Chapter 4 of "Love Wins"

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded

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

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

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

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

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James White. And good afternoon, welcome to a Wednesday Dividing Line. We had technical difficulties yesterday, cannot promise we will not have them today, but we've had the feed up for,

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I don't know, a number of hours. It has remained steady, no dropouts, hopefully, hopefully we discovered the problem and hopefully it has been fixed.

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But you know how the internet is and connections can be and can work fine for six months and then for a month it's crazy and it works fine for six months again, you know, not, we haven't perfected things, you know, we're, it's a whole lot better than it used to be.

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Remember the first cell phones, drive, drive two blocks, dropped call, you had to sort of go back around, find that cell you're in, oh, that one works okay,

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I can stay here, you know, that's the way things were. But they improve over time and we're happy for that.

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We have a number of phone calls already. I've had something I needed to get to today, but we'll try to get through some of them and see what we can do with that.

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None of them, let me check the names here, no, no, no, none of the names are, start with Peter, with that I am

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Peter or anything else. And I didn't expect Peter Lemkins to call in because he will not face me, he knows better because he knows his arguments are so vacuous, so empty that upon any type of cross -examination they would collapse.

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Specifically, he will not reveal the name of his quote -unquote source.

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Now, remember, this is a man we've already documented via video of his dishonesty, where he would change my words, you can hear me saying the words as he's editing them, fading the volume out and putting different words on the screen.

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And I mean, you know, that level of dishonesty, it's still there, you can go back and look at it, it's right there.

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And we've seen the childishness of the videos he produces and insulting people and stuff like that. It's just the way he is.

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That's old lumpy. But what he's doing now is he's running around and he just, one of two problems, either he cannot hear what's being said to him or he just refuses to hear what's being said to him, one of the two.

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And for example, on the last program, I mentioned that last year I had written to my immediate superiors and they had told me, we've heard nothing from Mill Valley, no problem at all, it's not an issue.

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And that in one ear, out the other, because he figures that if I was like him,

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I would have been trumpeting him from the mountaintops and like that. So that's the difference, is that Peter Lumpkins acts on a level of about a 12 year old.

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And I try not to do that as often as is humanly possible. We do that sometimes in channel.

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And Rich and I have been known to have an occasional, about semi -annual rubber band fight in the office, but this seems to be an everyday thing for old

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Pete. And now his new thing is that allegedly I'm claiming to be right now teaching a class for Golden Gate.

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Has anyone heard me ever say that? Now, let's be clear here. The word presently. Presently.

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He's putting that in brackets, sort of like the Jehovah's Witnesses put other in brackets in Colossians 1. Same thing, right?

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So he's dredging up that old Christianity today, which if you go and follow his links, that phrase isn't there anymore.

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Oh, that's interesting. Well, that's nice. Again, this type of argumentation only works on people who have no capability of following line of argument whatsoever.

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Everybody can see what I've taught at Golden Gate, and if these folks succeed in just making such a stink of themselves that I never get to teach there again, well,

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I feel very badly about that. But the fact of the matter is, my students have enjoyed the classes.

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I think there's one student in our chat channel right now that wrote an article about the class he took with me last

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January and felt that it was well worth his while and was useful to him. And I could direct you to other people who are in doctoral programs today, and they will tell you that one of the factors in their pursuing that level of education was their time with me as their professor teaching, well, the list is long.

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Systematic theology, Christology, Christian philosophy of religion, Greek, Greek exegesis, Hebrew, Hebrew exegesis,

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Islam, apologetics, introduction to patristic theology. And there is no question.

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There is no question. Peter Lemkins knows this. That's why he would never call this program. He lacks the intestinal fortitude to do so.

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There's no question. All those classes were taught and were completed successfully, and the students were benefited thereby.

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And I'd like to have that opportunity in the future. And I just lay it out to the audience.

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What kind of a man, what kind of a mindset is it? A man who will support an arrogant canner, where we have video evidence, we have legal documentation demonstrating that his entire story was bogus.

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And then we also have legal documentation and video evidence that everything

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I've claimed about myself, about the debates that I've done, when I say I've debated Shabir Ali, you can contact

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Shabir Ali and he can verify that for you. And you can go on YouTube and you can watch the debates. And there are debates that Peter Lemkins would,

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I would hope, never try to engage because he would be wiped out in them. And yet this man wants to make sure that the person who actually engages the

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Muslims doesn't get to pass on that knowledge to students.

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But the guy who made up his whole life as being this, you know, jihadi dude in Turkey, well, we need to defend him.

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The twistedness of the mind of Peter Lemkins. Just a warning to those of you who might have anything to do with the man, just keep that in mind.

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Okay, was there something you wish to add to that, sir? Well, I would like to raise that just a little bit further, and that is that in everything

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I've read up there, I just see one common theme, and that is a vehement attempt to poison the well in retaliation.

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Oh, it's retaliation. It's just plain and simple. He's trying to poison the well at Golden Gate to see to it.

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And at the same time, I think he's clearly, him and Tim Rogers, are clearly looking to take a victory lap.

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They want that last confirmation that there's no possible way that you could ever set foot over there, come anywhere close to it, and then they'll take their victory lap.

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Both these men who could never even attempt to criticize the work I've actually done in those fields.

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Couldn't even try to, but that's just the way they are. That's the ugly face of politics.

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And that is the other thing, and one of the major reasons why I left the Southern Baptist Convention, and that is it became very clear back in the late 80s, early 90s, that the organization was more interested in its personal or functional politics than actually wrapping its mind and its heart around the scriptures.

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Well, there are still many faithful men and women there, and they're good folks.

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And I just remind you, just take the time to look at Peter Lumpkin's video where he attacked both

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Turretin Fan and Tom Askell. And that gives you, Lumpkin represents the worst of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Let's make sure that that's very clearly seen. He represents the worst of the convention.

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But hey, whenever you have a large body of folks, you're going to get people that are going to try to cause divisions and things like that, and aren't really concerned about truth.

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And that's Peter Lumpkin. So anyways, that done with, and of course phone lines are open, but that's not going to happen.

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Because people who have to edit your videos just to make you say what they would like you to say will never face you personally.

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He would never do that. That's just the way it is. All right, let's move on with important stuff here, because I did want to get to something, and I'm not sure

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I'm going to be able to get to it in this program. But let's try to clear the calls and get to it.

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Let's talk with Patrick. Hi, Patrick. Dr. White, what an honor it is to speak to you.

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Right after you did the Bart Ehrman debate, you spoke at a countryside Bible church in South Lake, Texas.

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I did. I did. And you spoke on Islam. I attended that. I was very honored to hear that.

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By the way, I have your tapes all the way back to your radio debates, because that tape's back in the 80s. I don't know if you remember, but I came up to you after that to give you a

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Bible manuscript puzzle that had extra pages. Do you remember that?

