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Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona. This is the dividing line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.
Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is dr. James White director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.
If you'd like to talk with dr. White call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll-free across the United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic here is James White.
The name of this program asserts the scriptures daily. The name of the ministry is the Berean call. They search the scriptures daily to see if what the Apostle Paul was saying was so. Now our concern here is with the scriptures and how people understand the scriptures.
Because I know there are listeners out there to say I'm clueless. I don't know what Calvinism is about and Arminianism. I don't know any of those things and I'm not particularly interested. Well, Tom, just a second.
I'm the interject a moment. I remember a letter recently from a pastor and he begins by saying we've been taking the Berean call for many years. We have agreed with you 100 right down the line. How you've exposed air and how you stood firmly for the truth.
But now as soon as you say a word about Calvinism all that's out the window. We dare not touch this that really concerns me. Mm-hmm. Well, let me tell our listeners how basic this is and I think this is.
Shows you what we're concerned about. First of all take the first scripture that anyone in Sunday school any Christian would learn. It's John 3 16 for God so love the world.
That of course is from the Berean call radio program. You may recall just a couple weeks and I am really really really hot in my headphones here. That we started looking at some clips from the Berean call that I had called from the archives and I just disappeared and We started responding to some of the common Assertions that are made by Dave Hunt and his co-host TA McMahon.
We only got through a few of them that program and I started thinking over the past couple of weeks. That in reality on Tuesdays as I've been we've been doing this for a number of months now. Tuesdays during the day generally, we don't get a lot in the way of phone calls and.
And Thursday evenings during the evening we do that makes sense. Most people are at work right now. They can't get get in to You know make a phone call or something like that. And so that makes a lot of sense.
And So my thinking is in essence, maybe we could Focus on Tuesday mornings on programs where I do more of a presentation something like that. Maybe you know take a phone call or two if they come in. But in essence then on Thursday evening have more of the interaction.
I've got a lot of distortion and stuff in my headphones right now. So you all just ignore me? I'm doing the best I can that of course what I was playing for you. Which sounded fine was TA McMahon and Dave Hunt and they are discussing John 3 16.
That's where they start. You'll notice that. Mr. Hunt said, you know, you're just not supposed to discuss these things. It is not that you're not supposed to discuss Calvinism David's. It's the means by which you're to do so.
Remember the words of Spurgeon when he said if you're going to disagree with our Calvinism at least represent it accurately. Which has been the issue so I can go back to that particular Section again and restart that and we'll hear what Dave has to say about John 3 16.
Well, let me tell our listeners how basic this is and I think this is Shows you what we're concerned about. First of all take the first scripture that anyone In Sunday school any Christian would learn.
It's John 3 16 for God So love the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever Would believe upon him. Now somebody said well, I know that scripture. So what? How would a Calvinist and now I'm being honest here David. I know that you will be too.
How does a Calvinist have to interpret that critical very important very wonderful verse because of their peculiar belief in predestination of a certain nature of irresistible grace and so forth that God has Predestined some to go to heaven and predestined others to go to hell.
Therefore it can't be for whosoever. They believe in limited atonement that Christ did not die for all. Therefore they have to change world to elect now. Let's stop right there.
You'll notice and this again is something that mr. Hines has been corrected on a number of times that he has has yet to Grasp hold of it or accept the correction. And of course if you're not going to accept the correction, you might want to be able to explain why?
There is an issue in regards to why? It is improper to understand in a particular direction, but be as it may the phrase whosoever Is very key to the understanding of this passage? In regards to mr. Hunt's understanding of it and many others the more scholarly Armenians will not be quite as Emphatic at this point because they can read the text and they can translate the text and that Changes things in essence for them.
They recognize that there is no general term in the text for Whosoever they will not read into the Greek text the concept of universal ability. But mr. Hunt does and it's interesting. I might mention around the way.
And There's folks mentioning. It sounds rough. It'll clear up clear up in just a second. It just hit I don't know what happened, but something just hit and all of a sudden we're back to where we we normally are and it sounds good, but anyway the the Material the discussion that we've had on this program Regarding Dave hunt of late and by the way, let me back up one more time Straightgate calm if you haven't been there Str a IT Gat e .com if you've not read Pilgrim's Progress that might not mean anything to you, but straightgate .com.
