The Great Debate V - Justification by Faith - Sungenis

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Is the Roman Catholic Church correct when she says that we can merit justification? Was the Council of Trent right after all? Can we lose our justification? Or is the Protestant Reformation correct in saying that a man is justified by faith alone, apart from works? Is Christ's imputed righteousness enough to allow us to stand before a Holy God, or must we go through satispassio in Purgatory? Visit the store at https://doctrineandlife.co/

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The following presentation is a production of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc. and is protected by copyright laws of the
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United States and its international treaties. Copying or distribution of this production without the expressed written permission of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc.
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is prohibited. First to my left, Protestant apologist
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Dr. James White. Dr. White is a pastor of Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church in Arizona.
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As the leading Protestant representative engaging Roman Catholic apologists in debates across the country, Dr. White knows the issues well.
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In addition to being an adjunct professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, he is director of Alpha and Omega Ministries, a theologically reformed
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Christian apologetics organization in Phoenix. Dr. White is a highly esteemed Greek scholar who served as a translator for the
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New American Standard Bible Update and has written over a dozen books, including Answers to Catholic Claims, The Roman Catholic Controversy, Mary, Another Redeemer, and his latest,
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The Potter's Freedom, A Defense of the Reformation and Rebuttal to Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free.
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His major work on justification is expected soon. Dr. White has been a frequent guest on the Bible Answer Man radio broadcast with Hank Hanegraaff and his articles often appear in the
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CRI Journal. Hear Dr. White defend the Protestant Reformation every Thursday night at 10 o 'clock on WMCA 570
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AM in the New York area on the Voice of Sovereign Grace radio broadcast. Here he is, Dr.
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James White. I can't believe it's been about six years since I first met
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Dr. White. Time has flown. I first met Dr. White at a banquet for the
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National Religious Broadcasters, National Association of Religious Broadcasters. He was across the room having an argument with one of these women clergypersons who was a representative of the
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National Organization of Women. He was arguing with this woman back and forth and somebody said, you know who that guy is over there?
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That's Dr. James White. He's an author and apologist. Why don't you go meet him? As I approached,
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I see this distinguished figure standing there with a suit and tie, little balding, buzz cut haircut, a neatly trimmed beard, and standing right next to her was
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Dr. James White. I still remember that very fondly.
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To be perfectly honest, the first time that I, thanks for reminding me, the first time that this is not even,
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I'm not making this up, the first time I ever spoke to this man, I called him up to see if he would do the debate five years ago.
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This, am I lying about this? I'm not lying about this. I called him up at the request of, at the suggestion of Bill Webster, a reformed author and apologist, because I was trying to arrange that first debate we had with Jerry Madetix.
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And when I called James, the very first words that of his mouth were, how did you get this number?
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But it's good to know that after six years of knowing him, when I most recently spoke to him on the phone, he said, how did you get this number?
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To my right, Roman Catholic apologist Robert St. Genes. Robert St.
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Genes was Envoy Magazine's Envoy of the Year and Best New Evangelist in 1998. He was born into a Catholic family but converted to Roman Reformed Protestantism at the age of 19.
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During his 18 years as a Protestant, he served as an elder, radio talk show host, and itinerant preacher. After graduating from Westminster Theological Seminary, he accepted a teaching position at Harold Camping's Family Radio School of the
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Bible under Dr. Gabriel Ortero. In 1992, he returned to Catholicism and his conversion story is included in the book,
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Surprised by Truth. Today, Mr. St. Genes is president of Catholic Apologetics International in Alexandria, Virginia.
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Among the many books he has written are Not by Scripture Alone, a Catholic Critique of the Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura, and Not by Faith Alone, the
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Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification. The Catholic Television Network EWTN is currently televising his 18 -part series,
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Justification, Not by Faith Alone. He is also currently co -editing the Catholic Apologetics Study Bible with Father Peter Stravinskas.
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His book, Not by Bread Alone, the Biblical and Historical Evidence for the Eucharistic Sacrifice is expected soon.
