Federal Headship w/ David Louis @apologeticsfromtheattic713

Well, hello everybody out there in YouTube and Facebook.

Thanks so much for joining the Apologetic Dog where it's our heart's desire to contend for the gospel of

grace.

And we do that by looking at context.

And so what we mean by that is we have to understand the word of God the way that he intended to communicate

his message of grace and truth to us.

And so something that I wanna remind people at the Apologetic Dog is solo scriptura.

When we put the word of God into practice in our life, it's an entire worldview.

And so we must be consistent with who God has revealed himself to be in light of who we are.

And so I just wanna thank you so much once again for tuning into the Apologetic Dog.

If you are a regular listener, I just wanna encourage you to please like, subscribe,

share, and hit that notification bell.

That helps essentially the algorithm circulate the content of the Apologetic Dog.

And so today is a very special episode with my, I guess we

could call you a guest, but you've been on the Apologetic Dog before.

Mr. David, how are you doing today?

Yes, sir, I am doing great.

Can't complain, God is good.

Well, hey, David, if you don't care, kinda share with everybody a little bit about your channel where they can find some of your content

and who you are.

Yeah, my name's Dave Lewis, 42 years old.

I've been married for 20 years this June.

Four adopted kids, age 17, 18, 19, and 21.

And live outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

And I do have a seminary degree for anyone who cares about that kind of stuff from Trinity School for Ministry,

Master's in Church History and Systematic Theology that I got, oh, a while ago now.

Also ordained minister in a Reformed Baptist Church.

And then my channel's called Apologetics from the Attic.

I just came up with the name, just trying to figure out a name for an apologetics channel.

I started it right before COVID hit.

And by God's grace, it's still been going strong.

I try to cover a diversity of topics.

If you look at the channel, I got stuff on Trinity, deity of Christ, dealing with atheism, dealing with Roman

Catholicism, liberalism, you know, a lot of Reformed theology stuff.

And then I just try to walk through text of the Bible too.

I'm going through Romans right now.

I'm in Romans eight.

So yeah, that's me.

Heck yeah, well, thanks for coming back on the Apologetic Dog.

I didn't know you had so many credentials, man.

Glad you're gonna share some of that wisdom.

Yeah, I think theological education is, you know, there's two extremes to it.

Right.

You know, the one extreme is you have to have a PhD to even discuss matters of theology.

But also you can just get a calling from the Spirit one day and all of a sudden you're a Bible teacher.

You know, that's probably not good either.

So you gotta find a middle ground there.

Yeah, and I love seminary.

I definitely encourage people to go to seminary, but this might be a little controversial.

We may disagree a little bit, but I kind of see seminaries almost having to be a

necessary evil because the church has not been equipping the saints for the good work.

And I think first and foremost, healthy churches should equip the saints, not only in sound doctrine, but what genuine

Christian fellowship should look like.

So there's so many good seminaries out there that encourage people to go get the theological training, but

what is invaluable is a healthy church.

Amen, I agree with that.

I think there's something to be said about having a professionalized clergy.

I think that that's a tradition that we've lost in this society, right?

It used to be the doctor, the lawyer, and the clergy person was the most respected people in the town.

And I agree with you, the problem with the seminary is if it's disconnected from the church.

Exactly.

It goes liberal.

If anyone wants to study this, if you Google seminary in exile, Lutheran church,

that's where, because the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, their seminary's actually controlled by the denomination.

So the people in the denomination can actually vote out and fire, like they vote

for the president of the seminary.

So if you study that, it's an interesting issue.

It's where the ELCA came out of.

That seminary, it's one of the only seminaries that was actually rescued from liberalism,

is Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

But anyway, we're off topic already, but it's -.

That's okay.

I agree, I mean, and I think the model moving forward is gonna be, you know, it doesn't happen to

many churches, but I think the church should offer seminary level education to

church members.

And a lot of churches don't even do Sunday school anymore.

Like they don't do adult education on Sunday morning, right?

They just do the service.

How dare they?

Yeah, I love that part of a church, is the formal

education, where you can actually ask the pastor questions and, you know, things like that.

So, you know what we have as an alternative to Sunday school at 12 .5 Church?

What's that?

I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this.

So, very liturgical, really in -depth in the service with singing the word,

praying the word, corporate aspects, preaching the word, but our service continues on into what we call

Koinonia Feast.

So after the sermon is preached, we tell people that's not the end of the service.

It goes straight into a fellowship meal we do every Sunday after we take communion together.

And so after our fellowship meal, we have a sermon discussion, David, where

we used to call it sermon Q &A, but then some people say, well, I don't have any questions, so I don't need to stay.

We're like, no, no, no, no, it's discussion time.

And so, like you said, think about people that hear the sermon preached.

Now they have questions.

Okay, but everybody goes home and goes out to eat, and it's like, okay, you kind of forget about all the critical thinking.

And we try to teach expository listeners and expository conversation from the sermon.

So anyway, that's kind of our alternative to Sunday school is we have about 45 minutes or so after Koinonia

Feast where we get to kind of delve back into the sermon and talk about real life application.

It's pretty incredible.

Hey, man, I think that's an awesome idea.

Now, I had you on today because I wanted to talk about an important topic.

And so I'm gonna cue the music again real quick.

So I wanted to have you on to talk about federal headship.

So what is that, David Lewis?

Well, I don't know if it's the best term in modern context, but it's basically

the idea that the Bible teaches a representative principle, I think is a better term

that people would understand better.

I guess if you understand what the federal government is, for example, you elect representatives that they,

because we're not a pure democracy in America.

We're a constitutional republic, which means once you vote somebody into office, there's

a couple mechanisms in the American system where you could get rid of the person that you voted for, but they're

very limited.

Once you vote for them, they now make decisions on your behalf, right?

Rather than you vote for everything they do.

So it's the same idea, right?

It's a representative principle that starts in the Garden of Eden.

And then with Adam, of course, which is the ultimate example of it.

But you also see that representative principle unfold throughout the entire

scriptures until we come to Jesus Christ, who's our ultimate representative,

the second Adam, so to speak.

But so basically it's the idea that the Bible seems to indicate very often that

God will bless or curse based on the

actions of someone who he places as the covenant representative, the covenant head

for his people.

Whether it's Adam, whether it's Noah, Abraham, Moses,

Joshua, the kings of Israel, of course, and we could go on.

We see it all through the Old Testament.

Achan is a good one that we could look at that once we get into this where he steals

the little bit of gold, but the text actually says Israel sinned against

God.

But Achan was the one who actually took the gold, which is a striking way the Bible puts that situation.

I was teaching through some of the judges and I guess

Joshua with Gideon.

Well, where was Achan at?

Was it in Joshua or was it in judges?

Yeah, that's in Joshua.

Yeah, that's when they're taking the promised land right after Jericho.

Then they start losing battles because he took some of that stuff for himself.

So we were going through Hebrews 11, the hall of faith, and so we got into Gideon and we got into some of the stuff with Achan.

I remember one of the youth said, Achan Bacon.

I was like, I like the way you think.

But we started getting into how there is a headship understanding embedded with the

people of Israel.

And one really good example, actually, I'd like to pull this up.

In Romans chapter four, you mentioned Abraham being a type of federal head.

And so I contend with the church of Christ all the time.

And this kind of doctrine is really offensive to them.

And before we get into like Romans five, I just try to point out in Romans four, we already see the

principle of headship going on with Abraham.

And so Abraham was justified by faith before his circumcision, before he offered up Isaac

on the mount.

And so kind of later in Romans chapter four, Abraham received the sign of circumcision as a seal of

the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being

circumcised so that the righteousness would be counted to them as well.

And so this is a type of headship.

He's the father of all the faithful, all those that trust in Jesus by faith apart from works.

And so this is not a bad thing.

And a lot of people can kind of get down with Abraham being the father of faith, but that's important as we kind of get closer

to Adam being our first federal head.

Yeah, that's right.

And speaking of Abraham, when he takes

Isaac to the mount and offers him an obedience to God, if you don't understand the

representative principle, the Bible actually could present a contradiction because

if you remember in the text, Genesis 22, after Abraham raises the knife to slay his

son and the angel stops him, the angel actually says, he says, the angel of the

Lord called Abraham, this is at Genesis 22, 15, and said, I swear by myself declares the Lord

that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son,

I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore.

Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies.

And through your offspring, all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me.

So what do you do with that text?

So Abraham's obedience is cited as the cause of the promise, see?

So we have two things going on in the life of Abraham.

Clearly the apostle Paul straight up tells us that Abraham is an example of a man who's justified by faith

because of his faith in the promise.

So Abraham as a sinner before a holy God is justified by faith.

But Abraham as the patriarch who is the head of the nation

that's being brought into existence starting with him, his obedience, his

obedience to God is cited as the reason why God is going to bless this nation.

And then why does God respond to the cries of the Israelites in Exodus chapter

one when they cry out to God?

It's a very clear words that.

If you've got something to say, I'll look that up while you're.

Yes, just wanna encourage y 'all in the live chat.

If you have any questions for David and I, let us know because I will defer to David to answer

the hard ones.

Also, I wanna say, I think, David, I think we're being trolled a little bit, but I love it because

my arch nemesis is an apologetic cat, but I think you now have an arch nemesis,

Belligerent, in the basement.

Oh my gosh.

So how about that?

I've officially arrived if I have my own arch.

Nemesis, my, it's kind of like the flash of the reverse flash.

Is that what it's like, you know that little thing.

Mr. Belligerent says, David looks like a cat person. Is that true?

Well, yeah, I am a cat person, but we have the types of dogs that we can't

introduce a new cat to right now.

So my son has a cat that lives only in his bedroom and never comes out of his bedroom.