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You know, yeah, but I do remember that.

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I'm just trying to—was it something that I was able to take with me, or did I say something to send it to me? I don't remember.

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Well, I did give it to you, so hopefully you took it with you. Yeah, well, I'm trying to remember how that worked, but I do remember somebody, because of the illustration from Rob Bowman about having a 1 ,000 -piece puzzle with 1 ,010 pieces or something along those lines.

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So anyway, it was very helpful to me, and I really appreciate your work on New Testament criticism.

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But my question today is that I just recently completed reading a book by Norman Geisler and Ron Rhodes called

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Conviction Without Compromise, and it's a book about the essentials and non -essentials of the Christian faith.

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And Dr. White, I had a question about something they talked about, Christ's bodily ascension and its high priestly role.

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In Chapters 2 through—oh, by the way, I wanted to mention to you in this book that they did have a footnote on your book,

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The Forgotten Trinity. Yes. It was on page 42, and they were talking about how some skeptics say that the word

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Trinity's not in the Bible, and they quoted you saying, One feel those who must wisely ask if I believe everything the

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Bible says about a topic X and use a term not found in the Bible to describe the full teaching of the Scripture. On that point, am

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I not being more truthful than someone who limits themselves to only biblical terms to reject some aspects of God's revelation?

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So they did credit you in this book. I'm sure that was probably Ron Rhodes that did that, not

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Norman Geisler. Well, I don't know that, but certainly

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I have spoken at numerous conferences with Ron, so who knows? Anyway, in Chapters 2 through 12, they list these essentials that are necessary for our justification, and those are

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God's unity, his trinity, Christ's aid, Christ's humanity, human depravity, Christ's birth and birth,

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Christ's sinlessness, Christ's atoning death, the resurrection, and the necessity of grace and faith. And here's a question

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I have. In the following five chapters, they list essentials that are necessary for our sanctification, and one of those is

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Christ's high priestly role. And here's my question for you,

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Dr. White. That seems to be not completely true to me, because Acts 5 -30, where it says

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God exalted Christ to his own right hand as Prince and Savior, that he might get repentance and forgiveness of sins.

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1 John 2 -1, if anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in offense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.

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So here's the question I have for you, Dr. White. It seems to me that they're saying that Christ's high priestly role is necessary for our sanctification and not justification.

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And I'm saying my belief is that he's there for our justification and our sanctification, and I think that they're making a false distinction here.

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What are your thoughts on that? Well, I've not read the book, so I can only comment on the general question.

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I wouldn't want to say, well, I would disagree with them, because I haven't read their presentation to how they're ordering things. But certainly, a concern that I would have in light of the—and

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Ralph mentioned to me, he actually did total up the number of minutes I've been preaching on Hebrews via sermon audio, and it's 23 .65

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hours, or something like 1 ,429 minutes, or something like that. And I'm right in the middle of the section of Christ—in fact,

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Hebrews 9 .24 is the next text I'll be dealing with, where he enters into the heavenly place.

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And I have emphasized very, very strongly in that the fact that the high priestly role is not a separate work from the sacrificial role, because the offering of the sacrifice was only part of what the high priest did.

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He brought the blood into the holy place. And so if Christ is the high priest, then it's not like, well, first he does the sacrifice, and then there's a separate work where he does intercession, and he represents us before the throne of God, and stuff like that.

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No, that would be a gross misunderstanding. The two go together. So if the argument recognizes that the sacrificial role of Christ is central to justification, then in light of the fact that he enters into the holy place having obtained eternal redemption, and then he stands as the lamb having been slaughtered in the presence of the

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Father, that is just as much a part of our justification as any other of the actions of his would be.

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And yes, there is the sanctifying element of that in the sense that because he as mediator is in the presence of the

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Father, this then guarantees the coming of the Spirit and the work of the Spirit in our hearts and sanctification and holiness and all the rest of that stuff.

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I think the real problem is even making the division between justification and sanctification.

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But that may be, again, just a, you have to make divisions, but so many things overlap. And it would seem to me that the high priestly act of Christ needs to first be emphasized in its relationship to the sacrifice, and then in the application of that in sanctification.

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But, you know, it is very, very difficult to divide things up in a meaningful way so that you can discuss them in a meaningful way.

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I mean, it's sort of like trying to discuss the Ordo Salutis. The Ordo Salutis is not a temporal order, it's a logical order.

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And many of the elements of the Ordo Salutis are contemporaneous with one another temporally, but they're dependent upon one another logically.

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And so it is difficult to line things out in such a way as to make it very simple, shall we say.

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And so maybe that's where the division was made, and I would put it someplace else. But I've certainly emphasized strongly in my preaching through Hebrews the connectedness there.

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But just for my own edification, Christ's high priestly role is a justification and a sanctification issue.

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In other words, Christ is interceding before the Father on our behalf right now for our justification.

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Would I be correct in saying that? For our justification. The work of Christ is completed, and that justification is based upon the union of the elect with Christ.

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And that then follows that it's not just something that's future, it is something that is a reality now.

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And the basis of that is the finished work of Christ. So there almost sounded like a future tense there that concerned me.

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I mean, there is a future justification in the sense of, at the final judgment, the declaration, the declarative element before the whole universe.

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But Paul plainly places our justification in the past. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. So his work, and I don't even like using the term work, but his presence before the

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Father is a representation of the finishedness of that work, upon which justification is then freely given to those who have faith in Christ.

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Okay, Dr. White, thank you very much. Can I mention one more thing about the distinction between being and person?

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Sure, real quick though. Okay, real quick. I really enjoyed your discussion on the trinity between being and person.

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Let me throw one more thing and see if you think this is a good argument. Some abortion advocates are claiming today that the unborn may be human, but not a person.

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They claim the fetus is biologically human, genetically human, a distinct member of the species

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Homo sapiens, but not a person yet. Would this be a good argument to use when making the distinction between being and person?

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Well, that's a completely different issue in the sense that we're not talking about eternal relationships in the

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Godhead. Now we're talking about a completely different subject, where if they admit that the unborn child is completely human, then they are obviously stuck with dealing with some type of metaphysics as to what makes someone a person.

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And if they will admit to any type of metaphysical foundation, now they're really stuck, because they have to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this is not a person, because they're going to kill this person.

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And if they're naturalistic materialists, they have no grounds for even making this distinction.

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Because they've recognized that since there is no spiritual element, you're talking about a distinct, unique human being.

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And to kill that human being requires absolute evidence that this human being has no rights.

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And they can't even begin to offer that kind of thing. Most of the pro -abortionists that I've talked to over the years would not admit the unique humanity of the unborn child.

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They just referred to a blob of protoplasm. But I think they're realizing now, in light of our greater knowledge of the videos and so on and so forth that exist in development, that that just simply doesn't work.