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Here he is, ladies and gentlemen, Robert St. Genes. In one way,
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I have to apologize to Mr. St. Genes because I was trying my best to get a moderator this year that was completely neutral, and unfortunately,
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Michael Jackson wasn't available. But I am happy to announce a dear friend and colleague of mine,
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Andy Anderson, who is the host of the Andy Anderson Live Talk Show on the Station Network 4WMCA, is here with us, and he is going to serve as moderator.
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And ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce to you Andy Anderson. I just want to quickly mention two of my favorite programs that Andy Anderson hosted.
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He interviewed a man, probably two years ago, a Jewish gentleman who wrote a book about how he grew up with the
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Pope. Do you remember that gentleman's name? What was his name? Well, this
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Jewish gentleman had written a book about how he grew up with the Pope, and Andy was interviewing him. I'm not making this up.
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In fact, this is not even an exaggeration, the way I'm going to tell it. Andy can vouch for this. So Andy's sitting here with the gentleman who wrote this book, and he says, so you wrote a book about how you, a
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Jewish man, grew up with the Pope in the 1930s in Poland. Tell me, how did a
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Jewish man and a Roman Catholic fellow get together in Poland in the 1930s? You're saying we shouldn't be friends?
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And Andy said, no, I'm not trying to say that. I'm just making a point that it's kind of unusual that, you know, in the 1930s that a
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Jewish gentleman and a Roman Catholic gentleman could be friends, so tell us about it. I don't like your attitude, mister. You're trying to make something out of this.
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Why shouldn't I be his friend? So Andy kind of rushed it along and said, so I understand that you had an audience with the
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Pope and you had dinner. Can you tell us about that? You had dinner with the Pope? What's to tell we ate?
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What are you asking me these questions for? That was one of the quickest interviews in the history.
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Am I exaggerating? Am I exaggerating? I just wish this was on tape.
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Before we go to our debate, the thesis, our sin was justified by grace through faith alone, apart from human works of merit.
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Dr. James White will be defending that statement and Robert St. Janice will be opposing it.
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I just wanted to make it clear that this is not a debate between an antinomian and a
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Pelagianist. What I'm saying is that, just so that people don't have a misunderstanding when they're walking in here, James White is not saying that works have no place in the
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Christian life. He is a firm believer that works are a necessary evidence of true salvation.
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And in fact, James and I and most people from the Calvinistic persuasion would say that it's a serious heresy to say that a
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Christian can live his life without any fruit of good works or repentance. And likewise,
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Robert St. Janice is not taking the position that grace is not absolutely necessary for salvation.
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So, I wanted to make that absolutely clear. Some people might be thinking that Mr. St. Janice is teaching a raw works righteousness and that Mr.
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White is teaching loose living and cheap grace. But, I want to make it also clear, not that you're, you know,
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I see some sad looks on your faces. We're still having a debate. They still believe that each other are heretics.
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So, please, please don't be disappointed. There will be a debate here.
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And, you know, it just disturbs me, some of the comments that I've been getting from people that I know, acquaintances, and about doing these debates.
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There are a lot of people who are against these debates. And just imagine, if you will, I'm assuming, how many people here are pro -life?
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Pretty much everyone. Praise God for that. Now, how would you feel if this was a political debate and there was the conservative, your choice, whoever he may be,
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Alan Keyes, George Bush, whoever it is, is up here debating Al Gore or some other liberal on the pro -life issue.
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How would you feel if the conservative was up here saying, well, you know, I think your position is fine and dandy.
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I just have a little different twist on it. I believe in the pro -life position, but it's completely fine with me if you believe in abortion and partial birth abortion.
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Most of you would be sickened, wouldn't you? You'd be outraged. Now, the thing that puzzles me is why is that we who are conservatives, who are both conservative evangelicals and conservative
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Roman Catholics, why is it when it comes to doctrine about salvation and theology, we take that attitude very often?
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People are, why are you bickering and arguing about justification? His position is just a little different than yours. Who cares?
