A Mega RFG: Federal Headship Affirmed vs. “Traditionalist” Southern Baptist Denials

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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01:04

to the dividing line. Am I on? I am on. Okay, just want to make sure because I couldn't tell and I looked over at the thingy and I wasn't sure.

01:15

Anyways, why are you looking at me so strangely? Why? Oh, oh, well stop that.

01:25

I'm gonna move that out of the way. There's a Kleenex box right underneath the camera. It's weird. Why do

01:31

I need Kleenex? When would I have a chance to use Kleenex? I mean, am I supposed to blow my nose? You know, with a camera?

01:37

It used to be I could do anything. Yeah, I could sit here wearing a t -shirt. It was fine. Then, somebody got the idea of video.

01:44

Hey, really quickly. Hey, did you see? I reposted on Facebook that last week hit one year when

01:51

I tore that room apart. Yes, I saw that. Yes, it looked very different back then. Much, much, much different than it does now.

01:59

Real quickly, first of all, thanks to John Sampson for filling in for me. I guess he got into a bunch of trouble with a bunch of Scotsmen.

02:06

Scotsmen just like to get mad about stuff, so don't worry about Scotsmen. But filling in and discussing all sorts of important stuff and I appreciate that while I'm away doing stuff that we were doing.

02:19

Florida trip, real quickly. Sincere thanks to everybody who put it together, which would include

02:27

Kyle Houck and Chris Hatton and Chris Arnson and Mike Gaydosh and Jeff Rose because there was really, there was two parts to the, well, barely two parts to the trip because I was going every single day.

02:43

There was no day when I didn't have anything. In fact, one day, Keith Foskey so much wanted me to come to his church that we did a, we did something at, actually started at 8 o 'clock in the morning, but I started speaking at 9 o 'clock in the morning on a

03:01

Wednesday, 9 o 'clock on a Wednesday. And they had a really good turnout.

03:08

I was amazed, but I had to go to exactly 1015 and then jet out of there and literally jet out of there and drive straight to the airport for my flight to Atlanta and then from Atlanta, Pensacola.

03:22

I'd never been to Pensacola. Pensacola is allegedly in Florida. It's not, it's

03:29

Southern Alabama. That pan handle doesn't count. Okay. It does not count.

03:35

So that's actually Southern Alabama. And so it was a busy, busy, busy, busy trip.

03:43

Despite having something every single day, sometimes more than one thing per day, I did manage to run 26 .3

03:49

miles in Florida. That was, that may become, as I'm coming back,

03:56

I don't feel all stressed out and stuff like that. So that was a good thing. But anyways, especially though, my sincere thanks to Mike and Kathy and Saw and my new best bud,

04:09

Ryan, to the guys and gals of Sovereign who just went above and beyond the call of duty on this trip.

04:19

And when you see, when you see the video, wait, some of you on Facebook have already seen screen captures from the, the,

04:32

I'll go ahead and call it a debate because now that I know Imam Musli, I think he can understand why

04:37

I use that terminology and it's not going to, not going to cause any problems, but the debate with Imam Musli, Nick just sent me a tweet, listening to the

04:50

DL live in a crowded Ukrainian bus, the driver yelling for people to pay, but first 10 minute, 10 minute or something.

05:00

I'm okay. So anyways, there's, there's a live picture. Well, sort of live picture of poor

05:05

Nick in a crowded Ukrainian bus, listening live to the volume. I don't know how he does that. I mean, well,

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I do actually. When I had connection in Ukraine, my internet speeds were faster than we have here.

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Must be Putin. No, it has nothing to do with Putin. It's despite Putin. Let me, let me, let me tell you about that.

05:27

Anyway. Hi, Nick. How are you doing? You're going to enjoy today, by the way. Oh, by the way, Nick, I I've finished your paper.

05:34

I just haven't sent it to you yet. I apologize, but I finished it on the plane and I was grading a, what was that?

05:42

32, 32 page paper from Nick on a new creation in Pauline, Pauline thoughts.

05:53

So I'll have to have you on to discuss it. I just made him really nervous. I don't think so.

05:58

No. Anyway. What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Uh, they're in, uh, in, uh, the debates,

06:06

Mike and sovereign did six camera shoots and every camera had lenses like this big.

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So I've, I've already changed my profile picture on Facebook because they got this really good shot.

06:22

Well, um, I, I totally blew, um,

06:28

Mike away because I was literally on the plane here in Phoenix when he called me and he says,

06:34

Oh, I just met him on mostly. He's just one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. I just, I'm really concerned about this because I'm not sure this is, could be much of an exchange because he's just really nice guy.

06:45

And I'm like, that's fine. I'm good with that. You are. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, you know, they want you to have you all at the same table.

06:52

Um, and I said, you need to have two. I said, no. And in fact, if you want to do the comfy chairs, that's fine.

06:59

And it's like silent on the phone. And he's like, what? I said, yeah, that's cool.

07:04

Okay. I'm even laughing about that. Oh yeah. I'm the one who said it. I were, I'm sitting on the plane. We haven't, we haven't left the gate yet, so I can still use my phone and I'm gone.

07:13

It's cool. And he's like, I said, look, and basically what I explained later was

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I'm really comfortable with this topic, this subject, and I'm so comfortable with it now that I can address it in all sorts of different contexts.

07:30

I just remember when we got to Biola and they had the comfy chairs out and the big plastic plant.

07:36

Yeah. But I knew Shabir. I knew, I knew Shabir Ali. I knew he was going to have all these books. I knew that was not going to work.

07:42

This was going to be a head -on debate. Um, but if there's someone who says,

07:47

I just want to have a dialogue, I want to, you know, that's fine. I'm good with that. Um, we can make this work.

07:54

And we did. And so we put out the comfy chairs and, uh, the picture that's now my

08:02

Facebook profile, I'm, I'm leaning forward and I'm looking at the Imam. And in fact, I sort of look at and go, ah, that's a little creepy.

08:09

Uh, that didn't sort of put them off a little bit, but, uh, it's intense.

08:15

It was really intense. The quality of these videos, both of the debate with Imam Muslim, we did.

08:22

Um, and I think it's going to be really useful. It's not, this is not the kind of conversation you're going to have with Adnan Rashid.

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Though, interestingly enough, there's a lot of parallels as to the arguments. Um, it's, it's very cool, calm, collected, very respectful.

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Uh, RTS loved it. The people there loved it. Um, the issues were very clear. We talked about the

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Quran. We talked about the Bible first and then the Quran. Um, and the quality is just going to be outstanding.

08:55

Absolutely outstanding. And these will be quality wise. These will be the best debates we've, we've ever had. Um, we even had an

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S3. I don't know if you know what an S3 is. That's the standard cinematography camera in Hollywood right now.

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I mean, if you're watching movies right now, a lot of them were shot on that. We had one of those amongst the six. Whoa.

09:15

So anyway, uh, and then Monday night, the debate with Dr.

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Greg Strawbridge on baptism, again, six camera shoot, same setup.

09:29

Uh, the quality is going to be, uh, amazing. Um, the quality is going to be far better than the

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Shishko debate because, you know, we, we remember what we had to do with that. Remember we, oh, we had our footage and then there was somebody at the church that had taken footage, remember?

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And we had to try to mix those together. And we're talking little cameras with little lenses of that big. And the quality here is going to be awesome.

09:54

Uh, really, uh, really is. So it's gonna be very useful. Um, real quickly, like I said,

10:00

I'm, I'm looking forward to, um, uh, the discussion with Dr.

10:05

Musli to be available. It's not your in the, in someone's face kind of debate.

10:14

Uh, you don't have any radicals sitting down in the front row yelling out a lot of Akbar. Um, but it will give you a better idea of the kind of exchange we need to be having with Western Muslims.

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Uh, when we're focusing upon theological issues, I think it's be very, very useful. And, and, uh,

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I would like to thank, uh, Imam Musli and his staff. Um, Abbasam was very useful in the, in his, his assistant in putting all this together.

10:45

Great, great guys, very, very friendly and they want to do more. So, and said that they can be mobile. So there have been a lot of churches that have said, we'd love that stuff.

10:53

We could not find anybody. Maybe now we know someone that if we could work with, uh, local, local

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Muslims, um, uh, he'd be willing to, to get together because we've obviously proven that we can have a really useful conversation and it was, uh, uh, very, very enjoyable.

11:09

Um, I'll be pretty honest with you. I enjoyed that a lot more than I did Monday night. And I think it's just simply because, uh, unless there is some really compelling reason

11:23

I don't think I'll ever be debating that subject again. I've said what I need to say. I mean, the, the, the quality of the

11:30

Shishko debate as far as audio and video is more than sufficient, not HD or anything, but you know, we survived without HD for the first, you know, thousands of years of human history.

11:40

We can, we can, um, the issues were clear in that debate.

11:47

Dr. Strawbridge and I have debated twice now. That means all grand total, we're up near between five and six hours of dialogue on this subject.

11:56

I don't think we're gonna be saying anything new. He, his position did harden some since 2007.

12:03

I did notice that, uh, back then he would say that baptized infants are brought into the new covenant community and differentiate between the new covenant community and the new covenant.

12:13

Now he just says, says full new covenant. Not just communities that there did seem to be a change there.

12:20

Um, but to be honest with you, um, I just, there's nothing more that I can say.

12:28

This debate was put together by others. Uh, there was a time when, you know, I was contacted, uh, from the guys in Florida and said, there's a real desire on both sides for a baptism debate.

12:39

And I'm like, Oh, great. I really wasn't, uh, I really wasn't excited about that.