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And they're sort of coming apart at the seams at that point. Okay, Patrick, thank you very much for calling from Texas today.

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I hope you all have a good time down there. Let's try to keep moving here. I'm going to get to Jeff and Jeff, and then

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I need to get what I was going to try to cover today. And if I can get the phone calls after that, I will. But I'm going to do two more real quick, and then

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I've got to get to what I've got prepared here, because I'm not going to get it done if we don't get to them. So let's talk with Jeff in Philly.

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Hi, Jeff. Hi, Dr. White. Good to talk to you again. Yes, sir. I'm going to see Dr. Ehren tomorrow.

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Okay. I hope you're not paying too much to do that. I'm paying a little bit. It goes to the

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Philadelphia Free Library. I guess that's quite enough. Yeah. So normally there's a question -and -answer period, and hopefully

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I get to ask a question. So I'm just kind of studying up and trying to –

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I was listening to your last podcast a few times. Is he speaking on Forged?

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Yes. Yeah, what else? Yes, that's what he's speaking on.

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And also his speech and the question -and -answer period will be recorded and put on – so one thing,

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I called you up yesterday just to see if there was anything you needed him to be put on record for.

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Well, see, the problem is people will go see these folks, and they want like a killer question or something.

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And the problem is Bart Ehrman is a very, very smart man. And I learned a long time ago you don't – like when

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Norm Geisler was going to be on the radio station here locally years and years ago, it never crossed my mind to call in and voice an objection or something, because the caller is always at a disadvantage at that point.

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And to really accomplish something, it takes dialogue. It takes going back and forth, and Bart doesn't do that.

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He not only will cut a person off, but he argues from authority so quickly. Well, I've been doing this for 35 years.

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You just need to believe what I – and we've documented that. And that's what the value of my debate with him was, and why

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I'd do it again, is that at least I have a period of time where I can lay a foundation and the question therefore has some meaning.

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And so it's very, very difficult in a single question to, for example, challenge his constant utilization of the term

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Christian to describe – well, to challenge his whole assertion that early

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Christianity was just this complete mishmash of completely different religious ideas all going under one rubric.

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But completely in contradiction to one another. Well, the angle I was going to go in was just to show, if I used his presuppositions for forged on his own writing,

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I would have to conclude there was a fake Bart Ehrman. Well, and I think that is a valid question.

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That is, if you want to put it this way, Dr. Ehrman, if all of your books were dug up 2 ,000 years from now, and that was all they knew about Bart Ehrman, would it not be the case that via examination of language, syntax, word usage, it would be proven that you did not write

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The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture in light of establishing Jesus Interrupted, misquoting

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Jesus, and forged as the real Bart Ehrman, or vice versa, if The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture is the real

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Bart Ehrman, then it is a disciple of Bart Ehrman that wrote these other much more common, simple books?

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Yeah, I think you could probably put that into a decent question. Now, whether he's going to answer that in a meaningful fashion,

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I'll be interested in watching. But I think that is a good way of putting it, because it does at least expose the primary problem with that kind of analysis, and that is, you get to start by determining what the real

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Paul was all about, what the real Paul talked about, and you get to say, he never would have talked about these other things.

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Right, and I think I was going to go down that route, because in a question -and -answer period, there's not enough time to go over all the material.

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And I frankly don't know—that was part of the reason I was calling, was just if you had any recommended resources.

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Not that I'm going to use it tomorrow, but on this topic, because I was familiar with the 1st and 2nd

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Peter discussions. Well, any meaningful commentary, any critical commentary, any conservative critical commentary is going to have an extensive discussion at the front of authorship issues.

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And he just skips them. I mean, it's like, he just doesn't even think that what we have to say is even relevant at that point.

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I also noticed, I was checking online, just kind of what the anti -Nicene fathers quoted, and it looks like Clement quoted

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Ephesians and 1st Peter, and not many other epistles. So I was like, those are two of the ones he said aren't.

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Yeah, obviously you can mount a defense, but not in a question.

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It would be nice if you could find—and off the top of my head, I'd have to go in my office and look through commentaries to come up with which ones you could look at.

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They would have a discussion of that. My gut feeling is generally what happens in that context is what these folks do is the same thing that Robert Funk did when

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I debated him on the radio in 1989, and that is, I quote my guys, well, they're only on the fringe of scholarship.

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And so anybody you quote who's going to be conservative, he's going to just identify as being on the fringe of scholarship, and we'll be able to countercite somebody that we would identify as being on the fringe of scholarship.

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So I'm not sure necessarily that's the way to go. I think a short, succinct, well -phrased question is the way to go, and I think that that's a good one that you have in mind.

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I've done this before in the same venue with Richard Dawkins. Oh, yes, just look up the

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MP3 podcast. He's a funny guy. But this venue really kind of, it's not so much for the author, but it allows to get interaction with the audience afterwards.

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A lot of people come up to you, so it's going to be 7 .30 Eastern time tomorrow, which is in the middle of your webcast, so I appreciate anyone's prayers on my behalf.

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All right, Jeff. Okay, Jeff, if you could drop us a line with the URL once the video is up, it would be interesting to watch.

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I'll just, who should I contact? Oh, there's a contact link on the website.

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All right. All righty? All right. Okay, thanks, Jeff. All right, let's quick get

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Jeff in here, and I need to get to my subject for the day. Hello, Jeff, in Phoenix. Hey, Dr. White.

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How are you doing? Doing all right. Good. Thank you for taking my call. Glad to talk to you. Here's real quick.

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At our church, we're having a debate this Friday with two really well -known local atheists.

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One of them was going to cover the New Times out here dressed like Jesus, using the cross like a machine gun, and they're really militant kind of atheists.

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They go to Mill Avenue to preach atheism. And so it's a full event, and my partner and I, Vocab is a local radio station, also a host out here.

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Yeah, I met him when Michael Brown and I did the debate on the

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Jewish Voice broadcast. Yeah, we're both there. We love that. We recommend that to people all the time. Actually, with that said, our church is going to start thinking you're paying us for advertising because every time

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I do a Bible study, we're using your books as kind of background stuff. So I just wanted to ask you, we're approaching them with a biblical apologetic reform, and we're presuppositional, but we do want to be able to answer some common challenges that they're kind of known for throwing out.

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And just one of the questions I wanted to hear you talk about was in the birth narrative of Jesus, not the genealogy, but the birth narrative from Matthew to Luke.

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Matthew describes they're there, and then Herod wants to kill them, and then they flee to Egypt and then go to Nazareth.

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But Luke says they go to Jerusalem, they perform all these things, and then they go to Nazareth. And so what's a good way to put that together?

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I just wanted to kind of hear you talk about that. Well, I would need to spend some time on that, to be honest with you,

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Jeff. There was a fellow that was, I forget, I don't know, about a year ago.