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That's what is very often heard from prominent people in the church all over the
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United States. And I just want to say that as long as I've got breath in my lungs,
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I want to see these debates running so we can both publicly hash out these issues that are very serious and have eternal consequences.
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So remember, theology and the truths of God, as important as the pro -life movement is,
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I mean, that is next to the issues of salvation and theology.
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That is right there on the list of high importance as far as I'm concerned. But you've got to remember that we're talking about the very issues that involve salvation.
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And we can never think that that is a secondary thing or a tertiary thing or even an unimportant thing.
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And I think that the fact that you folks are here tonight is a testimony that you agree with that. You care about these things.
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I'm just going to quickly say that James White is speaking at many places after this and one of the places this weekend.
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He is going to be speaking at Grace Reform Baptist Church with three other reform scholars at a conference on Roman Catholicism Examined.
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And that's a free conference and there are flyers out there and in the foyer. Anybody who would like to come, it's free of charge, whether you're
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Catholic or Protestant. And I'd also like to invite up here to the podium right now Arnold Pilsner of Americans United for the
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Pope, because he has an announcement about a speaking engagement that Robertson Genesis. Arnold Pilsner of Americans United for the
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Pope, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you,
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Chris. Tomorrow evening, Friday the 19th at St. Bernard's Catholic Church in Levittown, New York.
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Robert will, at 8 o 'clock, he'll be speaking about his conversion experience and also the work that he is doing as president of Catholics Apologetics International.
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It's free and all are welcome. There are flyers outside as you leave the door. Thank you very much. If anybody has a pen and paper handy, you might want to write down this number for an event.
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The Center for Youth Education and Development, a Christian outreach to youth at risk,
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I'm sorry, in the city of Hempstead is sponsoring its first annual banquet on June 8th, 2000, at Sands Castle Catering Hall located in Franklin Square.
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And the tickets are $55 a person. And this is to help really troubled youths in the
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Nassau County area in particularly, trying to keep kids out of gangs and so forth. There's churches involved in that that are really trying to make a better life for these teenagers who are facing things that even
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I, I mean, it wasn't all that long ago since I was a teenager, but teenagers today have far more horrendous things to face,
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I think, at a far younger age. The phone number for information for this banquet is 516 -292 -1780.
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516 -292 -1780. And now I'm going to have our moderator,
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Andy Anderson, come up to the podium and the debate will now begin. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Good evening, everyone, and thank you again for being here.
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Now to get to what you all came to hear, that is the debate. And again, let me just repeat the guidelines and the debate thesis, which is sinners are justified by grace through faith alone, apart from human works of merit.
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Defending that thesis will be Dr. James White. He will be speaking first in each of the segments. The opposing thesis by Mr.
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Robertson Jennis, speaking last in each of the segments. Opening statements will be 30 minutes each.
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There will be 15 minutes apiece for rebuttals, and then we will take a 10 -minute break and move on from there.
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Dr. White. Thank you very much for being here this evening.
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It is good to see all of you that braved the weather, and it is great to be here again on Long Island for the fifth of the
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Great Debate series. An ancient Christian writer said, they all therefore were glorified and magnified, not through themselves or their own works or the righteous doing which they wrought, but through His will.
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And so we, having been called through His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified through ourselves or through our own wisdom or understanding or piety or works which we wrought in holiness of heart, but through faith whereby the
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Almighty God justified all men that have been from the beginning to whom be the glory forever and ever.
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Amen. So wrote the church of Rome to the church of Corinth at the beginning of the second century.
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Now, Mr. Jennis and I have produced a lot of material on this particular subject. His book,
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Not By Faith Alone, is about 770 some odd pages long. We hope to have my new book on the subject of salvation here this evening.
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It will be available Saturday called The Potter's Freedom. I'm writing a book for Bethany House Publishers right now called
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The God Who Justifies, and those two books together are about 750 pages. So you add everything up that we've written just in those books, and there's about 1500 pages, which if you read one page per minute, it would take you 25 hours to read everything that we've written on this subject.
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Some people, Robert, call me verbose. I'm not sure if anyone's ever said that to you. We write a lot, and that allows us exactly 1 60th of the material we've presented in the period of time that we have up here.