And it's happy to just live with my son in his bedroom.

Well, you have arrived.

Yes, that's great.

So I apologize, I can't find, but I know there's a text where it says he remembered the promise he made to

Abraham and that's why he sent Moses to rescue the Israelites.

And it's driving me crazy that I can't find it, but I will find it eventually.

So yeah, and I - It'll hit you right in the middle of when you're doing something else.

Yeah, so yeah, so I mean, federal headship, that's a very important

doctrine, narrow focus, which I definitely wanna get into, but it'll also, it's gonna intersect

with all the issues of original sin.

And the resurgence of Pelagianism online is very shocking to

me.

It's definitely there.

And some of it is you throw mud at the Calvinists enough, you end

up throwing the mud from the other ditch that you think you're attacking.

And before you know it, you end up denying the gospel.

So I don't know about you, 1689 London Baptist Confession,

I have it pulled up.

Let's go.

So I think a good way, so we'll get to Romans 5, which is a key text, but I think walking through

chapter six of the London Baptist Confession is good.

So I have it up on my, I have it up on my thing if you wanna throw my

screen up.

Well, bam!

There it is.

And I blew it up pretty nice so everyone can see it.

So the fall of man of sin and the punishment there of chapter six.

So I'll read the first paragraph and we'll discuss this.

And yeah, anyone who has any questions on the doctrine of original sin,

we'd be glad to answer them.

All right, so it says, although God created man upright and perfect and gave him a righteous law, which had been

unto life had he kept it and threatened death upon the breach thereof, yet he did not long abide in this honor,

Satan using the subtlety of the serpent to subdue Eve, then by her seducing Adam, who without any

compulsion did willfully transgress the law of their creation and the command given to them and eating the forbidden fruit, which

God was pleased according to his wise and holy counsel to permit, having purpose to order it to his

own glory.

So there's the first paragraph.

So the first decision you have to make is when you're looking at the

story of Adam, is this a covenant relationship where Adam is

being placed in a situation where his obedience will determine life and his

disobedience will determine death?

Well, I mean, I think anyone who reads Genesis 1 -3 would come away with that

basic understanding, like, wow, okay, Adam was given a command and he was given this paradise to live in and

he was promised life and he was threatened with a consequence if he disobeyed it.

Well, right there, if you admit that's the scenario that Adam and Eve were in,

then you're right away, without knowing it, there's a federal headship or

representative principle going on in this situation, would you agree?

Absolutely.

Yeah, and this may be jumping the gun a little bit, but if anybody has a problem with

being represented by another like Adam, like some of these examples in the Old Testament,

well, you're gonna have a problem with being represented by Jesus Christ before God the Father trying to

receive his righteousness by faith.

And so if you understand that, okay, if that works well with Christ, meaning I'm looking to him to

represent me with his righteousness, well, then we understand that this story of redemption

goes further back before we existed, right?

And as we're kind of alluding to, this starts back from the beginning of creation.

We were represented by someone else even when we weren't there.

And so like I said, I may be getting a little bit ahead of myself, but I think the, go ahead.

No, that's important.

And then just the basic understanding that it seems like God created the human race in

a different way than he created the angelic host.

So the angelic host didn't seem to have a representative angel that represented their destiny

based on that angel's choice.

They were created at once and could make the choice.

Adam was made the root of the human race and he would,

like the plants and animals, reproduce after his kind.

And that becomes an important principle too when you talk about, because what's really under attack, I mean, federal headship,

forget about it.

There are some people that they just laugh and say, get out of here, that's ridiculous.

Which, okay, fine.

There's certain Armenians that I would get along with that they would dispute that Adam is our

representative like that and his guilt flows to us as well as corruption.

But just, if there's people new that don't understand this, so what this leads to in the next paragraph is, okay,

because when we talk about original sin, okay, there's a sense in which we're talking about the original sinner or

sinners, you know, and Eve sinned first, by the way.

Sinners, original, like the first, like the OG, original sinners, right?

We're talking about the original sin but then what that always leads to is, and it's the next paragraph, what did

that do to the human race?

And, you know, this has been a debate in Christian theology for a long time, but

it's a battle that you must wage and you must make a decision and you must see

how this doctrine is crucial for how you understand salvation and the doctrine of salvation.

That's why Augustine fought Pelagius so hard because he saw Pelagius'

system completely destroyed in the necessity of Jesus Christ and just turned him

into a good example rather than a savior from sin.

And then, you know, we would be remiss as a couple of Calvinists not to address, you know, the last part.

God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit having purpose to order it to his own glory.

So the fall of Adam and Eve was planned by God, the language of the

London Baptists is purposed.

Now, interesting, and, you know, this is debated highly amongst the Reformed Orthodox,

so the framers of the London Baptists had no problem using the word permit.

So when God permits something.

Your best friend, A .K. Richardson, doesn't like it when we use the word permit.

Because he thinks it's inconsistent, which I understand where he's coming from.

But, you know, I heard Sproul recently.

If anyone, there's this YouTube channel that's just like nonstop, 24 -7 live, R .C. Sproul.

Like, it's pretty sweet.

Like, they just play all this stuff 24 -7, like in a loop.

But anyway, you know, and I've taught it this way for years, too, when God permits something.

Like, hey, okay, so Jeremiah, let's say that, you know, I'm standing, we're hanging out, and we're

next to like a busy highway, and, you know, you're on your phone or something trying to debate some, you know,

Church of Christ guy on a Facebook chat or something, and you're not paying attention, and there's this massive tractor -trailer coming,

you know.

Now, if I use the word permit, I could permit you to get struck and killed by that tractor -trailer.

Now, okay, if I use that word, it means that I had the

power to stop you from getting hit by that tractor -trailer, but I chose to refrain

for my own purposes.

Now, whether you could come up with a good purpose, you know, for me letting you get hit by a tractor -trailer, maybe we could come up

with one in my secret council as Dave, but that's what this is talking about.

It's not talking about bare permission as if God's saying, well, I don't want this to

happen.

It's not really something that I, you know, but I have to let it happen.

I have to permit it because of some other reason.

Now, when God permits something, he permits it in the way I just permitted you to get hit by a semi -truck.

I have a greater purpose for letting it happen.

That's what the fall is.

Now, if you don't have that, at least, or if you're not at least open to the idea that

God, before he created the universe, at least knew the fall would happen, but he permitted

it for a greater purpose, if you can't even like say that, then you're forced into a position that's pretty

bad where God, most of the sin and evil that's happening, he had no sense wants to happen at

all.

And he's like up in heaven weeping with everyone else.

And he's just up in heaven pulling his beard out, getting mad, man, which I think a lot of

Christians functionally kind of, they might believe a certain way, but then when their face was

suffering, they kind of, they can default to a,

man, where's God in this?

Well, God's suffering along with you.

He doesn't want this to happen either.

And I know you do chaplaincy work, which I worked in a hospice for a year as well for my

ordination.

And it was the best experience of my life, by the way, too.

I mean, my evangelism totally changed from being a fiery, like, the first thing you have to say to someone is,

listen, do you know, you're gonna stand before Holy God.

Like, no, you gotta make a relational connection.

You know how to ask certain questions to provoke certain responses.

And then before you know it, you're talking about the gospel, you know?

Real quick, I was wanting to chime in on this about the term permit.

Sometimes we say versus, ordain, or predestined, as though they're not compatible.

And I like the point that you said, though, that if, you know, Reformed theologians, we use the

word permit, we're not talking about a bare permission, as though God is permitting

something like another man would relate to another man permitting.

You know what I mean?

Because we don't have those exhaustive omni -properties.

And so we're talking about God who's eternal, immutable.

The way I explain, I wanna hear some of your thoughts.

And I think when we did our debate review on your channel from my debate with AK, this is something we kind of got into.

And I think it does relate back to federal headship, because we're talking about God, the way he

relates to man.

And so obviously when we're talking about Jesus Christ took on flesh and he becomes our

covenantal head by faith.

I talk about how God can predestine, and that is compatible with an

anthropomorphic term like permission, meaning in real time, it is valid to say that

God permitted X to happen.

He just didn't merely permit it.

It works together in the bigger plan of redemption.

And so I think people are committing a either or fallacy.

It's either he predestined or he permits.

But if we understand that God's predetermined will, his eternal counsel,

that is just more didactic.

That's just more specific on what he has done before the foundation of the world, permission is what

God is doing in real time as the eternal plan is being played out.

So what do you think about that?

No, I agree, I agree.

I think that, I always tell people there's two perspectives.

The way I say it is from the top down or from the ground up, okay?

Or in the secret will of God and the revealed will of God is another way to think about it.

But from God's perspective, everything is happening as the confession says.

All things are ordered by his sovereign pleasures, sovereign will, everything.

As Sproul said, there's no rogue molecule in the universe.

But from our perspective, things take place in a succession of primary, secondary causes.

It's a paradox.

And that's another thing I didn't realize Sproul taught it this way, but it's in session 10 and

11 of his apologetics course, which we don't have to get into.

He wasn't presuppositional or whatever.

But -.

Come on.

He is now though.

Here we go.

But anyway, he talks about contradiction, antinomy,

paradox, and mystery, right?

He fools around with those four.

I think I'm becoming more convinced that paradox in some ways is the best word to

describe some of these things.

Absolutely.

So I forget what the mileage is, but this is a great example of...

So the thing, what a paradox is, is it seems like it's a contradiction.

And the only reason it appears to be contradictory is because you don't have another

dimensional reality that would make it not a contradiction.

So for example, Jeremiah, the distance between San Francisco and Tokyo,

is, okay, this might, anyway, you'll see, is distance

from San Francisco to Tokyo is 2 ,500 miles.