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There was a guy that was saying he was going to call in, and I put together a bunch of resources, and I kept bringing him in for a couple weeks, and he never called.

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So I don't have him in here, and I would have to go back over that. It would be a whole program just to even start on something like that.

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And so I really can't do that. But I know that a couple of the resources that I put together and looked at for that is

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Carson's work on Matthew, and then

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I think it's Daryl Bach's two -volume on Luke. The first volume of his very large

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Luke commentary has an extensive discussion of those issues, and you're talking many, many, many pages, part of which is just simply an overview of the various positions that have been taken, but that's the important part is getting the background information.

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So that's much more in -depth. I mean, obviously, you can get a summary in such books as Gleason Archer's, but if you want the deeper documentary stuff, then my recollection is that the big –

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I forget how many thousands of pages the Luke commentary is by Bach.

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It's just massive. But there was a pretty extensive discussion of the subject there. Okay, so Daryl Bach on Luke.

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Right, right. I don't even remember the commentary series.

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It's in the other room. I'd have to go get it. I'll check it on Amazon. Yeah, it's a two -volume commentary on Luke.

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And then, as I recall, Carson likewise addressed it in his older Matthew commentary.

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So when you get Bach and Carson going at the same subject, you're going to get plenty of reading to get under your belt at that point.

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And if I recall correctly, there was actually even an outline in Bach of the various positions.

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So that probably gets you. Unless the debate is specifically on the subject.

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It's Baker exegetical. It's not. I mean, we're sticking to the important issues. I mean, the topic of the debate is, which makes more sense,

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Christianity or atheism, which I'm surprised they agreed to do that. So we're approaching them in the proper way, in the biblical way.

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But we wanted to be able to respond because we're doing ten -minute cross -examinations twice. And if they bring something like that up,

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I just wanted to make sure that I gave a faithful response. And all the while acknowledging, okay, let's acknowledge now that you're not reasoning within a

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Christian worldview. You're standing on our platform, assuming uniformity, all those things. But I just wanted to make sure I was faithful in responding.

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So I greatly appreciate all you do. We pray for you guys all the time, and we're just so blessed,

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Dr. White, by all that God's doing for you. Well, thank you very much. And like I said, my recollection is that the discussion is fairly extensive, and it is mixed in.

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I think there's two parts of it, and lots of good stuff. And we need to do a program or two on that sometime.

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Like I said, I dragged all that stuff in here for a while because I forget now what the context was. Somebody, some atheist or something contacted us.

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They were going to call in and discuss it and blah, blah, blah. And I should have just gone ahead and done it, but I didn't. So anyways,

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I appreciate it. We'll pray for the debate and hope everything goes well. Be interested in seeing how it goes.

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We'll send you a link. Thank you, brother. Thanks, Jeff. Bye -bye. All right. So many things

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I would like to do, and that would be one of them. I would like to spend the rest of the program and might have to put lunch off for five or six minutes if I need to.

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Rich is protesting that. You do have a French background, don't you? Working hours are very, very important for the

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French. Anyway, it was only about a month ago.

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I forgot to go and look at the specific times, but it was only about a month ago that the brouhaha over Rob Bell began.

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And isn't it interesting that for many people, it's already a move along time.

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It's nothing left to see here. The thing with Cantor has struck me in that way. Now it's sort of like, oh, okay, we got

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Al Mohler to talk about it, and we got Piper to talk about it, and we've gotten some of the gatekeepers to speak on the subject so we can move on.

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And don't get me wrong. I'm not overly excited about talking about Rob Bell. But I am concerned that the issues that he raised can be addressed in a very surface -level manner, and they just shouldn't be.

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And we do have a younger generation to think about that whether we accept what they find to be good communication or not, we can even look down on it.

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It doesn't change the fact that if that gets their ears, then we need to be concerned.

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And I just want to say to anyone who says, I don't even want to think about it anymore. Here's the people who can safely say that.

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If you feel that you can give a meaningful, biblical, clear, cogent defense of why

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God must punish sin and why the wrath of God is important for us to understand, then you can move on.

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Because that's what this book really is all about. The God being presented by Rob Bell, who he claims to be absolutely orthodox, that God's holiness and wrath is gone.

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It's not expressed, or if it is expressed, it's so redefined that we can't understand.

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So I want you to listen. I'm going to read a whole section here. The most important part of this book is chapter four.

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Right before it is where you get into some important stuff. This first part, I just wanted to address because people had asked me about it, so I need to address it.

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Page 90. Actually, you know what? Let me double -check that. I've actually got the paper version here, and I'm looking at my

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Kindle because it's easier to read. Page 90. Getting there. Nope.

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Look at that. Well, that's wonderful. It tells me it's page 90 of 198, but it's not page 90 of 198.

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It's actually page 91. Somewhere around there. Kindle needs to work a little bit on that.

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We see the same impulse in the story Jesus tells in Matthew 25 about sheep and goats being judged and separated. The sheep are sent to one place while the goats go to another place.

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Because of their failure to see Jesus in the hungry and thirsty and naked. Let me stop right there. Why they are goats.

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That's not why they're goats. Rob Bell misses it all the time. He always misrepresents why people are sent to hell.

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It's never about the ruptured relationship and the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man.

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It's because of their failure to see Jesus in the hungry and thirsty and naked. You see, when a person has been changed, they see

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Jesus in those places, but that's not why they're sent. He misses it. The goats are sent, in the

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Greek language, to an Aion of Kolodzo. Now, I'm not the first one to criticize

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Rob Bell's Greek. Rob Bell went to Fuller Seminary. I had a great Greek education at Fuller Seminary, but that was because I had my own

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Greek professor from Grand Canyon University. That was one of the advantages of being in an extension seminary. Extensions are almost always more conservative than the main campus.

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Thanks, B. So I had a great Greek education. Four years at Fuller, three years before that in my undergrad.

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Seven years total. And the goats are sent, in the Greek language, to an

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Aion of Kolodzo isn't even close. Not even close. Aion, we know, has several meanings.

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One is age or period of time. Another refers to intensity of experience. This is one of the things that drives me crazy about Rob Bell is he makes these assertions and there's never a footnote.

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There's never a reference. You just have to believe him. I find that extremely disrespectful to your readers.

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I really do. And I'm an author, so I can say that. It is extremely disrespectful to your readers to do that.

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I think Rich can affirm. I don't know if you were watching the cameras last night, but my

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Arabic tutor was over last evening. I was here late and my Arabic tutor was here. And you know what we did? We spent almost the entire time looking at some commentaries that I have, some

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Tafsir literature that's only available in Arabic. It hasn't been translated into English. Because I'm writing a book.

