Chuck Smith

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

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Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

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United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

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James White. Good afternoon, welcome to the Dividing Line via Skype.

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I am in Detroit, Michigan, where it is a little bit cooler than it is in Phoenix.

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I was looking at the weather, it's going to be 74 degrees with one 76 -degree day this entire week in Phoenix.

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I believe it's 24 degrees outside with the wind chill down to about 18 here, so it's a little bit different.

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Not really sure why anyone lives in this type of weather, but hey, that's okay. They can do what they wish.

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Anyways, I'm here obviously to be on the Aramaic Broadcasting Network.

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I was on last evening for two shows. The shows tonight start at 6 o 'clock, and so we're going to do a little more this evening and 6 o 'clock tomorrow evening as well.

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And I've still got some, as Rush Limbaugh puts it, show prep to do before then, but we're doing the

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Dividing Line, sneaking the Dividing Line in via Skype. Haven't heard yet whether we are going to have a guest host on Thursday.

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Hoping we will have a guest host on Thursday and a guest guest on Thursday, but I haven't heard back on that yet.

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I would like to be able to make an announcement if maybe that information can be passed along to me during the course of the program today.

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That would be wonderful. I sort of forgot to ask about that, because I was prepping for the program today, but if someone lets me know about that,

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I will let you know about it as well, so you can look forward to Thursday as much as anybody else.

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But when I was putting stuff together, I was going to be talking a little bit about the extraterrestrial life thing.

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We might still get to that and a few things like that, but I fired up TweetDeck this morning for the first time in a few days, and there was a note from someone saying, �You've just got to comment on what

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Chuck Smith has said on his radio program regarding Romans chapter 9, verse 9.�

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And so I thought, �Well, we've heard it all before,

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I think, but I'll download it and see what there is to see.�

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And so I did, and it was sufficiently interesting to allow me to queue it up and make some comments today on the subject.

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He is in Romans chapter 9, which is a dangerous place for someone who opposes the freedom of God and salvation, which certainly

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Chuck Smith does, and the whole Calvary Chapel movement has become associated with that resistance to the freedom of God and salvation.

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And so Romans 9, 9 and 10 is a tough text for those folks who very much emphasize the freedom of man and the priority of man's actions, and God merely acting on the basis of foreknowledge of future actions but not his sovereign decree.

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And so we're going to listen to just two sections of this � there's much more that could be said, because he tries to go through Romans 9, and we could at each point have some useful commentary, shall we say, on what he has to say.

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But first his comments on the Jacob and Esau situation, and then he made some comments about the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.

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And by the way, if anyone happens to know, could you please let me know what translation

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Chuck Smith is using these days? Because when he reads this, when he gets to verse 13, he will read it as, �Jacob

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I loved, but Esau I loved less.� And I and some others went to biblegateway .com

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and a few things like that, trying to find any published translation that renders it that way.

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We found one that said, �Jacob I loved, but Esau I rejected.� But we did not find any that translated it as �loved less.�

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So I'm wondering if maybe Norman Geisler has come out with his own translation that just isn't very popular and is only available to certain people.

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Maybe it's the Veritas Seminary translation done by the staff, including the translator of Romans 9,

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Ergen Memet Kanner, who knows? But it is interesting that in the past,

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Chuck Smith was one of those that promoted Gale Ripplinger's book, New Age Bible Versions. And so I wonder what

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Gale would think of Chuck Smith abandoning the KJV at that point. But as it may, let's listen to his first comments here.

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Hopefully they will be clear enough for you, because I will be playing them on my system here and you may have to turn things up a little bit.

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We'll see how it goes. For this is the word of promise, at this time

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I will come and Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but when

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Rebecca, not just taking it one step further, when Rebecca also had conceived by our father

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Isaac and the children not yet born, and thus they had not done any good or evil up to this point, but in order that the purposes of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him who calls.

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It was said unto her while she was still pregnant, the elder shall serve the younger.

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As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have

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I loved less. Now, immediately we might say, well, that isn't fair.

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And Paul does anticipate that reaction. In verse 14, what shall we say then?