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Um, then there were, there was all sorts of stuff that happened as to who was going to debate and stuff like that.

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And when they got back to me and said, Dr. Strawbridge, no, no disrespect for Dr. Strawbridge. I just didn't want to do it. We had already debated once.

13:00

Um, and I automatically knew that no matter what happened, because the fact that he has federal vision as tendencies and positions, that even if the debate went well, a lot of folks would just say, wow, well, he's, you know, he's federal vision.

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So, you know, and just dismiss it on that level. But I agreed to do it anyways, cause there was a real desire to do so.

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Uh, I just don't see any reason to be doing any more. Every time I've done these debates, I've been challenged to, or responding to a challenge.

13:29

It's not something I'm, I'm, I'm interested in becoming known for the baptism apologist or whatever else.

13:35

When I do these debates, I'm doing so primarily as a reformed Baptist elder being challenged on the primary issue that separates us from our

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Presbyterian brethren. Um, I don't enjoy those debates nearly as much, to be honest with you.

13:50

Um, you know, when I'm debating a Muslim, I've got clarity as to exactly what needs to be done and why it needs to be done and so on and so forth.

14:00

And, um, there, there were just things in the baptism debate that really bothered me.

14:09

Um, things were said by Dr. Strawbridge about, for example, Jesus mediating wrath to members of the new covenant and going to Revelation chapter six, where the

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Kings and the princes call upon the mountains to fall upon them as an example of Jesus mediating wrath. And I'm like, what?

14:28

Um, really? Um, just there,

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I've got some serious concerns about where his position leads. I don't know how he could defend against baptismal regeneration.

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I really don't. Um, and I think if these guys did a few more debates with Roman Catholics, some good sharp

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Roman Catholics, they might be able to see that, but it seems their attention is more aimed our direction than it is

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Rome's direction. Um, I've seen federal vision. I believe federal visionism has been a road to Rome for a number of people.

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I've seen it, I've watched it see it happen. It doesn't require federal visionism as some people have demonstrated in their apostasy of Rome.

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But anyway, so there were, there were things that bothered me and I was really concerned.

15:15

I really, I was offended by, we each had two 10 minute cross -examination periods and that's drawbridge took pretty much the entirety of one of those just simply for the art.

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Little baby's cute stuff, which just, um, what really offended me about it was

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I was seeking to avoid getting into the, well, you do realize that by, by your actions, you are creating all sorts of, um, uncommitted apostates.

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I mean, you're baptizing unregenerate individuals and they end up being unregenerate individuals and acting like unregenerate individuals.

15:59

And, and now, uh, they're now quote unquote apostates because you put them into the covenant and without them even making a commitment.

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And I've got all sorts of problems with that in regards to Hebrews 10, but be that as it may, I didn't want to get into, um, super emotional issues because I know there's people sitting in the audience.

16:19

There's, there's, uh, folks that are in the audience that know these people who, you know, their own children have gone off into the world because they've never been regenerate, but they're baptized.

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So now they're apostates. And I just didn't want to go there. Didn't want to, didn't want to talk about how baptism doesn't bring a new heart and so on and so forth.

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And, but Dr. Strawbridge just wanted to beat the bongo drum till the, the thing was about dead about, well, you're telling your children that they're liars.

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And it was, and finally I said, I'm offended by this. Can we get back to the topic of debate? And the, well, this is a pastoral concern.

16:54

You want me to get into the pastoral concerns? You know, I mean, I could do that, but I, and I had a, a, a cross -examination period right after that.

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And I, I was tempted. I was, in fact, I think there's a little brief period as a start where I'm sort of silent because I'm, I'm fighting the temptation, uh, to, you know, respond in kind, but I didn't,

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I went back to the text and that's when we started talking about mesotase and so on and so forth, trying to get focused again.

17:23

So I, I hope it's useful. It's going to be high quality. Um, it was an unusual presentation for me because basically

17:32

I, I listened to our past debate and I said, well, this is where we ended. Let's pick up there. Shall we?

17:37

I mean, let's, let's just lay all the cards on the table, start from where we need to start and go from there.

17:44

And, uh, hopefully it'll be useful to folks. Like I said, I'm looking forward to the, uh, uh, the video when it comes out, but I'm, I don't enjoy, uh, that kind of debate.

17:54

Uh, did not really enjoy that, that encounter all that much. Um, but if it's useful to folks, great.

18:01

And it was great to meet the folks there. Beautiful church, a beautiful, beautiful location.

18:07

And again, handled really well by, by Mike and the staff at Sovereign. They did a great job. And so I don't know when that'll be out, but it will be, it will be out soon.

18:16

And, uh, and thanks to Orlando Grace Church for hosting as well. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Beautiful, beautiful, uh, place.

18:23

It was just perfect for, for that kind of thing. Perfect size. We had a good group there. Um, really, really thankful for that.

18:30

So it's, uh, it, it went, it went well. All right. So, uh, then got to meet all sorts of great folks, uh, at, uh, uh, the

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Herald Society meeting, uh, Jeremiah Cry. I had done one of one more of these. I had done one back in New York at some point.

18:45

I don't remember how many years ago it was. Um, but I don't even know why they invite me to be perfectly honest with you.

18:52

I mean, uh, for some reason they like me, I don't know why, but they do.

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And, um, so, you know, meeting all sorts of folks to say, you know, this book did this for me or that book did that for me and this book got me out of this group.

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And that's always, that's always really encouraging to, to meet folks like that and, and to be able to answer questions and, and, uh, uh, it's, it's great time.

19:19

And of course, uh, um, the other, the other people speaking and I did a, I did a interview.

19:26

Um, I'm not sure if I should say this, but I guess, I guess he, it's, it's going to be public one or the other.

19:32

Uh, Eric Hovland was there. We had never met before. And, uh, he asked me after a lot of times

19:40

I spoke to go into this other part of the church where they had set up again, like three different cameras.

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Uh, everybody's got these cameras today that had just, I mean, I guess the prices of just, and you can just do incredible stuff anymore.

19:52

Uh, and they're half the size of ours, you know, it's just, it's just amazing anyway. Um, and he asked me to talk with him and we, we were supposed to do about 12, 15 minutes, maybe like half an hour, um, talk to him about the

20:11

Bible translation issue. Now, uh, Kent Hovind is the fellow that's in prison for the tax issues and is a well -known

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King James only as in fact has hooked up with Steven Anderson. Yeah, that's, that's, that's his father.

20:27

And so to talk to me about issues like that, uh, wow. But we had a great conversation.

20:34

We really, really did. And I'm looking forward to seeing when that comes out. I really am. Um, so looking forward to that.

20:41

So it was a great time and, uh, excited to, uh, to be home. Um, next thing on the, the, the,

20:48

I didn't, I didn't have a chance to put it up yet. I've sent it off to, uh, the fellow who just joined the chat channel as I was about to say his name, uh,

20:58

Hasim son of Ramallah King of graphics. Uh, I sent him a, um, graphic this morning of the debate that I'm gonna be doing a revelation

21:07

TV was let's see, the thesis is the reformation was damaging to the church.

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And I'm taking the negative on that and debating a Oxford trained Jesuit scholar, uh, on that subject on revelation

21:23

TV on April 15th. So those of you in the UK, uh, all across Europe that will be live on revelation

21:30

TV. And, um, I'm also going to be recording a to be used as they see fit.

21:39

Um, so there you go. Um, and that will, uh, that's the next thing.

21:45

So I I've got less than two weeks before I fly to Spain, uh, same place I went to last year in February where Michael Brown and I did our debates on the extent of the atonement and on, uh, healing, uh, same place, same folks.

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So there I'm, there I'm going to be going again, shorter trip only there, you know, four or five days grand total, uh, out and back.

22:05

So that's coming up. And then of course, may, uh, the latent flowers debate, which brings us to our, uh, our, our current topic.

22:13

We did not announce this. However, as I was running, listening to, uh, a panel discussion that took place at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary as a bunch of other stuff has been coming up,

22:26

I realized, I realized that we really needed to dig in this week on the dividing line.

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I mean, I've got a billion things going on, uh, between now and when

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I head to Spain, just so many things, but this needs to be one of them.

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And that is, we are going to do something I don't think we've done before. And that is right here in the middle of the program, 22 minutes in, we're beginning this.

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A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing.

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ. I have a problem with them.

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They're following men instead of the word of God. Our helper, he amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing.

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And I'm going to be the one standing on top of my head, on my feet, standing on a stump and crying out, he died for all those who elected, were selected.

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For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.

23:49

His craft and power are great and armed with cruel hate.

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Well, first of all, James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. On earth is not his equal.

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I think I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists.

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Did we in our own strength confide our striving would be losing.

24:20

But God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever.

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Were not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing.

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Ladies and gentlemen, James White is a hyper Calvinist. Now, whatever we do in Baptist life, we don't need to be teaming up with hyper

24:41

Calvinist. You ask who that may be Christ Jesus.

24:46

It is he. But I don't understand the difference between hyper Calvinism and Calvinism.

24:52

It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper Calvinist. Right. I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper

25:00

Calvinism. Lord Sabaoth, his name. Read my book. From age to age the same and he must win the battle.

25:16

And now from our underground bunker deep beneath Bruton Parker College, where no one would think to look safe from all those moderate

25:25

Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and reread George Bryson's book,

25:31

We Are Radio Free Geneva, broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to save for his own eternal glory.

25:38

Okay, I've already been corrected. The dialogue was at BMA Seminary, not Southwestern Baptist Seminary.

25:44

Okay, thank you. It was in the Dallas area. I know at least that much. And this was a panel discussion that for some reason, no one decided to record with high quality recording equipment.