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So obviously what that means is we've got to summarize tonight. The debate really,
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I believe, is very simple. No matter how complex man has made it over the years, the
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Bible tells us that we can know the truth of the gospel. The Apostle Paul, twice in his letter to the
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Galatians, makes reference to the truth of the gospel, and John promises us that the truth would remain always with us.
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Now there are two positions being presented in regards to this issue. I believe that one is a theocentric or God -centered message, and that is
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God saves, and He saves perfectly. But the religions of the world say that God makes a way of salvation possible, but that, in the final analysis, man is the one who determines his own salvation.
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Note I did not say that man saves himself. Almost none of man's religions that I know of make such a claim.
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The fundamental issue, however, is just this. Does God save, or does
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He, to use the words of that old song, need a little help from His friends? Is salvation a cooperative effort, or the work solely of God to His glory alone?
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This is the great debate between monergism and synergism. I will say synergism. Monergism, the belief that there is only one power that saves completely, and that is
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God's. Synergism is the common belief of the religions of men where two powers or forces,
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God and man, cooperate together to accomplish the work of salvation.
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It is the great battle between those who say God's grace is absolutely necessary, but in and of itself insufficient outside the operation of the creature's will, and those who say
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God's grace is not only necessary, but absolutely, positively sufficient as well, capable of saving the creature man all to the glory of God.
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This evening I will prove to any person that I believe is willing to hear what the
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Bible says clearly that it is inarguably monergistic. The Bible's message is that God saves.
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It teaches that God saves and God saves alone. It does not teach God saves conditionally.
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It does not teach God tries but fails to save. It does not teach that God starts salvation, but man ultimately completes it.
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The proof of this will be seen in what the Bible teaches about grace, what it teaches about faith, and what it teaches about justification itself.
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In previous debates against such apologists as Fr. Mitchell Pacwa and Jerry Matetix, I have presented a biblical case based upon the meaning of such terms as justification, faith, imputation and the like.
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Tonight I wish to add to the body of argumentation, not by simply repeating what I have said before and by repeating what is already in print, but to argue my point on the basis of the impossibility of the contrary.
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That is, I will prove that we are justified by grace through faith alone without human merit by proving the contrary to be quite simply impossible.
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I do this because first of all it helps to focus the attention of both Protestant and Catholic alike upon the central issues.
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Notice I said both Protestant and Catholic because many who call themselves Protestants today are firmly synergistic in their view.
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And secondly because it adds to the body of argumentation that has already been presented in previous debates.
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Now fundamentally the proof that man is saved solely by the grace of God through faith without works of human merit is proven by five points and yes that is of course significant for me that I have five points to present to you.
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Number one, the scriptural fact that every action of salvation is undertaken as a free and sovereign act of the divine
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King God Himself. This is seen in Romans 8, 28 -34,
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Ephesians 1, 3 -11. This will be my key proof and I do not believe that it is refutable.
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Secondly the biblical fact that grace, to be grace, must be free and cannot be joined with human actions that are in any way, shape or form meritorious.
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This is seen clearly in Ephesians 2, 8 -10, Romans 4, 16 and Romans 11, 6.
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Thirdly the scriptural fact that saving faith, not the dead, non -salvific, words only faith that James decries in James 2, 14 -24, but the saving faith that Paul speaks of as justifying us before God, that that faith is a gift of God given to His elect people as part of His work of regeneration.
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Since saving faith is a gift it cannot be meritorious in and of itself, nor can it function as the ground of justification instead when the newly regenerated person believes,
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God upon that exercise of faith pronounced them just on the basis not of what they have done, but upon the basis of what
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Christ has done in their place. The Bible teaches faith is a gift in such passages as Philippians 1, 29 and Ephesians 2, 8 -9.
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Fourth, the biblical fact that justification is plainly taught to be a past tense action, something we look back upon in Romans 5, 1, a point in time event that is said to be accomplished by God's grace,
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Christ's blood and faith in Him. This fact is established by Paul in Romans 4 and any teaching that says that justification is a process in Abraham's life or anyone else's turns
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Paul's entire argument on its head and makes the apostle self -contradictory.