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Is there unrighteousness with God? God not fair, is it? God forbid. How can

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God make that statement of children before they're ever born? Declaring I love one and hate the other, and I've chosen the one over the other.

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That does seem unfair, doesn't it? However, what we must take into consideration, and we don't always take into consideration these things, is that God knows all things from the beginning, and God knew the entire life history of Jacob and Esau before they were ever born, even as he knew your life history before you were ever born.

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And because he knew that Esau would be a man of the flesh and Jacob would be more of a man of the spirit, though he was a deceiver, a conniver, and everything else.

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God knowing all of these things, and it is through the foreknowledge that God made that decision and that choice.

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Now, we'll just go ahead and stop right there, because this is, of course, the exact same argumentation that Eric Cantor presented and that people rightfully mocked in his sermon, and yet here you,

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I don't know how many people attend Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, I'm assuming this is where these words were spoken,

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I don't know how many people are there, but this is why Calvary Chapel will continue to produce

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Calvinists and will continue to have to kick Calvinists out of their churches, because to their credit and to Chuck Smith's credit, he says, read the

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Bible, read all the Bible, interpret the Bible. Wonderful. The problem is his traditions then tell him, but don't believe everything that the

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Bible actually teaches. So here we have a text, and again,

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I don't know what translation he's reading or if he's providing his own, I'm unaware that Chuck Smith is actually capable of reading the

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Greek language and then hence providing his own translation, but be that as it may, once again,

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Chuck Smith has turned the text on its head by stating, well, what you've actually got going on here is

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God looks into the future and he sees what Jacob and Esau are going to be like, and then he makes his decision based upon what

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Jacob and Esau did. Now Jacob and Esau's actions were not the result of God's activity, not the result of God's decree, these are autonomous actions, but God has knowledge of them, that is the

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Calvary Chapel position. So God's knowledge of the future is passive, he takes in knowledge of what happened in the future, that's the issue, and that obviously is not the point of the text.

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Look at the text again, verse 11. For though the twins were not yet born, and had not done anything good or bad, so that God's purpose according to his choice would stand, not because of works, but because of him who calls, it was said to her, the older will serve the younger, just as it is written,

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Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. Now notice the contrast that he is presenting, and it is a strong contrast.

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He emphasizes the twins had not done anything good or bad, it was not their actions that was the basis of God's choice.

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The whole reason he's pointing this out is that God's promise is prior to any human actions, that God's decisions are not based upon, he is not responding to, he is not the great responder in the sky.

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So the twins had not done anything good or bad, not just from our perspective, so that God's purpose according to his choice, the

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ESV puts God's purpose of election, which is a good translation, so that God's purpose according to election would stand, but what is that purpose if in fact it's just simply

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God looking down the corridors of time and making choice based upon men's actions? That makes no sense at all.

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But then he repeats the contrast, that would have been enough, but then he says, not because of works, so which is it,

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Chuck Smith? Is it because of works? He'll say, well, no, but God's choice was based upon what?

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His foreknowledge of the works, the actions of Jacob and Esau. The exact contrast is not because of works, but because of him who calls.

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What is the reason that Jacob was loved and Esau was hated? Chuck Smith says, because of who

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Jacob and Esau were, because of what they did, because of God's foreknowledge. How could Paul any more clearly deny that very concept than he does in these words?

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I don't know how you could. I don't know how you could, but that's the situation that we face when you have a tradition that outweighs the power of the text itself.

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The very contrast that he is attempting to present is overthrown by Chuck Smith's easy dismissal of this particular text, and that is a shame.

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Now, he then went off there, like I said, there's all sorts of stuff that we could look at, but I am going to attempt to get nice and close here, because I downloaded this as a podcast.

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Here's where he discusses the issue of the hardening of Pharaoh's heart.

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Now, listen to his presentation. Then we're going to look at what the Bible says about this. As we go back to the story of Pharaoh, we read, and Pharaoh hardened his heart against the

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Lord, and Pharaoh hardened his heart against the

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Lord. And we read that 10 different times, that Pharaoh hardened his heart against the

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Lord. And after declaring 10 times that Pharaoh hardened his heart against the

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Lord, it said, and the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh. Now, it is interesting that two different Hebrew words are employed here.