25:57

Um, I was noticing that Tom Askel posted about it. There was a small, very small, very tiny.

26:04

I was actually going to grab the picture, but it was so small. It wasn't worth grabbing. Um, he posted about it and had some links to some of the recordings.

26:15

And one of them said the audio on this is pretty bad. So this is a little bit better audio.

26:20

And I clicked on that. It was no better than the audio I had, which was recorded on a phone.

26:27

So it's understandable, but for some reason, uh, evidently, uh, recording this for posterity was not a high priority, uh, for those that were involved in so doing.

26:39

As I listened, uh, to the, uh, discussion that took place,

26:48

I was, uh, deeply, deeply troubled. Uh, my understanding is what

26:55

I've been told is that there was supposed to be a debate and then, you know, a week out.

27:02

Well, now let's, let's, we won't do a debate. Let's just have a panel discussion. Well, my, my experience is that a, a debate where you not only have to positively present your position, but then you must interact with questions from the other side that probes the consistency of your claims and your position.

27:29

That's the essence of what a debate is. That's, that's the value of a debate.

27:35

If there is no interaction, if it is merely two sides doing counter presentations and there's no, there's no actual interaction, questioning, going back and forth.

27:46

You, you might as well have just listened to presentations from podcasts because, you know, uh, that's all you've got.

27:55

But the, the value of debate is cross -examination, uh, as Proverbs says, the first one to present his case sounds right, seems right until his neighbor comes and questions him.

28:10

That's really when things, uh, take place. And that's certainly been proven, uh, over the course of my now 144, uh, debates that we've done in that context.

28:23

So as I listened to the discussion primarily between Malcolm Yarnell and, uh, our dear brother,

28:33

Askel, I decided that once again, what we needed to do is get our

28:42

Bibles out and do some serious exegesis and discussion of some biblical passages before we even listen.

28:54

And we did this once before and I don't know where it went.

29:01

I think we found it eventually, but at least this time we will know we need to take this section and make it available as its own separate thing just so we can always refer back to it.

29:12

So it's not just a certain date, go back to such and such a date and listen to that.

29:18

We need to take this particular section and make it a standalone video, um, with a title that is searchable so we can find it and, uh, and stuff like that.

29:29

I think that will be very useful. And specifically, um,

29:35

I want to actually begin. In fact, I feel like I'm doing a sermon here, uh, but I want to begin by asking you to take your

29:44

Bibles or we are going to switch over, uh, to, uh, the Bible program on the, on the monitor so you can on the video so you can watch that as well.

29:55

Is there a problem? There we go. Um, and let's start in first Corinthians chapter 15.

30:02

So take your Bibles, open them please to first Corinthians chapter 15.

30:12

One of the key elements of meaningful Christian theology that I believe is absolutely necessary to understand

30:24

Pauline theology and hence New Testament theology is the concept of federal headship.

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It is a concept that is clearly seen in arguably seen, and we can, we can minimize that for the moment, uh, in arguably seen, um, in the old

30:45

Testament when one Israelite man breaks

30:51

God's law in the sacking of Jericho, his actions lead to God's judgment upon the entire people of Israel.

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And when he is, his sin is found out, he, his wife, his kids, and their doggies and kitties are stoned to death.

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He represented the whole nation of Israel in his sin and his family in his punishment.

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That is clearly federal headship where one individual represents an entire group and nowhere will you find the kind of autonomous individualism that marks, especially the insanity of Western culture today.

31:55

This is absolutely necessary to understand to, to understand the odyssey.

32:04

That is the justification for the existence of evil within the context of God's creative decree and his purpose.

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The justification of God, you know, the big argument, well, if God is all powerful, then why does evil exist?

32:24

What, what, what are his purposes? What is the role of evil? What is the origin of evil? All these issues.

32:30

I don't believe you can make heads or tails out of Paul's answer to this. If you do not believe in federal headship, if you not see the centrality of it, of the

32:39

Adam Christ typology and Paul's explanations of salvation, resurrection, et cetera, et cetera, you just, you just can't see it.

32:49

You can't explain death. You can't explain why death existed from Adam until Moses.

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And what I'm seeing in the Southern Baptist convention is a rabidly synergistic emphasis upon the autonomous will of man, upon a particular concept called corporate election, which is an impersonal election where the focus is on the group that is elected, not the members of the group.

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So it's impersonal. It's not the members that are elected. It's just the group that's elected. And then you synergistically, autonomously can choose to join.

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As Tom Askell pointed out, there's a real problem for the synergists and those that push autonomy when it comes to the issue of the preservation and perseverance of the saints.

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You can't really believe in that from that perspective, but that's another issue. We won't get into that today. There's a real blossoming of this very aberrant theology within the

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Southern Baptist convention as a means of self -defense against reformed theology.

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And Leighton Flowers, who I'll be debating in May, good representative of this, good representative of this.

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But Malcolm Yarnell, Eric Hankins, the primary thrust of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and their theological faculty,

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New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Lots of people really pushing this idea.

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And again, there's nothing new about it. It's synergism versus monergism. That's always the issue.

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But there are different ways of pushing your synergism. And this way is extremely troubling because it fundamentally, openly denies federal headship and hence fundamentally denies original sin.

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That's how they, you know, they can't go, they can't go the monergism route. So this is sort of the backdoor way.

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Let's look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15, 1 Corinthians chapter 15, beginning of verse 20.

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But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

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For as by a man, notice a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

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Now we don't, we wouldn't really need verse 22 to expand this for us.

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It's clear that in Paul's thinking that death came by a man,

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Adam. It does not come by each man being a new

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Adam. It comes by Adam and hence resurrection of the dead comes by a man, that is

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Christ. But then Paul tells us exactly what he's talking about. For as in Adam, all died, likewise also in Christ, all shall be made alive, but each in his own order,

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Christ the first fruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

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Now, immediately we see two things about Paul's theology here.

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First of all, it is totally inappropriate for the universalists to utilize this text.

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If they want to isolate verse 22, if when we get to Romans chapter 5, they want to isolate one verse, these are the key universalistic passages.

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But you must remember that in each one of these, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and in Romans chapter 5, there is an extended argumentation going on.

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And if you focus upon one verse and cut it out of that context, well, you can make it say anything you want.

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And it sounds in 1 Corinthians 15, 22, as if you have universalism. For as in Adam, all died, so also in Christ shall be made alive.

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But then the very next verse says, but each in his own order, Christ, the first fruits, then at his coming, those who belong to Christ.

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So there is the delimitation, the natural delimitation, which you would automatically see if you were being careful with Paul's theology to begin with.

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It's obvious that Paul is not a universalist, that there are going to be those who experience the wrath of God cut off from his presence.

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There is no way to substantiate universalism. But again, so much of what is published today does not begin with the assumption of the unity of the

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New Testament revelation. And so much of what is out there, again, scariest place to go is a

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Christian bookstore. You have to that in mind. But the second point is this, you have implicit in Paul's theology, explicit, excuse me, explicit in Paul's theology, the

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Adam Christ typology, Adam, the first man, Christ, the second man, the new

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Adam. And you have to see that you have a humanity in Adam and you have a humanity in Christ.

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Those who belong to Christ, hoi tu Christu, that's a specific group.

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That's a specific group. Those who belong to Christ, those who are in Christ.

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It's the exact same concept in Romans chapter five. You have two humanities being presented, those who are in Adam and those who are in Christ.

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Those who are in Adam can only receive from Adam what Adam can give to them. Those who are in Christ receive what only

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Christ can give to them. That is forgiveness, adoption, eternal life, etc.,

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etc. And so you'll notice even when discussing resurrection, this is central to Paul's entire understanding of salvation and then the fulfillment of salvation, resurrection.

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So even improving the reality of the resurrection in regards to confusions on the topic of resurrection that were being seen in the congregation at Corinth, you have this importance of the

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Adam, Christ, two peoples, two humanities idea. Now I use that because unfortunately when we turn to Romans chapter five, much of the discussion that I have heard, and remember

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I forget when it was, we linked to it, I discussed the Hankins piece when it came out. We discussed the exegesis, which again

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I will, you know, I'm a Reformed Baptist so I get to speak honestly. I don't have to worry about politics. I found the exegesis exceptionally shallow and one thing that I will say is that what you don't find is a robust positive presentation of the entire meaning of Romans 5, 12 and following.

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There is a focus upon verse 12 but it pretty much skips verse 13. Now I confess this is a difficult text.

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It has spawned all sorts of interpretations but Romans is sort of important to us.

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We better understand what it's saying. And so though we went through this once before, we're going to go through it again.

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And we're going to hopefully do so as a foundation for being able to really deal with the assertions being made by many, but interestingly enough by many who are less conservative than we who are

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Reformed are, but also now by those who would be conservative in their view of scripture but likewise adopt this questioning of original sin and hence the rejection of federal headship and things like that as a means, as a tool in their struggle against Reformed theology and their maintenance of the autonomous will of man and the concept of synergism.

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So let's take a look at what we have here in this section and I'm, where did it go?

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I need to change this back to, I need to, that's about the same font size there.

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All right, let's go. Let's read through it and then we're going to walk through it. Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered into the world and death through sin.

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And so death spread to all men because all sinned. And then parenthetically, notice the dash, for until the law, sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

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Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come.

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But the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one, the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift of the grace of the one man,

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Jesus Christ, abound to the many. The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

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For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation. But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

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For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign through the one

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Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men.

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For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.

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The law came in so that the transgression would increase, but where sin increased grace about all the more.