That's where our that's where this program is archived. If you're listening this program on archive You're probably listening to it there unless you purchase the mp3. That site has been completely reworked.
Steven Luker's done a great job. And what he's done is he has Collated all our material on various subjects and put the put it together so you can go to now a Dave hunt page and Obviously this particular program will be added to that and you can see all the responses we've offered to Dave hunt over the past about three years now and On that that material is getting all over the place.
I'm getting regular emails right now. There's a tremendous amount of discussion of Dave hunt and his book in Australia and New Zealand and it's fascinating to read these supporters of Dave hunt who will for example say well I listened to that debate between white and hunt and and we haven't debated yet and mr. Hunt won't.
He's reneged on his his agreement to do so saying that the book is sufficient and obviously it's not but I listened that debate and it was just the radio program that I hosted the Marty Minto radio broadcast on KPXQ and and I Felt that that hunt bested white.
And I'm and I I listened to that program and everyone that I know who's listened that program just just looks at it and goes. That person said what they they they said what and it was it was Amazing that's that people who said but anyways, this stuff is going all over the place these programs are being taped and are being distributed in in the places where the the battle lines are drawn and You might say, you know, you've gone over John 316 before yes sort of.
There is an exegesis of John 316 on our website. If you go to the the Dave hunt open letter go about three-quarters the way through that very lengthy article. You'll find a section on John chapter 3 but the the fact the matter is The brilliant call it the newsletter the radio program is distributed all across the world.
And as statements are made responses need to be made and sometimes if you listen regularly, you'll see a response made more than once. That's because not everyone listens all the time and we frequently get people asking the same questions.
And so sometimes yes there is a level of repetition that has to go in there and Obviously when dealing with John chapter 3 verse 16 the first thing to catch when you're listening to someone Presenting it to you one of the one of the ways I've discovered and this isn't really anything overly insightful.
But it's certainly something that I've found to be consistent is that if the person emphasizes the term whosoever and Immediately makes application based upon that one of two things is going on either.
They have not interacted seriously for lack of exposure to Reformed materials say they they're going on their tradition. They've never had a response. They may be very interested when you provide them with the response and they may be very much Willing to embrace what the what the actual text is saying and to abandon that that's quite possible you can't just assume that they're going to you know, Blow you off and and so on so forth, but The other possibility is that yes, they're very much repeating a tradition.
They've already heard a response and they have no intention of accepting that response. That unfortunately is. It's a possibility as well. I you know, there's there's no way of knowing until you get into the conversation but when you hear someone emphasizing that whosoever you need to to in a In a respectful way and in a knowledgeable way and In a way in which you are seeking the edification of all involved correct the misapprehension and What I mean by that, of course is that when that whosoever is emphasized It's being emphasized without a textual basis.
What do I mean by that? Well if the person is saying this Verse is saying that every single individual has the capacity to engage in this activity. Then there would have to be something in the text to provide that foundation.
It's not there the actual Greek refers to all the believing ones now. We generally in English do not use that kind of a construction. We can understand it, but it's very rough. And so what we'll say is whoever believes What whatever group it is when you when you have that believing group name any person within that group of ones who believe and You will there have A person if they believe they receive eternal life.
That's all it's talking about all the believing ones receive eternal life. That's all that the John 3 is talking about when you use that term whosoever and say see it. There's no election then you're you have now Transported John chapter 3 out of its context you have ignored its original language.
You've ignored the original point and you're not showing respect for the passage so much what you might want to do. When talking to someone who brings this up when they say well, let's look at John chapter 3 you might say, you know.
Let's do that. And in fact, let's look at let's look at the key passages in John John chapter 3 John chapter 6 John chapter 8 John chapter 10 and John chapter 17. Let's look at all of them. Because you know the advantage here is we're staying in John we can stay in the words of Christ specifically and the dialogues he had with others and let's really do our best to show respect for the Word of God and What I mean by that is let's make sure that instead of Me hearing my Calvinist traditions or you hearing your non Calvinist traditions.