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The one that says, Pharaoh hardened his heart against the Lord, is just as it is translated.

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But where it said, and the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, the Hebrew word literally is the

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Lord made firm, or stiffened the heart of Pharaoh, so that here is

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Pharaoh hardening his heart, hardening his heart, hardening his heart, and then finally God moves in, and he sets him really in that hardened condition.

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The presentation that was specifically designed to communicate the idea that 10 times

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Pharaoh hardens his own heart, and only once he hardens his heart 10 times, then

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God comes along and says, okay, once you have that, then since you've done this, since you've been so terrible and horrible and nasty, and you've hardened your heart 10 times, now

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I'm just going to continue in that. And I can see how if people trust this man's exegesis and trust this man's reading of Scripture, they're going to believe that.

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But, once again, this is why Calvary Chapel keeps producing Calvinists, because people are going to go back and actually read all of Exodus, and instead of just reading that one story, they might actually start at the beginning of Exodus, and if they do, long before Moses stands before Pharaoh, long before Pharaoh's heart is hardened, we read these words in Exodus 4, verse 21.

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And the Lord said to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

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Now, Moses has not even entered into Egypt. He's being called back to Egypt.

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He's going to go to Egypt. And God is telling him what he's going to accomplish.

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And before the first word is said to Pharaoh about Yahweh and his people,

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God says, I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.

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Now, this is the term, chazak, chazak, to harden, to make firm.

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Then, in Exodus 7, verse 3, once again we have God saying, but I will harden

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Pharaoh's heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt.

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Now, this is a different term. This is kashay, so two different words.

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They are being used synonymously, and God says, I'm going to do this.

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I am going to do this, and here he starts to reveal the fact that this is so that he might demonstrate his glory in the destruction of the gods of Egypt and the demonstration of his power against the haughty attitude of the

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Egyptians, who were, of course, idolaters. But notice Exodus 4, 21, Exodus 7, 3,

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God says, I'm going to do this before Pharaoh does it.

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And then, Exodus 7, 13 through 14 says, still Pharaoh's heart was hardened.

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Notice it doesn't say he hardened it. It says his heart was hardened. That's chazak, the first one, same one used in Exodus 4, 21.

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Still, Pharaoh's heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them as the Lord had said.

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Notice that even when Pharaoh's heart is hardened, the scripture says this was as the

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Lord had said. This was as Yahweh had revealed. Then Yahweh said to Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened.

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He refuses to let the people go. Yes, just as Yahweh had said.

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And in this instance, you have kavod used of the hardening.

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So now we have three different words, not just two. Chuck Smith said there were two, but now there's three different words that have been used in regards to the hardening of his heart.

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Obviously, they're not meant to be different from one another. They are synonymous with one another.

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They have the same result and the same source. Then we get to Exodus 7, 22.

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But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts, so Pharaoh's heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them as the

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Lord said. There is chazak again, is the term used there. And then finally, you get down to Exodus 8, 15.

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But when Pharaoh saw that there was a respite, he hardened his heart and would not listen to them as the

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Lord had said. Now, it's just simply unbelievable.

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And again, this is Havad there, so it's kavod, heavy. All three terms are used.

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They're being used synonymously. There is no reason to try to see a difference in them. And when you actually allow the narrative to flow from beginning to end, it becomes painfully clear, obviously clear.

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That this is God's intention. This is God's doing. And that's exactly how

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Paul interprets it in Romans chapter nine. I will have mercy upon him.

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Mercy. I will have compassion. I have compassion. And he what does he say?

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He hardens whom he hardens. He mercies whom he will. He hardens whom he will.

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This is the freedom of God. And that is what results in the objections that Paul then deals with.

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These things are so clear. They are so obvious that, again, this is why

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Calvary Chapel will until Calvary Chapel is willing to face up these issues and start providing some type of meaningful exegetical response, this kind of surface level response that cannot hold water upon even the most surface level examination.

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People will keep seeing it. I don't have to point it out. There's plenty of people sitting in that church in a year.