And also the distance from San Francisco to Tokyo is 1 ,800 miles.

How can those statements both be true at the same time and not commit the basic logical

fallacy of a married bachelor?

I feel like I'm gonna get this wrong.

You add a third dimension, okay?

If the curvature of the earth, okay, it's that

longer distance.

If you cut through the middle of the earth, it's the other distance.

So see, you add a dimension.

Isn't that a good analogy?

You add a dimension and now it's not a contradiction, okay?

So there's a lot of things.

And then if you talk to astrophysicists and guys like Hugh Ross and stuff, he's got a whole book where he just plays with this idea that there's 12

dimensions and there's all these things.

And I think that's many times where we have to stop and say

we can't understand God's ways.

And if we take it out of modern time and go back to the Sassinians, for example, John

Owen wrote a lot against the Sassinians.

They're basically the liberals of our day back then.

And he castigated them all the time for being, this is irrational,

everything must be rational.

So they ended up denying the Trinity.

They ended up denying things because they said this doesn't make any sense.

And Owen would say, well, yeah, it's revelation.

It's divine revelation.

It doesn't have to be rational.

So, but your original point, absolutely.

Like there's two ways to look at it from God's perspective and how we see it.

Yep, paradox affirms that it's not a true contradiction.

It's just saying that it maybe appears like that on the surface from our perceived

place.

And that doesn't mean that we can't investigate it further to realize, oh yeah, this is even less of a paradox

than we initially saw it before.

Because even R .C., and I'm glad you brought him up.

He tells people, if you explain the Trinity that is contradictory where we kind of believe in one God, but we

also, in other ways, worship three gods.

Well, that's a contradiction.

And people should not embrace contradictions because that's illogical.

It's not gonna reflect the God of truth.

Now, I love what you said though.

We must have a revelational epistemology.

We must believe things that are true that come from the God of truth.

And so since he is inscrutable in all of his ways, his ways and thoughts are higher than our ways, then

to your point, we're gonna look at the Trinity, we're gonna look at the incarnation, we're gonna look at certain doctrines.

We might maybe, as we're getting into federal headship and maybe original sin, we may be like, okay,

I fail to see how I am condemned under what Adam did, you know what I mean?

And so there is mystery there.

I like the word mystery, I like the word paradox, but I think Christians should be the forerunners of saying, but it's

actually not contradictory.

How do we know?

Even if it's a type of rescuing vice, we trust in God who knows all things perfectly well

and it's not a contradiction in his mind.

And so we're not embracing something that's irrational.

Is it Phineism?

What's the view that says the more absurd something is, it takes greater faith?

I think that is just wildly absurd.

Is that right?

I'm not sure what that, the label.

Adam Carmichael in the side chat, was it Phineism?

It's the idea that the more absurd something is, it takes greater faith to embrace it.

And so that's not the, Phideism, maybe some.

I think Phineism, I think he invented the altar call.

Yeah, that's Charles Granson.

Phiney, yes, I am.

There we go.

Yeah, he is the father of the altar call, yeah.

I just wanna stress to people, a paradox isn't meaning that you're biting the bullet and embracing a contradiction.

It's, we trust God in his revelation that it's not a contradiction by our

maybe misperception of the information that we're looking at.

Yeah, it's not a contradiction because it doesn't violate the laws of logic if you could see it from God's

dimensionality.

So that's why that analogy I gave, unless you're a flat earther, then that

totally doesn't work at all.

But if you're not a flat earther, okay.

The paradox is resolved, right?

Because, okay, you just introduced a, you just introduced a

geometrical dimension to it that the curvature of the earth makes the distance longer than

just cutting straight through the earth.

So the distance can be different if you add that dimension.

And what we're saying is the Bible presents another dimensionality.

God lives in another dimension.

He's outside of time.

He's outside of space.

He's outside of matter.

He's outside of all these categories, which modern science says those are the only categories

that you can discover truth is in the time space dimension, right?

So we're not, you Christians are whack because you're trying to interpret reality through this book that

does come from another dimension.

I think they at least realize that's our claim.

Like we're telling you that God is speaking and he has the truth and that's

how we, that's the lens we view reality through.

I think it's Hebrews 11, verse three, that says by faith we understand that God, by the

word of God that he framed the universe.

And so everything that we do and move, interact in this world is by faith, but we

have faith in our reasoning.

But the idea is you're putting your faith in something.

And the most reasonable thing to use logic, use to have understanding, to

put your faith in is in the worldview in which God speaks and gives us truth.

And so it kind of gets us back to square one of saying Christianity you can't take in piecemeal.

Like holistically God has covenantally revealed who he is to mankind.

And so that's why I love presuppositional apologetics because it's like as John Frame said, it's solo

scriptura actually applied and there's no neutrality in the process.

So should we go back to your presentation or is there some more things that you'd like to bring up there?

No, let's hit paragraph two and then paragraph three is where we get directly to the topic you wanted

to discuss, which is federal headship.

So now we have, okay, so we have the statement, first paragraph was a statement of

the original sin of Adam and Eve, right?

Now we have the effect.

Our first parents by this sin fell from their original righteousness and communion with God.

And we in them, whereby death came upon all, all becoming dead in sin and wholly defiled

in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.

So this is more focusing on the corruption that step.

Now here, this is a very important point.

You will hear people today who deny total depravity and deny

the way we talk about it.

And all they talk about is what's called the sins of

commission.

Oh yeah.

So they'll say, well, babies aren't born doing wicked things and little children

don't do wicked things, you know, but notice the language here.

They fell from their original righteousness and communion with God.

So this is a mistake many people make.

The Jesus, when he's asked what the greatest commandment is, he does not give

a commandment that's a sin of commission.

What does that mean?

The 10 commandments are all sins of commission, meaning you commit an act.

You shall not steal, you shall not murder, you shall not have any other gods, right?

Those are called sins of commission.

So if you commit those acts that are forbidden, you've committed sin, right?

But what Jesus gives is the greatest commandment is what's called a sin of omission.

What that means is if you fail to do the positive command, you've committed sin.

So it's helpful sometimes to get people out of there if they've been, you know, I was gonna use the word brainwash,

that's too harsh, but they've been led down the synergistic semi -Pelagian road to say,

listen, okay, are human beings born in such a way where they are loving God with all their

heart, mind, soul, and strength from birth?

Is that what you have noticed about human beings?

Well, no.

Okay, well, they're born sinners then.

Because many times, well, what do you mean people are born sinners?

That's crazy.

Well, okay, if you're pushing back and saying like, we Calvinists always have to clarify, we're not saying people are as

evil as they could be and everyone's a Hitler and stuff like that.

But if you wanna just like shift to the discussion, because that's like a rut that everyone falls into when they talk about this issue,

talk about what the confession is talking about here.

Original righteousness and communion with God.

That has been lost.

And when that is lost, you are in sin from birth because you are no longer in communion with God

and you do not have that original love for God

that you are supposed to have.

It just, it's not there.

People don't by nature love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength.

And then of course, it does talk about being dead in sin and defiled.

So it uses the negative language too.

But I think many of us don't focus on this, the original righteousness part that was lost,

that Adam and Eve lost.

Real quick, David, Sharpening Iron podcast says, in Romans five, which we're gonna get there, it

says, how do you respond to someone saying that the reason we are sinners is because we've

all sinned and not just because of Adam's sin?

And he says, I dispute translation, but that's an objection.

So that's what we're gonna continue to kind of lean into is so the Pelagians, and so the Church of

Christ make the same argument and they appeal to 1 John chapter three that just basically

articulates that sin is transgression of the law, but original sin and federal headship

and imputation is talking about inherited corruption.

It's talking about the state of union that we have in our federal head, Adam.

And so, like you've already pointed out, we would say we sin because

we are already sinners from the core, it's embedded in our DNA that we've received.

We bear the image of the man of dust, meaning we don't just merely resemble Adam, we have been

derived from his very fallen essence, right?

Remember the moment in Genesis three where their eyes were opened?

Something changed with their nature.

And the book of Romans talks about how sin reigns in mortal bodies.

And so that is who we come from, ultimately.

Yeah, so the next paragraph

is really what we'll get into that.

But I wanna look at one other thing here.

So death came upon all, that's very important.

Why is death happening if people aren't sinning?

Well, that's Romans five.

All becoming dead in sin, and that's where they quote Romans 5, 12, et cetera.

I'm not sure if the et cetera is original in the frame of the one about this.

And wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of the soul and body.

So if you wanna pull up Genesis six, five.

Okay, I can do that.

This is a definitive text to me for the doctrine of original sin, at least.

And you'll get guys, that modern Pelagians who really

wrestle with texts like these.

Warm a group.

Yeah.

So in my opinion, okay.

The revelation of from Cain and Abel

to this text, okay.

Hundreds, it might even be a thousand years have passed, right, since Cain and Abel.

And this is the divine commentary.

We're not gonna get into verse six and have the open Theosepha field day on us.

But six, five.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his

heart was only evil continually.

Understand that this is what the human race descended

into with unchecked evil going on on planet earth.

Because once we get to the covenant with Noah, which is a stabilizing covenant, where, cause

remember, you got 800 year old sinners running around planet earth.

Can you imagine?

Okay, the earth is wicked enough right now.

And there's a limit on the number of people and there's a limitation to how much sin you can commit.

And that was part of the Noahic covenant, right?

No, 120, that's it.

Remember the lifespan of humanity was cut back specifically to restrain sin in the human race.

And then of course the death penalty was instituted for murder in the Noahic covenant.

So what we have here is this is the divine statement of

the wicked nature that Adam and Eve communicated to their descendants, starting with Cain

murdering Abel and moving to this point.