Let's do the best we possibly can to make sure that how we understand these words is how they were originally intended and. So if if there's something that we emphasize. Then we need to we need to make sure that that emphasis is the text's emphasis and not our Emphasis and now you've laid into foundation.
So when they quote John 3 and they emphasize this whosoever phrase you can go. Well, you know, it's it's interesting. You seem to believe that that there's there's something in the text here. That's talking about a universal capacity.
But all it's saying is all the believing ones whoever believes receives eternal life it in fact limits the text to believers because I'm believers are not going to receive eternal life and then you're assuming and I'm not sure upon what basis especially in light of the contradiction in John 644 that this somehow is a Universal capacity and that way you've sort of laid a foundation and one of two things is going to happen.
Either the person is going to listen and go. I've not thought about that way. I'll need to look into that or The more common reaction sadly is oh, you're just you're just complicating things and you're just you're just such a standard Calvinist and etc, etc, etc that unfortunately does happen a good bit as well.
Therefore it can't be for whosoever. They believe in limited atonement that Christ did not die for all. Therefore they have to change world to elect. Whosoever must be whosoever of the elect. The next verse.
Verse 17. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world But that the world through him might be saved on and on it goes. With so many verses the Bible ends. Whosoever will let him take of the water of life freely, but no you can't say that's whosoever.
Now notice something and I you know, if you have not taken a look at his book What love is this? One of the things that the Dave does and and this is a standard mistake an exegetical mistake that many people make.
He he will utilize Strong's exhaustive concordance the Bible now Thank God for Strong's. Strong's is wonderful but you have to use Strong's correctly and what I mean by that is if you simply look up a word in Strong's and You Don't bother Checking the the words or phrases that that word is translating in the original languages.
Especially when you use span across Old and New Testament, you're going to end up coming to some some pretty bad Conclusions and that's what mr. Hunt does. He he goes through this term whosoever and he doesn't seem to recognize that especially a Phrase like who's a word like whosoever in English is can be translated from an a number of different foreign language phrases whether we're talking about Hebrew or Greek and that that can that type of a Translation can come out of a number of different Original language contexts and so you can't just simply throw them all together and say well It's used 500 some odd times and it always means this or something like that.
You simply cannot Take that kind of a kind of a road That may impress folks who who don't do exegesis on a regular basis, but it's not sound Exegesis, it's a common error and it's an error that mr. Hunt has made freely, but no you can't say that's whosoever.
Because only the elect are allowed to do that. And in fact, no one can unless God regenerates them first. So you have to be born again before you get saved before you can have faith to believe the gospel.
So why would God be saying whosoever will let him come? Why would Jesus say come on to me? All ye who labor and are heavy laden.
Well, why why would Jesus say that you know, if someone were to ask you that question if If someone were to ask you why would Jesus say come on to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. How does there what is a reef reformed understanding of that passage?
Well, it's quite simple and in fact in my experience the vast majority of Objections that are raised by I Guess we could call them neo-arminians. I think I would I would almost have to call them Pseudo-arminians.
I need to come up with a term for evangelicals who know nothing about church history. Who hold to a non-reformed soteriology on the basis of tradition and But yet just don't know the whole issue and argument to begin with.
I need to come up with a term. Maybe we'll maybe we'll come up with a contest one day have y 'all call in with your suggestions for a term applies for someone like that. But When when such a person asks the question, how would you understand that the vast majority of cases?
We just sort of have to look at him and go. Well, there's nothing there. That is an objection. One of the things that we have to struggle with is that many people think that almost you know, they'll throw these verses up.
That's an objection. No, that doesn't mean anything to my position at all. You just don't understand my position evidently. Come on to me all you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest. Does the unregenerate man recognize?
What's being discussed here does does the unregenerate man hunger and thirst for righteousness of the unregenerate man. Is he weary and heavy laden? These these calls out to and this is something that hunt just just hammers away on God gives all these invitations.
Yeah, I Use this illustration and I'm certainly of course. I I I Certainly recognize that I didn't come up with this illustration, but it's one that I have used For all sorts of Years now and it's all sorts of in context and that is The the non reformed perspective in essence has God walking through the the graveyard of humanity carrying in his hand the elixir of life and With tears in his eyes, he's calling out anyone who will Raise yourself to spiritual life and take the elixir of life from my hands and If you do that in the graveyard long enough, they'll come and cart you away because there's something missing and What's missing of course is spiritual life itself.