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And they're going to run into Exodus sometime early next year. And they're going to remember what Chuck Smith said. And as they're reading this, they're going to hit

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Exodus 421 and go, whoa, wait a minute. Wait, wait a minute. This is before Moses ever even got to Egypt.

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And God says I'm going to harden his heart. Everything Pastor Chuck said was dependent upon Pharaoh having hardened his heart 10 times first.

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How can this be? And that starts the opportunity to look into the text of scripture.

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And to start thinking about what is actually being said. And if they will just take the time to start reading outside of the narrow range that marks much of Calvary Chapel, the non -denominational denomination, they will find the truth in these matters.

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And so there you go. There it is. There's much more that could be said.

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But if we've started with such a flawed foundation as that, you can imagine that the rest of the attempt to deal with Romans 9 is just as surface level as what we found there.

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877 -753 -3341 is the phone number. I'm not sure if we're taking Skype calls today.

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Didn't find out about that. Dividing that line is the Skype address. But I, again, don't know if we're going to be able to do that or not since I'm using our

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Skype. Yeah, no Skype calls. We've got you kind of holding on to the line there. So no Skype calls. Haven't found a way to do that.

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That's OK. That's fully understandable. That will come in the future, I'm sure, when all this will be done by little tiny implants in our foreheads.

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But there, got all the Tim LaHaye fans going. So 877 -753 -3341.

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Did have a bunch of other stuff to look at while we're at it.

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But I did want to get to that one. And it looks like we do have one phone call hearing.

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I need to keep that window up now, too. One of the difficulties in doing this in a hotel room is that there's only so much space on a 15 -inch screen.

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And if I hadn't looked down and seen a little teeny tiny mark on my

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Skype thing, I wouldn't have known that we had. Yes. Yes, we need to do emails as well.

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So let's go ahead and take our first call. Then we'll do some emails. And I've got some other things we can get to on the program today.

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And then, I'm sorry, Squirrel. I did feed Squirrel's dispensational paranoia at that point.

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Don't worry, Squirrel. We're not going to force you to have an implant on your forehead that will allow you to listen to The Dividing Line in the future.

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That was just a joke, really. Honestly, it was. You can calm down and please stop rocking back and forth, hugging your

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Tim LaHaye books. That just is not kosher. Anyways, let's talk with Daniel in Grand Junction.

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Hi, Daniel. Hello, Daniel. Hello, Daniel in Grand Junction, Colorado.

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Hello. Hello. How are you, sir? Doing well. And yourself, Dr. White? Freezing to death, actually.

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It's about 18 degrees outside with wind chills. But hey,

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I'm sort of enjoying it. What can we do for you today? Well, I had a question on Pentecostalism, particularly

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Oneness Pentecostalism and Acts chapter 19, too. I see they used the

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King James Version there, and was wondering what your commentary would be. Usually the way

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I hear it cited is He came unto them and said, Have you received the

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Holy Ghost since you believe? And the word since there, they'll try to separate that receiving the

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Holy Ghost was an experience that happened after someone believed, and therefore it had to be, usually this is in support of the necessity of speaking in tongues to receive full salvation or full new birth experience.

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So I was wondering what commentary you'd give there on, because I noticed that the ESV said that the when you believe, so on the textual, on the variants there and how you talk to them through that passage, even in the

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King James Version. Yeah, actually there isn't any textual variant there.

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The issue is translational. Even the New King James Version, which is dealing with the exact same

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Greek text, translates it when you believe. I'm not aware of any modern translations that render it differently.

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And in fact, when I was in second year Greek, if I had translated it the way the

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King James did, my teacher would have marked it wrong, because it's only extremely marginally possible if there was overwhelming contextual reason to do so, to render the aorist participle pistusantes with the verb, which is lambano, it's elabete, which likewise is an aorist finite verb.