And then if you just want to skip one or a couple chapters to Genesis,

I'm sorry, I didn't have time to

Oh, you're fine, where do you want to go to?

I'm looking right after the flood where Abraham, or Noah steps out the ark, this is before he gets

drunk on his vineyard, but he offers the sacrifice,

where is it?

I will no longer curse because the thoughts of his, I mean,

people are probably like this Dave guy,.

Ain't no Bible scholar,.

He doesn't even know where to find any verses.

The second verse, here it is, Genesis 8, 29.

And yeah, you know, I like more, I like more McGrew, you know, he stands or falls before the

Lord in my opinion, but he does a lot to try to get around this text.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, never again will I curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's

heart is evil from his youth.

I'm so glad you brought this up because I was trying to think of this very verse because he's going to make a big deal out of a youth,

does it mean from the womb?

Yeah, absolutely.

And he does the, you know, what DA Carson called a illegitimate totality transfer where

you find the meanings of the word in other contexts and transfer that meaning totally to the

word you're trying to dispute.

And, you know.

So basically a good systematic theology helps kind of combat people that have an isolated verse

and they're just importing an entire theology in there.

But what's important about this text, right, is after the flood of Noah and everyone's wiped out, it's

restated, Genesis 6, 5 is basically restated.

I don't think Genesis 6, 5 is true today because there's restraints.

Genesis 6, 5 would be true if God was not restraining sin, which we also need to,

you know, people need to, people need to really, you need to praise God.

Every day you wake up and say, God, thank you for restraining evil last

night.

David, I got a question.

Yeah, go ahead.

So in Genesis 6, 5, and I liked your point here, I just wanted to maybe think through this.

There was some restraint, would we say, that God had even in Genesis 6.

I mean, you know, even back then, this is the inner intentions of man and we still see God's grace, even if

it's with Noah and his family and a preacher of righteousness.

And so could we say Genesis 6 is true today but God is exercising more restraining grace in light of the new

covenant?

Yeah, absolutely, yeah, there's no question.

But I think that the point of the narrative up to that point is you have, who is it, Lamech?

He's, what is he, sevenfold the curse of Cain.

He murdered somebody and he said, you know, so you see this dissent and that's why it's interesting that the covenant of

Noah is the death penalty for murder because that's one of the things that must have been going on back then is there

was just this unadulterated, you know, nonstop murder and just mayhem going

on on the planet.

All right, so let's go to the next thing.

I just wanted to point that one out.

They quote Jeremiah 17, nine, of course.

Right.

The hardest to see above all things and desperately wicked.

And then of course, Romans three.

Oh, look, the scriptures pop up when you go like that too, okay.

All right, so here's the federal headship part and we can answer Sharpening Iron's question there

because the little phrase in Greek there is important

for this.

Okay, so they being the root and by God's appointment, standing in

the room instead of all mankind.

So there's how the divines expressed federal headship, right, standing in the room

instead of all mankind.

The guilt of that of the sin was imputed and the corrupted nature

conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation

being now conceived in sin and by nature, children of wrath, the servants of sin, the subjects of death and all

other misery, spiritual, temporal, internal, unless the Lord Jesus set them free.

Now that's a mouthful.

Man, this is maxiology bull crap, dude.

Just read the Bible.

Okay, well, it's just, if all you had to do was just read the Bible, then all you would need to do

in a sermon is just stand up there and read the Bible to people.

Right, right, right.

So a couple of things, let's just look at the text here.

So they're the root, so that's important, right?

The reproducing after their kind, right?

That's clear, that's a principle that does not go away from the creation.

So Adam and Eve are reproducing after their kind and we forgot to look at that text in Genesis 5.

I'll just read it.

This is a striking text when I first, when people first see this text, they go, whoa.

Which text again?

Genesis 5 .1.

If you wanna pull it up, this one is important.

Absolutely.

This is the book of the generations of Adam.

When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

Okay, notice that line, which male and female he created them and he blessed them and named them man when they were created.

When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him

Seth.

So we see many theologians have noted that there is a change there.

Whose image is Adam's son now created in?

Adam's image, the Mard image.

And then Augustine is the one I think who first came up with the idea that we're still made in the image of God, but we've

lost the likeness.

He made a distinction between those two items.

But just wanted to point that out.

And then, by the way, that's also the explanation for how Cain could have found a wife right away because

we're not told that it could have, if 130 years passed between the time Cain and Abel were born

and Seth and Cain didn't murder Abel till 80, 90 years after, that's

plenty of time for, you do the math, that's plenty of time for the earth to populate with at least a couple thousand people, if not

more.

And you don't have a diluted bloodline.

It's not gonna have the same effects as we have today.

That's right.

So then we have the language back in the Confession.

They're the root, and by God's appointment, standing in the room instead of all mankind.

And they're making it clear, that's God's appointment.

God appointed Adam our federal head.

He appointed him to stand in the room instead of all mankind.

And then here's the big debate, right?

The guilt of the sin was imputed.

Okay?

So this term really isn't used, except if you know an accountant, they use it.

There are still certain debts that can be imputed to you after your loved one dies.

So that still does exist, okay, in law.

That most debts, and I don't know which ones are which, if we have any lawyers or any accountants in the

audience, maybe they know, but most debts, if your spouse dies, for example, most debt dies with

them.

But there are certain debts that can be transmitted, or they would use the word imputed.

It can be imputed to your account, and you are now responsible to pay the debt that your

spouse accumulated.

So, because here's the two aspects of original sin, right?

The guilt of sin imputed and the corrupted nature conveyed.

And then this is an important thing too, to all their posterity and setting from them by ordinary generation.

So the ordinary means of reproduction is what conveys the corrupted

nature.

And then that's where you get into where Augustine thought sex was evil, so that's where he came up with original sin

because he thought sex was bad because he was a Manichaean and all this.

But that's not the issue.

The issue is that we have this principle in Scripture that things reproduce after their kind once

again.

So the natural ordinary generation, and of course that has something to do with the birth of Christ, right, and his virgin birth,

and Christ being sinless, because he was not produced by ordinary generation, right?

He had a human mother, and the Holy Spirit conceived him.

Being now conceived in sin, and here's all the Scripture verses for that.

And then Psalm 51, five, the hoops people have to jump through to get around this text.

You know, Warren McGrew just straight says it.

This teaches that David's mother committed adultery when she had

David.

And it's just like, is this the only other thing you can do with it?

In sin did my mother conceive me.

Well, my mother was sinning when she conceived David.

That's what he's saying, where that's a very clear text.

I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Very conceptionist.

And go ahead, Jeremiah, you have something for that?

I do, because when people like Warren and Church of Christ, because once again, Church of Christ are

full -on Pelagians.

They believe that you're born sinless, you're born perfect.

And that's kind of their explanation of Psalm 51, of just saying this is highly poetic.

You can't take it literal.

They might make a similar exception that Warren does talking about the sin of

David's mother.

And so I just say, well, if we keep looking in the Psalms, we know it's conveying literal truth,

even if it's poetic.

But Psalm 53, just a couple chapters later, this is the chapter that's quoted in

Romans 3 that you kind of looked at earlier.

The fool says in his heart, there is no God.

They are corrupt.

Okay, I just wanna pause, because we're about to get an explanation of what kind of corrupt nature we're talking about.

Doing abominable iniquity.

There is none who does good.

Now, the debate is, well, this is talking about when they're doing something by their works.

And I said, if you keep reading, there's something, once again, that's telling us about the corrupt nature.

This is why they do abominable things, because they are corrupt.

God looks down from heaven on the children of man, literally Adam, all of Adam's posterity,

to see if there are any who understand who seek God.

They have all fallen away.

Together, they have become corrupt.

There is none good, not even one.

And so I think that's sufficient to kinda continue making our case

that from the womb, mankind, out of Adam, there's no one who seeks after God.

So of course, if we're corrupt from the core, well, then everything that we do out of that is going to be in opposition

to God.

And not only does Psalm 53, and I think it mentions it again in the Psalms, essentially, but

Romans capitalizes on the depravity of man.

You know what I mean?

And then I tell people the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus as Saul of Tarsus is the perfect picture of someone who

was not only rejecting God, but persecuting the saints.

And then Jesus says, you're persecuting me.

But Jesus interrupted Saul's life, right?

And shown in the Shekinah glory, and he, in Galatians 1, talks about this is when he received

the gospel and confessed Jesus as Lord, as the risen Lord.

But the point is, Paul was not seeking after God.

God was seeking him, and that's a good example for all Christians.

Amen.

All right, so now let's jump into Romans 5, because that's what the confession does here.

And this, so, okay.

So don't fall for this framing that you'll hear people say.

Well, all this came from St. Augustine's mistranslation because he knew

Latin better than he knew Greek because the way he translated it was, therefore, just as through one man, sin entered

the world and death through sin, and so death spread because all sinned in Adam.

So death spread to all men because all sinned in Adam.

So, oh, see, you know, Augustine just mistranslated it.

Like, it's funny how people like wanna think they can hold a candle to the intelligence of a man like

Augustine and say, oh, he knew Latin better than Greek.

Do you even know Latin?

People just drive me crazy with the things they say online.

So what's the disputed phrase here, okay?

So it's this, the way you say it is epho, epho.

It's right there.

I got it highlighted.

So first thing to notice, this is a prepositional phrase that I have on the left there, if

you can see.

Those are all the uses of it in both the Greek Septuagint and in the rest of the New Testament.

So as you can see, it's only used one, two, three, four other times in

Paul's letters.

Now, how do most translations handle this?

Most of them will say because all sin.

And the reason they do this is because it's a safer translation.

Okay, it's just more straightforward.

You're not loading it with theological baggage and saying all sinned

in him.

