Mike Winger's “Achilles Heel of Calvinism” Video on Radio Free Geneva

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I don't like Calvinists because they've chosen to follow John Calvin instead of Jesus Christ.

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I have a problem with them. They're following men instead of the Word of God. And I'm going to be the one standing on top of my hands, standing on top of my feet, standing on a stump and crying out, he died for all!

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Those who elected were selected! Well, first of all,

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James, I'm very ignorant of the reformers. I think

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I probably know more about Calvinism than most of the people who call themselves Calvinists. Ladies and gentlemen,

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

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I said the other day in class that I don't understand the difference between hyper -Calvinism and Calvinism. It seems to me that Calvin was a hyper -Calvinist.

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Right, I don't think there is typically any difference between Calvinism and hyper -Calvinism.

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

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Calvinists, Dave Hunt fans, and those who have read and re -read George Bryson's book, we are radio broadcasting the truth about God's freedom to say for His own eternal glory.

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Bad timing. Yeah, well, what can I say? Nothing we can do about it if I want to get another program in this week, believe you me.

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Who knew this was even coming? Okay, I will say this before we get to the

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Radio Free Geneva. I don't remember which people I told, but as soon as Justice Kennedy retired,

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I remember telling a couple of people, I said, this is going to be thermonuclear political warfare.

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I said, this is going to be the worst we've ever seen. I told people, they sort of looked at me like, well, even

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I couldn't have predicted this stuff, but I did say, there is no bottom to this well.

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No, there is nothing too low for the totalitarian communists and the party of death to engage in.

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Anyway, but you've got plenty of that on every channel currently on television.

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I think HGTV had it on, so the Cartoon Network, I think, is playing it.

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Some of it rather fitting for there. We are the only place that's actually going to be talking about theology at this point in time, and some of you might just want a break from that, and the rest of you are watching at another point and saying, just get on with it.

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We certainly will, but I recognize we're going to have a very small live audience today, and that's perfectly fine.

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I don't know how many times people send this to me, even after I said on the program, okay, we're going to deal with it.

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I'm going to talk about it. We'll do a Radio Free Geneva. People keep sending me, sending me, sending me. Obviously showing they're not actually listening to the program, probably aren't going to hear what

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I say anyways, but kept sending me the link to Pastor Winger's video on the

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Achilles' heel of Calvinism. Now, if you've read The Potter's Freedom, I would just simply say, if you read and understood

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The Potter's Freedom, this video should not cause you any problem at all. You should easily see where Pastor Winger has missed what's being said, has confused categories.

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This is not a valid argument. It's not a really strong argument. We'll definitely deal with it, but if you've read sound reformed material and this threw you a loop, you need to do some more reading at a little deeper level, because this is not really challenging if you've got a good solid foundation.

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In the same way, after listening to this,

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I then listened to Pastor Winger and Saiten Bruggenke discuss presuppositional apologetics, which was very, very interesting and useful.

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Interestingly enough, the Romans 1 passage came up, and I was like, oh, I'm going to have to deal with that.

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Well, we dealt with that in the last program, not with what he said, but with Romans 1, and I would assume that would be a sufficient refutation of what

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I heard in this context. Anyway, I want to start off, though, sort of 21 minutes into the video.

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You say, why would you skip? Because he plays a section for me. I want to play that section and point out a few things.

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Basically, what we have here is the argument that because we are saved by faith and not by works, the

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Calvinist argument that the synergist makes faith a work is invalid, and therefore there's no reason to believe in Calvinism.

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What Pastor Winger has done is he has confused work as in a meritorious action that earns salvation with work as in an autonomous act of a human being outside of the decree of God, apart from which

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God can save no one. Now, those are two obviously completely different things. And have there been

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Calvinists who have inappropriately made the argument, you're earning your salvation, or something?

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I'm sure there have been. But if you stick with major sources, serious -minded people, the argument is that in synergism, you have two forces.

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They're not equal forces, but you have two forces. And the second—God's the one—the second is the will of man aided to one degree or another by grace.

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You can have a strong doctrine of prevenient grace or a weak doctrine of prevenient grace.

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There is no prevenient grace in scripture anywhere, but you can—I've said it before.

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Prevenient grace is the scotch tape that holds Arminianism or synergism together.

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There's just nothing in scripture that says God gives everybody X amount of grace, which allows you to then make a free choice.

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There's just nothing there. It's a complete misunderstanding of what grace is, the purpose of grace, the power of grace, the deadness of man in sin, all the rest of that stuff.

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It's just—it's a made -up doctrine that has no foundation anywhere in the

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Bible. But a lot of people believe it anyways and utilize it. But the idea is that you have an autonomous—it's not decreed by God.

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It does not flow from the decree of God. It is not something that only the elect, a specific people chosen by God before they even come into existence, not based upon foreknowledge, not based upon any foreseen marriage or anything else, that somehow these individuals who are the elect, that this autonomous act that they can produce in and of themselves is absolutely necessary for salvation, and God cannot save them without that.

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That is synergism. Now, you can add a bunch of stuff to that in the Roman Catholic sacramental system, and you can just, you know, add all sorts of things there.

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But the point is, the difference between monergism and synergism is whether God can save in and of himself or whether God can try to save, but that the autonomous action of man, not the issues of merit, worth, value to the action, irrelevant.

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The only thing that's relevant is that there is an autonomous action of man that is outside of God's control, outside of God's decree, that is absolutely necessary for bringing about a salvation.

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That God could want to save somebody, but unless they do this thing, merit's irrelevant to this, it has nothing to do with it, unless they do this thing, they won't be saved.

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So, is it a synergistic cooperation, or is it a monergistic resurrection from the dead?

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That's the issue. And so, I want to play, this is straight out of the video, what

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I said, the quotation that was given of me, and you'll see that I've been rather consistent with what

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I just said. So, have grace upon me. What binds all synergists together is that God is not the one who saves.

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He makes salvation possible. He aids by some kind of grace, whether it's a prevenient grace or whatever else, but unless you're a full -on

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Pelagian, you will at least acknowledge the necessity of some level of God's grace.

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And so, what binds everyone together is that if you're a monergist,

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God can actually save. If you're a synergist, God can only try to save. And you can give

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Him all the credit in the world and say, I've never been able to save myself, that's true, but you also have to turn it around if you're a synergist and say, and God could not have saved me without me.

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That's the issue. That's the fundamental issue. Okay, I've got to come in here.

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Okay, so, that's what I just said. And you'll notice I said nothing about works being meritorious or earning something from God.

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It's all the question of whether God can save. He has the power and authority to raise someone to spiritual life.

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Whether He can save or whether He has designed it in such a way that He wants to save and maybe wants to save everyone.

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Not all synergists are universalists in that sense.

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There could be a synergist who says, no, no, God only desires to save a certain number of people or a certain kind of people or whatever else and still make it synergistic.

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But generally, the standard argument is that God wants to save everybody and makes it available to everybody.

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The deciding factor is not God's election. It's my act of faith. And so, when we say, well, what that means is, when we get to heaven and you look at those who are condemned,

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God tried to save the two of us absolutely equally. I'm here, they're not, therefore

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I have something to boast of. No, no, no, you don't have anything to boast of because it was just a gift.