No one can raise themselves out of that grave to to take from you that that that healing potion and so The whole idea of well, there's all these there's all these Passages of script hundreds of passages in the Bible where God pleads with people.
So, let me see if I follow the argument so if God pleads with people Then there can be No further action on his part where he enables his elect people to respond to those pleas. Instead the assumption the unstated assumption that is being made over and over and over again.
Is that if God makes the plea every single person has the capacity to respond to it? And you see what follows from that is the idea that well what's going on here is If God commands something or God gives a plea he must give the ability to fulfill it as well that becomes the argument and That needs to be the the statement the unstated premise that is a part of most of these objections is This idea that well if God pleads with all then he gives all the ability to respond as if giving that plea and then enabling the elect to respond to that plea and using that plea in their life to bring about spiritual life or spiritual sanctification and at the same time through the Rejection of that to bring about the hardening and the just damnation of those who hate God just as in the preaching of the gospel You have the exact same thing somehow God's not allowed to do that That becomes part and parcel of what's what's going on.
Let's finish up this clip.
Come on to me all ye who labor and are heavy laden I will give you rest. Do only the elect labor and are heavy laden or if you're just saying that To the elect see so we have hundreds even thousands of verse.
Hundreds and thousands of verses that is the Constant argument that I encountered in the writing of our book. Every time a particular verse of mr. Hunt's would would be refuted And demonstrated to not teach what he thought it taught for example first John 5 1 then the response to me.
We don't need that verse anyways because there are hundreds of others, and then you'd pick out another one. Let's look another one of these hundreds of others you'd examine it boom that one doesn't work either.
Well that doesn't really matter because there are hundreds of others, and it's this constant. Well, you know these nebulous lists when you start going through the list and you find out the list don't have anything to do with what?
We're talking about here. They don't they don't prove the point and yet it keeps being repeated over and over and over again. Let's listen to this one more, and then we've already got two folks online and phone numbers.
Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one. I didn't expect much in the way of phone calls today, but we've got some questions Specifically on the subject today, so we'll go ahead and take those.
But let's listen to this this next clip first that this needs to be addressed because it has to do with how you interpret.
God's Word and Look, we're not saying that they're dead wrong in everything, and and I don't want them to say that about us, but let's wrestle. Let's go through the scriptures. Let's search the scriptures to see if these things are so.
Did you catch that amen there. There's an obvious reason why I played that because I agree with it, and I agree with mr. McMahon. Let's go through these scriptures. Let's let's do this. Well, I suggest that doing it the way.
We're doing it right now that is. You have you have the folks you know up in The brain call and they do their programs. And they give their side and we give our side. Now of course what we do is we not only give our side But we play their side too, and then respond to it.
They don't play our side and then respond to it. We certainly by the way would would love to have Mr.. Hunt or mr. McMahon on our program if they would like to respond to any of this would be glad to have them on and By the way, we'd be glad to come on the brain call as well.
But obviously we think that the best way to do it is not through. You know radio programs and webcasts. But to do so in the form of a formal debate. Where we could debate John 316 and we could debate the exegesis of John 316.
We could go through the text of John 316 so on and so forth. That's what we would like to see. Take place well our phone lines are almost full. I guess it's just one of those days and What I'd like to do is go and not quite the same order because I'd like to try to keep the the the topics related here and since we were just discussing the term whosoever and What it means and things like that.
I'd like to go down south just north of Nogales, Mexico to Rio Rico, Arizona.
Hello, Jim. How are you? Hey? I'm fine Jim. Jim and Jim. Yeah, right. I don't know if you remember yet. You were at conference with us several years ago. Oh, yeah, sovereign grace Baptist Church. That's true.
It's the only time I've ever been into Mexico is when you took us across the border there to the restaurant that John Wayne used to frequent. That's the about the only thing I remember about the specifics there then.
I was hoping a whole lot that I was going to. Get back into the good old u .s.. Of a and not encounter any federales, right?