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When we interpret the apostles so as to refute their own arguments we are obviously misinterpreting them.
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And the fifth point that I present to you is the scriptural fact that the righteousness that is the possession of the believer is not his own righteousness, but is instead the righteousness of Christ imputed to him.
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This is seen in 2 Corinthians 5, 21. He who knew no sin was made to be sin in our place in our behalf.
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Why? So that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. And in the fact that it is
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Christ Himself who has become our righteousness in such passages as 1
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Corinthians chapter 1 verse 30. It is impossible then to add to that righteousness for it is a perfect righteousness nor would it be necessary to do so.
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Nor can that righteousness that is ours be destroyed or soiled. This is the foundation of Paul's teaching that we have peace, true shalom with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ, a true and lasting peace, not a temporary ceasefire.
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I would now like to take just a few moments for purposes of contrast to present a summary statement from Mistress and Genesis' book,
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Not By Faith Alone. I quote, "...justification is a process.
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The process comprises both the infusion of righteousness into the individual and God's recognition of that righteousness.
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These two facets of justification are like two strands of a rope intertwining and interweaving with each other.
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It is the action of God's grace that initiates and accomplishes the process. God makes the first move in the life of the individual through prevenient grace, i .e.
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that which comes before. As the individual responds to this grace, both by faith and works, he attains a specific righteous quality in the eyes of God by merely responding to God's call and continuing to respond in faith, hope, and love.
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God can look upon man's faith and works as meritorious and with the potential to gain righteousness because God is not viewing them from the system of uncompromising law but through the eyes of grace.
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It is the atonement of Christ that has made this new view of man possible.
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Thus, grace is both the lens through which God views us and the infused quality we receive from God to help us maintain his gracious view.
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At each point that God gives the individual his grace and he responds to that grace, one can say that he is justified in God's eyes.
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God gives both a justifying quality, infused grace, and continually recognizes and pronounces the individual just because he has the quality of righteousness within him.
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Hence, to justify refers both to the making righteous of the individual and the recognition of that same righteousness in God's eyes.
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Now I emphasize to everyone here this evening that this view involves the complete rejection of everything that I will attempt to prove biblically this evening.
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While God begins this process graciously, this is clearly a synergistic viewpoint.
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God's grace makes salvation possible but it does not guarantee it to any particular individual.
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The death of Christ does not provide a perfect righteousness that is imputed to a believer but instead provides a new way of looking at man through the eyes of grace.
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Righteousness is infused into man and God then seemingly recognizes the righteousness he himself has infused into the believer.
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This is surely what is meant by the Catholic catechism when it says, quote, the merit of man before God in the
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Christian life arises from the fact that God has freely chosen to associate man with the work of his grace.
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The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration so that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God then to the faithful.
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That's section 2008. This will be the key point in the debate tonight.
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I assert that the claim that God's glory is somehow safeguarded by saying, well, it all flows from his grace anyways.
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So saying that we merit anything by our works is not really to deny grace nor does it deny the glory of God.
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I assert that that doesn't work. I say that adding man's works even when they are dependent upon an initial movement of grace so that it is man's works, man's freedom, man's will that finally determines whether God can or cannot save a particular man or woman is to use sophistry to rob
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God of his glory and place man in charge of salvation itself and I believe that's what we have in the
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Catholic Catechism section 2008. This is the issue we will face all evening long.
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Is grace necessary but insufficient in and of itself or is it both necessary and sufficient?
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I believe the Bible's answer is very, very clear. Let me present to you my biblical evidence for the five points that I offer to you this evening.
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First of all, justification is an act of God made with reference to one of his elect based upon the work of Christ on their behalf.
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If you have your scriptures, please turn to Romans chapter 8 and I read in your hearing verses 28 -34.
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And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose.
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For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to likeness of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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And those he predestined, he also called. Those he called, he also justified.
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Those he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say in response to this?