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When you have an aorist participle with an aorist finite verb like that, it is very, very, very rare to render that in the way the

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King James rendered it. And the King James translators were great scholars, but it has been recognized the

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King James translators were likewise greater scholars of Latin and lesser in their scholarship, specifically of the syntax of the

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Greek participle. And this is one of those places where that is revealed, because this would be concurrent action in the vast majority of instances, you would have to make some kind of extraordinary argument to make it some kind of subsequent action in regards to the reception from the time frame of the action of the participle.

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And so that's why you'll find NASV, ESV, NIV, NRSV, blah, blah, blah. I mean, the list goes on and on and on that renders it, did you receive the

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Holy Spirit when you believe? It's not a matter of any textual variation. The text is the same in the

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TR or the modern Nesteoland or whatever else it is. It is much more an issue of how the

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King James translators handled participles. And so I would not go so far as to say the

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King James is necessarily 100 percent in error at this point, but it is, I put it about 98 percent.

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There's about a 2 percent chance down there that you could make some type of an argument, but it's all translational.

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It's not textual at this point. Well, it's interesting that New King James translates it that way, because when you listen to the

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NASV or ESV... I'm not hearing Daniel. Hello? Okay, go ahead.

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Daniel, go ahead and make a comment. I think he just was unable to hear there for a minute, but he looks like we've got him back. Oh, we lost

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Daniel. I think he gave up. Oh, okay. Oh, well, I could not hear a word there.

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So if it doesn't come through, I can't respond to it. So there's the response to Acts 19 too.

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So let's go on with the emails. All right. The first email is from Chris, and he is asking a question.

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Are all references in the New Testament to the scriptures referring to the Jewish scriptures? Are there any exceptions?

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Thanks for all your help and ministry, Chris. Yeah. Well, as far as I know, all references to graphae that would be in reference to something that is inscripturated would have to be there outside of one reference, and that is

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Peter's reference to Paul's writings, where he talks about people twisting

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Paul's writings as they do the rest of the scriptures. So it is possible that some of the later books might recognize some of the earlier

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Christian writings as scripture at that point. But the vast majority of references, given the

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New Testament was being written, that would cite the scriptures and say, thus saith the

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Lord, or it has been written, or something along those lines, would, of course, be in reference to the

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Old Testament scriptures, with that possible exception there and the possible exception that Luke might likewise have been cited as scripture at one point, too.

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But the vast majority would be, yes. Okay. Now, the next one, I don't know if you've had a chance to take a look at this, but the person is actually giving us a heads up that Harold Camping has begun to teach that Christ has already come.

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So is he now starting to go down the preterist road here, or what? No, yeah,

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I did look at that, and there's a discussion on some of the forums where evidently

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Harold Camping has gone to Revelation chapter 14, and I'm reading this from the link, where he says

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Christ has already come and is still coming in the clouds, harvesting the wheat and tares with a sickle.

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It would not be surprising whatsoever, and in fact, I had a picture that I saved a couple days from down in Nashville of a bulletin board.

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He is coming again, May 21st, 2011. A wise man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.

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The wise men knew, we can know dot com. So I'm reminded of a friend of the ministries that back in the days of Harold Camping's first false prophecy in 1994 of the coming of Christ, had spent money to rent a plane to fly over Jones Beach with a banner saying that Christ was coming in 1994.

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So here's someone who's been duped again by the false prophet Harold Camping about the

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May 21st, 2011, and as with all false prophets, and certainly those in modern days � and I say modern days, the past couple hundred years � they've learned the lesson, and that is as you get close, you start hedging your bet, you start introducing spiritual applications and stuff like that.

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Everybody knows that on May 22nd, 2011, Harold Camping is still going to go on the air, and he's going to be explaining how there has been some great spiritual event that has taken place and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and he's just going to keep going.

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And while he will lose some supporters and some people will be disappointed, just like when the

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Jehovah's Witnesses had the great 1975 disappointment, they find ways to keep going.

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That's the nature of deception, is that people want to believe things that allow them to avoid having to walk in a balanced way in their reading of the scriptures, and that's what's going to happen.

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We've all seen these campingites who have been emailing us, and we've seen that these are not individuals who are balanced in any way, shape, or form � certainly

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Harold Camping is not. And it's not going to be long before Harold Camping exits this world, not in a rapture with everybody else, but because he's old.