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You can't boast about a gift. But wait, that's not what I'm saying. I didn't say that I added something.

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What I'm saying is I was better or smarter or wiser. Look, if God puts out the exact same effort to save me and my next -door neighbor ends up in hell, then the only thing that distinguishes us is not grace, it's not mercy, it's not anything

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God has done. I'm the one that makes the distinction. I'm in heaven because I got it, he didn't.

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I was willing, he wasn't. It's all... So where's the final deciding factor there?

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Right here. That synergism has nothing to do with merit, has nothing to do with purchasing anything, and hence all the texts in the

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New Testament about not works of the law, works of Moses, merit, anything,

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Romans 3, irrelevant to what's being talked about. Not even in the same planet.

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It's a different issue. And if you think it is, then you're not actually going to be dealing with the real issue and the real question that is being gotten at here.

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So we're going to go back. And so what Pastor Winger did is he starts off saying, you know,

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I think this is Achilles' heel of Calvinism, and then he spends a bunch of time in Romans 3, and it's not by works and justified by faith,

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Romans 4. Again, all texts that every Calvinist, every foreign person, believes in, preaches, teaches, defended it, wrote a whole book on the subject back there, the guy who justifies, been there, done that, got the t -shirt.

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We know all about all of this stuff. And as I just said, obviously

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Pastor Winger believes this is extremely relevant, but it's not.

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So I'm just going to sort of jump in here and we will start interacting with stuff where hopefully it'll be relevant.

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Which one is it? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

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Now, Abraham doesn't get a boast. You don't get a boast. You don't get any credit. Faith equals grace.

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Faith equals no boasting. Faith equals all credit to God. All credit to God.

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That's what faith means. But in the Calvinistic system, this is very quickly changed.

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And this is one of the reasons, again, why I cannot be a Calvinist. Well, it's not changed. It's just not true.

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Pastor Winger has a misunderstanding here. I hope he will accept correction. The problem is, if you accept correction, now you're going to have to go, so what reason do

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I have not to be a Calvinist again? But it's just simply not true. Mike, why are you covering this topic?

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I just want to throw it out there. I did a poll on my YouTube channel where I asked you guys, what do you want me to talk about?

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And I brought up two issues, the Passion Translation that's coming out, do a review of that, or deal with faith as a work in Calvinism.

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And over 900 people voted. 500 of them specifically said, hey, we want to see this

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Calvinist issue unpacked and dealt with. And so I'm dealing with it today. Actually, because so many people voted for the

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Passion Translation, I'm going to do that next week. About 400 -something voted for that. Now, by the way, I think that's great.

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I haven't had time to look into it. What I have seen has been very, very troubling. Not only its connection with Bethel, but its reliance upon Aramaic manuscripts and stuff.

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And folks, just in passing, anybody who starts doing the Aramaic stuff is normally trying to avoid something that's very clear in Hebrew and Greek.

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That's just been my experience as well. We couldn't find it in the actual Bible, so we're going to pretend we can read

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Aramaic. Because we have nothing in Aramaic that is before the

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Greek and Hebrew. So it's all speculation. So just be aware of anybody who tries to pull that stuff.

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They're probably trying to sell books. Obviously, there's a lot of interest in that. By the way, that's not him. He's against it. I'm just saying.

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He's against that translation, from what I heard him saying. I'm not saying he's trying to sell books. I'm trying to say the people that are.

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You get it. I'm doing my work on that. It's funny. With Calvinists, I'm so willing to disagree that I'm actually more passionate about dealing with this passion translation than I am about this issue of Calvinism.

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But I think for the sake of loving biblical truth and seeking biblical clarity, that this is a good thing to talk about.

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And I do think that the Bible is very clear on this issue. And Calvinism muddies it for us quite a bit.

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Actually, it starts changing definitions and moving things around. And as I've pointed out, we're not doing that.

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The confusion is on Pastor Winger's part, not on our part. So here we go.

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Two things that we've got so far in these passages. I should say three things, really. Works, as in earning salvation.

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We hate that. That's unbiblical. Nobody gets that. There's no such thing as works for salvation.

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It will never happen. All have fallen short of the glory of God. All are condemned and can only be saved through Jesus Christ.

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It's through believing in him. That's my action. I believe in him. But that's not a work in the sense that it merits anything.

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It is a gift, and we will get into that later on. He attempts to deal with Ephesians 2, doesn't do it appropriately.

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I don't think he brought up Philippians 1 .29. And we will get into the passages, Acts 13 .48, John 6, where, sorry brother, but you did not provide a meaningful response.

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We will demonstrate that in this program. No, he merits it all. And when I believe, I don't now have a reason to boast.

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I don't have any credit that goes, Oh, I believed. I trusted him. I did a good job. Which is exactly true, because faith is a gift.

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And it's part of the work of God in regenerating us, as is repentance for that matter. But in the context where you have prevenient grace, and in the context where God's trying to save everybody equally, then it is, there is a reason for you to pat yourself on the back.

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Not because you merit something, but because you evidently are more spiritually sensitive, smarter, something, than the people who got the exact same help from God as you did.

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You got it right. They got it wrong. Therefore, the only difference between the two of you is you. That's where there is a problem there.

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Because it's by faith, you can't boast. So, don't tell me I'm boasting in that regard.

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So, works we don't like, works are bad. Faith is not a work. That's the second thing. Faith is not a work.

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In fact, faith establishes grace, and faith gives no reason to boast. You can't boast if all you had was faith.

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The Bible's very clear. So, let's move forward. How does

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Calvinism treat faith as a work? Well, if we're going to talk about this issue, we're going to need to quote some

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Calvinists. So, here is R .C. Sproul, and he deals with the issue here of synergism and monergism.

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Now, hold on, let me come back to that in a second. I'm not going to... For those of you... I'm hoping you're at least a little familiar with Calvinism.

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You're watching this video. This is probably not the video for introducing you to the topic. This is a video for helping you understand it.

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By the way, what gave you the idea to put all blue lights on your library?

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I was just sitting here looking at the books, and everybody always looks at everybody else's library to see, yeah,

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I've got that book, oh, I've got that book, oh, that's that edition of that one, and da -da -da -da. And then I'm sitting here going, they're all blue.

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You don't want to put blue lights in here? Not going to do it, huh? I think some blue lights with the

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Enterprise or something would be really cool. I've wished that Enterprise's lights could light up without the sounds, but unfortunately...

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I could probably go in there and disconnect the speaker, I suppose. But yeah, the blue lights are... I like the blue lights.

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They're pretty cool. Do you only turn them on during... Anyway, sorry.

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Rabbit. Think a better way in a more simplistic and clear way? But you've got to know at least these terms, synergism, monergism.

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So I'm just going to teach you these. I think this is it. These are the only two fancy words. If you don't know these words, you need to know them for the sake of this discussion because they come up constantly.

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So what is synergism and what is monergism and how does it relate to this issue? So here's a quote from R .C.

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Sproul on monergism and synergism. Again, he is, of course, one of the proponents, well -known, well -respected proponents of Calvinism and went to be with the

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Lord recently. I love R .C. Sproul. I recommend listening to his stuff. Catch this. I recommend it.