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So that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness, to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. Now, again, it is a text that we have undoubtedly read many times, but I will,

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I think I'm speaking for a lot of people that it is a text that for most

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Christians of whatever background, whatever tradition, leaves us going.

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I hope no one ever really asks me to explain that because the categories are difficult.

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It's notoriously difficult to translate in regards to sentence structure, the parenthetic insertion.

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It's tough. There's no two ways about it. But that doesn't mean it's impossible.

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If we will allow Paul's theology to stand as a whole, if we'll see how it functions in the argument in Romans and quite simply as Westerners recognize that it's not functioning within a mindset of radical autonomous individualism, which sadly is the mindset of the

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Western culture to a radical level now in our day. And hence, that means we really need to be teaching those individuals who are coming into the church, even when

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God is gracious and brings young people into our midst. More than ever, they need to be challenged more than ever.

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They need to be challenged to adopt a Christian worldview and a Christian understanding of divine revelation themselves, etc.

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So we don't have time to get into that. And as you can tell, we're not going to be wrapping up at noon.

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I knew this was coming, but I forgot to tell you that. And you don't care because you've been making cute

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Radio Free Geneva bugs while on the fly. Did you make that?

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Micah sent it to you. Okay. All right. Asim, son of Ramallah, king of graphics is with us.

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All right. Most of the discussion at the panel was on Romans 5 .12.

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But Romans 5 .12 was just the beginning. And you can come to all sorts of conclusions based upon the beginning of an argument if you don't have to worry about the rest of the argument.

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Therefore, just as through one man, Sin entered into the world and death through sin.

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Even so, death spread to all men because all sin. Now, what you get is you will get a discussion of that phrase by the new anti -original sin synergists.

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I'm not sure. AOS, the

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AOS folks, the anti -AOSS, original anti -original sin synergists.

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Yeah. AOSS. So yeah, you got to be real careful with that one. Yeah. The anti -original sin synergists will tell you all about how stupid

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Augustine was and how they are so much smarter than Augustine because they know more Greek than Augustine did.

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And they'll go, see, Augustine, he looked at, that's the contraction of epi, before a vowel, epiho, which is epi and hos.

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But anyways, they'll look at that and they'll go, he misunderstood this because his primary language is

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Latin and he rendered this inappropriately as in whom, that is in Adam, all sin.

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It doesn't mean that. It means because. Well, let's take that. Because all sin.

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See, sin only comes because somebody sins. But that's not

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Paul's argument. Not Paul's argument. In fact, by the time you get to the end of this statement, this, this argument over and over again, the typology is going to be the sin of the one, the righteous of the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one, the one.

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And they want to start off going, oh, it's the many. The emphasis is on the individual sin of many.

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And while the whole argument of five is the unity of all sinners in Adam and the unity of all saints in Christ, they want to blow that up from the beginning.

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Why? The autonomous will of man. Got to find a way to stick it in here.

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Something Paul never said a word about. Chapter two, according to flesh can do nothing is pleasing to God, not there, but it's read in.

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It's called eisegesis. The point that is being made is that sin entered the world through Adam.

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There was no sin before Adam and death came because of Adam's sin.

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And this was God's intended purpose.

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This was why God gave the law. This is why God said to Adam, you shall do this.

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You shall not do that. It was God's intention. Again, assuming that most in the audience would recognize that open theism is a rabid heresy.

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You can't have a meaningful theological discussion with open theists got the wrong God. And given that we're talking especially about the

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Southern Baptist Convention here and the Baptist faith and message specifically precludes the possibility of holding to open theism as a faithful Southern Baptist, then we have to deal with the reality that it was

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God's intention to give the law. And it was

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God's intention to create the Adam Christ typology.

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This wasn't, oh no, Adam fell. I didn't see that coming. Oh, oh boy.

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Uh, we got it. We got to come up. What can we do? What can we do? What can we do? Oh, oh, oh. And there's this, you know, heavenly council.

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And I think this might work. I don't know. No, this is, this is not biblical theology.

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And so sin entered into the world. It does not say sin enters into the world repeatedly.

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Every time someone reaches the age of accountability as a new Adam and sins again, sin doesn't keep coming into the world over and over and over again with each new birth or the person arriving at some age of accountability.

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Not what it says sin in the world and death through sin. And here's where this becomes so vitally important because we have to deal with the reality of death.

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Even amongst those who have never received the written law of God, there are still, uh, there's, there's some,

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I saw something on the internet about this one Island someplace where there are the, there's this warring tribe and no one can get on that Island.

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Everybody's ever been tried and killed. I mean, we're talking blow darts, poison, woof. Wow. Really stuff of movie stuff.

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You cannot get on that Island. They are, they're absolutely isolated, totally Zema xenophobic.

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That's it cannot be reached. Okay. They do not have the law of Moses, but I can guarantee you they die.

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Okay. And before the law of Moses came, people died and little children die before they ever hear the law of Moses.

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Why? Why? Because of one man's transgression through one man's sin and into the world and sin through death.

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And so death spread to all men because all sin, his statement there is not because all individually sin and therefore death enters for them.

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The question is, when did all sin? Because all sin, when I would argue in Adam, Augustine may not have had the

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Greek, right? But the theological argument is exactly what Paul is going to explain.

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You know, once he wants to know why, because our synergist friends don't read verses 13 and 14.

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Oh, of course they read it. What I mean is they do not interpret verse 12 by taking into consideration the argument of verses 13 and 14.

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They sort of pass over it and move on. They just want to show you how brilliant they are because they can,

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I've had more Greek than Augustine did. Well, so have I. So what?

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If you end up totally missing Paul's point that Augustine didn't as to the nature of original sin, then your

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Greek got in your way, didn't it? Yeah, that's not a good thing. Look at verse 13 and 14.

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This is tough. If you don't follow the argument, this is going to be impossible.

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For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

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Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the defense of Adam, who is a type of him who was to come.

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What's the point? Why is that there? Until the law, sin was in the world.

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Well, what's his point? Well, that means that even though the 10 words come down to Moses, yet we know sin was in the world before they came.

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And since sin is not imputed when there is no law, what do we have to conclude from this?

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That a law had been broken. That you didn't need to have the 10 words.

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There was something that was broken because nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses.

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Everybody croaked. Took them a while to do it, but people were dying, especially around the time of Noah.

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Notice that? Death reigned even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the defense of Adam, but the children, those who have not reached that age of maturity, they still died.

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I would imagine there were people mentally deficient who were born during that time period as well.

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They still died. So what's his point? If you interpret

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Romans 5 .12 by just simply mocking Augustine, but not seeing what the next two verses say, you have no idea what this is even talking about.

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Why is he going here? Why is he going here? Because he's demonstrating the unity of the human family with Adam in that one transgression that brought sin to lay the foundation of the unity of we who are in Christ with him in his righteousness.

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This is central to the gospel. Well, it's central to a full biblical understanding of the gospel.

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And so the point is, he illustrates, you don't have to tie this to the law of Moses.

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There was no written law given between Adam and Moses, and yet clearly there was a law that was transgressed because sin reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam.

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So it didn't require everybody, because this is the sort of default interpretation that is offered by these folks, is that what you've got in that because all sin at the end of verse 12 is, oh, see, it's just individual.

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There's no federal headship. We become sinners when we sin.

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Makes verses 13 and 14 a waste of papyri to use sort of early

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New Testament. So there's the argument.

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And then when he mentions Adam there in verse 14, he says, who is a type of him who was to come, see the connection, see what he's saying here.

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He's going to explain how it is. He's now said, having been justified by faith,

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Romans chapter five, Romans chapter five, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

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All right, now he's expanding more upon that. Now he's sort of placing it on even a more cosmic level.

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How does all of this work? And he's doing so by contrasting the humanity in Adam.

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And what do they get from their union with Adam? Death. Even from Adam to Moses, even before the law came along.

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And now Adam was a type of whom? Him who is to come.

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Him who is to come. And so once you've established the unity of that humanity in Adam, now you start talking about the free gift that comes the one act of righteousness in him who is a type who

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Adam was a type in Jesus Christ. And now you have the foundation of understanding the unity of all those who are in Christ, who have righteousness.

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And there is much theological gold to be mined in that assertion, because what's one of the key things for Paul?

01:00:03

Again, if we had started at the beginning of Romans, walked all the way through this point, we would see it over and over again. Romans chapter three, there is no diastole, there is no difference for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

01:00:14

What's the difference? Difference between Jew and Greek, Jew and Greek. Abraham is the father of the circumcised, the uncircumcised, one family of faith.

01:00:24

Now you've got one people in Christ, just as there is oneness in Adam, you get from Adam death, there's oneness in Christ, you get in Christ life.

01:00:36

And this becomes the foundation of everything that comes afterwards, which eventually leads to that great crescendo, chapter eight, who will separate us in love of Christ, so on and so forth.

01:00:46

And that picture of the heavenly courtroom, who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies

01:00:51

Christ. Jesus is the one who died, yet he was raised again. He mediates, he intercedes for them, leading all to that.

01:00:58

And here's a vitally important part, that right now to defend free will and autonomy, there are people inside the

01:01:04

Baptist Convention going, no, no, no, no, no. Tearing it apart, tearing it apart for the idol of free will, idol of free will.

01:01:16

I really think some of these folks need to get out and maybe debate some unbelievers, some sharp unbelievers that would be able to demonstrate the inconsistencies of their position.

01:01:26

Would help a lot, would help a lot. All right, he is a type of him who is to come.

01:01:33

Now, lest we think that there is a one -to -one parallel between what

01:01:39

Adam does and Christ does in the sense of just equality, notice what it says, but the free gift is not like the transgression.