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And when he does, that movement will shatter into tens of thousands of differing parts with little leaders, but mainly what you're going to get are just disillusioned people who continue to believe odd things that are going to stay outside the

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Church, sometimes because of their pride and their arrogance, having been deceived by the man, sometimes because they're just people who don't have any desire to be subject to God's commands and they're just out doing their own thing.

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We've all met people like that, too. And so it doesn't surprise me at all that Camping would start to hedge his bets.

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This is what happened in the failed Millerite movement in 1844, the result of that was the spiritualization, the coming of Christ, which has led to all sorts of heresies, including

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Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh -day Adventists and their whole investigative judgment heresy, which continues to this day, and all because false prophets will always seek to cover their tracks.

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And that's what Harold Camping will be doing as well. Okay, Ben writes, this is a rather interesting one.

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Greetings. Recently, I was approached by a fellow Reformed Christian while discussing Ephesians 2 .8, faith being a gift, and so on.

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He showed me the Greek in the Stephanus, and I was very confused. I'm not too sharp in Greek, as I am just starting out, but I usually reference from the

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Westcott and Hort. Anyway, I noticed that in the Stephanus, as well as the

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Byzantine and Textus Receptus, that the word the was inserted before faith, reading, by grace you have been saved through the faith.

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So I looked for more passages in Ephesians, wondering if they would have the in front of faith as well.

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And to my surprise, I found that Ephesians 3 .16, 6 .16 also have the in front of the word faith, though it is not translated into English.

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I was wondering why the was left out of the Westcott and Hort, as well as the

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English text, and as if it was actually mistranslated.

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Thank you very much, Ben. I lost connection again. Oh boy. Well, we can hear you. I don't know if you can stay. Maybe it's going to clear up here in a second.

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This is definitely one of the more disjointed dividing lines we've done, and we've had some fun times with technology.

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Yeah, I'm not sure why Skype is so bad today. Maybe it's because I'm in Detroit.

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I don't know. But thankfully, I had the email, because I only got about 10 words out of all that. But if you all can hear me, then

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I guess that's the important part. There is a textual variant at Ephesians 2 .8,

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but the problem with the emailer's question is that the emailer suffers from a very, very common misconception about Greek, and it is something you hear all the time in preaching and in teaching today.

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There are very few people who actually understand the article in the Greek language. It functions completely differently than in the

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English language. And so whether it says, diates pistos, or diapistos, that's not the difference between by faith or by the faith.

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That's just demonstrative of an inability to understand the Greek article. That's not how it works.

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It doesn't work in John 1 .1, the god or a god. I would say the last two things that people get hold of in third or fourth year

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Greek is how to accurately understand the function of the Greek article and how to deal with Greek infinitives.

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For some people, it's participles. I've always loved participles myself, but infinitives have been the bane of my existence.

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But the article is an advanced topic in Greek, and so the questioner's error is to think that it would be by the faith if the article was there.

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That's not how articles function in Greek. So there is a variant there.

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It's an interesting variant. It is one that pretty much divides directly down the line between, and it's the only variant in Ephesians 2a, where you have the

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Byzantine texts starting as early as Alexandrinus that have the article.

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It is not found in Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, D, F, G, and a number of others.

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It's primarily an Alexandrian reading. And again, it would not really impact the meaning of the text, whether it was there or not.

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In both cases, it would be, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves is the gift of God.

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Now, I suppose someone might be saying, well, if it's the faith, then maybe it is the whole of the faith, that is, the revealed truth of Scripture or something.

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But I think that would be a misinterpretation anyways. The faith that is being spoken of here is the faith that we have in Jesus Christ, and all of that is freely the gift of God.

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It is not something that results from our works, nor that any man would have the ability to boast.

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So that is an interesting textual variant, but what's more interesting, I think, is the proper understanding of the

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Greek article. That is a real problem that a lot of folks have.

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So I believe those were the three questions that had been sent my direction. I did want to look at a couple of other items, one of which was,

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I don't know if anybody saw this, but starting, I don't know, about two weeks ago, ten days ago, something like that,

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NASA began putting out a bunch of promotional stuff about a media thing they were going to do, a press conference.