Because it doesn't say in him in the Greek, but you have to at least first acknowledge that this is a rare usage of Paul with the way

he does his prepositional phrase.

He could have used a different prepositional phrase if he just wanted to say straight up because, okay?

So what are your interpretational options here?

So therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, okay, stop right there.

So we have sin represented as a thing that comes into the world,

okay?

And there's an instrumentality for how that sin comes into the world, right?

How?

Through one man, there shouldn't be any dispute.

That's pretty clear, right?

There's this thing called sin.

And remember, if you read the story, the serpent is external.

So sin is represented as this external thing in the form of the serpent, right?

Adam and Eve are in this garden.

God has placed them there.

And sin enters through Adam's sin.

And it's interesting, the woman isn't mentioned here, girls.

So it is Adam's fault ultimately.

She's not mentioned at all.

Through one man, and then what?

So we have sin is the one thing that enters in.

And then what else enters?

Through sin.

So we have sin through Adam and then death through sin, right?

So what are the two categories Paul's dealing with here?

Sin and death.

Then what he says is death spread to all men.

Okay, so what's the next statement?

So there's a spreading, and this is what original sin is about, right?

What's the relationship between the sin of the one man and whatever spreads from

that to everyone else?

Okay, so death spreads to all men, why?

Well, that's the disputed.

Because all sin.

What does that mean?

Okay, and the two major interpretations, right, are, and I think, did you have that Sharpening Iron?

What's his name?

I should know his name, I watch it.

Sharpening Iron podcast?

Yeah, because this is the question he was getting at.

What does because all sin mean?

Does it mean that death spreads to all because everyone

eventually sins?

Or is it saying death spreads to all because Adam's sin,

all sin, meaning the sin of Adam, which Adam brought that sin into the

world, his sin brings death to all because all

sin in him or all sin because of their relationship to him as their federal head.

Now, I think this is very simple.

All you have to do is connect Romans 5 .12 to Romans 5 .18 and 19, the case is over.

Because Romans 5 .18 and 19 are so clear, it's clear as the crystal, let's just,

look what 18, therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men,

so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.

For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made

righteous.

There's, so okay, Romans 5 .12 doesn't directly say that the way that Augustine claimed that it's

Adam because we're in Adam and because Adam's sin brings, well, these two verses clearly do

teach that.

It's the obedience, the disobedience of Adam does what?

It makes us sinners.

Just like the obedience of many will be made righteous by Christ.

So I'll stop there for any comments or.

Well, I was gonna say Romans 3 .23 tells us all have sin, so

all will sin, all will transgress, and I think Romans 5 is getting more to the why.

And because I was gonna give a book plug, John Murray wrote

Imputation of Adam's Sin, and so he goes deep into what you just explained, and to me it's easy too,

look at the context in which Paul is talking about in Romans 5.

It's different than Romans 3, so they go together, but as you see, Romans 3 moves into Romans 4,

starting to get into that federal headship, and it's like he now takes both principles together in Romans 5.

Now, there's a universality of sin.

Paul already established in Romans 3 .23.

There's universality of death, and then why?

You know what I mean?

And so what's interesting, no matter how people land on the infants that die in infancy issue,

they don't have personal sin the way that adults do, but they still die, you know what I mean?

And so every system has to account for that, and this is hard for the Pelagians that really say

there's no personal sin of any kind with infants.

Why do they die, right?

Because this is, I think John Murray spends a whole chapter, and I wanna do another

book plug.

Jonathan Edwards wrote The Great Doctrine of Original Sin Defended.

It might be Jonathan Edwards.

He spent a whole chapter talking about infant death, proves federal headship, and proves

original sin that starts with Adam, and how we inherit a corrupt nature.

So everything you're talking about, to me, just Romans 5 .12, it's the context, you know what I mean?

And even though I disagree with this gentleman, but I believe it was,

let's see who it was.

Thomas Schreiner, he talks about that this is basically

a echoing of Romans 3 .23, and he gets into some of the nuance of what you just

talked about, but he affirms that what we're talking about is definitely taught in verses 18

and 19.

But in verse 12, he talks about the one man, so he's already giving that context in

verse 12.

And so I think what makes people feel uncomfortable is saying that we are held

condemned, as Romans 5 talks about, we stand guilty for something we didn't do.

And when you start thinking about our country, like I have an 18 -month -old baby boy, he was naturally born

into the United States with our great president representing us, right?

Getting us into all kind of mayhem.

And my point is, he was born in this context and didn't have any say in the matter at all.

But it still doesn't change the fact that he has to participate in some of the

consequences as our federal head, along with all of us.

And so we have a way to relate to Adam being our federal head.

I remember another illustration of this was, you have a tree with all the branches, right?

But if a ax is laid to the root and falls over, well, the whole tree falls with it.

And I think that's a good way of saying, God judged Adam, he judged the root of the tree, and then we

all suffer the consequences that come.

And the reason why, it's totally just and fair.

I mean, on multiple levels, God can do with his creation as he sees fit.

But we would not have done better than Adam.

You know what I mean?

And in fact, when we live as we grow, we sin because sin is

a part of who we are.

Is it Mark chapter seven, Jesus lists a ton of sins and says, it's not what goes into a man, it's not

the information and the corrupt world that you take in, no, this proceeds out of what's already in man's heart,

right?

And so now we're articulating things like total depravity.

That's right.

So another book, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics by Dion Wallace, if you

wanna like super dig into the Greek of this, but let me just read this, what he says about

I have that somewhere.

That prepositional phrase.

The prepositional phrase here is often debated.

So we're talking about the FO, in whom or because all sin.

It's possible that the HO, which is, that's a relative pronoun.

It's important to understand like normal usage, and I don't know if you can see that little box, that can't be translated who.

So Augustine wasn't out to lunch to say, well, this could mean in whom all sinned.

Anyway, it could refer back to the one man.

So if it's a relative pronoun, right?

Relative pronouns, a pronoun has to refer back to something, right?

You can't just start a sentence with, well, he, who's he?

You're gonna be talking about someone.

So Wallace is holding open that it's possible that that could refer grammatically.

So people need to understand this.

Don't make Greek arguments if you don't know what the heck you're talking about, okay?

So Wallace is saying it's possible that that refers back to the one man

mentioned earlier in the verse.

If so, the idea is either all sinned in one man or all sin because of one man.

But then he says, but the distance between the enos anthropou, one man, is too great

for this to be a natural reading, okay?

So this is the reason why most translators will not translate it this way because it wouldn't be a natural

reading with the way Paul does other things.

So he says, but if epho functions as a conjunction, it does not look back at any

antecedent but explains how death passed to all.

And that's why the point I'm gonna make in a minute is actually Paul explains it in the next two verses.

This is where he gets into what he means by because all sin.

So what he means is death is universal for the precise reason that sin is universal.

This uses finds parallels in the papyri and in the rest of the Pauline corpus, 2 Corinthians 5, 4, Philippians 3, 12.

The theological issues at stake are profound and complex, whether humanity's sinning is personal or

participatory in Adam's sin.

But such things are only partially resolved by the grammar of the relative pronoun.

Nevertheless, without compelling evidence on the other side, the force of the epho ought to be taken as conjunctive

since it's both well -established in Greek literature and makes excellent sense here.

So conjunctive meaning, like you said, you just say because all sin, the because isn't

referring to anything before it.

You're just saying death spread to all men because all sin.

Okay, now here's what you'll hear said.

Well, what this means is everyone

eventually sins and that's why they die, okay?

And you, Jeremiah, you brought it.

Well, what about infant death?

Okay, but here's the thing.

In the next verse, Paul explicitly denies in the next couple of verses that

people sin the way Adam did and that's why they die.

He's explicit.

So this is a little aside.

So he's saying death spread to all men because all sin.

For sin was indeed in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law.

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses.

Listen to this language.

Even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.

Stop.

That eliminates the interpretation, in my opinion, that people die because they sin

like Adam did.

Doesn't he just deny it right there?

People aren't dying because they're committing personal sin.

It's right there.

So death is reigning even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.

In other words, people aren't going, okay, I'm like a new Adam.

I don't have any guilt yet until I commit a personal sin.

That's not what's going on.

Paul's argument here is very straightforward.

The reason why we know people are being held guilty for sin is because they're dying,

but their sinning isn't like Adam's sin, so therefore their death must be because

they are connected to Adam.

So in other words, I still think, even though the translation might not be the best to

represent the safer translations because I still think Augustine was onto something where he's saying this

text is teaching that the reason why sin spread to all and

all are under this curse is because they are in Adam.

They're connected to Adam.

Adam is their head.

And then, of course, the typology thing.

Who was a type of the one who was to come?

And Paul's already introducing what he's about to say next is we have Christ now who is going to

be the anti -type Adam's the type, Christ is the anti -type of doing

the opposite of what Adam did.

All right, go ahead.

So we have a good question that was asked by Adam Carmichael.

He says, the Church of Christ deny spiritual death in Genesis 2 .17 and

Genesis 3 .5, Romans 5 .12, which we're in.

Can you explain spiritual death and physical death?

So let me give this a crack and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Scripture speaks of the death, okay?

And what you have to understand is the death is both spiritual and physical.

We know this because back in Genesis 2, God took the dust of the ground and breathed

into man the breath of life.

He became a spiritual being.

And so death touches all of who man is.

And so we have to understand death as a spiritual power at the end of Romans 5.

Actually, do you care to read the last two verses of Romans 5 here since you got it pulled up?

Sorry, I thought that was a...

Verse 20 and 21, you mean?

Yeah.

Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So that just as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Right, so sin reigns in death.

And so Ephesians 2 talks about how we're dead in our sins and our trespasses, and yet people live,

but they are dying.