01:01:53

It's literally, it's really interesting, but not as the transgression, thus also the free gift, the charisma.

01:02:02

For if by the transgression of the one, transgression of the one, the hoi poloi, the many died, much more, see, much more the grace of God and the gift in that grace in the one man,

01:02:21

Jesus Christ under the many abounded. Go literally with, the point is

01:02:28

God has a purpose in what he's done here. This has always been his purpose.

01:02:34

I really feel sorry for people who think that this was not God's purpose from the beginning, that this was just, well, you know, this best

01:02:43

God could do. He sort of, you know, sort of just rolling with the punches. By the transgression of the one, the many died, but much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man,

01:03:03

Jesus Christ abound to the many. We have so much more. We have so much more than what

01:03:11

Adam ever could have had because of what God has done in Jesus Christ. The gift of grace union with the son of God, sanctification, adoption into the family of God, so much more.

01:03:28

It's not like God has just found a neat way of, wow, I got it. I fixed that.

01:03:34

I got it back to where it was before. No, no, so much more.

01:03:42

That's why he says the gift, verse 16, the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned, literally, and not through the one who sinned the gift.

01:03:58

And notice again, we're still talking about Adam. We're talking about it's the heiress. It's talking about that one act.

01:04:06

This, none of this, have you noticed, none of this makes a lick of sense without federal headship. I mean, if we're not in Adam, if we're not seeing that he is representing that entire humanity and that one act, none of this makes a lick of sense.

01:04:24

You're left going, Paul, what are you talking about? So the gift is not like that which came to the one who sinned.

01:04:34

For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.

01:04:41

But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

01:04:49

So you've got one, the judgment for on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.

01:05:00

Now, condemnation of who? Is he only talking about Adam? No, he's not.

01:05:07

Again, if you say, well, you can only have condemnation when there's personal culpability.

01:05:12

You throw federal headship out. Again, why do you bother with this text? Just say it's a mystery and move on.

01:05:19

It doesn't make any sense. The judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.

01:05:25

But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions, many transgressions, many transgressions.

01:05:37

Wait a minute, that that has to be a whole group of people, doesn't it? Yeah, because Christ is the head of this new humanity, all of whom were guilty of many transgressions.

01:05:51

But because of his one act of righteousness, the result to his humanity is what?

01:05:58

Justification. It's been said before. I'm not saying anything new, but I hope now as we're walking through it, you can see with clarity.

01:06:08

If you deny the Adam to humanity, federal headship, you must deny the

01:06:14

Christ to his people imputation of righteousness. There's no way out of it, buddy.

01:06:24

Is the idol of autonomous free will really worth it? Evidently, to some, it is.

01:06:32

But the point is, his point here is, many transgressions amongst who?

01:06:38

Those who belong to Christ, to use 1 Corinthians 15 language. We were sinners. When we were sinners,

01:06:46

Christ died for us. But by his one act, one act results in justification for those who are in him.

01:07:01

See the connection? Adam, transgressions, we fall in him.

01:07:07

Christ, his one act, justification, eternal life in him. You're either still in Adam or you're in Christ.

01:07:17

Those are the only two places to be. And does that not parallel all of Pauline theology?

01:07:23

What is it? In the spirit, in the flesh. Is there an intermediate? No. In Christ, not in Christ.

01:07:32

In him, not in him. Dead, alive. Really consistent, isn't it?

01:07:40

It's very consistent. For if, verse 17, by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, so here's

01:07:52

Adam, and death reigns through the one, Adam.

01:07:58

And he doesn't limit this here just from Adam until Moses. Now we're just simply talking about in general categories.

01:08:10

By the transgression of the one, not by the transgression of the many. You deny federal headship and this, you're denying the meaning of this text.

01:08:18

I'm sorry. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one.

01:08:23

Reigned upon whom? Just Adam? No, upon all of Adam's posterity. That is federal headship.

01:08:31

It's right there. It's as plain as the nose on your proverbial face.

01:08:39

For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive, who are they?

01:08:50

Those who are Christ, 1 Corinthians chapter 15. There's no basis for universalism here. As long as you recognize the two humanities, let the text speak for itself.

01:08:59

Don't cut up into pieces. Much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one,

01:09:12

Jesus Christ. If you don't see that 17 answers all the questions about 12, then you just don't want to see it.

01:09:28

And so if you're spending all your time talking about Augustine in verse 12 and not talking about what 17 means when it clearly teaches federal headship, are you really doing that to Jesus?

01:09:40

Or are you just got a position you're trying to push? That really is the question.

01:09:49

So then, as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men.

01:10:00

Hmm. Pontos on throw poos. Boy, synergists tend to really push the meaning of all always meaning all.

01:10:15

Now, in this case, of course, there was one who was born not in Adam and that was

01:10:22

Christ. But if you're a son or daughter of Adam, one transgression resulted in your condemnation.

01:10:32

That's federal headship. That's a federal headship of Adam. So then, as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation, cut talk, grimlock, cut talk, grimlock, excuse me.

01:10:49

Even so, through one act of righteousness, the hannas, the

01:10:59

Chi Oma toss one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men.

01:11:07

Now, again, if you don't see two humanities here, you're not going to make heads or tails this either.

01:11:16

Because if the all men. Is universal, it would have to include Christ. It doesn't.

01:11:22

So you have to recognize it's all men in Adam. And so what's the all men at the end of verse 18?

01:11:29

Those who are in Christ are even said in verse 17. If you if you cut stuff apart and don't follow the flow,

01:11:35

I can't help you. Can't be of any assistance to you. But when you follow the flow, it's amazingly consistent and really enlightening.

01:11:48

One transgression resulted condemnation, everybody in Adam condemnation, everybody in Christ because of his one act, not because of my one act, not because of my free will, not because of my synergism.

01:12:03

There's nothing about Christ making us savable here or anything else. All that stuff is human tradition.

01:12:11

It's empty. Through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men, for as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

01:12:24

This is what they don't like. This is what Hankins and Yarnel and most of Southwestern and New Orleans and so on.

01:12:34

This is what they don't like. Whereas through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

01:12:40

No, no, no. I'm made a sin. And that's why they only focus on verse 12, because verse 12 is just the introduction.

01:12:49

And you can show off smart char by talking about Augustine and everything. But verse 19 is pretty clear.

01:12:57

For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous.

01:13:07

Union between the head and his people, the head and his people.

01:13:14

The only hope the gospel presents is my head, my representative, my substitute.

01:13:29

And if you're looking to Adam, then he can only give you what he can give you. If you're looking to Christ, righteousness, eternal life, gift of grace, abounding to you.

01:13:49

Do you see what's being said? Do you see the point? Do you see the federal headship that is presented here?

01:13:59

We've walked through it. We've seen the consistency. We've seen, we've looked at first Corinthians chapter 15.

01:14:07

We've seen Romans chapter five. They both use the same paradigm to humanities, one in Adam, one in Christ.

01:14:15

We're all born here by grace. We're transferred here. There's nothing here about making people savable.

01:14:23

There's nothing here about each is a new man's a new Adam. None of that stuff.

01:14:29

It's just not there. It's just not there. If you allow the text to speak for itself, well, you'll want to take that down because I need to go to audio note taker now and let's start listening to the comments.

01:14:52

I will play them at 1 .2 again, a little bit faster. We get it done a little bit quicker that way.

01:15:00

I believe we start off with Dr. Yarnell.

01:15:06

There were three people on the panel. It was difficult to tell who was who. If I misidentify someone,

01:15:13

I apologize, but I'm not looking at video. So it's just the way it is.

01:15:19

Let's start off. This is a discussion of the grossly misnamed paper, paper, which

01:15:30

Leighton Flowers says is his statement of faith. He's directed me to it more than once.

01:15:36

The traditional statement, as it's been found, which is a complete misnomer. It is.

01:15:41

You have to laugh at history to use this title.

01:15:46

I'm sorry. You do. I mean, even even Yarnell admits, well, there's always been Calvinists there, but maybe the majority, maybe the majority is, you know, that's not the traditionalist, is it?

01:16:00

I mean, it's just it's meant to communicate something that is simply historically wrong. But anyways, here is where I want to start in looking at at the jewel of salvation.

01:16:15

And it is our salvation is precious. And that's why we are so concerned about. You know,

01:16:21

I read a passage like Romans chapter eight, verses 28 through 30. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love

01:16:29

God, those who are called according to his purpose, for those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and those he predestined.

01:16:38

He also called and those he called. He also justified and those he justified. He also glorified in the early modern period.

01:16:45

William Perkins came up with the idea of a golden chain of salvation, and he took that idea and he arranged these doctrines as a golden chain and ordo salutis.

01:16:54

And then he began to try to fit all of his understanding of the various aspects of salvation according to what he said was a golden chain.

01:17:02

There's no chain language in here. This isn't slavery. This isn't gold. If you want an analogy that's better than that, this is a jewel.

01:17:09

And by the way, diamonds are more expensive than gold. So I'm going to ratchet it up a bit. This is a jewel of salvation. And in the context,

01:17:15

Paul is taking and he's saying, look at our salvation. Look how wonderful it is. Look at our justification.

01:17:21

Look at our glorification. All right, let's stop right there. That's Malcolm Yarnell. And I have certain people listening, thankfully, who will correct me via Twitter, I hope, if I mess up.

01:17:40

Boy, teleport is really causing me problems here. I've got this one fellow who is a synergist who follows me on Twitter, Samuel.

01:17:55

And he just asked, how does Ezekiel 1820 fold into what Romans 5 has to say? I'm going to answer that question very quickly.