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And there are people running around who now honestly believe that NASA has found life on other planets.

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That's not the case. The reality is that some bacterium scraped from the bottom of Mono Lake in California have been shown to have the ability to swap out phosphorus and take in arsenic in the place of phosphorus.

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You see why they need to hype this? Because most people are like, really?

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Wow, that's going to change my life. But the point being that the theory is that this indicates that there could be a broader spectrum of life out in the universe.

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And I actually saw, I didn't keep it up, but well, I don't think I did anyways.

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But I actually saw humanists saying, this is the death of God, and all this wild -eyed nuttiness.

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We're talking about a bacterium found right here on the good old Earth. And it's just amazing to listen to people blow these things completely out of proportion.

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And I'm sure someday I'm going to have somebody mention this to me and say, see, they've just proven God, and you're just left chuckling at just how desperate people might be to try to disbelieve.

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But let's say, for the sake of arguments, leave aside this was something discovered on Earth, and all it really demonstrates is that life has an incredible ability to adapt and things like that, which has nothing to do with the existence of God outside of, obviously, if you believe in the existence of God, then his creation of life is an amazing thing.

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And I would think that for the naturalist, it would be just another ho -hum situation.

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But anyway, let's say, for the sake of discussion, that this arsenic -eating bacteria had actually been found on another planet, which is what some people were speculating was actually what was going on.

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Would that be the death of God? Because it seemed that the presupposition for many of the humanists and atheists that were commenting on this is that, oh, see, that would demonstrate that Christianity is a farce.

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And I just want to go, why? I mean, bacteria, for example, have been used by God in his creation to create beautiful colors, colors in water, and colors in lichens, leaves, and plants, and so on and so forth.

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It is in no way, shape, or form reflective of anything in regards to creation, to recognize that there can be different kinds of bacteria.

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But just for the sake of argument, let's say this was found someplace else. Let's say this was found on a planetoid, or on an asteroid, or Mars, or Jupiter, or whatever.

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Would that be relevant? Many of the atheists that I've seen have said, yes, it would be quite relevant.

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This would be very, very important. This would demonstrate that God is dead, and that there's no need for Christianity. Because their assumption is that there can only be life here on Earth, and there cannot be life anywhere else.

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Well, why is that? The only thing that would become theologically relevant would be intelligent life.

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Life that recognizes itself over against other things, and would be communicative.

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Anything less than that, I don't care. It would not shake my faith in the slightest to find a planet someplace inhabited by deer.

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If God wants to do that, God can do that. Look at the vast expanse of the universe that God has created.

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It's massive. Why would everything out there have to be completely sterile?

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What's the assumption there? I don't get it, but obviously there are lots of atheists that think that it is part and parcel of, right in the middle of the program, someone wants

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Kant's contact. Sorry, Joel, I don't think so. I don't see that it's relevant whatsoever.

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Yes, I did just say something about a planet of deer, Chris, thank you very much. It's not relevant to the matter at hand.

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All right, we do have one caller. We're going to try to get in before the hotel wireless dumps me yet again. Next time

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I'm really going to have to try just the droid and see if it does a better job, because it seems to be more stable. But it could just be where I am,

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I don't know. But let's go ahead and talk to Greg in the West Indies. Hi, Greg. Good day,

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Mr. White. Hello. I'm calling to ask two questions. The first one is the inner man, the regenerate man, when he's regenerate, does he sin or is the regenerate man is the perfect, the regenerate inner man?

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Well, it sounds like you're creating a distinction as if there is a regenerate man that is separate from the rest of the man.

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And I don't think that that's the case. There is no question there is abiding sin in our lives.

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That's why we need to have a mediator. But it's not like the quote unquote regenerate man is separate from some other man.

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Is that what you're assuming? What I'm getting mixed up is that Paul said when he sinned, it ain't really he who does sin, but it is sin that lives in him.

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So I'm wondering if that sin principle is separate from the regenerate spirit of the

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Christian, so that when a Christian sin, if it is really that sin principle that is sinning, or if it is his regenerate spirit that is actually sinning.