I think I think you made it safe and sound. I think we did. Maybe a comment about This this concept that it might takes on meaning when you do it. For instance in Proverbs at King James Reference that says wine is a mocker strong drink is raging and whosoever is deceived thereby or doesn't mean anything.
Really when they throw that out there is that is that not true. Well?
Yes, and of course each one of those phrase whosoever whoever is what the new American Standard uses. You know each one of these has to be defined within its context because as you're right as you say whoever Does this whoever fulfills this condition?
It's just a part of the English language, but what we see here. I think is an example of where tradition exists within Evangelical preaching and teaching and that is when you know you don't have to stand up in a pulpit and Say well whenever we say whosoever This is what we want you to understand by it as long as you use it that way with an understood idea.
You never have to actually commit yourself to the teaching, but the teaching is there nonetheless and in fact it is so clearly Communicated that to question that on the part of anyone is to expose yourself to being identified as a God hater and a false teacher and and Occultist and everything else as I have discovered.
You know over the past number of years myself so I think you know we really need to learn that that there is a That one of the means by which tradition is promulgated even within Evangelical churches is through the way in which we use verses not necessarily by what we say about Them we can simply allow the conclusion to stand and if you repeat that over and over again Especially within the context for example of a of an emotional altar call or something like that You repeat it on a weekly basis over and over and over again eventually people get the idea that well you know what that must be what the verse means and That they stop thinking critically about the verse and just understand it within the context of tradition.
Right, right. Yeah. Refers to that in his figures of speech as a synecdoche too, doesn't he? I'm not sure what he refers to it as now. Yeah, he puts it on the category of a synecdoche of genus.
Well, especially with verses like that you heard TA McMahon saying well You know This is the first verse any of us memorized as if what that means is This is a verse that everyone understands and our traditional understanding is the only way that it can be understood.
The problem is the vast majority of us have never been challenged or instructed to recognize That what John wrote under the direction of the Holy Spirit of God as he spoke from God Was Hinnah pass hoppest you own in order that all the ones believing ice out on in him.
And you go on from there that he didn't use the term whosoever our understanding of whosoever must be Made commensurate with and must match what the Holy Spirit gave to us in John initially. And that's that's the important part that people need to understand and and I think we need to communicate very clearly to our our people today.
Right. All right. All right. Thank you very much brother. Thank you for your work down there in Rio Rico beautiful area.
I imagine you're getting some some monsoon storms down there about now. Yes, we are. We're getting I bet.
All right, brother. God bless you as you work down there. Okay. All right. Thank you for calling. Bye. Bye. 8 7 7 7 5 3 3 3 4 1. We need to take a quick break and then come back with Drew and With Jason.
Jason first down in Florida and we'll continue here on the dividing line right after this.
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And welcome back to dividing line. My name is James White and Yeah, I'm noticing someone discussing Phillips Craig and D in the channel we are discussing Responding to some statements from the Dave hunt.
It's interesting. I have we're only on the ninth cut I have 13 we've only played two or three two I think so far this morning and we have lots of phone calls. So so much for my observations as when the phone calls come in whether it's Tuesday morning or Thursday night and so much also.
For you know planning along those lines and I appreciate the phone calls I think it's good to have have folks listening. So let's go ahead. We're going to head out to Sunny, Florida and talk with Jason.
Hi Jason. Hello Jason, how are you doing good? What can we do for you today? Well, I.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get one amp to work so I have no idea what you've been.
Discussing other than what what I heard on the phone. Oh, okay. Well, I win amp works. Music match jukebox should work. We've got lots of folks that listen regularly on them. So it's just a matter of probably playing with your buffering settings and and your network network setup.
Yeah, yeah, I'd.
Right. Yeah, I'm having trouble with that. Anyways. The reason for my friend of mine who's was the Presbyterian, mm-hmm, and I Was using the argument that you you had come up with on Christ being the mediator of the New Covenant, which you know the mediator somebody the mediator of the.
I said, well, yeah, I think so and Did Moses mediate wrath to people in the Old Covenant and I said, yeah, and then he says well, what's your point?