01:18:05

We have, I think, on my YouTube page, I have a video that I posted from years ago, from a

01:18:17

Wednesday night at PRBC, where I went through the Jeremiah and Ezekiel passages.

01:18:26

And I explained that what the prophets were dealing with were with those

01:18:35

Jews who were rejecting God's call to repent on the basis of a proverb, which is repeated a number of times.

01:18:45

The fathers ate sour grapes and their children's teeth are set on edge. Right? You're familiar with the proverb.

01:18:53

It's mentioned by both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, I think. And what they're saying was, well, our fathers sinned.

01:19:01

And therefore, we don't need to be called to repentance because we are suffering for what our fathers did.

01:19:08

Those texts, both in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the soul that sins shall die, are specifically refuting the abuse of that proverb, where people were saying, there's no reason for me to repent because I'm just being held accountable for what my forefathers did.

01:19:26

It was an excuse to reject the overtures of God for Israel to repent.

01:19:34

It's not talking about federal headship. It's not talking about how God deals with the people of Israel.

01:19:41

They would have recognized in their own story. They all knew about Achan. They would have recognized the propriety of the punishment of all of Achan's family for Achan's sin, dealt with all the time.

01:19:55

Those texts are not to be taken as refutations of Paul's theology. He knew about them, too.

01:20:02

Those texts are specifically about the context of people saying, well, I don't need to repent.

01:20:08

I don't need to listen to the call of God to repent in light of the fact that God's punishing me for what my parents did, for what our forefathers did.

01:20:20

Look at the context. You'll see that's the case. Look at the YouTube video I posted on that. Now, this is

01:20:28

Malcolm Yarnell speaking. It's going to come up a lot in the conversation.

01:20:35

He doesn't like the phraseology, golden chain of redemption. He wants to say it's a diamond.

01:20:45

Well, that's nice. I've certainly used a similar phraseology when synergists try to represent

01:20:52

God's sovereignty over human events as turning man into a puppet.

01:20:57

I've used the diamond concept that you're only looking at one aspect of it when they try to flatten it out into a two -dimensional thing.

01:21:06

But there's a problem here. He says there's no chain language. Well, actually,

01:21:11

I brought accordance back up again. Let's look at this chain in Romans chapter 8.

01:21:22

Because those whom he foreknew, notice that's a verb, not a noun.

01:21:28

It's not about whom he had foreknowledge. It's foreknew. It's an active verb. Pro -egno, normally ignored by people when reading this, despite their self -proclaimed advanced studies of Greek.

01:21:43

Those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son,

01:21:51

Aista Aenai, so that he might be the prototokon, the firstborn among many brethren.

01:21:59

And whom he predestined, these he also called.

01:22:07

And whom he called, these he also justified. And whom he justified, these he also glorified.

01:22:17

Now, every verb is a past tense.

01:22:23

Why? Because this is referring to God's actions and the certainty of God's actions.

01:22:31

But the golden chain of redemption is terminology that recognizes what's obviously in front of your face in this text.

01:22:47

And no matter what you do, you have foreknown, predestined, called, justified, and glorified, and they are put in a particular order by the author.

01:23:09

It does not say those whom he predestined, he also glorified, and whom he glorified, he also called.

01:23:17

That would not make any sense. I mean, if language has any meaning, the calling results in justification.

01:23:33

The foreknowing results in the calling.

01:23:39

There is a chain here. It's simple matter of reading words and hearing verbs.

01:23:51

And that's why I think a debate didn't take place. Because it's a whole lot easier to tell stories and go, isn't it a beautiful diamond?

01:24:03

And diamonds cost more than gold, you know. That's very relevant to Romans chapter 8.

01:24:13

There's a chain here. And it's a chain, a logical, theological chain of what

01:24:21

God has done. Is it exhaustive? No. There's nothing about sanctification here, adoption here, forgiveness here.

01:24:27

That's to be brought in from Ephesians 1 or other places. But the point is, there is a chain.

01:24:36

And it's all what God has done. And the fact is, a true synergist, which is what

01:24:45

Dr. Yarnell is, he's a true synergist, cannot walk through this text consistently.

01:24:52

This can't do it. This can't do it. They have to turn pro -egno into a noun so that God has foreknowledge of what man's going to do, rather than what it is, an active verb of something

01:25:06

God does. And then they cannot deal with the fact that that election, that predestination is based upon the active verb,

01:25:23

God's choice to enter into loving relationship with results in his predestination.

01:25:31

And those whom he predestines are those who he calls because they don't have an effectual call.

01:25:40

They probably have some grossly sub -biblical concept of prevenient grace, unbiblical, nowhere to be found in the

01:25:49

New Testament. And the call is just general. There's just this general call. But the idea of an effective call means that God can actually affect by the call of the gospel, the salvation of an individual.

01:26:04

And if you're a good synergist, your whole point is Christ's death made men savable.

01:26:10

It's up to us. It's a cooperative effort. God's done his part. Now it's up to you.

01:26:16

Now it's up to you. You can't walk through this. It's the same group all the way through.

01:26:21

Those who are foreknown, they're predestined. Who's predestined? They're called. Who's called?

01:26:26

They're justified. You have to come up with the idea that people are justified who were not predestined. Impossible.

01:26:34

And is it only those who are justified who will be glorified? Of course. You can't break the chain.

01:26:40

You can't break the chain. But the sinner just has to. The sinner just has to because they just, their traditions demand it.

01:26:50

And when you've got unbiblical traditions, you're going to unbiblical the biblical. And that's what you do here.

01:26:58

So no chain language right there in front of us, right there in front of us.

01:27:04

It may well be a diamond, but that diamond has clear order in what it's saying.

01:27:11

And of course, for many, especially in the reformed tradition, it is a rigid or disloyalty.

01:27:17

And so you have some Calvinists who identify with Geneva, who are going to argue that this golden chain of salvation must begin with double predestination, divine election turned into the election of particular individuals.

01:27:32

And then it all unfolds from there. But then you are. Can I just just mention in passing? Is justification something that happens in an individual's life?

01:27:44

There's no question that the elect of God as a whole are justified. But could anyone think that by the time you get to Romans eight, you've already walked through Romans three, four and five.

01:27:58

Justification is individual. It's reality is in the individual life because it's by what?

01:28:05

Faith. I don't know what it's like to be a sinner.

01:28:12

Just thankfully, I don't know how you defend it, but it creates all sorts of issues. Let's get a hold of it, by the way.

01:28:19

Traditionalist Southern Baptists are not Arminians by any stretch of the Calvinist imagination.

01:28:26

May I point out that Arminius himself was probably considerably more biblical than most

01:28:31

Southern Baptists on the traditional statement. So I guess if that's what you mean. But the real issue should be monergism versus synergism, though Yarnell is actually going to deny synergism later on how

01:28:48

I have no idea. The Armenians look at it and they say, oh, but foreknowledge comes before predestination.

01:28:57

And so they rearrange the golden chain to emphasize what they want. And my response is you're thinking mechanically about the word of God.

01:29:07

No, we're thinking grammatically about the word of God. It's called the historical grammatical method of interpretation.

01:29:18

Um, this is wow. This distinction explains hardshellism.

01:29:23

That's just one of his words for Calvinism preach. Now he's reading somebody else's persuasion missions. Evangelism are all based on the principle that grace is not a mechanical, but a personal force.

01:29:33

If grace were a crowbar and men's stones, hardshellism would be right.

01:29:39

It is the crowbar conception of grace that destroys missions. Grace works with these means, which influence the free choices of men, persuasion, argument, appeal, warning, exhortation, and so on.

01:29:50

The whole New Testament conception of preaching grows out of the fact that grace is a personal, not a mechanical force.

01:29:56

He says God made man free and leaves him free. God never overrides the will of man in his action upon man's will.

01:30:03

He always respects that will. God will have us come to him freely. Grace always persuades and convinces and makes us willing to come.

01:30:11

However mysterious and mighty it may be in its action upon our hearts. And then he says there are two choices necessary in a man's salvation.

01:30:19

God's choice of the man and man's choice of God. There you go. There you have classic synergism.

01:30:25

I mean, you could not have a more classical statement of synergism.

01:30:31

I remember hearing it in a Southern Baptist church. You got to remember God's voted for you.

01:30:37

The devil's voted against you and you've got the tie -breaking vote. That is classic synergism and that's exactly what's being said there.

01:30:48

All of that, the idea of crowbars, all this other stuff. No, let me tell you what the Reformed understanding is.

01:30:55

It's taking out a heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh. And all this stuff about persuading, persuading, persuading.

01:31:04

That heart of stone will never be persuaded to be a heart of flesh because it lacks the capacity to, first of all, become a heart of flesh.

01:31:15

And secondly, the desire to become a heart of flesh. A pure, unadulterated synergism.

01:31:23

All right, we move a little bit farther down in the dialogue because time is passing us by. We've already gone jumbo and who knows?

01:31:31

First of all, I think what Dr. Askel is bringing to this document is a reading of that golden chain.

01:31:37

Now, Tom Askel went through the document and said,

01:31:43

I think the following sections either go beyond the Baptist faith and message or actually contradicted and explained why.

01:31:52

And especially looking at the issues regarding free will, so on and so forth.

01:31:59

And so now he's saying, well, I think Dr. Askel is reading this from the perspective of a golden chain. We've already refuted that.

01:32:04

It's a diamond. Well, there wasn't any refutation of it at all. There was just verbiage that has no meaning, but that's where we are.

01:32:13

And specifically in seeing, especially in his reading of the Baptist faith and message, he reads it as a chain.