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I think it's a good thing. Here I... I feel like something's wrong that I'm not on the screen. Boom.

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Look at that. Hi, everybody. Okay, let me... Okay, there we go.

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So here's what R .C. Sproul says about monergism and in his own words. This is a

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Calvinist, right? He's going to take everybody and lump them in two categories. You're a synergist or you're a monergist and I'm going to argue with that.

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And, of course, I agree with R .C. Sproul that, yeah, all systems break down into those two categories.

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There's going to be lots of differences between them, but they break down in those two categories. It says, the doctrine of justification by faith alone was debated during the

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Reformation on the deeper level of monergistic regeneration. Meaning that we...

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Our initial point of salvation, regeneration, that happens monergistically with only

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God working. So let's explain the term. So, in other words, God has the power to raise dead sinners to spiritual life, grant to them a new nature, the gifts of faith and repentance, unites them with Christ, and God can do all of that.

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It's not our action that allows him to do that. It is his divine action.

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As many as were appointed into eternal life believed. Acts 13, 48 is one of those passages. The technical term must be explained.

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Monergism is derived from a combination of a prefix and a root. We're talking about the etymology or the pieces of the word.

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The prefix mono is used frequently in English to indicate that which is single or alone.

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Single or alone. That sounds so depressing. Just kidding. The root comes from the verb to work.

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So we have a mono, which means alone, and we have synergistic or synergy, or an ergistic.

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This is the idea of, I'm sorry, I just confuzzled it. Ergistic. The term is ergon, to work.

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Has to do with work or labor. So the root comes from the verb to work. The erg of monergy comes into our language to indicate a unit of work or energy.

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When we put the prefix and root together, we get monergy or monergism. So monergism is something that operates by itself.

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It operates by itself or works alone as the sole active party. Sole active party.

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Monergism is the opposite of synergism. Synergism shares a common root with monergism, but has a different prefix.

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The prefix syn comes from a Greek word meaning with. Synergism is a cooperative venture, a working together of two or more parties.

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And all of that is correct. Syn is a common

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Greek prefix. It's synagogue, the synagogue, to gather together. And the point is, you either have a singular power that is capable of accomplishing a task, or that power either isn't capable of accomplishing a task and needs an external power outside of itself.

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Synergism of two. Or in this case, God could have simply chosen to do it that way. It's not that he couldn't have done it differently, but that he has set it up that it is necessary to have that secondary power.

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Either way. If I lost anybody there, I will now just summarize what I just read from R .C.

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Sproul, super genius, brilliant guy. But he says basically right, monergism is when only one person is doing all of the work, all of the labor, all of the effectual things happening, only one person does it.

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Synergism is when more than one does it. So synergism, if two people are rowing a boat, that's synergism.

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But if one person's sitting in a boat and the other person is rowing the boat, that's monergism. One guy's doing all the work.

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So how would you describe salvation? Well, every Christian's gonna go, well, it's monergism. Obviously it's monergism, right?

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God does all the work. Now, I didn't hear this because I was writing when I listened to this, so you can't hear background noise, but I'm just thinking back to the days in the garage because some sort of air con heater or something, probably air conditioning, this time of year, obviously, the air con just kicked on in the background, and yeah, that just reminded us of our old days in the garage.

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Oh, you know, I just do nothing. He does everything for me, and here is where the switcheroo's gonna take place.

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Calvinists are going to start to say that because you believed, if you think you believed based upon a decision you made, and I don't even mean without the help of God, right?

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With God helping you, with the Holy Spirit working in your heart, with the gospel being proclaimed to you and God drawing you, but you made a freewill choice.

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Like, you could've accepted it, you could've rejected it. Now, see, that terminology is very important to catch that. You could've accepted it.

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In other words, it's autonomous. The source and origin of this act of faith is not found in the work of the

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Spirit of God, in a new nature. It is found in the will of the unregenerate man.

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And it is an autonomous decision outside of God's decree. It might've happened, it might not have happened.

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God may know because he can look down the corridors of time, but that raises all sorts of questions, too.

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That really isn't consistent, either. As we've said many, many times, the only real consistent Arminian is an open theist.

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But, be it as it may, there's the issue. Right there is the nature of that act.

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Not meritorious, not earning anything. That's irrelevant. It is the nature of that act.

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Is the unregenerate person outside of the decree of God, which, of course, we would say no, and is the unregenerate person capable in and of themselves of performing the act of saving faith?

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That's the issue. Chose to accept it. That's synergism.

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You did some of the work. And here's where I go. Wrong. Didn't we just go through a bunch of scriptures that says, faith is not a work?

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Notice the confusion. And this is really, I could stop here. Once I make this point one more time, we could literally stop right here and say, that's it, because that's just all you're going to get over and over again.

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Because, as I said last week sometime when I first announced I was going to do it, it's a simple category here.

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He is confusing the biblical category of seeking meritorious works before God, of circumcision and fulfillment of the laws of Moses or whatever else it might be.

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He is confusing that category of meritorious action that has to be added to faith, which is condemned in scripture, with the real issue, which he just mentioned, which is really interesting.

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And that is, what is the nature of this act? Is it an autonomous act that flows from the dead enslaved will of man?

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Which, of course, it couldn't given what we're told about man at that point and his nature as being dead in sin.

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But, it is the nature of the act as autonomous, as something that is not the result of the exercise of the will of God.

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It is the result of the exercise of the will of man. It has nothing to do with merit. Stop with the merit stuff. That's not the argument.

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The argument is, is that autonomous act of the will of man necessary for the success of the efforts of God, or does

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God's action in saving his people result infallibly in the exercise of saving faith only because God has brought about regeneration, removed the chains of slavery, granted the gifts of faith and repentance.

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Two completely different positions, but has nothing to do with the arguments in the text of scripture because that's addressing something completely different.

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So, we can stop right here because there is no Achilles heel because the Achilles heel is just simply

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Pastor Ringer's misunderstanding of what the topic is and the difference in the categories. But, there's a lot more to be said,

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I think, in dealing with the video. So, don't say that my choice to believe makes me a synergist in regards to salvation because it starts to be a switcheroo.

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You start to act like the act of believing is a work.

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Remember the two synerg, two people or more, working. I'm working for my salvation.

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Faith is now working for salvation. That is not biblical. It is not biblical, but that's not what we're talking about.

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See, the switcheroo here is on his part because he's either just not read enough and reformed.

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Did you read Luther and Erasmus on this? I mean, it was the first written debate of the

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Reformation. So, you know, on the bondage of the will, sort of, I mean, goes long ways back and Luther himself said to Erasmus, you alone of all my opponents have put your finger upon the central issue, the hinge upon which all turns, which was the

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Reformation itself, which was the bondage of the will. And so, you're missing the point here.

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We're not saying you're Judaizers. What we are saying is, you ascribe to man a capacity and ability that he does not have.

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That's the issue. This is a unbiblical definition of faith, an unbiblical definition of choice.

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That is not true. So, let me share with you now a quote from a guy who

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I hate to quote right now and I'll tell you why. This is James White on the topic of synergism.