They are dead spiritually, and that spiritual power of sin

guarantees that they will return physically to the dust of the ground.

And so what I'm contending for, what we see in Genesis 3, in the day that you sin, you

will surely die.

And so I take the view that Adam did die, the yom that he sinned, because the moment

he sinned, all of creation is cursed and is now in

the day of death.

But as Genesis 2 begins, there is a Sabbath rest that

Hebrews says we can enter into by faith.

And so the point is, sin guarantees that man is going to return to the dust of the

ground.

It's physical.

And so full preterist will try to say that the death that we read in 1 Corinthians 15,

obviously Romans 5 .12, it's spiritual death, Jeremiah, because the day that Adam

sinned, he died spiritually.

And we say, look, there's an inextricable connection between spiritual death and physical death like this.

The moment that we were born into this world, the spiritual power of sin

already reigns in our body and it's ingressive.

We begin to die the moment that we're born, meaning that our destination, because

we're all dead in Adam, as Romans 5 .12, is it's going to return us physically

to the dust of the ground.

So if someone tries to radically separate spiritual death into physical death,

you're gonna have all sorts of problems.

And one of the ways to really highlight this is infants, especially the views that say they were born perfect.

Well, what is the explanation and reason for why they physically die?

Well, it's because of the consequences of Adam.

So do you wanna speak to that, Amy?

Yeah, so, well, it's interesting.

So full -blown plagianism actually asserts that Adam would have died whether he fell or not.

That's how they get around that.

Well, so they would have died anyway, so sin has nothing to do with their death.

But I got a question for you.

So what's the Church of Christ's apologetic reason for wanting to take that

position?

Like, what does it do for their system?

Like, why do they have to?

Yeah, one of their claim to fame is babies are born innocent

and they deny hardcore original sin.

They call it a doctrine of demons.

And they will quote, I think it's Ezekiel 18 .20, that the soul that

sins shall die.

And so they're gonna say babies don't sin, but they do die.

So I actually think they're in a pickle there.

But it's Ezekiel 18 that just says, basically we don't suffer for the sins of our father, right?

And so their whole apologetic is you're not born a sinner because they

despise Calvinism, total private and stuff like that.

And so their fundamental doctrine, I think it's just plagianism, but you sin because of the

influence.

So A .K. Richardson would say the influence of sin from the world.

And so when we're born, they would say we're born like Adam was created in the garden.

So yeah, they have a fundamental denial of original sin.

They definitely do not like the principle of federal headship, especially the imputation of guilt and

condemnation.

But when you ask like, what's the benefit for them?

So they could be, well, what's at the core of their system is libertarian free will.

And so that has to be protected at all costs.

Yeah.

Yeah, so my comment on Genesis three of the statement, the day you eat of it, you will die.

I certainly agree with the idea that they spiritually died, for sure.

I think it's one of the Puritans who had a great analogy on this.

If you have a beautiful flower, right?

And you sever it from its source of life, that beautiful flower will

still look like a beautiful flower.

Mother's Day is coming up, by the way, guys.

That beautiful flower will still retain the beauty of the flower, but it's really

dead.

Like it's dying because you just cut it off.

That's kind of how we are as humans.

We still retain that, but anyway.

I think really, that's in the background, of course, and we can go to other scriptures that talk about

our deadness and sin.

But I really think the point of that narrative, one of the big points of that narrative is

God substituted an animal in their place.

There was a death, a physical death that occurred.

God did execute the sentence of death upon their transgression.

It was just on a substitute animal, and that's why they presented it with skins.

So I think that we do a disservice when we miss that aspect.

So good.

Because God did not go back on his promise, the day you eat of it, you will die.

He meant that.

But then he shows grace right away in substitutionary atonement, where there was blood spilled,

there was death dealt.

But it was not upon Adam and Eve, it was upon a substitute.

So I think that's an important thing.

I take the view that Yom there isn't talking about a 24 -hour window.

It's a new Yom.

That seems to be kind of the transition into chapter two.

And what really persuades me of this, David, is in Ephesians chapter six,

Paul is talking about putting on the armor of God to be able to withstand in the evil day.

And so he's just talking about a new Yom, and all Orthodox commentaries say, yeah, this began with

Adam.

And so I think that's kind of the implication of in the Yom that you sin, death.

Not just you, but the entire cosmos, all of your posterity.

But you make a good point of God would have been just terminating the

entire physicality of Adam's existence, but God was merciful.

God provided a substitutionary sacrifice.

So if someone's just like, Jeremy, I'm not buying your Yom 24 -hour argument.

It's really just open -ended.

Then to your point, well, there was physical death that happened in that 24 -hour window.

And so I think you're right.

I think you have to emphasize that.

And this is where, you know, I have, would you fall on the young earth creationist

side of things?

Yeah, I think so.

I would too, but something I appreciate about old earth creationists is they're gonna point to, like Hugh Ross

would still point to Romans 5 .12 and say, human death began with sin.

So that wouldn't have been a thing if he had not sinned.

He would have stayed in covenant with God.

And so I have a question from Orange Oki, who is both a church of Christ and full

preterist.

I always like getting questions from him.

He checks both the boxes in my apologetics ministry, David.

But he says, I've always wondered if Adam was created immortal, why did he need to be

placed in the garden and eat from the tree of life?

So my initial thought, I definitely wanna throw it back over to you, is we don't read anywhere, we

don't actually read much about the tree of life other than being in the early part of Genesis and again in Revelation

22.

But when you continue to read at the end of Genesis three, it does seem like

if Adam were to eat the tree of life in his fallen state, then there'd be a permanent

continuation of sin and death.

And so God was showing mercy by casting him out of the garden, only to restore fallen man

to be redeemed, to be able to be in covenant with God, with eternal life.

And so I've read Dr. Jeffrey Johnson's book, The Kingdom of God, and he kind of says,

instead of two tablets, we had the Decalogue with Moses at Sinai, but

in the garden you still have the principle of obey and receive blessing

or disobey and receive cursing.

So you kind of have this covenant of works in the garden.

It doesn't have to say that for all the ingredients to still be there.

And at the end of the day, Adam and Eve, they chose disobedience and the curse.

Romans six tells us the wages of sin is death.

So for us being reformed, it was always a part of God's plan that

man would sin so God can be a redeemer and rescue man out of

sin, evil, and death.

Amen.

Yeah, so I have an episode published September of last year,

Mining the Treasures of Calvin's Commentaries, Genesis 3 .9, The Tree of Life as a Sacrament.

So Calvin makes some really good points here.

So I think the basis of that question here, so it's not like the tree of

life was like the fountain of youth or something, that as long as Adam and Eve ate of it,

they wouldn't die.

That's not what it is.

It's sacramental.

So Adam and Eve were created with, they were immortal by nature, by the way God created

them, by virtue of their creation and God sustaining their life.

And the tree of life was a sacrament in the sense of it was simply a reminder that pointed them back to God as

their source of life.

So I think the presupposition of that question, which is a common thing that people think when they think of the tree of life.

Oh, well, that means that they must have had to eat one apple a day from that to stay alive.

It's not what it's talking about.

It's sacramental.

Like Calvin goes into that quite in depth for some reason.

I don't know if it was an issue in his day, but he really spends quite a bit of time breaking down how that was a

sacramental aspect.

It was his inner Lutheran.

Yeah, and then he connects it to the Lord's Supper and stuff like this is, you know, but it's deep

how he does it though, because there's things in creation that are meant to point us back to God as our ultimate source

of life.

And the tree of life would have been one of those things.

So that would be my answer to that question.

It's not that they were kept alive by the tree of life.

The tree of life was for them to say, bite into that fruit and say, thank you God for giving

me life.

Not thank you this apple for giving me life.

That's not what it was.

It was pointing them to the Lord.

Just like when we eat, we should be thanking God for giving us life.

That's how I would answer that.

Absolutely, thank you for that.

All right, so where are we headed now?

So any more questions out there or any?

Yeah, y 'all, if y 'all have any more questions for us, send it to us in the side chat, because we're in Romans five,

and the topic at hand is federal headship.

But you can't escape talking about federal headship without also talking about original sin,

imputed righteousness, imputed condemnation, imputed guilt, as we've talked about.

And like David pointed out back in verse 12, we see a universality of sin and death,

and we're asking the question, why?

Yeah, so that's what Paul's getting at.

So death spread to all men because all sin.

So Paul's point is, well, we don't see people sinning like

Adam did.

We do see people dying, right?

Very clear.

And then he makes the point, sin was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counter where there is no law.

What Paul's point is here is, why could we recognize that what Adam did was a

transgression against God?

Because it was a command that he violated.

And that's why he died.

Well, we still see death now.

Death, people are dying.

But are, because this puts to bed.

No, no, we're like Adam.

We're born innocent, and we don't become guilty until we commit personal sin.

Paul is undercutting that entire thing in these two verses, in my opinion.

He's saying, no, it's not about breaking a known command and sinning personally that

brings death upon you.

That's not what's going on.

Death is brought upon you, not because you're sinning against a known law,

because between the time of Adam and Moses, which in Paul's understanding,

this is biblical theology, the 10 commandments is a republication

of the covenant of works.

This is a foreign Baptist way of looking at it.

It's the covenant of works republished at Mount Sinai, the same covenant that was made in the garden.

So, and then the same thing happens, right?

The people's, if you read the text, it's amazing.

After the 10 commandments are given, the 70 elders of Israel actually invited up onto the mountain

with Moses, and it says they saw the God of Israel, which I would assume is Jesus, and they ate and drank in

his presence and did not die.

Okay, so this covenant that's made at Sinai is giving them access back into the

presence of God.