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If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously or freely give us all things?
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Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen, against God's elect?
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It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus who died, more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.
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What do we see in these verses? Justification, my friends, is as certain in the life of the elect as any of the other elements in what is called here the golden chain of redemption.
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Predestination, calling, justification, and glorification are all the acts of God. When this passage says that those whom he foreknew he predestined, that term means to choose to enter into relationship with.
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When used of God in the New Testament, it never means to know what someone will do.
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Only persons in the New Testament are foreknown by God, not actions. All the predestined and only the predestined are called.
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This is the effectual calling that the Apostle Paul speaks of many times in his letters.
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All those who are called and only those who are called are justified.
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This action is an action of God. No more dependent for final fulfillment upon the works or merit of men than predestining or calling.
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All who are justified are also glorified. This shows us that justification is final.
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It is perfect and none, I repeat that, none who are truly justified can fail to be glorified.
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We also see here the forensic element, the legal element. God the
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Father acts as judge, pronouncing the sentence of not guilty upon those who believe in Jesus Christ.
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The judge has delivered over his own son in behalf of his elect people.
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Therefore, no charge can be made against those people. Rome says the charge of mortal sin and venial sin can be made against the believer.
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The no one can condemn them because Christ intercedes on their behalf.
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If you believe in a synergistic view of salvation, whether you are Protestant or Catholic, if you believe in a synergistic view of salvation that requires man's assistance, man's works, man's merits, man's actions, where does that view fit in Romans 8 .28
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-34? In regards to the second point, grace, to be true grace, must be free and is never joined with human works or merit.
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Paul said in Romans 11 .6, and if by grace, then it is no longer by works.
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If it were, grace would no longer be grace. There is something about that very word that does not allow the mixture of anything in the way of human work or merit.
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There is good reason why Paul's words, the Ephesians, known to us all I hope, have been so often quoted here.
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For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works as any man should boast.
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Grace is free. It admits no mixture of human works. Saving grace teaches us to live a godly life,
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Paul says in Titus chapter 2, but a godly life is never joined to the work of grace as any part of the basis of our salvation.
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The free sovereignty of God's grace by which we are saved fits perfectly with the gift of saving faith.
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As we will see with special clarity in Romans chapter 4, verses 4 -5, saving faith by its very nature makes no claim upon God.
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It seeks no merit. It is an empty hand embracing the grace that nerves the very arm that lifts it toward God.
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The Holy Spirit breathes this truth through Paul when he writes these words, Romans 4 .16,
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for this reason it is by faith in order that it may be in accordance with grace. Let me repeat that.
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For this reason it is by faith in order that it may be in accordance with grace so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all.
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My third point as time goes by very quickly. The Bible teaches that the faith that saves is a gift from God.
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Ephesians 2 .8 -9 tells us that Paul there speaks of all of salvation including grace and faith is the gift of God.
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He told the Philippians that it had been granted to them or given to them to believe in Christ in Philippians 1 .29.
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Jesus is called the author and finisher of our faith in Hebrews 12 .2 and 2 Peter 1 .1
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refers to the faith common to all Christians as one they had received from God.
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It is the common error of man to turn faith into a merely human thing rather than a divine ability so as to maintain final control over salvation and place it in the hands of man.
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The Bible leaves no room for boasting or pride by reminding us that even our faith is a gift from His hand.
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Finally, I provide the evidence for points 4 and 5 specifically that justification is something that is past tense to the believer.
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Something that he or she looks back upon and that involves the imputation of our sins to Christ and the imputation of His righteousness to us.
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I provide the evidence together by directing your attention to the key passage of Scripture Romans chapters 3, 4, and 5 if you will turn there.
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This is direct evidence teaching, direct presentation of doctrine. It is the single longest most involved passage addressing how an ungodly man is justified before God.
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Listen to the words of Paul beginning in Romans chapter 3 verse 20. Because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in his sight for through the law comes the knowledge of sin.
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But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets.
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Even the righteousness of God through what? Through faith in Jesus Christ for whom?