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Here's the reason why I'm hating to quote him. I love James White and I've never played any of his videos except this first time and now it's to disagree with him and that kind of makes me sad.

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I really love James White. I highly recommend you listen to his content and I just think he's wrong about Calvinism.

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But specifically, I want to play a quote where he defends Calvinism and he does this synergism, monergism thing and I think it's worth us listening to to talk about.

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So, I'm going to play a quote now from Dr. James White, whom I love and respect and whom

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I'm about to say I think is wrong. So, have grace upon me. Ok, we're trying to have grace.

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We've had to say you've misunderstood things and you have and I hope you can accept that and move forward from there.

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I'm not going to replay it but I will try to watch it here enough to see where he popped himself in and pick it up from sort of around there.

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So, let's do that. Ok, I've got to come in here and I'm actually going to play this again now.

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You've heard everything he said and I think I gave enough context so that you can understand what he's talking about. This is a long video.

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It's like, you know, very long where he talks about synergism and other things. In James White's view, synergism includes not only

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Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam, and even Catholicism in that they all have one thing in common.

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They all appeal to God giving some measure of grace but they also all say that man has to do certain works to be saved.

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The point is this is a dividing line. This is a dividing line.

35:01

The amount of things you attach to human capacity and ability will vary amongst all of these groups.

35:11

But the dividing line, what cuts things here and is the clearest dividing line is between monergism and synergism because once you get into synergistic systems you literally have a complete spectrum all the way from those who say it's only faith and it's faith alone and faith is not meritorious.

35:34

So what Pastor Winger is saying. But then you have those who would say, well actually it's a little bit more than that so you start getting into some of the

35:45

Church of Christ people start adding acts of obedience and expanding the capacity of man to do certain things and it is a spectrum and I don't know of any gaps in the spectrum.

36:00

It just goes all the way out to Pelagianism. And you could say, well

36:06

I want to draw the dividing line here but what is the first biggest, most definitional dividing line?

36:14

Whether God can save it of himself or whether he has chosen to limit his ability to do that if you want to go that far and say that man has to do

36:22

X, Y, or Z not to merit but to appropriate.

36:29

Let's put it that way. And so, yeah I hope it does make you a little uncomfortable when you hear

36:38

Roman Catholics or Mormons using the same arguments against me that you're using.

36:45

I hope that makes you uncomfortable. You should be uncomfortable. Because you and I absolutely agree on justification by faith alone but here's the problem what the

36:56

Reformation proved is that if you don't understand that in the context of God's sovereignty and man's deadness and sin you are not being consistent and you will not be able to survive the onslaught of the

37:06

Jesuits. So, you know the dividing line the way

37:12

I put it in other contexts is the Reformation was never about the necessity of grace it was about the sufficiency of grace.

37:22

Rome said grace absolutely necessary but Rome said grace is not sufficient apart from and as long as you have just one thing on the apart from side that's where the division is that's where the difference between modernism and synergism is.

37:37

I say grace can save completely because it's God's grace and it's all powerful and it's

37:43

God's intention to glorify himself so sticking man in there with his autonomous decisions is problematic.

37:51

I'm not sure what just happened but all I've got up on the screen is the video and I disappeared.

37:57

Oh, there you go. Oh, so you're are you saying there's too much of you leaning over the thing there to I'm wearing a different shirt just didn't fit and I just got a little old goatee in the other one and now

38:16

I've got this this is I think since we went on started doing video

38:21

I think this is the longest my beard's ever been since we've been on video and I ain't trimming it while I'm gone so so the wife says no way but you know

38:35

I'll just forget to put the trimmer in my bag as I'm gone for almost two and a half weeks and well, one of the places

38:44

I'm going it would sort of help me to blend in when you think about it but more on that another point in time.

38:51

Sorry! Another rabbit, squirrel, whatever it is. To me that's synergistic in the true sense of the word man is doing works and God did works so we both work together so that I can be saved notice that's where the misunderstanding is he's assuming works are meritorious and are earning something rather than the idea that we're talking here about whether God can save in of himself autonomously or whether he can't and that man can autonomously determine the success of God's efforts to save him that's it's the nature of saving faith and all of this is going back to does

39:35

God work all things after the council of his will does he have a divine decree were we elected individually and as a group together before the foundation of the earth are we talking about unconditional divine election are we talking about class election he says he's got a video someplace else on I'm sorry

39:53

I listened to a number of hours but I don't have many hours to just dedicate to one particular person so maybe he's got an interesting view on that too

40:03

I don't know that's to me true biblical use of the term synergism but because you choose to believe within the non -Calvinist view you believe

40:14

Jesus did all the work but you chose to just trust him we're going to call that a work now so now we can say you too are lumped in with Catholicism which truly does have a false gospel you are lumped in with them because of what

40:28

I just pointed out and that is what you're saying there is no divine decree that will infallibly bring about the salvation of God's elect and God's effort to save you is dependent upon that autonomous act that God does not bring about through regeneration that's not that's not relevant to the well the

40:51

Roman Catholic and I appreciate what you're about to say here the Roman Catholic sacramental system is absolutely wedded to synergism which is why

41:03

Luther rejected it and Calvin rejected it and the other reformers rejected it and you reject the full system of sacramentalism while embracing the foundation that made it possible that's why

41:17

I say that my non -reformed non -Roman Catholic brothers and sisters have a hard time dealing with the best that Rome has to offer because on that one issue you've stuck your toes in the

41:37

Tiber river you've rejected what the reformers said on monergism and synergism and you've embraced something else series on that if that raises your eyebrows to hear me say that I'm not attacking

41:50

Catholics I have a series on that go look up my series on Catholicism online but I'm lumped in with them

41:57

Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and every other false belief system so I'm going to play this again and I want to pause it a little bit to kind of respond to some of the things that James White says here synergist together is that God is not the one who saves okay pause this is of course a big bold statement here right all synergists again it includes me

42:21

I'm considered a synergist even though I'm I'm firm like grace alone salvation now

42:26

James wouldn't demonize me he would say that I'm just I have inconsistencies and he would exactly you do have inconsistencies but if what you're saying is that God did not elect you or all of the elect as individuals so if you hold to one of those impersonal just sort of a group type thing you get in by your own free will act or whatever else it might be

42:51

I don't know but if that's what you're saying then yes

42:57

I recognize validly all the other differences that you have there are people that are closer and people that are farther away but on this issue what you're saying is

43:07

God can't save alone he has to save in light of your having given him permission to do so your autonomous action makes all of his previous action which you may say he did 99 .99

43:25

% of it and somebody else may say he only did 80 % of it that makes you closer than them but the line is still that 99 .9

43:35

% will not avail unless I do the last thing which is an autonomous act not an act that merits or anything else but it is an autonomous act that could if not undertaken make everything else that God has done fail that's the issue.