Well the point. Yeah. Yeah the point. I'm Sorry, if someone would say that simply because the points fairly clear and that is that the offering that Is a part of the Old Covenant as argued in the book of Hebrews is an offering that can never take away Sins, the New Covenant is the covenant in his blood.
I think if we would always instead of just using terms old and new if we would just refer to the covenant in his blood Then the issue of the nature of Christ mediation intercession his being a mediator of a new and better covenant would I think be a little bit more clearly understood by everyone because If someone were to say to me, well, what's your point? I would probably respond Well, I guess you didn't get my point.
My point was that the work of Christ in his blood as a mediator is Significantly different which is what makes the covenant new and better in the first place now I recognize that there are all sorts of ways around this.
So there are those who say the New Covenant Will not be brought into full fruition Until the end of time in essence in a post-millennial concept other people who limit the betterness of the New Covenant to such things as the priest of the priests and The knowledge of God's leaders in the New Covenant and things like that.
But I think if you just simply read Hebrews and the argument of Hebrews and always keep in mind it is an argument It is an apologetic and we must understand it in such a way that its arguments have weight and make sense.
Then the question that I have asked many times in regards to Christ as the mediator of the covenant in his blood is significant but significant in different ways to different people what I mean by that is obviously this is a Debate within the context of those who believe in such things as particular redemption for those who do not believe in particular redemption That's a completely different context for them in regards to the nature of the New Covenant in the first place.
So that would have been my response to him as if you'd said well if Moses mediated wrath well, first of all Moses isn't the one who Provides the covenant in his own blood. There's a there's a thing. There is a significant discontinuity in the fact that the pictures of the Old Covenant pictures in the New Covenant of the New Covenant That is the the types and shadows the sacrifice of Christ in of themselves could never Fully picture the sacrifice of the Son of God himself.
You did not have a a person who is both the high priest and the offering. This is another of the of the great Superiorities of the the New Covenant to the old at that point and so that the discontinuities there would cause all sorts of issues and I would I would probably just go back and try to Explain that to the individual and see see where they come from then.
Something I just thought about it's actually in the Shorter catechism is. One of the reasons why Christ had to be a mediator was because he had to take and in that respect.
That that would that would be something significant. Oh, yes. Yeah the nature. Yes. Yes the nature of his mediation is Absolutely unique because of the nature of the mediator himself and the nature of the covenant itself.
Being the covenant in his blood. Yes, I mean that that is that is I think vitally important. All right you. Well, just let's make it just one because we've got Drew and Jeremy online now waiting to get in and we only have about 15 minutes left.
So just just one more if we could do that. All of my Presbyterian friends and channel are currently biting their fingernails.
Assuming assuming they're wrong the question and I'm sure you've heard this is. And I'm and you have a five-year bus to be a believer in any formal way. Seeing how God not to hang out or associate with your five and four-year-old no.
Not not at all. Within the context of the family. We are instructed to As parents to bring the discipline of the Lord to bear upon our children. Recognizing that it is only in God's hands what he does with their hearts.
But it is our responsibility to make sure to communicate his truth and his will to them. They may well as we have many biblical examples Rebel against that but when they are within the context of our homes They're under our authority as parents and as parents.
We are to bring that that discipline to bear upon them. And as far as association goes I don't think that that passage is referring to interfamilial Associations of children with children brothers and sisters and so on so forth.
We know that the gospel divides families. And we pray that God will be merciful to our children. I just had the the wonderful opportunity the Sunday night before last to baptize my son On profession of his faith he is 17 years of age and I have every reason to believe that The Lord has been merciful to him not just a matter of weeks or months ago.
But a good bit before that we reform Baptists, however tend to be a little bit slow on the uptake there in the sense that we recognize that young children, especially will do anything to make mommy and daddy happy and I have personally seen in my life Far too many people who walk through the waters of baptism as a six-year-old and as a 26 year old Blaspheme God hate God and bring dishonor upon their family and upon the profession of faith they made as a child.
That tends to take place during that period of time. In the teenage years when the hormones kick in and all of a sudden doing what mommy and daddy want aren't nearly as important as they used to be. But once a person gets through that that period of time and remains consistent to that confession we reform Baptists tend to take that rather seriously and want to encourage them and and that's what took place and so You know we continue to pray for all of our children.