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The book is about the Quran. And I want to accurately represent what the early

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Tafsir literature said about the specific text that I'm addressing. And so I asked my

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Arabic tutor, I said, look, here's a list. But I want to start here. I want to start with Surah Al -Fatiha.

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And I'd listened to a debate recently. And I said, you know, I'd be really interested in what Al -Tabari and this other source that I have says about the very end of Surah Al -Fatiha, which every

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Muslim repeats every time they pray, basically. And so we spent the whole time looking at Arabic sources in regards to the earliest interpretation of those texts.

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And so when I mention that in the book, there's going to be a footnote or an endnote. I'm not sure what

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Bethany is going to want to do on that point. I like footnotes. I know. But Bethany likes endnotes. So, you know, it doesn't kill you to have your finger stuck in the back and look things up.

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But there's going to be a reference. I'm not just going to tell you, well, you know what? Early Muslims taught that it was

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Christians and Jews that are being referred to at the end of Surah Al -Fatiha. It talks about those who have earned Allah's wrath as Jews, those who have gone astray.

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Those are the Christians. And I can prove that. And there's no question about that. But I'm not just going to tell you that.

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I'm going to give you a footnote because I respect my readers. Rob Bell doesn't seemingly respect his readers because he makes these claims, but he never footnotes anything.

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He doesn't have to back anything up. It bugs me. And I think it should bug you, too. Anyways, the word kaladzo is a term from horticulture.

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It refers to the pruning and trimming of the branches of a plant so it can flourish. Well, once again, he could put a footnote here.

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And the footnote would be to D .A. Carson's book on common exegetical errors because this is one of them he lists.

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One of the best classes I had was right toward the... Was this part of my seminary or undergraduate?

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I don't know. Somewhere along the line. My Greek professor assigned Moises Silva's book, Biblical Words and Their Meaning.

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The names changed, but that was what it was originally called. That was one of the most important books

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I ever read because it pointed out this kind of semantic lexical error that Rob Bell has made.

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Colossus did have that meaning, just like television once meant farseeing.

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That's what television means. It's two words, tele and vision. Farseeing. Seeing from afar.

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But nobody who uses the word television today has that as its meaning in their mind.

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So it would be absurd to make that type of argumentation. The same thing as, uh -uh, ecclesia, the called out ones.

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Yeah, that's not what it meant when it was used in the New Testament, so that's irrelevant. I know

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I'm ruining a lot of sermon illustrations, but those sermon illustrations are based upon not recognizing that words have meanings at a point in time when they're being used.

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And that's why, long, long ago, when I was working on my THD at the unaccredited

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Columbia Evangelical Seminary, we spent the money, and we didn't have much money to spend back then, we spent the money on something called the

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TLG CD -ROM. The Thesaurus Lingua Graecae CD -ROM, which when it first came out was $60 ,000 and only universities had it.

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It didn't cost us $60 ,000, it cost us $500 per year to lease it. But why did

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I do that? Because you have to look at the words as they were used at particular periods of time.

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That's how you do it. And here's an example. My goodness, I am never going to get this done because this wasn't even the point

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I was going to be emphasizing. Okay, I am going to speed up. I'm sorry. An Ion of Kolodzo.

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Depending on how you translate Ion and Kolodzo, then the phrase can mean a period of pruning, or a time of trimming, or an intense experience of correction.

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All completely bogus, wrong, untrue. You would not find any meaningful New Testament scholar that would substantiate that.

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In a good number of English translations of the Bible, the phrase Ion of Kolodzo gets translated as eternal punishment, which many read to mean punishment forever, as in never going to end, but forever is not really a category that biblical writers use.

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He is completely wrong. And if you would even give you the biblical reference so you could look it up yourself, you might notice that that text in Matthew 25, verse 46, these will go into eternal punishment.

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Eis koloson Ionion, but the righteous into eternal life.

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Hoide de kaioi eis zoen Ionion. Whatever Ionion is doing there, it's modifying koloson, which means punishment, not trimming, and zoen, life.

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So if you want to try to change that, you want to try to say it's not eternal, then neither is eternal life,

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Mr. Bell. I mean, talk about eisegesis. Wow, that was a real gross example of it.

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But let me get to chapter four. Please listen to the argument here.

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Listen to what he said. How would you respond to these arguments? On the websites of many churches, there is a page where you can read what the people in that particular church believe.

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Usually the list starts with statements about the Bible and God, Jesus and the Spirit, the salvation of the church and so on.

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Most of these lists and statements include a section on what the people in the church believe about the people who don't believe what they believe.

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This is from an actual church website. The unsaved will be separated forever from God and hell. This is from another.

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Those who don't believe in Jesus will be sent to eternal punishment and hell. This is from another. The unsaved dead will be committed to an eternal conscious punishment.

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So in the first statement, the unsaved won't be with God. In the second, not only will they not be with God, but they'll be sent somewhere else to be punished.

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In the third, we're told that not only will these unsaved be punished forever, but they will be fully aware of it in case we were concerned they might down an ambien or two when

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God wasn't looking. The people experiencing the separation and punishment will feel all of it, we are told, because they'll be fully conscious of it, fully awake and aware of it for every single second of it, as in never lets up for billions and billions of years.

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All this on a website. Welcome to our church. Yet on these very same websites are extensive affirmations of the goodness and greatness of God, proclamations and statements of belief about a

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God who is mighty, powerful, loving, unchanging, sovereign, full of grace and mercy and all -knowing.

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This God is the one who created the world and everything in it. This is the God for whom all things are possible. I point out these parallel claims that God is mighty, powerful, and in control, and that billions of people will spend forever apart from this

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God who is their creator, even though it's written in the Bible that God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of truth.

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1 Timothy 2 doesn't give you the verse, just at least once he throws in a reference. It's nice, 1 Timothy 2, which we all recognize as one of the big three.

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And if you're expecting any exegesis on Rob Bell's part or any response to the counter exegesis he's been offering, please, you've got to realize we're talking about Rob Bell here.

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And that's not what emergent folks do. They don't debate issues. For all their talk about dialogue, they don't want a dialogue.

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They want a monologue. You got to understand that. So then he asked the question, so does

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God get what God wants? So does

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God get what God wants? How great is God? Great enough to achieve what God sets out to do?

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Or kind of great, medium great? Great most of the time. But in this, the fate of billions of people, not totally great, sort of great, a little great.

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According to the writer of the letter to the Hebrews, God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear.

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Chapter 6. Another incredibly eisegetical use, but we pass over it for now. God has a purpose, something

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God is doing in the world, something that has never changed, something that involves everybody, and God's intention all along has been to communicate this intention clearly.

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Will all people be saved? Or will God not get what God wants?

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Does this magnificent, mighty, marvelous God fail in the end? Now, hear the objections.

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If you don't hear them in the language they're being expressed, you will not be of much aid to someone in responding to them.