43:57

I appreciate that but God alone doesn't do the saving so the implication is that me just by believing me just saying

44:07

I trust you Jesus I'm doing some of the saving you are making you are making it possible for everything

44:14

God has done to come to fruition and so I just have to ask you do you believe that God has undertaken to save every single individual in the same way therefore if people are lost and I'm assuming you're not a universalist if people are lost and they're also people who are saved then what's the distinction between them it's not the grace of God you want to say it's the grace of God but think about it if we've all received the exact same grace of God and then you accepted they rejected then grace isn't what distinguishes us is it no it's your autonomous act how do you get around that I've not ever heard anybody explain other than just simply begging the question the categories are clear that's why

45:09

I wanted to do this program because this really helps to flesh these things out and really force people to think about it that's not biblical is it the verses we read are very clearly saying that you just believing means you did nothing and God gets all the credit all the glory and it was by grace let's keep listening and it is by grace but again he's not actually addressing the real issue here and that is can grace save completely without your autonomous faith act that's the question he makes salvation possible he aids by some kind of grace whether it's a prevenient grace or whatever else but unless you're a full on Pelagian you will at least acknowledge the necessity of some level of God's grace so we this is

46:12

I think an incorrect view of say myself a non Calvinist who would say I recognize that I entirely need

46:18

God's grace like I fully 100 % need God's grace there's no grace or no work that I do

46:26

I just believe but the assumption that's underlying what he's saying is that my belief itself my choice to trust in Christ that itself is a work that I do

46:36

I didn't use that term I'm talking and I'm saying what we're saying right now and he's reading it through this lens he's constructed that this somehow is a problem with with Calvinism that we are making meritorious works

46:52

New Testament concept equal to this autonomous faith act but again

46:58

I just pointed out and I if you think I'm wrong then you're going to have to address this one issue if it's 100 % of grace and if God gave the exact same grace to the person who ends up in hell then the distinction between you and the person in hell is not a matter of grace the only difference between the two of you is your autonomous act that becomes the distinguishing factor yes or no yes or no

47:27

I think the answer is obvious and that's where the confusion here is even if I believe that the

47:33

Holy Spirit did a work in me to help me to do it that I didn't even do that alone right like God called out to me reached out to me his word preached to me the gospel impacted me

47:42

I'm believing all this stuff but that still means I'm getting some credit but that's not biblical let's keep listening yeah

47:50

I didn't nothing about credit it's about the nature of saving faith and so what binds everyone together is that if you're a monergist

48:03

God can actually save if you're a synergist God can only try to save and you he's going to say more actually let me play the rest of what he says here

48:13

I don't want to cut him off you can give him all the credit in the world I've never been able to save myself that's true but you also have to turn it around if you're a synergist and say and God could not have saved me without me that's the issue that's the fundamental issue so that's the end of that video from James so the fundamental issue is monergist is believing that God saves you entirely and that includes making you have faith somehow whether he he he gave you the ability to only choose faith that's it's called regeneration it's called being raised to spiritual life made a new creature being given the gift of faith you know

49:02

Philippians 1 29 Ephesians chapter 2 the text that describes faith as a gift but it's the radical work of regeneration he is the one it's by his doing that you're in Christ Jesus not by yours and so if it's just simply here's the offering and anyone who will repent and believe can have this that's how most people believe it they ignore the stuff about man's incapacity and stuff like that but here it is then it is your autonomous faith act which is not the result of the work of the spirit of God because if your faith is the result of the work of the spirit of God then why does that other person not believe because if the spirit of God can bring about faith in your experience why can't it bring about faith in the experience of the other the point always is no it's free will

49:57

God's a gentleman he'll never force himself on anybody blah blah blah blah blah blah blah um so yeah that's that's the topic

50:06

I don't know how else to put it I'm trying to fairly represent Calvinism here but then the synergist view what they call synergism is the view that I just chose to trust that's it but that's not synergism right the bible explains

50:19

God's doing all the work in that exact scenario no he's not because in your scenario

50:27

God does all the work would mean that everybody gets saved because everybody gets the same grace grace saves that's it everybody's saved but you don't believe everybody's saved so since their distinction we have to ask the question what makes the distinction and if you don't have a specific unconditional election of the elect personally that is he knows not only the elect as a group but he knows who is in the elect and they are chosen from eternity past Ephesians 1 which we went over last week in response to somebody else in a completely different context but we did either you've got that or you have some kind of general redemptive call that is given equally to everybody and does not result in salvation except in those who have this autonomous faith act that is not a part of God's elect in grace so it doesn't have anything to do with grace so it's not all grace that's the problem there's the issue

51:39

I'm thankful that you profess it's all of grace I'm just trying to encourage you go the rest of the way brother because the only way to say it's 100 % the only way to go with Spurgeon all of grace is to believe to be a

51:53

Calvinist that's what I believe if you're following the reasoning here you see what's going on so that's the

52:06

James White thing to suggest that this means God tries to save and can't this to me,

52:13

I'm going to call that fluff that's rhetoric, that's not accurate I don't think that's accurate it's perfectly accurate it's 1000 % accurate and the fact you don't see it demonstrates you're not really tracking with what the real issue is has

52:29

God not tried to save every person equally? if he only gives certain kinds of grace to certain kinds of people, upon what basis does he make the distinction?

52:41

now you're introducing election on God's part and if you have to have

52:46

God's grace to be saved, which you said you do and God doesn't give sufficient grace to everybody then

52:54

God has chosen by election to not save certain people right? so if you're saying it is up to us and anyone can be saved then you've gotten rid of grace again as the sole factor you either have to introduce election on God's part or you have to say

53:16

God has tried to save everyone equally this is not fluff and the very fact you thought it was fluff is indicative of the fact that you haven't really dealt with reformed theology on a meaningful level yet you haven't really been challenged by what it's actually saying that's why you're not giving a response that is overly compelling on this appreciate the brotherly nature of it,

53:44

I hope you're hearing my heart but you're not addressing the issue properly and not seeing it now,

53:52

I'm going to try to find here there were quotes that he gave from other folks some of whom

53:59

I don't have a clue then, Cy's in the channel right now hi Cy but he goes after Cy's stuff on the tulip test and I just saw

54:11

Cy drop that in channel so www .proofthatgodexists

54:17

one word, dot org slash tulip test tulip dash test slash so if you go to proofthatgodexists .org

54:26

slash tulip dash test slash then you can bring this up and look at it yourself and see that as he critiques

54:38

Cy's thing and I think Cy did he record this after you all because I think he made reference to your discussion of I think he made reference to your discussion of presuppositionalism so I think this was made afterwards after that I think in any case yes well after how long ago did you all have that conversation see

55:09

I've got to fill there's a 30 second delay or more between when

55:15

I ask a question and anybody can even begin typing so it's a little bit slow when someone's in the chat channel but everybody always asks what's this chat channel thing go at aomin .org

55:25

just says chat and it'll about a month earlier highly recommend conversation with Cy love

55:36

Cy it was a really good conversation and especially with last week's conversation last program's conversation about presuppositionalism

55:48

I'm very thankful that people like Cy and Dr. Bolt and Brother Whips and others are stepping in because I just I'll just be honest with you

56:01

I don't have time to and this is sort of more their area and so they're stepping up to do their thing and I appreciate that and providing good answers so let me go through here and what

56:17

I wanted to do was to get to the

56:23

Q &A because that's where we can get into some of the text because I really felt Brother this is this the reason