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For all those who believe. There is no distinction for all have sinned whether you are
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Jew or Gentile. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Being justified as a gift.
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Being justified freely. How? By His grace.
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Upon what basis? Through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus whom
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God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith.
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This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.
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The demonstration I say of His righteousness at the present time so that He God would be just and then look at this next phrase and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
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That's the God that I want to worship is the God who is the justifier. That's His work.
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He is the justifier and who does He justify? The one who has faith in Jesus.
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Where then is boasting Paul says? It is excluded by what kind of law? By law of works?
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No but by law of faith for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
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Then in chapter 4 Paul explains exactly how this works and how this has always been the case by referring us to Abraham and listen to what he says.
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What then shall we say that Abraham our forefather according to the flesh has found? For if Abraham was justified by works he has something to boast about but what?
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Not before God. Not before God. For what does the scripture say?
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Here Paul quotes Genesis 15 verse 6. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.
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Now and listen closely to these next two verses. Now to the one who works. His wage is not credited as a favor but as what is due.
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But to the one who does not work but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly. His faith is credited as righteousness.
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Those two passages must be understood. To the one who works. To the one who expects to receive a wage for his work.
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When he receives his wage that's not grace. It's not a gift. If you go into work on Friday and your boss gives you your check and you've worked your 40 plus hours for it he's not going to say here's a gift for you.
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At least he better not. You might be in trouble if he does. That's what you are owed for your work.
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And so Paul says to the working one what you get is not grace. But verse 5 to the not working one but to the believing one.
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That's saving faith. Saving faith does not try to add anything to Christ.
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Saving faith does not try to seek anything in the way of merit. Paul presents a complete dichotomy between a faith that would say now that I've believed you owe me something and the faith that simply believes in who.
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And here's the next key phrase. Believes in Him who justifies the ungodly.
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It is not that God looks at a person and there's something He likes about that person and therefore gives grace to that person.
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It's the ungodly that the justifier justifies and isn't that good news.
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And it is that faith that is credited as righteousness. And then in verses 6 through 80 quotes from David just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom
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God credits righteousness apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered.
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Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account.
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I ask you this evening who is the blessed man of Romans 4 .8? Who is the blessed man whose sin the
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Lord will never impute to him, will never take into account? How can
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God be just and never take someone's sin into account? Why? Because their sins were born in the body of His precious
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Son on Calvary in the place of His people. That is the blessed man of Romans 4 .8
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and that then leads us to the last two items to consider. First, Paul in Romans 4 then says now when was
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Abraham justified? Before he received the sign of circumcision or afterwards. His entire argument in Romans chapter 4 is that Abraham was justified before there was anything called law.
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And if we do not see that Abraham was justified at a point in time and that it is
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Paul's interpretation that Abraham was justified in Genesis 15 .6 and not at a point later in his life, then
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Paul's entire argument collapses in a heap. We dare not interpret him in that way.
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And so finally as time is fleeting, Paul then concludes by saying in Romans 5 .1,
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therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
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Lord Jesus Christ. That is why I'm here this evening. That is why we have done every one of the great debates.
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That is why Chris Arnson spends so much time and effort putting these together.
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That is why I come across the United States. Because the fact that we believe firmly, whether you disagree with it or not, we believe firmly that the greatest thing we can do for anyone is to introduce to them a gospel that brings true and lasting peace.
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Shalom. That is what lies behind Paul's words. And shalom means a wellness of relationship.
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And if anyone holds to a gospel that says that by an action that you undertake that you can undo your righteous standing with God.
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If anyone teaches that you must in some way, shape or form continue to prop up this righteousness and cause it to grow.
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That you have to go through sacraments to maintain it. And that in fact even though right now you might be right with God, you could end up being an enemy of God in the future.
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That is not the peace that is promised in the pages of Scripture.
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And so it is our belief that the greatest act of love that we can show for anyone, even though the world mocks us and the world thinks what we're doing here tonight is crazy.
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We believe that it is our duty to God and His truth and out of love for our fellow man to introduce you to a gospel that gives you peace.