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He goes on and quotes a number of texts about God accomplishing his purposes.

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That's good. And he says, and Paul writes in Philippians 2, every knee should bow, every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is

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Lord, the glory of God the Father. All people, the nations, every person, every knee, every tongue. Psalm 22 echoes these promises.

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All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families and nations will bow down before him. And he's right.

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This insistence that God will be united, but notice, without exegesis, just by citing, and this is how false theology does false theology.

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Listen to this importation, without foundation, of an entire interpretation of everything he has now quoted, without ever having done any exegesis of any of the texts.

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This insistence that God will be united and reconciled with all people is a theme the writers and prophets return to again and again.

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Now, not a single text he cited ever said that. Oh, but every knee will bow.

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Okay. What are you assuming that means? Every tongue will confess.

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That means everybody gets the same thing, right? See, this is the slippery slope. Notice it again.

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This insistence that God will be united and reconciled with all people is a theme the writers and prophets return to again and again.

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They are very specific in their beliefs about who God is and what God is doing in the world, constantly affirming the simple fact that God does not fail.

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In the book of Job, the question arises, who can oppose God? He does whatever he pleases, chapter 23. And then later it's affirmed when

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Job says to God, I know that you can do all things. No purpose of yours can be thwarted, chapter 42. Though through Isaiah, God says,

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I will do all that I please. Isaiah asks, surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor is his ear too dull to hear.

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While Jeremiah declares to God, nothing is too hard for you. In the

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Bible, God is not helpless. God is not powerless. And God is not impotent. Paul writes in Philippians that it is

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God who works in you to will and to act in an order to fulfill his good purpose. Of course, that text is about a specific people.

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You see, Rob Bell likes to take texts that are specifically about those who are in Christ, those who have repented, those who are united with Christ, those who have been regenerated.

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He applies them to everybody. Once again, God has a purpose, a desire, a goal, and God never stops pursuing it.

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Jesus tells a series of parables in Luke 15 about a woman who loses a coin, a shepherd who loses a sheep, and a father who loses a son.

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The stories aren't ultimately about things and people being lost. The stories are about things and people being found. The God that Jesus teaches us about doesn't give up until everything that was lost is found.

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This God simply doesn't give up, ever. Now, back to those church websites, the ones that declare that ultimately billions of people will spend eternity apart from God, while others will be with God in heaven forever.

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Is history tragic? Have billions of people been created only to spend eternity in conscious punishment and torment, suffering infinitely for the finite sins they committed in the few years they spent on earth?

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I stop for a moment. I stop for a moment. How do you respond to that?

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Oh, friends, I hope if you get anything out of this, I'm trying to make this a learning moment.

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If you get anything out of this, I hope you know how to respond to that. Obviously, my deepest desire is that if you've listened to this program for any period of time at all, one of the first things running through your mind right now is this man is so man -centered.

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His gospel is so man -centered. There's nothing about God here. There's nothing about his holiness.

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There's nothing about his self -glorification, the glorification of the Trinity. It's all about man, man, man, man, man.

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I hope you're hearing that. I hope you're hearing that. But when you hear this,

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I hope you go, wait a minute, Rob Bell, why are you assuming that people stop sinning when they die?

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Because he doesn't have a biblical anthropology. He does not have a view of man as the enemy of God.

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No, no, no, no. Have billions of people created only to spend eternity in conscious punishment and torment, suffering infinitely for the finite sins they committed and the few years they spent on earth.

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I can understand why Rob Bell, as an Arminian, doesn't like his Arminian upbringing. But that doesn't mean it's an even semi -meaningful objection to what the

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Bible actually teaches. Good reason for not being an Arminian. Suffering infinitely for the finite sins.

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Now, those are finite sins against an infinite God, first of all. But why do you think they stop?

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What is your basis for believing that at death, God sanctifies every sinner?

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Is our future uncertain or will God take care of us? Are we safe?

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Are we secure? Or are we on our own? See, it's all about us, us, us. Man, man, man.

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Is God our friend, our provider, our protector, our father? Or is

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God the kind of judge who may in the end declare that we deserve to spend forever separated from our father? See the distinction?

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You've got to get rid of the holiness of God. You've got to get rid of the justice of God. You can't...

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Wait, nobody can hold them together. No one can do that. He even says that. No one can believe in that type of God because he doesn't.

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And that's why I was so thankful. That initial review, somebody in the channel remind me of the author.

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It's a Dutch name that A .C .E. did. That initial review that was published before the book came out had the temerity to say,

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Rod Bell has a different God. Because he does. He says we can't hold together that very holy

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God of Isaiah with the God of the cross. And that's why the cross ends up being emptied of its true significance in this kind of liberalism.

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Is God like the characters in a story G .S. would tell? Kevin DeYoung, thank you, D .H. Is God like...

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See, I love the folks in the channel. It only takes about 30 seconds. Is God like the characters in a story

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G .S. would tell? Old ladies who keep searching for the lost coins till they find it. Shepherds who don't rest until that one sheep is back in the fold.

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Fathers who rush out to greet and embrace their returning son. Or is in the end, will God give up? Will God give up?

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Because see, all God's doing is trying to get those people back. Of course, the fact that those parables were talking about God's elect and that to read it otherwise destroys everything in the history of Israel.

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So, we can't go there. We can't go there. Will all the ends of the earth come as God has decided or only some?

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Of course, all the ends of the earth means God's elect or spread to all the ends of the earth. But anyway. Will all feast as it's promised in Psalm 22 or only a few?

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Again, it's all the nations. See, he's read all these as universalists. That's why he ends up as a universalist even though, we'll see, he tries to hedge his bets there.

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Will everybody be given a new heart or only a limited number of people? What did Jeremiah 31 say? Will God in the end settle saying, while I tried,

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I gave it my best shot and sometimes you just have to be okay with failure? Will God shrug

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God -sized shoulders and say, you can't always get what you want? Now, on to some specific responses.

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Did you want to throw something in here real quick? Because I still got a lot to read. I'm listening to this and I keep thinking, okay, he keeps saying, will

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God in the end? And I keep thinking, well, we've got a book for that. It's called the Book of Revelation. Oh, he does talk about Revelation.

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The goats. But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but you see, the gates are not closed, which means there's always an opportunity to come in.

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The invitation goes on. Post -mortem evangelization. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

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You see, he's there. Now, on to some specific responses. There are those like the church websites quoted at the beginning of this chapter who put it quite clearly.

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We get one life to choose heaven or hell and once we die, that's it. One or the other forever. God in the end doesn't get what

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God wants. It's declared because some will turn, repent and believe and others won't. To explain this perspective, it's rightly pointed out that love by its, now listen to this, folks.

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This is, this is why I don't want to, we're going to go along. I'm sorry. I have to. We took the calls, but I need,

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I can't stop in the middle of this. God in the end doesn't get what he wants.