56:36

I am reformed is because I must apply the same exegetical methodology, the same hermeneutics to soteriology that I apply to defense of the trinity the deity of Christ, the resurrection the inspiration of scripture, the historicity of scripture everything else so all the stuff that I do with Muslims and Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and atheists and whatever else

57:03

I have to be consistent and when you apply the same exegetical standards to this area the

57:10

New Testament was written by a bunch of raving Calvinists now obviously that's a huge anachronism but that's the case use the same hermeneutics, use the same exegesis if I recall correctly someone actually asked a question later on would you debate

57:27

James White on this and he was like oh well maybe and the reason for that is in doing these debates

57:39

I've built up a reputation over decades now we're going to get into the text and during the cross -ex

57:45

I'm going to be asking you direct questions I don't mean like that non -debate with Brother Tassie a few years ago but much more like the meaningful exchanges that I had with Michael Brown on the program than with something like that and hopefully you would be much more in that realm than the other but the answers you gave to these questions were not good so I let me find here there it was

58:19

I think I'm pretty close here let's see how I did let's bring those verses up let me bring up my software there it is so Acts 13 48 and when the

58:35

Gentiles heard this they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed ok so this is where this passage doesn't say anything about Brother you're struggling ok all the

58:54

Calvinists in the audience are going yes go ahead and there's a reason for that because it says what it says now

59:07

I am thankful you don't do the Dave Hunt thing or some of these other people and you look at it and go well you know the word for appointed here could be chose themselves that's what

59:22

Dave Hunt did borrowing from the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses I'm glad you didn't do any of that but let's just be straight forward after the preaching of the gospel when the

59:37

Gentiles heard that they were presenting the gospel to the Gentiles they rejoiced and glorified the word of the

59:46

Lord and and believed as many as were appointed unto eternal life now to believe and believed now

01:00:08

I think we just I'm teaching an online Greek class right now only have a few students left but they

01:00:17

I keep dangling First John in front of them as the carrot they've got three weeks off now to get sort of caught up on their homework and stuff like that but Hosoi is a correlative pronoun that it's hard to give a specific translation of it because it's always used in some kind of a syntactical category that will sort of give a nuance to it here and believed as many as were so it's limiting the range of the act of belief and it's limiting the range to a participial phrase tetogmenoi um believe or not the root of tetogmenoi is taso um and well okay that's the lexical form the root would be tag and then taso people who know

01:01:28

Greek know that the present tense root is normally the most changed root of any of the roots and so the lexical form that you normally learn in vocabulary is actually probably an altered verbal form from the root you have to learn the root as well and the root of taso is tag, tetogmenoi is, teaching

01:01:47

Greek helps refresh everything, it's good I need to do that every once in a while it tends to get rusty after a while anyways it means to a point it's um to set to a point and so since it's a perfect passive now it could be a middle that's where the

01:02:05

Jehovah's Witnesses come up with appointed themselves once you start going there you're demonstrating

01:02:12

I just do not want to believe what this says as many as were appointed unto eternal life believed so there is a direct plain scriptural statement that appointment passive, which means somebody else is doing the appointing appointment to eternal life results in belief that's the statement of the text

01:02:41

Luke does not expand upon it it is not some lengthy discussion, this is not one of the first places

01:02:47

I would go to prove this, what it does prove is that the Apostle Luke can make this reference and can say what

01:02:55

God has done and he doesn't feel the need to stop and prove it he doesn't feel the need to stop and explain it, it is simply a part of how

01:03:04

Christians understood these things that God appoints to eternal life and the result of that is our faith that is consistent

01:03:12

Christian theology so that's what you have in Acts 13 -48 let's um well, okay

01:03:21

God being the catalyst for belief except that God's ordination God's election of those people from before time is there and I believe in election,

01:03:30

I have a video called Calvinism, Arminianism Predestination and Election that's the title of the video and actually it's linked in the video description because I kind of anticipated this might come up so you're welcome to check that out and see how

01:03:42

I answer that in more detail, I'll say though off the cuff, what I want a scripture to tell me is man makes no decision about believing in God or okay, now see, immediately there's a problem we don't believe that God's not believing for me

01:04:04

I do believe but I believe because I was appointed to eternal life and if I wasn't appointed to eternal life,

01:04:09

I'm not going to believe it doesn't make my belief any less real it makes it more real because it is the result of God's work,

01:04:16

He's freed my will He's changed my will He's turned me from a God -hater into a God -lover so yes,

01:04:22

I believe but why don't other people believe? Remember how many times and we even look at this and we forget it but I just want to remind folks that this comes up in Jesus' own teachings for example in John let me see here how far back was that?

01:04:52

in John chapter 8 verse 43 why do you not understand what

01:05:01

I'm saying? verse 43 why do you not understand what I'm saying? it is because you cannot hear my word you lack a specific capacity to be able to hear what

01:05:16

I'm saying now that's apologetically relevant and that's theologically relevant but people read that and they turn it upside down there's a sort of filter that runs it's because you won't hear my word no, it's because you cannot it's because you cannot hear my word and he talks about you're of your father so on and so forth and in verse 47 he who is of God hears the words of God for this reason you do not hear them because you don't choose to?

01:05:47

no because you're not of God you have to be of God to hear God's words to even believe in the first place that's what

01:05:55

Jesus taught and it's amazing how many people will read through something like that and their mind just filters it and switches it upside down and says for this reason you do not hear them because you don't choose to be of God that's not what it says that's not what it says so to get into libertarian free will and compatibilism and things like this but the

01:06:24

Bible doesn't talk clearly about those issues oh yes it does and this is where the problem lies yes it does there is so much just read two passages from John chapter 8 there's many many more we can get into about man's incapacity inability

01:06:42

Genesis 50 Isaiah 10 it does you make a choice to believe and I'm going to trust that unless I have some good clear scripture that says something otherwise you've got plenty brother you need to do some more reading in this area and you may not have the desire to but you need to so I believe

01:07:03

God is working in me and I'm making a choice to believe and he elected me from before the foundations of the world and my belief is involved in all that so John 644 yeah your belief is involved in all of that as the determinative factor you can say

01:07:20

God's working in you but if God's working in everybody equally then your autonomous faith act is the determining factor that's the whole issue once again

01:07:33

John 644 hey folks those of you who have I saw that I saw that those of you who have listened to maybe a few editions of Radio Free Geneva in the past going back when did we do our first Radio Free Geneva that was back when

01:07:56

Adrian Rogers was that 2001 how do you know that oh because you were doing all that stuff on the all that database stuff

01:08:09

I don't remember that but that's because I wasn't putting all that stuff back into the blog that gives you an advantage on the historical aspect no two ways about that so if I am nominated to the

01:08:21

Supreme Court I will need your memory help because I don't remember when that was so basically for the past 17 years as we've been doing

01:08:33

Radio Free Geneva we've covered John 644 a bunch of times and we've looked at some pretty pathetic excuses for John 644 and we've run into some complicated ones and stuff that you've got to run all over the

01:08:56

Bible to figure out where this person is coming from John 6 just stands like the rock that it is and we're about to hear a man who

01:09:10

I am certain wants to handle the word of God just not allow it to speak at all just sort of ah it doesn't really say that and you move along when someone says it doesn't say something but does not give you a compelling case as to what it does say then you've got a problem this always comes up in the debate with Calvinism it says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day now by the way