But then what happens?

They commit the sin of the golden calf, and that access is cut off again, just like in the garden

of Eden, when the Adam sin, now the corporate entity Israel sins,

and they are cut off from the presence of God.

Now their only access to God is through the tabernacle and eventually the temple.

Well, that was a whole side thing.

Yet death reigned, now, so this is, now Jeremiah, you're talking about infants.

So this is highly disputed.

Sure.

John Piper, I think, makes a pretty solid case for this referring to infants.

One of the most solid I've seen.

But yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression

of Adam.

In other words, people are dying, but they're not committing active,

personal transgression against God.

But they're, so death is reigning over them between the time of Adam and Moses, but they're not breaking known

command.

So how do we know that they are sinners?

How do we know that sin is present in these people that are dying?

Well, because they're dying, because the wages of sin is death.

And Jeremiah, you brought up earlier, the problem of infant death is a tough problem for those who would

deny any sense of guilt that's being

passed on to the generation.

They're on the horns of a dilemma, because if they say, well, infants die physically

because of a biological state, because of the consequences of Adam,

then we're saying, okay, so a person can suffer the consequences, not by your own sin, but

because of the sin of another.

And we're saying that's the fundamental principle with federal headship, being dead in their sins and

trespasses with Adam.

This is a consequence of his sin.

And this is essentially the whole thrust that leads into total depravity, is saying, yes, this

begins by our first federal head.

And people understand, this is why Jesus talks about the birth analogy, you must be born again,

is because you had no control of being born into this world physically in the state of affairs,

right?

No one asked to be born into a corrupt world, you know what I mean?

And so that's because of other circumstances that happened outside of us.

And that's a similar principle that we're just saying is you're born in Adam, right?

You die because you're born into sin by your very nature.

And that brings up another strong passage continuing in Ephesians chapter two, because it says, by

nature, we were born children of wrath.

And the Pelagians have a tough time trying to prove that nature there is something you become

by your own decision making, right?

And so they try to go back earlier in the text and say, see, you're sinning and that's why you're a child.

It's like, no, no, no, that's giving you the reason.

Your nature is corrupt, right?

And is set on the path of wrath.

And so anyway, I could kind of derail on that.

I wanted to throw another point your way about, so I know Piper talks about this being infants.

And to me, you saw me, I brought up infants in this conversation because it's so important.

But the reason why I kind of lean against Piper's view that Paul has in mind infants, even though it's still a great

question to be brought up in this whole passage proving Adam, I believe it was Calvin that talked about that

there's an intensity when the law was given and the culpability and

the intensity of sin, right?

And tell me what you think.

So verse 20, now the law came in to increase the trespass, right?

But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

So I think Calvin tried to talk about that this time period between Adam to Moses,

there wasn't a written law, right?

Which intensifies with Moses, but Romans 2 already has told us there is a law written on the heart.

And so all men are still held accountable to God, even though maybe we didn't have a law

like Adam had or Moses onward during that time frame.

But yeah, speak a little bit more to that.

No, amen, I don't disagree with that.

I think that Romans 5 .20, Paul's setting up,

he's moving on to setting up Romans 6 and ultimately Romans 7,

because that's Paul's own testimony.

The law came in and actually increased his coveting.

But then he found grace abounded all the more.

But yeah, I agree.

I mean, I think that, I guess just, and I have a hard time stop

at 9 .45 my time, so you can keep going if you want.

You got about 15 minutes, is that right?

Time goes by fast.

No, no, no.

Absolutely.

But I think, so, but back to the text though, I think that Paul's point, which is this one I think

is so definitive, we can't miss it.

I think Paul's whole setup up to this point is to set up, to take us to this phrase, who

is a type of the one to come.

That becomes definitive on what Paul's doing here.

So if Paul's point is, well, all I'm really saying is Adam

sinned and then we all eventually sin and die because we do what he did.

This makes no sense.

He's setting up Adam as Adam did something particular

in himself that brought the following consequences to that spread to all people.

And that's gonna be what I'm setting up for.

Someone else does something that his one action does something to all

people as well.

Like, you can't miss that part.

So someone who wants to say, well, no, all Paul's talking about here is we end up doing what Adam did and that's why we die.

Well, okay, if you're gonna be consistent, then salvation is by works too, right?

Because if your sin is by your works, then isn't your salvation by your

works?

So, and then of course, the classic passage.

Now, what is this type?

But the free gift is not like the trespass.

So now what Paul does, if many died through one man's trespass, so wait a minute, wait a minute, right there, even right

there.

It doesn't say many died because we trespass.

Does it?

It says, for if many died, well, how did many die through what?

One man's trespass, even right there.

Like, how is that not unclear?

How can you look at that text and go, no, no, no, no.

I don't believe that we die because of what Adam did.

We die because of what we do.

No, many died through what?

One man's trespass.

Okay, I don't know how much clearer Paul could be.

And then of course, let's not get focused though.

Sometimes we Calvinists, we're so into our depravity.

But Paul's emphasis here isn't primarily on Adam, is it?

It's on Christ.

Much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of the one man Christ abounded for the many.

But here's the setup, right?

We have one man, Adam, who brought death through his trespass.

Now we have one man, Jesus Christ.

And what does he bring?

He brings a free gift by the grace that abounded for many.

Right, so we have death contrasted with grace.

Then we have, and the free gift is not like a result of one man's sin.

Okay, so one man's sin is what brings about what Paul's about to say.

For judgment following one trespass brought what?

Ooh, condemnation, right?

So we have two words here in the Greek.

We have judgment and we have condemnation.

Judgment, right, is the, your sin is

being pointed out, you're being judged.

So that's what happened to Adam, right?

He sinned.

God called him on it, right?

Called him out from hiding.

He was facing judgment.

But then that brought condemnation, right?

The penalty.

Well, here what Paul is saying is one man's sin brought actually not just judgment, but condemnation

upon all.

Condemnation is actually the penalty for sin, right?

It's not just the acknowledgement of sin and guilt, it's the penalty of it.

But the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

And of course, justification is always contrasted with condemnation.

Right.

So one is the sentence of the penalty and the other is the removal of that penalty through

Christ.

So we have an interesting question because it relates coming up in Romans chapter seven, but this is a good question from

one of the Apologetic Dog Patreons.

Adam asks, was Paul regenerate when he said in Romans 7 -9, I was once alive

apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

So did you have a stance on that?

Oh, yeah.

So shameless plug for my channel.

If you go, I go in depth on, I have kind of a novel view of Romans 7

and how to interpret it.

I think you have to understand Romans 6 is where Paul sets up the categories and then Romans 7 is where he fills them in.

So remember what Paul says in Romans 6, he says the reason why we don't

continue to sin so grace may increase, his answer is because we died to the law

or we died to sin, I'm sorry, we died to sin.

We died to sin.

Everything has to do with what does it mean to die to sin?

Well, I think Paul's answering the question in that text that Adam is just bringing up there.

He was alive, meaning he thought that he had the life that the law

promised.

So he was once alive, meaning that he thought, like his testimony in Philippians 3,

that he was the blameless, walking in the covenant, et cetera, et cetera.

He's righteous according to the law, but then the law came in and brought

sin to life.

And Paul's very careful to say it wasn't the law's fault.

It was sin using the law as a base of operations, similar to the way the serpent

used the law to tempt Eve, right?

If you ever thought about it, if God didn't put a, forbid them from eating from the

tree, would Satan even have had anything to tempt them with?

Would he even even had a foothold?

So the law comes that says you shall not covet, and it's interesting that Paul uses the

commandment that forbids a desire, right?

You shall not want, literally, and says when that commandment came, sin

sprang to life and I died.

But this is important.

That's regeneration.

Regeneration is when God uses the law to slay you.

So, I mean, that's what's going on there.

Paul says he was once alive, taking out life from the law, but then the spirit of God used

the commandment, you shall not covet, to come in, and that's Paul's whole point.

That's what the glory, for Paul, this is glorious.

Sin came alive and I died.

In other words, I see my need for Christ and his righteousness and I see all my, in Philippians 3, I see all my

righteousness is done because I see, I saw my sin for what it was finally.

The law came in, and right, Jeremiah, Romans 5 .20, that's the intention of the law,

is to increase the trespass.

That's Paul's, that's God, that's what God uses the law to do, is to show us our sin.

And this is the great rediscovery that Luther made, right?

God's law is showing me that I am not able to have a

righteousness of my own.

It must come, an alien righteousness come.

So to answer the question, so was Paul regenerate in that verse?

No, I think that's him explaining his process of conversion.

So he, yes, he thought he was alive apart from, yeah, I thought I had the life that the law promised.

I was the Pharisee of Pharisees.

I was a good Jew.

I was keeping the law.

But what I didn't realize was I was not.

So I have a question, piggybacking off that.

Does Romans 7 go on to talk about the war that a Christian has with the flesh?

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so yeah, that's a great point.

So now Paul, and then the second half of Romans, so the first half of Romans 7 is Paul's explaining what he said in Romans 6,

where he said we died to sin.

So he uses this death life, death life, death life, like he's doing there.

And then he talks about the analogy.

Remember that the spouse has to die for you to be united to the other spouse, the

marriage analogy.

Then in the second part of Romans 7, 14 to 25, he uses the slavery analogy now.

He sets that up in Romans 6.

He says, we're set free from sin and we're now a slave to righteousness.

This is very important.

Paul doesn't say, he said, we go from slavery to slavery.

We don't go from slavery to freedom.

We were a slave to sin.

Now we're a slave to righteousness.

So Paul in Romans 7, 14 to 25, oh, why do I do what I don't want to do?

You know, I want to do good, but evil lies right there.

That's the language of a man who's been set free from sin.