01:32:20

And so you have regeneration, then you have faith and repentance. And that's why he emphasized the words, to which.

01:32:27

And then I want to say, that's right. But also look, they are inseparable. Graces and regeneration is part of salvation and justification and sanctification and glorification.

01:32:38

Okay. All of that is utterly irrelevant to the question. You can say they're all inseparably linked, all you want.

01:32:47

Justification and sanctification are inseparably linked, but they must be distinguished.

01:32:53

And the question is, what comes first and does it come from God or does it come from man?

01:33:01

These are the issues. It's not, I don't think it's the Dr. Ironell doesn't know it's the issues. It's that when you, when you've adopted a position that is fundamentally traditional in nature, rather than biblical, you've got to find a way to keep from being really pushed to answer the tough questions.

01:33:22

And I just, I'm sorry, with all due respect, I think that's what we're hearing here. Are all parts of this great moment and movement of salvation.

01:33:30

And I, again, I see it as a jewel. And so when I turn it, I see justification.

01:33:37

I turn it again and I see sanctification and I don't want to wrench them apart because I don't think that's what scripture does.

01:33:44

It's not a matter of wrenching them apart. It's a matter of answering what their relationship is to one another, to the will of God, to the will of man.

01:33:53

And if you can't answer that question, why are you teaching systematic theology? I mean, seriously, are we to believe the

01:34:00

Bible doesn't answer the question? That would be the only other ways to go. Mystery, mystery. We don't know.

01:34:07

It does answer the question. I think scripture treats them as different concepts, but they are concepts that are not intended to be divorced from one another and then reattached in a chain.

01:34:18

I think chains indicate slavery. I want to indicate freedom. And so I look at it more as a jewel.

01:34:25

What? I think chains indicate slavery. I want to indicate freedom.

01:34:32

What? I don't even know how to understand that. What does that mean? Are you seriously saying that if we read

01:34:42

Romans chapter 8 and we recognize that there is an inarguable grammatical progression in Romans 8 that we're talking about slavery or bondage?

01:34:55

I remember where I was when I first heard that. And I was just like, that sounded almost

01:35:03

Joel Osteen -ish. It does sound Joel Osteen -ish, doesn't it? The first thought crossed my mind was that's why they didn't want to have a debate because that kind of verbiage does not survive cross -ex very well.

01:35:17

Nah, it really doesn't. On the issue, and it's probably the more difficult issue, of original sin and original guilt.

01:35:26

Some Baptists have rejected the language of original sin in its entirety. That's not what this document is doing.

01:35:33

Other Baptists have said we need to modify and move away from a pedo -Baptist understanding of original sin.

01:35:42

And we need to go back to Scripture. Now, what is a pedo -Baptist understanding? I think, and I want to stop there and clarify that because I think what he means by that is a

01:35:53

Roman Catholic understanding. Because he will talk about, this is where he gets all greeky about Augustine and Augustine's solution of infant baptism.

01:36:02

So the problem is Reformed folks hearing that, especially those who are sensitive, especially these days, to the

01:36:10

Baptist -Presbyterian divide on baptism might go, what are you talking about?

01:36:15

But I think what he's talking about is the historical development within Roman Catholicism of infant baptism as a means of justification and remission of sin.

01:36:25

I think that's what he's talking about. It boils down to one verse in Scripture and the interpretation of that verse.

01:36:31

And it's Romans chapter 5, Romans chapter 5 and verse 12 says this, therefore just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, in this way it gets spread to all men because all sinned.

01:36:47

Erechamai, sin and death entered the world through one man. Erechamai, and then it spreads to all men.

01:36:57

And of course our question is, how does it spread? And that's Augustine's question. And Augustine, of course, he's

01:37:03

Latin. Now, folks, how would you answer, if you've been listening to the whole program today, how would you answer his question?

01:37:14

Because his question is directly answered in verses 17 and following, right?

01:37:19

We've already seen that. Is that what he's going to do? Nope. The Greek is a little edgy, a little difficult.

01:37:28

He reads the Greek and those who have translated the Greek before him in the Latin tradition read the

01:37:34

Greek and they run into the Greek words epi, ho, in the last phrase there. And those of us who have had

01:37:41

Greek at an advanced level, that is beyond Augustine, understand that the preposition epi and the relative pronoun ho, you could, if you wanted to, at a very simple level, say that means in whom or upon whom.

01:37:57

But for those who are Greek scholars, you understand that's how you use the word or you generate causal containment.

01:38:05

This is the word because in English. And so Augustine reads it, and you can open your

01:38:11

Vulgate, you know, the Latin, the Roman Catholic official version of the Bible. And it says in whom?

01:38:17

And so Augustine reads this and he says, we all sinned in Adam. That's how sin is spread.

01:38:22

All of us sinned in Adam. Therefore, all of us are guilty of Adam's sin. So now I just stopped for a second.

01:38:30

Is it necessary to understand it as Augustine understood that particular phrase to come to the conclusion that we sinned in Adam?

01:38:42

It's because all sinned. How? In Adam, by one transgression, all were made, all received condemnation, et cetera.

01:38:51

The rest of the text says that. But if you just stick with verse 12 and don't bring up the rest of it, it makes it sound like you have an argument.

01:39:02

If we step further, how do we remove the sin? We remove it by baptizing. So he believes in baptismal regeneration.

01:39:09

And he says that we remove the original sin and the original guilt from the person through baptism.

01:39:17

Now, through the centuries, we have been undoing Augustine's bad

01:39:22

Greek. But some of us have not been able to undo it more than others. And what has happened is that in the exegetical tradition still held up by many

01:39:32

Calvinist scholars is that they are going to understand they need to translate that as death spread to all men because all sinned.

01:39:41

But they're going to interpret it in such a way that that sin is spread through either if you're more

01:39:47

Augustinian in the Catholic mode, either through a generation or through federal headship.

01:39:53

And my argument is you don't have federal headship or a similar generation here in this text.

01:39:59

Now, so you don't have federal headship based upon reading the first verse of an entire section that will include such words as for as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

01:40:21

I I'm just left speechless, to be honest with you.

01:40:28

I I don't even know what to say. It's just it's so obvious. And so original guilt, the idea that a child is guilty of of his parents sin.

01:40:40

I go to Ezekiel 18 and it tells me in a long chapter that emphasizes the nemesis, the soul that sins, it shall die.

01:40:50

They said, my sons, Truett, Matthew and Graham, they're guilty of their own sin.

01:40:57

They may have learned some sin from me, but they're not guilty for Malcolm's sin. Now, here you go.

01:41:07

What does it tell you when you have in the immediate context.

01:41:14

These words were by the transgression of the one death reigned through the one, much more those who received the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness were reigned in life through the one

01:41:26

Jesus Christ. You also have through as far as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the one, the many were made righteous.

01:41:37

You have this in the immediate context. But where did he go for his actual theological foundation?

01:41:47

Just like Samuel and Twitter did back Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the proverb to try to say, well, that you've got this right here.

01:41:59

This is this is Paul's interpretation of Romans 512. We don't want Paul's interpretation because that ain't going to fit with synergism.

01:42:07

So we go someplace else. Wow. What what what can

01:42:15

I say? We press forward. Okay, now here's here's

01:42:21

Tom Askell responding. So I won't have to stop. Romans 512 by itself. That's all we had.

01:42:27

What Pelagius wrote about it could be true. That was the only verse. I'm not you or anyone in this document of being late.

01:42:35

I'm just simply saying, if you take the words of Romans 512 on Facebook, as sin came to the world for one man, death through sin,

01:42:42

Adam sin, he died. Death came to the world through his sin. So death spread to all men because all sin,

01:42:48

Adam sin, death, all sin, death. If that's the only thing we have, we can make the case for Pelagius.

01:42:55

Exactly. Exactly. Because if you read it that way, ignore 13 and following, ignore the whole argument of 13 and 14.

01:43:06

Ignore all of that. Then you can make Pelagius' reading. We sin.

01:43:11

We die because we sin individually. Doesn't explain the death of infants, but oh, well.

01:43:18

Yeah, you could. Sure. Aramans knew Adam. Aramans knew Adam. But is that what

01:43:24

Paul intended? Did he intend us to skip verses 13 through 19? I don't think so.

01:43:30

The problem is, that's not the only thing we have. We've got the whole context. Five times after verse 12, before verse 19,

01:43:36

Paul identifies the one sin of Adam in connection with the consequences to the rest of human rights.

01:43:42

Five times. He's making a point here, especially in verse 14, where he calls Adam a type of the one who was to come to say, and he's arguing for justification.

01:43:50

And in doing so, he's saying that Adam becomes a type in what he did for us understanding

01:43:56

Christ and what he did. And so you have specific denial that it's individual sin, the way

01:44:01

Adam sinned, that results in death. That's what verse 13 and 14 says. Sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin was not counted where it wasn't at all.

01:44:10

Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who sinned was not like the transgression of Adam.

01:44:17

So the question is, because all sinned, when? When did all sin? And how did

01:44:22

Paul sin? Paul says it's not the way Adam sinned. So that's the debatable question. And, you know, you can come down to different places and how you answer that question, but there is a solidarity in Paul's mind between the one sin of the one man and the impact on the whole human race.

01:44:38

And just as Adam's sin resulted in condemnation and death for the human race, so Christ's act of obedience results in justification and eternal life for all those who are in him.

01:44:49

I think if we don't see that, then Romans 5 becomes a mystery that is, I can't figure out how to resolve.