01:09:38

I would just simply say in passing I don't think John 644 should be dealt with as a singular text the statement of divine election the statement of God's utter capacity to save infallibly in Jesus Christ beginning of verse 37 is so strong and it provides the context that makes

01:10:03

John 644 unanswerable but in the vast majority of situations and we shouldn't allow this this is a tactical error on our part but in the vast majority of situations people do allow for the atomization of the text the versification of the text as if you can just look at one sentence or two sentences and really come up with a meaning for them without looking at everything else that is around them or before them so on and so forth but with that said with the fact that John 637 all the father gives me will come to me the one that comes to me

01:10:41

I will cast out all the father gives me will come to me that's divine election it's absolutely divine election and coming to Jesus is saving faith there you've got saving faith as a result of the divine work of the father in drawing people to him then you have

01:10:56

Jesus he's not going to lose anyone because he is perfectly able to save he is powerful to save so I would say

01:11:11

God as I've kind of hinted at shared already God does a work in my life right through the

01:11:17

Holy Spirit the Spirit and the Bride say come through the conviction of sin, righteousness, judgment to come through the preaching of the gospel because the gospel goes out with power so is this the drawing then?

01:11:29

or what you're saying is the preaching and the conviction is this the drawing no one can come to me unless the father draws him so do you believe that no one can come to him?

01:11:43

so man in and of himself lacks the moral capacity the spiritual ability to turn to Christ unless this drawing takes place whatever this drawing is

01:11:57

I just want to know where you are on this these things are drawing me and when

01:12:04

I assent and I do think I have to assent and I think God ordained that and that's part of believe or don't believe then

01:12:11

I am drawn that drawing has come to completion okay so he draws you and then you have to assent to it there's nothing in John 6 about assent anywhere but then when you assent then the drawing comes to fruition and completion so you just what most people try to do is try to jump over John 12 if I be lifted up I'll draw him into myself and the whole point is between draws him and I will raise him up unless they have to insert some kind of free will act in there there isn't anything there in the original language if you're doing exegesis what it says is no one has the ability in and of themselves no autonomous will no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day it's the same him draws him and I will raise him up we've talked about this many times before but in the greek hapemzasme helkusei auton draws him kago anastaso auton and I will raise him ente eskate hemera on the last day same him if you're drawn by the father you're raised up by the son what you're doing is inserting an entire concept of libertarianism into this text and overthrowing it it's not there it where'd you get it at?

01:14:17

well some people say well you know it's verse 45 it is written in the prophets they all be taught by god so you need to be taught by god and hear and learn from the father and those are all free will actions no they're not verse 45 is a continued explanation of verse 44 that's saying they will all be taught by god means that it is necessary to receive from god this information this is part of the drawing and the hearing and the learning is not something we do those are passive results of god's action and so everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me everyone just as verse 37 all the father gives him will come to me everyone who has heard and learned from the father comes to me can you hear and learn from the father be partially drawn your partially drawn theory and not come to the father see once you interrupt the text here

01:15:11

I just have to ask brother why? you wouldn't do this on the resurrection you wouldn't do this on the inspiration of scripture you wouldn't do this on the nature of the church but here because you have this tradition of autonomous free will you just I think this is saying no you're not being obedient to the text so you're inserting something into it that changes its meaning you wouldn't do this anywhere else when you catch somebody doing this that's the biggest sign of tradition you'll ever find and you do have a tradition

01:15:51

I know Calvary Chapel doesn't have a tradition yes Calvary Chapel has lots of traditions lots of traditions and this is evidently one of them so God there's a reaching out to all people but he does not draw all people to himself entirely entirely?

01:16:10

where is this partial drawing entire drawing thing can you show that to us in the text?

01:16:17

no you're making it up out of whole cloth there's nothing in this text that says that this would this would disrupt

01:16:26

Jesus' answer because Jesus is answering a specific question here he's identifying these people as unbelievers verse 36 but I said to you that you have seen me yet you are not believing all the

01:16:43

Father gives me will come to me the one coming to me I'll never cast out and they they grumble about this because as I am the bread that came out of heaven and they're saying this is not this

01:16:55

Joseph Jesus son of Joseph his father and mother we know how does he now say I have come down out of heaven and Jesus' response is do not grumble among yourselves no one can come to me unless granted of the

01:17:05

Father no one come to me unless the Father draws them you don't need to be grumbling their unbelief has a reason and the reason is found in God's not having chosen them that does not mean that they are not accountable before God for that everybody goes well if God's got to do that be careful because that's going to lead you to end up rejecting your relationship to Adam and federal headship and therefore the imputation of the righteousness of Christ it undoes the entire gospel that's the

01:17:41

American interpretation rather than the biblical interpretation and that's okay eJohn 644 doesn't pose a problem here so I'll let someone else bring up another issue there but okay that wasn't an answer

01:17:56

I'm sorry bro given how strong that text is and how deep that text is and how consistent that text is that wasn't

01:18:05

I think you know you've got more work to do on that and I would just really challenge you to don't just dig into one verse do what you do in every place else walk through the text verse by verse it's what you were taught to do do it there and lay everything aside and believe what it says that's how confident

01:18:28

I am of eJohn 6 it is that strong okay Christopher Jank says

01:18:34

I'm a Calvinist how does one explain scriptures like Peter 2 8 or other clear teachings of double predestined

01:18:42

I'm trying to remember is that first Peter 2 8 yeah okay so they stumble because they disobey the word as they were destined to do so okay this is or interestingly enough

01:19:00

New American Standard says beginning of verse 7 this precious value then is for you who believe but for those who disbelieve the stone which the builders rejected this became the very cornerstone and a stone of stumbling and a rock of offense so in other words the concept is that you find it's the same concept that Paul gives us in the preaching of the cross in 1

01:19:26

Corinthians chapter 1 to those who are perishing foolishness those are being saved power of God Jesus those who believe source of salvation those who disbelieve stone crushes you okay that's his point a stone of stumbling a rock of offense for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word and to this doom they were also appointed it's literally ice hot tethys on me unto which also they were appointed doom is somewhat of an expansion there and then but you verse 9 are a chosen race over against those who have not received that electing grace wow there it is from Peter John and Luke and now

01:20:24

Peter I'd like to deal with this issue sometimes people have asked me do a video on Molinism so yeah this is going to deal with some other things like that I'm trying to think of how to not make this too much information

01:20:37

I think that from my perspective I can look at God's ordination of events and I can say yes

01:20:45

God ordains events and man makes free will choices I believe both of those things are true so when it says

01:20:51

God ordained it that doesn't somehow controvert people making free will choices that's very nice to say but it's about the same thing as saying

01:21:01

I am not partial to the smell of blue now we have somebody in our channel named blue and we might not be partial to the smell of that blue but the color blue color blue doesn't have a smell doesn't have an odor so it's a non -answer and you can say

01:21:19

I don't have any problem with God ordaining and man having autonomous will but you can't have them both at the same time

01:21:29

I mean you can't it's real easy to say well you know I hope when you said not getting into Molinism here that what you meant by that is that you would be critiquing