And that's a common prayer within our fellowship is to pray for our children that God would be merciful to them and draw them to himself. But it's I don't think that has anything to do with the talk about Association has anything there to do with inside the family so Jason.
Thank you very much for your call today. Let's go ahead and talk to drew up in Boise, Idaho, how are you sir doing pretty well doing good?
Hey, I just wanted to start by thanking you for the ministry and stuff. It's uh I've only been Christian for almost four years now and and Reading your stuff has really helped me solidify a lot of what I believe and It actually I came out of the way international and oh really yeah.
And and I actually became a Calvinist before I became a Christian I'm reading. I'm actually reading is the Mormon my brother because I was studying Mormonism. Oh my. But anyway, it's uh yeah as soon as I became as soon as I came to believe in deity of Christ and stuff I went out and.
Immediately. Consumed the Forgotten Trinity. Wow that's excellent. That's great to hear and quite a blessing, but anyway my question.
A little while ago a pastor at my church was Teaching on John chapter 1 and he gave an interpretation of 113 applying you know not born of blood or of Will of flesh or will of man to Christ and I didn't know instead of to The believers the children of God and so and I was kind of okay.
I'm confused who.
John 113 says who were born not of blood nor the will of the flesh or the will of man but of God and so I'm Confused as to what he was saying in regards to Christ. Well. He was saying that.
The one the one that's born in John 113 was Christ. Except it's it's plural right it is plural and and I even asked a friend of mine Who has taken a couple years of Greek and who has a Greek New Testament?
You know is it plural in the Greek and she said yes, we're only Greek. Mm-hmm. And but then I Came across RCH Lenski's commentary mm-hmm that passage, and he has the same interpretation, but he argues Makes a couple arguments for it being applying to Christ.
The first is that it's sort of a Contextual argument saying that when John uses Kai to say and like he's not he doesn't do that to move on to a new topic Expound the same topic and he uses and in verse 14.
And so why would he even though the common understanding would be that he's moving on to another topic the Incarnation and Lenski argues that no he's he's talking about the Incarnation 13 as well, but then also he argues that That the Greek text that we have Is from a later origin in this earlier Greek text and he Brings a couple bunch of names that I don't really recognize because I've never saw it before but That they all all had no pronoun at all 13 and that For a long time it was singular and then it got changed to plural to reflect peculiar doctrines and stuff, but okay.
Well, yeah, there is a there is a variance. It is a very minor Variance the the text that we have says hoy ooch Which ones were not born? Now codex Beze Simply has ooch now Beze is is well known for its rather strange readings.
There are a couple reasons for that there's a Reference to Irenaeus in the Latin and to Tertullian as not having the plural pronoun there, however. The text is read by p66 which p66 is one of the two earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of John by a long shot and Sinaiticus the second hand of Vaticanus the majority text.
And I'm just looking at the the variant here P75 as well would have the the plural article. The the vast vast vast not only vast majority of text but also the vast majority of early text this is this would when when someone takes a Super super super super minority reading that goes against all the best manuscripts of a book.
You know that they're trying to get around something and that's what's going on here. Lenski Has a number of shall we say overly unique interpretations that The only one I've addressed on our website is his overly unique interpretation of Romans chapter 9 but let's let's just say let's call this one a big reach a big big reach and it the the I don't see any reason whatsoever textually to to give much credence whatsoever to that and further the The context just would be left utterly Disrupted and this idea that Chi I'm sorry that again.
That's that is a massively. Yeah, that's a big leap relief. That one didn't seem as. No, no. No, not at all, so that is interesting that there is a very minor variant there but when p66 and p75 both have that the the issue becomes later on down.
P75 has a different spelling of you know, and a few things like that, but just glancing at it there. That's taking Codex Beze over against The papyri just is not something that you would normally do you'd have to have some other reason to be doing that.
Yeah, all righty. All right. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the kind words and I'm very thankful that our meager efforts have been used by the Lord to help you to understand his Truth, so I pray that God will continue to grow you in his grace and knowledge.