If anyone's ever done pastoral ministry or dealt with your own heart for five minutes, you know there's a huge difference between

someone who comes to you and says, yeah, you know, I'm looking at porno and you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing

that, but my wife kind of just sent me here, you know, because you know, she's getting fed up with it.

I guess I have to go talk to the pastor.

That person, okay.

That person could be giving evidence they're still a slave to sin, right?

Because they love their sin, right?

The only reason they're trying to get away versus the guy who's like, help me, right?

Why do I do what I don't want to do?

What is wrong with me?

That very, the fact that people can't read Romans 7, 14 and 25 and see

that that is someone, now is Romans 7, 14 and 25, the end all be all of the doctrine of sanctification?

No, but it's certainly the foundation of it.

Unless somebody is saying what Paul is saying, they have no hope of ever conquering sin.

You have to first hate your sin.

That's a man who hates his sin.

Meaning he's regenerate is what I'm saying.

Like, no, no one who's really saved would ever talk like that.

They should have victory.

Like, first of all, I don't know what you're doing in your life where you're looking at your own sin.

So your point is a lot of Romans 7 is

talking about a regenerate man, but Paul retells of before that was the case and it leads,

it flows into that.

He shows how God uses the law to increase sin, to bring him to that awareness to where

he says, oh, what a wretched man I am.

Ultimately it leads him to Christ, yeah.

All right, what time we got?

Five minutes.

Five more minutes.

So yeah, man, I mean, that's pretty much, and then because of

one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness

reign in life through one man, Jesus Christ.

This is important.

This is what makes Romans 5 not teach universalism, right?

Because there is a condition.

Much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.

So it's not a one -to -one correspondence, right?

All are born in Adam, but not all are in Christ.

And I'm still intrigued by that guy who came on the thing we were on last week, Jeremiah, who was a deterministic

universalist.

Remember that guy?

Who was, he was asking the questions.

I was scratching my head over here like, oh, this is entertaining.

Hey, by the way, did you ever tune back in to listen to me ask them about

Isaiah 46 .10?

I did.

How'd you think that went?

Well, I have to listen to it again because I'll be honest with you, I was kind of like brushing my teeth and I had to go to

get up for work early.

I wasn't totally.

Well, just know when you go back.

Yeah, I need to go over it again and hear what.

When you go back, watch for me.

I pit Dave and Lucas against each other at one point and that was a lot of fun.

It was interesting that they had some disagreements on some significant things, I thought.

And then of course we have 5 .18, therefore as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one

act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.

So I mean, that's, like you said, Schreiner says it and a lot of exegetes say it, like this verse

is pretty definitive for Paul is teaching in Romans 5 .12 that there is this connection

between Adam's sin and as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, I don't see how

that can't be made any clearer by Paul.

You have the one trespass leads to what?

Condemnation, for who?

For all men.

And so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men.

And you said it earlier, but let's just make it very crystal clear.

If one objects to the federal headship of Adam, which brings condemnation upon them,

then they must be logically consistent, object to the federal headship of Christ whereby

his one act of righteousness, which they had nothing to do with as well, by the way, I don't think any of us were alive back

when Jesus was, you know, we weren't helping him with his work on the cross.

He did that himself.

So we get rewarded for something we didn't do, but we don't like getting blamed for something we

didn't do.

Well, it's one or the other, right?

So that's why the logical, where you end up going if you deny federal

headship, and thankfully, by God's grace, a lot of people aren't consistent pushing their theology all the way

through.

But if you push it all the way through, you end up jettisoning imputed righteousness, which in my

opinion, jettisons the gospel itself.

Because you end up saying, well, no, it's I do the following things and that makes me right with

God versus Christ does it all and I'm trusting in him kind of thing.

David, thanks for coming on.

That was awesome.

I knew I had to call up the man in the attic to talk about this important doctrine

because it's foundational to anthropology, understanding who man is, and I would say in light of understanding

who God is.

And so this topic is interwoven with everything.

And so me and you were restraining ourselves from talking about all the different things that it gets into, but I'm

glad we decided to talk about a few topics like infants that die in infancy.

Why does that happen?

Because Adam, because by one man's trespass, his sin, death now is universal,

right?

Because we come, we bear the image of the man of dust and the man is fallen.

That is the essence in which we are all derived from.

Amen.

Well, as always, thanks for having me, Jeremiah.

I appreciate it, brother.

What was my arch nemesis channel now called?

I gotta remember it.

What was it, the something in the basement?

Arch nemesis.

Yeah, belligerent in the basement, maybe?

Yeah, that's it, belligerent.

Oh, here we go.

Yeah, belligerent in the basement.

So you have an arch nemesis now, and we will do a soft announcement.

I think we're trying to get you ready for a debate on my YouTube platform where I'll be the moderator.

So people have to be on the lookout for that in the upcoming months or so.

Yeah, we don't wanna give too many details, but yeah, we're hoping to do a debate.

We got something cooking.

It's gonna be something that's gonna be cooking, that's right, looking forward to it.

And it'll be unique, too.

It'll be something I think that people will appreciate because it'll frame a topic differently than

normally it's framed, which I think is a good thing.

Absolutely.

All right, David, thanks again, man, for coming on.

You have a wonderful rest of your evening.

All right, you too.

Amen.

All right, well, thank you for tuning in to the Apologetic Dog.

I got a couple extra minutes.

If somebody wants to send any questions, pick my brain a little bit.

Doesn't mean I'm gonna have an answer.

By the way, following the side chat, me and Orange Oki, we've been talking about,

since we experience death, what kind of death is that?

And so, Oki, if you wanna send your question in one comment, I'll talk about it for a moment.

Because Romans 5 .12, I would argue, is the explanation of why we

experience physical death.

That now, that's not the negation to spiritual death, but I'm saying spiritual and physical death, they are

two sides of the same coin.

And so, when we get in conversations about, in the day that Adam sinned,

what happened, right?

Because God said, you will surely die.

And so, like I said, Orange, if you wanna kind of formulate a question along those

lines talking about death, I do not mind to interact with that at all.

Thank you for tuning in to The Apologetic Dog.

I tried to post a lot of y 'all's comments.

Appreciate the support.

If you've ever benefited from The Apologetic Dog, if you like the bearded dog logo, please

support the channel, at least by praying for me specifically.

Please pray for my church family, where I serve as pastor and elder at 12 Five Church.

They are a huge support for me being able to pursue this apologetics ministry, because they

know my heart, that I wanna engage in apologetics, but my heart is firstly for 12 Five Church to be able to reap the

benefits of this ministry.

And once again, pray for our church.

We are the only Reformed Baptist church in my hometown, Jonesboro, Arkansas.

But I tell people the Reformed caveat is something that we can

continue the conversation of, of who God is and who man is in light of that, and we can talk about those deeper

doctrines about understanding the complexity of God and his omnipotence, his

omniscience.

And I talk about that a lot on the YouTube channel.

So you might look at some of my past debates.

I debated Lutheran on double predestination, something that people do not like talking about, but hopefully I can bring

some clarity.

The way that God interacts with the elect is not one -to -one the same with how God

interacts with those that will not be saved.

So anyway, I just want that to be an ongoing charitable discussion for those that are holding on to the

gospel of grace, which you receive King Jesus by faith apart from works.

We continue those conversations about who God is and his sovereignty.

So even if you do not agree with me on Reformed theology,.

It's okay.

Where we are close -fisted is when it comes to the gospel of grace.

All right, Orange, let's check out this question.

Orange says, I was wondering if David or yourself believes that Romans 5 speaks about

spiritual death at all since David agreed that Genesis also

speaks of spiritual death.

Yeah, so David agrees with me along with 2 ,000 years of church history.

Absolutely, Genesis chapter two, where God says the day that you eat, you will surely die.

The answer is yes, it is spiritual, but the full Preterist and Church of Christ are wrong to say that it's

spiritual only because we know this going into chapter three, what

happens after Adam and Eve sin and God curses the ground.

He says to man, you will work by the sweat of your brow and you are a man of dust

that will return to the dust of the ground.

And this is telling us the consequences of death.

Spiritual death, physical death are not radically two separate things.

The power of sin reigns in death, meaning in our mortal bodies, sin pervades,

sin reigns and guarantees us to return to the dust of the ground.

And so I think, Orange, this is something that is a huge deficiency in full Preterism because it

makes death, this is the thing, it makes death always spiritual and cannot give an account

for why we physically die.

And it goes all the way back to Genesis chapter three where man will return to the dust of the ground.

That is thanatos.

That's the Greek word that means the termination of physical life.

Physical death is a result of Adam's sin.

So thank you for that question though, because it strongly relates

to Romans 5 .12.

And so this is what I wanna encourage the Church of Christ to think about is infants

that die in infancy, that is a result of Adam's sin.

And that is the very principle of federal headship and original sin because we are

born sinners, not because we sin, we will sin.

That is definitely the route that all men are on the trajectory from the womb are on.

It's not just an external influence, it's definitely there, but there's something within us.

We have what scripture calls a heart of stone.

We are by nature children of wrath.

So all right, that's maybe a good place to end it here.

Just once again, I wanna thank you all for tuning in to the Apologetic Dog.

I have a website that is getting worked on and so I can't wait to eventually do more announcements.

Really pushing for y 'all to go check out the website.

So those are some cool things coming up in the future.

Got a lot more content coming up soon, hoping to plan, host debates,

hoping to participate in some future debates on Marlon's channel that are in the works.

And so just, if you subscribe and hit the notification bell to the Apologetic Dog, I put out

posts that tell you where I'll be on other channels and things like that.

And so until next time, thank you so much for all your support.

Have a wonderful rest of the night.

God bless.