01:21:41

Molinism because oh please don't tell me you've got the divine card player up there like William Lane Craig God's got a deal with the cards he's been dealt please

01:21:56

I know that there are many non -reformed that find Molinism as a sort of cheap and easy way but it is it's both cheap and easy but it's not biblical by any stretch of the imagination it does not derive from any meaningful biblical exegesis its defendants are always forced to only be going well you know over here we might if we looked at it this way sort of see something here that maybe possibly it is not forced upon us by any kind of biblical exegesis and it doesn't answer the question by positing some kind of middle knowledge between free and natural knowledge in God's being that comes from someplace else and restricts

01:22:38

God's actions it is a it may be the cheap way out for people today but it is not a meaningful answer it really really isn't so I hope that's not where you're going there but to say free will decree they're all true at the same time it's just to say

01:23:03

I'm just going to skip dealing with this that's not really that's not really an answer at all and so the first Peter passage first Peter 2 it's specifically talking about how when

01:23:17

Christ came the rulers and the people they didn't know and God had a hand in that he ordained that Jesus would be rejected by the people of God or the

01:23:24

Jewish people I should say that Jesus would be crucified under Pontius Pilate and that Judas himself would betray him but that doesn't that's all part of God's absolute predestination according to Acts chapter 4 they did what your hand predestined and those were sinful actions those were sinful actions on the part of Pontius Pilate, Herod the

01:23:44

Jews and the Romans, right? and they were the result of God's predestination, there's

01:23:49

God's decree the cross could not have failed could not have failed to happen, could it?

01:23:56

I hope you would say that no it couldn't have, no you mean that Judas didn't make a choice or Pilate didn't make a choice nobody's saying they didn't of course they made a choice but it wasn't an autonomous free will choice in that sense it was a choice for which they will be held accountable it was a choice consistent with their nature but for example if if the

01:24:24

Jews had chosen to try to kill Jesus before taking him let's say the

01:24:30

Jews in the Sanhedrin in the mock trial decided that you know, if we take this guy to the

01:24:39

Romans they may not execute him he's under our power now, let's do it now let's stone him now and that wasn't could

01:24:47

Jesus could the entirety of the whole thing been messed up all those messianic prophecies about how

01:24:55

Jesus was going to die could that have all been messed up by the free will autonomous actions of the

01:25:01

Jews who had, they had power over Jesus, they could have done it I say nope no way so their actions are what

01:25:11

God predestined, they are accountable for them will be punished for them in accordance with their desires and I bet you some of them wanted to kill

01:25:19

Jesus right then and there and he restrained them God has the right to restrain our evil to keep us from committing evil yep that's what the

01:25:32

Bible teaches the Jewish people didn't make a decision about Jesus so God both ordained it and they made choices it was both in my opinion

01:25:41

I don't see that this has anything, I don't think it changes my view on this issue so that's my understanding but that wasn't an answer were they destined to that did you again just simply saying

01:25:58

I don't see it as a problem only means you're not seeing what the problem is it doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist

01:26:04

I'm a Calvinist and I appreciate your videos and I'm very thankful for your exegesis of Scripture I would just ask if you would have a good in -house conversation with James White we'll go ahead and finish with this does this seem like an appropriate have a good in -house discussion with James White I love we should hold a hearing and have the

01:26:25

FBI, oh wait a minute we're all confused here so yeah, okay this is a good way to wrap this one up, we've gone a full hour and a half anyways but it's it's funny how many people act as my representative and volunteer me for things without asking me first how many people are willing to do that not complaining about Thomas Risa or whoever it was he said it was but I would be willing to do that with someone like this brother because he is a brother and it would be a useful edifying non -food fight it would not be the highest priority in my list of things to do because well

01:27:26

A. I just have to be really prioritizing that CBGM project right now for lots of reasons but at the same time

01:27:39

I think we've sort of demonstrated that there are some fundamental misunderstandings and sometimes just debating someone's misunderstandings isn't as useful as someone who has an understanding of what the issue is and is just taking a completely different position.

01:27:55

I just think that the brother is really inconsistent in his application of exegesis so it might be useful you know it would certainly be respectful but anyway.

01:28:09

Terrified to talk to James White man James White, I love James White man and he's an experienced and skilled debater and I would be totally scared to go against him in a conversation like that which the goal would be to prove me wrong but I would consider it just because I'm scared doesn't stop me from doing it

01:28:29

Ok, there you go so he would consider it you know if you look at the response

01:28:40

I gave and you go I think

01:28:45

I can refute that I think I can do better with Acts 13 .48

01:28:51

and John 6 .44 and I can you know what I didn't get to and I'm sorry let me just mention it quickly in passing he did try to deal with Ephesians chapter 2 let's just do that he didn't deal with Philippians 1 .29

01:29:12

or anything like that and brother if you've not read the Potter's Freedom I'd really challenge you to do that and to interact with its exegesis to the point where you'd be able to demonstrate where the exegesis is in error because if it's not in error don't simply be comfortable with a well

01:29:34

I don't feel that way type thing I would highly recommend that you do something with that but he did rightly point out that in Ephesians 2 .8

01:29:50

he points out that that Tutah for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves the gift of God not of works and lest anyone should boast and so Tutah is a neuter and everything in the preceding sentence, the preceding clause is either masculine or feminine caris sessus menoi is a is a paracyble of sozo and pistos which is feminine and this is neuter and the neuter is just wrapping up the preceding phrase it's just saying it's all of God exactly, all of it every bit of what was in the preceding preceding line so the grace, the salvation but what you basically did was said you know, but it doesn't specifically say faith, no it's saying all of it and you know why

01:31:01

I'm so confident of that? because of the final phrase hinot me tis calcae satai so that no one may boast and that takes us right back to the point here and that is if you believe that God's trying to save everyone equally we've all had equal access to grace and yet some are saved, some are not and the distinguishing difference between them is not the grace they've received but their response to that grace their autonomous response to that grace then it's no longer an issue of grace or not it's now the distinguishing difference is us and that's why in Romans chapter 8 those who are according to flesh cannot please

01:31:58

God, they cannot subject themselves to the law of God is it not God's law that you repent? so how could you do that which is pleasing before God in the flesh?

01:32:09

regeneration is necessary there is a reason why we believe in regeneration as the necessary act resurrection freeing from the slavery of sin new creature

01:32:22

God can do that and that person then believes and repents and those are real actions he's not doing it in our place but he has made it certain that we will do so to his honor and glory that's the system that you're saying isn't biblical and do you really do you really brother think that if we had equal time and that we could do cross examination not the stuff we've been watching today serious cross examination that what you said would be able to withstand the questions that would be asked of it there's there's the question well there you go there's

01:33:10

Radio Free Geneva for the four of you who watched thank you very very much I'm hoping that Rich somehow found a way to record things or something in the other room

01:33:21

I have a feeling that ten years down the road he's going to remind me of his sacrifice at this time in American history in having not been able to finish watching what was going on but you know we have to have our priorities and so we did so thanks for watching the program today

01:33:42

I'm going to be gone for a while I mentioned previously that did you start the music oh

01:33:53

I'm going to be gone for a while so we'll see if we do something from wherever I am probably not but we'll see