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It's declared because some will turn, repent and believe and others won't. To explain this perspective, it's rightly pointed out that love by its very nature is freedom.

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For there to be love, there has to be the option both now and then to not love, to turn the other way, to reject the love extended, to say no.

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Although God is powerful and mighty when it comes to the human heart, God has to play by the same rules we do.

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God has to respect our freedom to choose to the very end, even at the risk of the relationship itself.

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If at any point God overrides, co -ops or hijacks the human heart, robbing us of our freedom to choose, then

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God has violated the fundamental essence of what love even is. Well, there you go, folks.

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What's at the very root of Rob Bell's universalism?

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Arminianism. A view of God's love that is subhuman.

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Evidently, God was not loving Lazarus when he raised him from the dead. And he wasn't loving

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Paul when he knocked him off of his horse. And he wasn't loving you and me when he raised us from spiritual death.

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So, you see, folks, you've got to understand something. What Rob Bell is rebelling against, oh, he hates Reformed theology, there's no question about that.

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But what he's actually rebelling against is Arminianism. It's Arminianism that drove him off into liberalism.

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And most people don't understand that. The question that flows out of this understanding of love then is quite simple.

57:57

Lots of people in our world right now choose to be violent and abusive and mean and evil. So why won't they continue to choose this path?

58:03

Good question, Rob. That question leads to another idea. One, ruin the dynamic nature of life. We aren't fixed, static beings.

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We change and morph as life unfolds. As we choose evil, it often leads to more evil. Tell a lie, and moments later, you find yourself telling another lie to cover up the first lie and so on.

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When we choose to reject our God -given humanity, we can easily find ourselves in a rut, wearing grooves in a familiar path that is easier and easier to take.

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One lie leads to another, one act of violence demands another, and so on and on it goes, gaining momentum all the while.

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This is how addiction works. Sometimes something gets its claws into us, and as it becomes more and more dominant in our life, it becomes harder and harder to imagine living without it.

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What makes us think that after our lifetime, let alone hundreds or even thousands of years, somebody who has consciously chosen a particular path away from God suddenly wakes up one day and decides to head in the completely opposite direction.

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Well, where do they wake up and what's going on while they're there? I wonder after death. And so a universal hug fest where everybody eventually ends up around the heavenly campfire singing kumbaya with Jesus playing guitar sounds a lot like fantasy to some people.

59:05

Although we're only scratching the surface of this perspective, the one that says we get this life and only this life to believe in Jesus, it is safe to say that this perspective is widely held and passionately defended by many in our world today.

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Well, I'm glad he admits that. Others hold this perspective that there is this lifetime and only this lifetime in which we all choose one or two possible futures.

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But they suggest a possibility involving the image of God in each of us. We can nurture and cultivate this divine image or we can ignore, deny, and stifle it.

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If we can do this now, becoming less and less humane in our treatment of ourselves and others, what would happen if this went on unchecked for years and years?

59:41

Would a person's humanity just ebb away eventually? Could a person reach the point of no longer bearing the image of God?

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Could the divine image be extinguished in a person given enough time and neglect? Is there a possibility that given enough time, some people could eventually move into a new state, one in which they were in essence formerly human or post -human or even ex -human?

01:00:01

An interesting question. And then there are those who can live with two distinctions, two realities after death, but insist that there must be some kind of second chance for those who don't believe in Jesus in this life.

01:00:13

In a letter, Martin Luther, one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, wrote to Hans von Reckenberg in 1522 about the possibility that people would turn to God after death, asking who would doubt

01:00:22

God's ability to do that. Now hopefully we all have already read the fact that that is a gross abuse of Martin Luther and an out -of -context use.

01:00:31

But again, it doesn't give you any reference. You could look it up. And so space is creating this who would doubt

01:00:37

God's ability to do that perspective for all kinds of people, 15 -year -old atheists, people from other religions, and people who rejected

01:00:43

Jesus because the only Jesus they ever saw was an oppressive figure who did anything but show God's love.

01:00:49

And then there are others who ask if you get another chance after you die, why limit that chance to a one -off immediately after death?

01:00:54

And so they expand the possibilities, trusting that there will be endless opportunities and an endless amount of time for people to say yes to God, as long as it takes, in other words.

01:01:02

At the heart of this perspective is the belief that given enough time, everybody will turn to God and find themselves in the joy and peace of God's presence.

01:01:08

The love of God will melt every hard heart, and even the most depraved sinners will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God.

01:01:14

And so beginning with the early church, there is a long tradition of Christians who believe that God will ultimately restore everything and everybody because Jesus says in Matthew 19 that there will be a renewal of all things.

01:01:23

Peter says in Acts 3 that Jesus will restore everything. And Paul says in Colossians 1 that through Christ God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

01:01:33

In the 3rd century, the Church Fathers Clement of Alexandria and Origen affirmed God's reconciliation of all people. There's a reason why

01:01:38

Clement and Origen are viewed so lowly by Orthodox folks. In the 4th century, Gregory of Nyssa and Eusebius believe this as well.

01:01:45

No reference is given, of course. In their day, Jerome claimed that most people, Basel said, the mass of men in Augustine acknowledged that very many believed in the ultimate reconciliation of all people to God.

01:01:55

Well, yeah, universalism has been around for a while. To be clear again, an untold number of serious disciples of Jesus across hundreds of years have assumed, affirmed, and trusted that no one can resist

01:02:05

God's pursuit forever because God's love will eventually melt even the hardest of hearts. If that isn't

01:02:10

Rob Bell's position, what is? It is clearly his position. Could God say to someone, now listen to this, listen to this.

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This is why theology matters. This is why we're going over time. Could God say to someone truly humbled, broken, and desperate for reconciliation?

01:02:26

Sorry, too late. Did you hear that? Could God say to someone truly humbled, broken, and desperate for reconciliation?

01:02:35

Sorry, too late. Folks, do you hear what I'm saying? The only person who ever says to God, I am humbled,

01:02:47

I am broken, I am desperate for reconciliation, is the person in whose heart the

01:02:53

Spirit of God has brought spiritual life. That's why you have to have a Biblical anthropology.

01:03:01

That's why you have to have a Biblical view of man. Many have refused to accept the scenario in which somebody is pounding on the door, apologizing, repenting, and asking

01:03:11

God to be let in, only to hear God say through the keyhole, doors locked, sorry, if you had been here earlier, I could have done something, but now it's too late.

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As if the Bible ever presented such an absurdity of that, but then again, that is the absurdity of Arminianism, isn't it?

01:03:30

As it's written in 2 Timothy 2, God cannot disown himself. Of course, it's talking about the elect. As Abraham asked in Genesis 18, will not the judge of all the earth do right?