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Well, Paul recognized that Paul recognized that as a regenerate believer, it was his desire to do what was right before God, but that that abiding sin in him, that sin principle was still there.

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But he did not on that basis excuse himself because they are both a part of him.

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So it is it's an invalid question. He still sinned, and he still sought forgiveness of that sin, and he sought to hate that sin and to mortify his fleshly desires so as to not sin in that way.

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Yes, because my second question, my second question, it comes from Genesis chapter 6 verse 4, where the last part of the passage says, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

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Is this referring to the giants on the earth, or is it referring to the sons of God, or is it referring to the children who were born unto them from the daughters of men?

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Well, there's all sorts of takes on that. I'm not going to be able to answer that question.

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There are those who would say that the two prime interpretations concerning the

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Nephilim is that the sons of God are the godly line marrying the ungodly line, and then there is the interpretation that these are angelic beings and that this was an attempt on the part of the angelic beings to disrupt the promise of Genesis 3, the protevangelium.

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There seems to be evidence that that certainly is how Jude and 2 Peter understand this text.

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Jude and 2 Peter certainly seem to take that interpretation, but it's a very difficult text, and I don't claim any expertise in it, though at the same time, anyone

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I've heard a lot of people sort of mock the divine beings, the angelic beings aspect as if it's just not at all possible, and my only question to them would be, well, then how do you understand

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Jude and 2 Peter? Because they certainly seem to be talking about angels who did not keep their first estate, but lusted after strange flesh, and that becomes then the paradigm by which a comparison is made to the homosexual.

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But you see, the thing is, okay, I understand that, but what I'm really wanting to know is the last part in verse 4 where you refer to the mighty men.

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I'm having difficulty in wondering the mighty men who are of old, men of unknown, if these are the men who are referred to earlier in the same verse as the giants, the sons of God, or the children who were born unto them.

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That is really my confusion with this verse. Well, when it says they bore children to them, the them is the sons of God.

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So when the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them, that is the sons of God, these were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown, the

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Nephilim, which are referenced again, I believe it's in Genesis chapter 9. I haven't looked at this for a little while, but it goes back to, there's another reference that is made to them at that point.

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And it seems that the only New Testament reference to this is by way of sort of analogy and reference, and that's in 2

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Peter and Jude. But the mighty men who are of old, men of renown, are the children that were born by the daughters of man to the sons of God.

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Okay, so it is sons of God who are the mighty men of old?

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No, the sons of God are not the mighty men of old. The children born of the union of the sons of God and the daughters of man were the mighty men of old, the men of renown.

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Oh, thank you very much for that. But can I quickly ask another one, quickly? Sure. Do you believe in positional sanctification and progressive sanctification?

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And if you do, what are the scriptures supporting both? And that's my last question, actually.

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Okay, well, just so folks understand what that is, there is a need because of the wide use of the term sanctification in the

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New Testament to recognize that there is a finished status of sanctified. You have been sanctified by the one offering the body of Jesus Christ once for all,

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Hebrews chapter 10. So there is a positional sanctification that we have been set apart and made holy, but then there is a progressive sanctification that is our experience of the work of being conformed to the image of Christ, as Romans 8 tells us,

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Romans 6 tells us, which is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And that's what is being referred to by those particular phrases.

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They're not exclusive to one another. They're actually complementary of one another. Thank you for your phone call,

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Greg. And thanks for putting up with the intermittent Skype signal. I'm not sure why that happened, but we'll have to try to test it out sometime, just using my handy -dandy droid and see if that is somehow more reliable than what we've got.

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Maybe it's just a frigid cold back here. I don't know. But thanks for listening to The Vagabond. I didn't get any information on what's going on Thursday.

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There might be a program on Thursday. There might not. There might be a special guest. There might not. I don't know. But I will have to blog that information for you.

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Hopefully, I'm traveling that day, but hopefully we'll be able to work something out. If not, then we'll be certainly,

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Lord willing, back on next Tuesday. So thanks for listening to The Dividing Line. God bless. Join us again this