38:53

Therefore, the Lord assured him with an oath, nations would be blessed through his offspring, that he would make him innumerous to the dust and the earth and exalt his offspring like the stars and give them inheritance from sea to sea.

01:39:06

Do you see what Sirach just did? He took everything out of order and based it on his obedience.

01:39:12

He took verses from the Bible, but he put it out of order, and then put, therefore, so see, he kept the law, he entered into a covenant, he certified the covenant with circumcision in his flesh, and then when he was tested, he proved faithful.

01:39:27

Therefore, because of that, the Lord assured him with an oath that the nations would be blessed through his offspring.

01:39:34

Do you see now why the Jewish people had this understanding that these works do this, do this, do this?

01:39:40

Therefore, then God will bless you because you proved yourself faithful. Remember the faithfulness like you were talking about earlier that Roman Catholics do?

01:39:48

And so this is why, this is why. So when you read chapter four of Romans, what shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?

01:39:56

For if Abraham was justified by works, like you think in Sirach in the Septuagint, he has something to boast about, but not before God.

01:40:02

And then he says this, for what does the scripture say? Let's not go back to the Septuagint of Sirach because we all know that Sirach was not inspired, but we do know that Genesis was inspired.

01:40:13

And so Paul says, but look, I get it, but what does the scripture say? And the scripture's order is this right here.

01:40:21

So according to Sirach, it's kept the Torah, entered into a covenant, underwent circumcision, proved faithful in testing, and therefore

01:40:27

God promised him a number of descendants. Wow, but see, that's not the order that the

01:40:34

Bible is. The Bible is first call of Abraham to leave Haran in Genesis 12, promised to make his descendants like the dust, promised to the

01:40:43

Lord as a shield and inheritance. Abraham believed, and it was credited to him as righteousness, then covenant of a nation, name changed to Abraham, covenant of circumcision, promise of Isaac, birth of Isaac, binding of Isaac.

01:40:57

So that's the order. And so that's the same thing, and that's what I noticed when y 'all were debating, and he was like, because that's what they're doing.

01:41:04

They're taking pieces here, pieces here, and put them all together to try to make this little mosaic to make it make sense, and it makes logical sense to the fallen mind, but it doesn't make biblical sense.

01:41:13

So God's word corrects our misunderstandings. And so God's word says this, and that's when he said that.

01:41:20

He was like, Sirach, Sirach. Let me show you how Sirach ends in chapter 51. Look at how the book of Sirach ends.

01:41:28

And I'm gonna make one more comment, and then we'll let you have it. Do you wanna answer this in the side chat real fast?

01:41:34

I think you might. Real quick, here it says, do your work in a good time. So Sirach ends, do your work in good time, and in his own time,

01:41:41

God will give you your reward. And this is what they're reading. This is what now, isn't it ironic that Mike Eisau is reading

01:41:47

Sirach to you, and you say, yeah, yeah, I get Sirach, but what does the scripture say? I loved it.

01:41:52

You didn't even realize that. But anyway, Jake, is that what we're talking about? Yeah, so guess what?

01:41:58

Jake's not scaring me. It's just, I'm in a tornado right now. Hey, try to get out of there, man. Get home safe to your fam.

01:42:05

Thanks for joining me. He's saying that I have no clue why his dad brought up Sirach.

01:42:12

I mean, I'm pretty sure he was trying to show the contextual meaning that's used outside of scripture. That's what we use to know how the original writers are also using certain biblical words through usage.

01:42:24

And the whole thing is, I understand that. I'm saying I just don't have to appeal to Sirach to make my case for baptism.

01:42:31

I actually don't think Jake understood the cross -examination between me and Mike because I acknowledge that there is a domain that Lutherans, Church of Christ, used to push their systematic theology.

01:42:47

I'm saying we go back to the Torah. When we look to mikvahs, pools of water, in order for Levites and laypeople to be fully bathed, it signified spiritual truths that were still not yet pointing to the future, right?

01:43:00

And so for Christians, we partake in a spiritual bath to point back to the spiritual reality that's already taking place.

01:43:10

So I do think I understood. Look what Jake's saying, though. Even that right there. Jeremiah, you had no clue why he brought up Sirach.

01:43:17

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. He explicitly mentioned that it was to show the connection between the word for washing in Titus 3 .5

01:43:24

and baptism. Oh, okay. Look, he's doing the same thing. This is what the Jews did with Paul. He brought up Sirach to try to prove their point and bring it up another book that wasn't scripture.

01:43:34

This is why Paul says, what does the scripture say, right? And so if you wanna know what Sirach says here in chapter 34, when one bathes due to a corpse, when one touches again, and he goes washing, whatever, all that stuff.

01:43:46

I mean, this is Leviticus 14, 15. And even the Hebrew word for this, even in BDAG, says it's for ceremonial washing.

01:43:53

And so when Mike was saying, it's the same thing as in Titus 3 .5. Yeah, exactly, ceremonial washing.

01:44:00

So you look up the Greek word there for washing in BDAG, and guess what? It's bath, washing of baptism, parentheses, for ceremonial usage.

01:44:10

Because it is the same word. Thank you, Mike, for pointing it out, but do we need Sirach? Do we really need Sirach for that, or did you just wanna -

01:44:15

The Lutherans mean that that's a baptismal regeneration, so that's law, that's canon,

01:44:21

I guess. They get the final say -so. Yeah, well, look, love you, love everybody watching this, and I pray that God continues to use you,

01:44:29

Jeremiah, us, the Word, and just bring people out of the Church of Christ and that bondage of works on their shoulders.

01:44:35

I'll tell you what, Trey, would you like to do a part two, maybe later, since we have about seven more clips or so?

01:44:41

We'll just make a whole nother episode about it. What about it? What about it, what about it? Hey, it don't mean that. Sirach, it don't mean that.

01:44:49

All right, Trey, well, you be safe, and go protect that family. Love you, brother. You got it, bye. Okay, well,

01:44:56

I guess we will begin to wind it down. Thank you all so much for tuning in to the live chat and Facebook world,

01:45:03

YouTube land. It's awesome, and it was great to finally be reunited with my brother,

01:45:10

Trey Fisher, aka The Fishbone. We've actually not done an episode together, I think, this year yet.

01:45:16

We've been having such busy schedules, and so this was fun. I knew I had to get The Fishbone to help me do a debate review because I need that energy, and Trey has the best one -liners

01:45:26

I've ever heard, so he brings a lot of humor and spice, to say the least. So if you've enjoyed this content at all, like I said at the beginning, please like and subscribe and share this content.

01:45:38

It definitely helps promote my channel and the ministry, and this just rejoices my heart.

01:45:44

Thank you all so much for those of you that have emailed me and been encouraging, those that were on the fence about these issues and have reached out to me, asking more questions, saying

01:45:53

I knew something was wrong with the Church of Christ as we know it. And understand, you can't put all your eggs in one basket of Acts 238.

01:46:02

You have to understand that in context. So thank you again. Until next time, and I guess we're gonna be doing a part two of this review.

01:46:12

Thanks so much, and God bless. So again, one body, which is the body, his body, which is his church, the

01:46:19

Church of Christ. Man, if you just had some little bit of common sense, you'd think he drove by these denominations where it says

01:46:25

Grandma's Church, Baptist Church, Methodist Church, Life Church. I mean, he drove an hour and 20 minutes here, and they act like they give

01:46:34

God the glory and Jesus. I mean, Grandma's Church, Baptist Church, Presbyterian Church, Church of Christ.

01:46:41

Same thing, again, they deny redemption. Man, if you just had some little bit of common sense.