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Yeah, he has in the cross. That's why this all makes no sense. Which is stronger and more powerful, the hardness of the human heart or God's unrelenting, infinite, expansive love?

01:03:51

Thousands through the years have answered that question with a resounding response, God's love, of course. As John reminds his church in his first letter, the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world, and Paul declares in 1

01:04:02

Corinthians 13, love never fails. The center of the Christian tradition since the first church have been a number who insist that history is not tragic, hell is not forever, and love in the end wins and all will be reconciled to God.

01:04:18

Just a little bit later, he says, second, it's important that we be honest about the fact that some stories are better than others. Telling a story in which billions of people spend forever somewhere in the universe trapped in a black hole of endless torment and misery with no way out isn't a very good story.

01:04:34

Telling a story about a God who inflicts unrelenting punishment on people because they didn't do or say or believe the correct things in a brief window of time called life isn't a very good story.

01:04:46

Well, it has nothing to do with the biblical story anyways. I mean, that's just deceptive.

01:04:52

That's just downright deceptive. That's false teaching in its fullest form. In contrast, everybody enjoying

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God's good world together with no disgrace or shame, justice being served, justice being served, and all the wrongs being made right is a better story.

01:05:09

It is bigger, more loving, more expansive, more extraordinary, beautiful, and inspiring than any other story about the ultimate course history takes.

01:05:19

Whatever objections a person might have to this story, and there are many, one has to admit that it is fitting, proper, and Christian to long for it.

01:05:26

We can be honest about the warped nature of the human heart, the freedom that love requires, and destructive choices people make, and still envision

01:05:32

God's love to be bigger, stronger, and more compelling than all that put together. To shun, censor, or ostracize someone for holding this belief is to fail to extend grace to each other in a discussion that's had plenty of room for varied perspectives for hundreds of years now.

01:05:45

If that doesn't tell you that's exactly what he's trying to promote, nothing will. There's just so much more

01:05:54

I had here. I will get to this because you mentioned it. Second, we read in these last chapters of Revelation that the gates of that city and that new world will never shut.

01:06:03

That's a small detail and it's important. We don't get too hung up on details and specific images because it's possible to treat something so literally that it becomes less true in the process.

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But gates are for keeping people in and keeping people out. If the gates are never shut, then people are free to come and go.

01:06:21

God can bring proper, lasting justice, banishing certain actions and the people who do them from the new creation while at the same time allowing and waiting and hoping for the possibility of the reconciliation of those very same people.

01:06:34

Keeping the gates in essence open? Will everyone eventually be reconciled to God or will there be those who cling to their version of their story insisting on their right to be their own little god ruling their own little miserable kingdom?

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Will everybody be saved or will some perish apart from God forever because of their choices? And here's the wiggle worm.

01:06:54

Here's how he avoids saying he's a universalist. It's one paragraph.

01:07:00

It's two sentences. Those are questions or more accurately those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact.

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We don't need to resolve them or answer them because we can't and so we simply respect them creating space for the freedom that love requires.

01:07:20

Now, I'm a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary. Even Peter Lumpkins can't deny that and that's why

01:07:27

I understand those two sentences. Only in this sense I've heard it all before.

01:07:33

That doesn't mean that it means anything. No, there's no truth value to that and it wasn't meant to have truth value.

01:07:40

That's the kind of language they use at Fuller to not answer the hard questions. Been there, done that, got the degree.

01:07:48

Okay? With honors, in fact. You can look it up if you want to, Mr. Lumpkins. Go ahead. Those are questions or more accurately those are tensions we are free to leave fully intact.

01:07:59

We don't need to resolve them or answer them because we can't and we simply respect them creating space for the freedom that love requires.

01:08:09

Now, I create space on the shelf in the refrigerator for my veggie burgers but that has nothing to do with it.

01:08:17

This is just the gobbledygook that the emergent folks who are liberals like I said last time in skinny jeans with Britney Spears microphones writing via Twitter.

01:08:31

But that's supposed to make you go oh, that's a wonderful way of putting it but if someone were to say could you explain what that means?

01:08:39

No one has a clue what it means. It just means God hasn't spoken clearly enough for us to answer these questions and I don't want to answer these questions because then you'd be able to nail me down as a universalist that I am.

01:08:50

Was there something you wanted to add to that? I've got that William Shatner question. William Shatner is actually a stock market billionaire now.

01:08:58

What does God need with a spaceship? I have that William Shatner question of if the gates are open and people can come and go in and out of where do they go?

01:09:13

Are they going back and forth from heaven to hell? Well look, if the very definition of love is freedom of choice you should be able to get out of this in eternity.

01:09:23

Well why would someone in heaven go through those gates if the place they're going is hell?

01:09:30

I mean maybe they're just wandering around in the ether but if the place they're going is to hell then why would they go there?

01:09:37

Is there sin in heaven? Are they getting banished and thrown into jail? Look, you're trying to resolve the tensions and we need to respect them and give them space.

01:09:48

Yeah, I'm back to the William Shatner thing. Why does God need a spaceship? Yeah, why does God need a spaceship? What is the taste of blue?

01:09:56

I mean there are some questions you just don't ask. Well anyways, I skipped over a few things because we've gone really long but I understand when people say

01:10:08

I'm tired of Rob Bell. Most people I haven't even read the book. I'm tired of the whole universalism thing.

01:10:16

Yeah, but how many people are really ready to give an answer and say here's the reason you're tearing the cross apart.

01:10:25

You're tearing the cross apart. That's what Rob Bell's done. He's torn the cross apart. In his running from his

01:10:30

Arminian fundamentalist background he's torn the cross apart. His Arminian fundamentalist background didn't give him a holistic view of the cross.

01:10:39

That's the problem. That's why theology matters. That's why we talk about these things, folks.

01:10:47

We don't do it just simply to have fun on a webcast. We do it because theology matters and hopefully this has been helpful to you.

01:10:57

And I'm tired. We're going to be back tomorrow. We'll take more of your phone calls.

01:11:02

We had Ron. I think Ron called in and Ron called back tomorrow. Barely 24 hours from now.

01:11:08

We'll do it again. You're on the dividing line. Thanks for listening. Thanks for putting up with me. And thanks to the callers, the excellent calls.

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We'll be back tomorrow. God bless. We were standing at the crossroads.

01:11:50

Let this momentous flow away. We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for.

01:11:57

We need a new reformation today. It's a sign of the times.

01:12:04

The truth is being trampled in a new age paradigm. Won't you lift up your voice?

01:12:11

Are you tired of plain religion? It's time to make some noise. I'm going for the truth.

01:12:23

I'm going for the truth. I'm going for the I'm going for the

01:12:36

I'm going for the truth.

01:12:45

I'm going for the truth. I'm going for the truth.

01:12:51

I'm going for the truth. I'm for the truth. I'm going for the