I All right. Thanks a lot, Drew. God bless. Bye. Bye. Okay, let's go on and let's talk with Jeremy down in Atlanta down in the great state of Georgia. Down in Georgia where the South will rise again. You do not talk about the Civil War because there was nothing civil about it.
It was the war of Northern Aggression, that's right. Make sure you talk real slow so I can understand you. First I'm called I did meet you down at Pastor David King's church down in Dayspring Presbyterian, I believe the last time you were there last do that's right in July.
No, I'm the former one that's been a cost while we emailed you a couple times. Oh great. Yes, certainly and we've had some Conversations about trying to get some debates arranged. Yeah, I still haven't given up hope with With David K Bernard to to get involved there to do it look good.
Not as far as a public debate, but sometime in August. We're doing a radio debate on KJ SL in St. Louis on the subject of I believe where the Sun has eternally existed as a divine person. Well, that'll be great.
When is that going to be? You know, it's funny. I just wrote to them Last week because as I was looking at all the emails I had not put it in my palm pilot and if I do not put it in my palm tungsten tea.
It does not exist and since it's not there then I don't know when it is and I couldn't find it. Find the the final emails that nailed it down. So I just wrote to them a couple days ago and have not gotten a response, but it's supposed to be sometime in August I'm not sure exactly where.
Okay. Well, maybe you can maybe you'll mention it out, you know being a former third generation I have a lot of family still involved and I would love for them to to tune in indeed. Just one observation.
I teach the adult attend observation here. Call it is the the preaching every Sunday from the pulpit just throughout the years and let's be a couple that with the Evangelistic someone uses or tool decision corner to make a decision today.
Why wouldn't you want to accept, you know? It's really tough can happen and and just that's very very simple. But yet it's so complex to try to get that across to To people who have just Tradition is so embedded here on the main thing that it's whole idea of the main thing being God is glory.
I'm just unheard of right in this in this area. The churches are huge here human Europe. I'm sure you'll. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know and the idea that evangelism First of all, it continues on inside the church.
In other words, there is this growth and grace and the necessity of discipleship and things like that. And that God is glorified when his truth is proclaimed even when that truth is rejected that is that's pretty much unheard of within a sadly a large portion of Southern Baptist churches outside of those those founders churches and Yeah, I I've been there done that got the t-shirt in essence many many years ago in seeking to To uphold the the truth of God and and eventually that's why I ended up in a reformed Baptist Church Was because of that very issue but yeah it's it is I you know, it can be done in a biblical sense in the sense of going into an Examination of passages where evangelism takes place in the New Testament and it doesn't fit that particular paradigm but that's sometimes difficult to do within certain Southern Baptist churches because You aren't given a whole lot of freedom within the Sunday school classes To necessarily vary from that always scintillating always gorgeous always in-depth and an exciting quarterly material.
Yes, which. And almost I mean there really is a sense where You will be labeled as a divider if you're not careful. So is this doctrine divides people and we just need to all get along and preach Jesus is What I hear like if I could just ask you I know appreciate your time.
One more question. We're in transition. We do not have a pastor and without going into the for one pastor and but having said that We are you know, and have a pulpit committee if you will and do you can you recommend any? material that would be helpful and Yeah, I you know, I I don't I I know that Brodman Holman will be putting out the book.
That I contributed to in regards to forms of church government. I don't know when it'll be out, but they they will be putting that book out in the not-too-distant future. But that wouldn't be of a lot of help there other than just examining issues of church governance.
And how that that is to work out, but I I personally am not familiar with anything like that. I'm sure that they're out there, but I I haven't seen anything like that obviously from my perspective a person who is willing to Work with.
Creating the future leadership of the church from within the church is is something that's extremely important. I think that the eldership should should arise from within the congregation itself. And perpetuate the teaching of the church in that way so they don't have this constant massive change, you know over time.
So that would be one thing we'd want to look at but Jeremy. Thank you very much for your call. You keep serving the Lord down there in in Georgia. It doesn't matter how slowly you say the truth as long as you say.
Thanks, Jeremy. God bless. Thank you for listening to the dividing line today Thursday evening I'll be in normal, Illinois. So I won't be able to be here, but should be back Lord willing next Tuesday morning for the dividing line.
God bless. See you then. The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.
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