01:44:55

There's a typology there. So that's, I think Romans 5, you're exactly right, is the key passage. I would not say

01:45:00

Romans 5 .12, but I would say Romans 5 .12 through 19. Tom Askell said in two minutes, what took me an hour and a half to do.

01:45:16

Obviously smarter than me. But yeah. And he had to do it quickly because he's on a, you know, on a panel there.

01:45:27

We had the luxury of looking at the text and looking at the Greek, walking through it verse by verse by verse.

01:45:33

But we came to the exact same conclusion. The exact same conclusion. And we press on.

01:45:41

And I think that we have to be careful. It is a typology at work here.

01:45:47

But if you're going to take and have all sin through Adam, you're going to have all saved through Christ.

01:45:54

Oh, let's listen to it again. Listen to it again. Here's Malcolm Yarnell.

01:46:01

First fundamental error of interpretation. Well, not first. I mean, there's been a bunch of them already, but in this response, listen.

01:46:09

And I think that we have to be careful. It is a typology at work here. But if you're going to take and have all sin through Adam, you're going to have all saved through Christ.

01:46:20

And you're going to end up with the same logic. And of course, he's into it. Universalism. Universalism.

01:46:28

If you have one humanity in Adam, another humanity in Christ, those who are

01:46:34

Christ, those who receive the grace, there's your indications. No universalism.

01:46:41

No universalism. You missed it, Dr. Yarnell. What's causing you to miss it? When someone can miss clear text right in front of them, that is the indication of a tradition.

01:46:55

That's how you detect tradition. And that's what we're dealing with here is a tradition.

01:47:02

Through the text, because it uses very similar language repeatedly with the fact that many are saved through the one man who is, in this case, it's a reference to the second man in Christ.

01:47:12

So as far as the absolute denial, let me go back also to an

01:47:18

English reader. Again, I'm going to go back to the backstating message.

01:47:23

It refers to inseparable. Now, I think here you get the only time there's back and forth between Yarnell and Askel.

01:47:34

And hence, this is as close it comes to a debate. And at one point, the debate's over because there is a silence gotcha moment.

01:47:46

And we've all seen the gotchas. You know, Jerry, I'll take just one. Pay me now or pay me later.

01:47:54

I mean, I'm going to start thinking of the various gotcha moments down through my own debating history. And this is where it actually happens.

01:48:01

So I may not have to even interrupt here for a while. We're grateful for repentance and faith, and it treats repentance and faith with regeneration.

01:48:13

Again, my understanding of regeneration and repentance and faith are that they occur simultaneously.

01:48:19

Now, the response I typically get from Calvinists, and you probably do this. Oh, I'm not speaking chronological order. I'm speaking of logical order.

01:48:26

And then my response typically is, well, where did you get that logic? And I don't see that in the scripture.

01:48:32

And I don't see that in the Bible's faith and message. Tom, that's your way. Repentance or regeneration before faith is your way of reading scripture.

01:48:40

It's also your way of reading the Bible's faith and message. It's not our way of reading the scripture and message. Let me read this, these two statements.

01:48:47

Do we have an English professor in the room? It might be helpful if we had somebody who's an English professor to let us see these two statements. You have to read the entire article and not just two words, too much.

01:48:58

No, right. We'll read the whole article because they cannot be saying the same thing. If the law of non -contradiction exists, if we can live by that.

01:49:06

Here's what the statement says in the traditionalist document. We affirm that a person, any person who responds to the gospel with repentance and faith is born again through the power of the

01:49:16

Holy Spirit. He's a new creation of Christ who enters the moment he believes into eternal life. Before you go on, would you explain to me what do you think that statement is saying?

01:49:24

I think that statement is saying that a person who responds to the gospel with repentance and faith is born again.

01:49:30

That's right. But what you're saying is that we are putting repentance and faith before regeneration.

01:49:36

Is that right? Yeah, I think so. No, but it's not what it is. The word is, is not the word before. Well, I understand that. That's why I'm saying, gracious reading, you can take that.

01:49:43

If it were not for the statement of denial that immediately follows it, which says, which I assume is trying to shed light on the affirmation.

01:49:49

We deny that any person is regenerated prior to or apart from hearing the response to the gospel.

01:49:56

So again, no before, is prior to prior. Again, you have a chain of salvation that you're working from.

01:50:03

What does the word prior mean? Does it mean before? Tom, the word is, is there.

01:50:11

That was so enjoyable,

01:50:18

I want to listen to it again. Excuse me.

01:51:08

I am actually, I haven't told you this. I would love, in fact,

01:51:17

I'm going to use the webcast for an advertisement. I'm actually in the market for a low mileage

01:51:25

PT cruiser. I miss my PT. And I would love to find a low mileage

01:51:30

PT cruiser. I really would. All your credibility just got shot right there. But here's the problem.

01:51:37

I ain't buying one from Malcolm because I may ask him,

01:51:45

I may ask him, was this car in an accident prior to today?

01:51:52

And the answer is going to be, what does prior mean?

01:51:58

It's the word is. Seriously, if any of you know of a nice PT cruiser.

01:52:09

But I will only buy it from a person who knows that prior does mean before.

01:52:17

And that, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it doesn't.

01:52:23

No, it doesn't. The implication is certain. Oh, the implication is not there,

01:52:28

Tom. That's, that's your logic. That's not my logic. No, that's my reading of the English. That's your reading.

01:52:34

And I just pointed out to you, it does not affirm faith before return. This, this is a theological document.

01:52:40

Absolutely. And it does not say faith before return. Absolutely. And they are.

01:52:46

So they're just not careful. Let's do this. Let's submit it to an English teacher. Let's take both statements and say,

01:52:52

English teacher, can you tell us what this statement says? This statement says, do they say the same thing? And if the

01:52:57

English teacher says, yeah, they say the same thing grammatically, syntactically, that's exactly what the verbs and the nouns mean in the sentence, then

01:53:03

I'll be willing to go back to school in English. Having a critic of the traditionalist statement, interpret the traditionalist statement, is akin to having a wolf guard the chickens.

01:53:17

I don't think, I'll tell you what it's saying and what it means. And I'm one of the spikers and one of the editors, and you're telling me that it means opposite of what

01:53:25

I'm saying it means. I get to tell you what it means. And prior means concurrent.

01:53:34

That's why we use prior. There you go, folks.

01:53:39

I listened to that. And the first thought crossed my mind was, well, it's time for Radio Free Geneva.

01:53:49

Yes, indeed. It's time for Radio Free Geneva. And when I listened to all the stuff about Augustine, and we're much better with our

01:53:59

Greek than Augustine was, which we are. But if your

01:54:04

Greek causes you to interpret Romans 5, 12, only in the light of Ezekiel 18, rather than Romans 5, 13 through 19, then your

01:54:20

Greek isn't doing you much good. In fact, it may be harming you. It may be harming you.

01:54:27

Because lots of folks who don't know Greek know that you finish the argument and that the later portion might actually shed some light on the very beginning of the argument itself.

01:54:44

And of course it does. And of course it does. Why am I concerned about this?

01:54:50

Is it just, well, you're just one of those radical hyper -Calvinists. We are going to be addressing, by the way, the false accusation by David Allen against me.

01:55:08

We're going to look specifically at the footnote that he provided in his book, and we will refute it.

01:55:15

And we will demonstrate that David Allen is misusing

01:55:20

Phil Johnson's paradigm, and that if he's consistent, that David Allen will have to admit to being a full -blown plagiarist.

01:55:31

As I'll demonstrate, what he's doing is he's taking one of a number of possible indications and saying, well, if you agree with any one of these, that makes you a hyper -Calvinist.

01:55:44

Well, Allen agrees with numerous things that would make him a

01:55:50

Pelagian. He will insist, no, no, no, no, because I believe this, this, this, and this. But he won't allow it for me.

01:55:57

He won't allow me to say, but I believe this, this, and this. No hyper -Calvinist believes in the free, promiscuous proclamation of the gospel.

01:56:11

Even as I mentioned earlier on a previous program, when you play

01:56:16

Hankins' representation of hyper -Calvinism, it's the exact opposite of me. So, Dr.

01:56:23

Allen is using this as an excuse to avoid dealing with the reality of my own position and his misrepresentation thereof.

01:56:33

We will be dealing with that. But my real concern is not Calvinism here.

01:56:39

We walk through Romans chapter 5 and what do we discover? The issue of Romans chapter 5 is the unity of fallen man with Adam and therefore the unity of all those who are of faith in Christ.

01:56:58

And if you break the connection and say, no,

01:57:04

Adam's sin has nothing to do. By one sin of Adam, we were not made sinners.

01:57:13

We are made sinners only when we sin. Then you are fundamentally undercutting the argument of the apostle as to the unity of the body all staying on the same level in need of the imputed righteousness of Christ.

01:57:28

And you're breaking that connection between Christ's one act of righteousness and the justification of life to all those who are in him.

01:57:37

It is sub -biblical. It is anti -biblical. It would be indefensible if these folks were actually to put themselves in a position of debating meaningful representatives of the other side.

01:57:52

And I'm not talking about reformed folks. You'll find yourself a real sharp Muslim, a real sharp

01:57:58

Roman Catholic, a real sharp atheist who will attack issues of theodicy and the consistency and the wholeness of the gospel.

01:58:10

And they'll bring these things out. They will bring these things out. And so I hope this has been of hope of help and assistance to you.

01:58:19

It was not my intention to just rile up emotions. You don't spend an hour and a half walking through biblical texts doing that.

01:58:28

But it is important. I hope you've come to understand how really beautiful Romans chapter 5 actually is and come to a better appreciation of the glory of the gospel and our absolute dependence upon Jesus Christ and his righteousness.