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Not because of anything you can do, but because of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ.
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The fact that He bears all our sins in His body upon the tree. And that the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to us so that we can stand before God clothed in His perfect righteousness and not in anything else.
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And that is the only ground of peace that we can have. We are justified by grace through faith alone without any acts of human merit.
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Thank you. You have five seconds left.
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Now with the opposing point of view, a Roman Catholic apologist Mr. Robert St.
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Genes. Mr. St. Genes. Thank you
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James for your presentation. Let me start off by answering one of the questions that you posed.
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And that is in Romans chapter 4 verse 8. You asked, who is the man of Romans chapter 4 verse 8?
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And you said that it was the man whom Jesus died for. And I'm sure you had some other things to say about that, but that was basically what you said.
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I would venture this proposal that I think will be the hinge that this debate turns on.
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The man that is described in Romans 4 verse 8 is David himself. That's what
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Paul says. He says, and David likewise says about the man who is justified without works.
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And Paul quotes from Psalm 32. If you have your
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Bible, turn there because you'll see it in the first verse. And it talks about David's repentance from the sins of adultery and murder.
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If you know the story about David, he committed adultery with Bathsheba and he had her husband murdered to cover up his crime.
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And at Psalm 32, after Nathan the prophet had visited David and convinced him of his sin,
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David repented. And at that point in time, he became a clean person.
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And he describes this in oh so many words in Psalm 51. How he pleased with God not to take his
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Holy Spirit, that God would cleanse him of his sin, and all kinds of terminology similar to that.
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And so what Paul is telling us that most Protestants, and I've never met one that has actually caught this, is that Paul is talking about David's repentance from his sin.
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And Paul is saying that when David repented, that was a justification.
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Because he's using him as an example of what happens to a man who is justified.
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What happens? You repent of your sin and at that point you become clean. His first example in Romans 4 was with Abraham and Abraham's faith.
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His next example is of someone who repents of sin to give you a two -sided view of what justification is all about.
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Now here's the dilemma for the Protestant theology. If David was justified at the point in time he repented of adultery and murder, what about David's prior life?
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Was he an unjustified man before that? If it is true, as the Protestants tell us, that you're only justified one time in your life and never justified again.
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If Paul is using David as an example of justification in Romans 4, that means
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David was justified then. But we find in the Bible that David was one of the most godly men on the face of the earth prior to his meeting of Bathsheba and murder of Uriah the
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Hittite. He was called a man after God's own heart in 1
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Samuel 13. He was picked over all his brothers who were older than him to be the king of Judah.
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And the reason God told for that to Samuel is that God looks on the heart of man, not on the outward characteristics.
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And so God knew David. He knew he was a godly man. Now, was
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David ungodly then? No. David was a justified man at that point in time.
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If not, then David would have lived his life as a pagan, pretending to be a godly man. And God would have had a false evaluation of who
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David was. So you see, David proves our Catholic theology because we believe that, yes, you can be justified and you can lose that justification.
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And the way you lose that justification is by falling into the sins that David fell into, murder and adultery.
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We in the Catholic Church call them mortal sins. And if you commit a mortal sin, yes, you have lost your justification.
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And you need to get it back. And that's why Paul can use David as an example.
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And that's why it supports Catholic theology. Because David is used as an example of justification.
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So yes, I have answered that question, who is the man of Romans 4 verse 8? It is David. And you'll look at any
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Protestant commentary and you'll never find them admitting that. I have not found one yet that has admitted that it's
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David who was the ungodly man. When he committed murder and adultery, he became an ungodly man.
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And that's why he needed to be justified. You see, so the Bible does support our
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Catholic theology. Now, regarding faith alone, the
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Bible uses the word faith and its derivatives over 200 times in the
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New Testament alone. But never with the word alone. The word faith is never used with the word alone.
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In proportion to his writing, Paul used alone more than any other New Testament writer. Some usages of the word alone appear in the very context in which
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Paul is speaking about justification. In Romans 3 .29, for example. He says, is
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God the God of the Jews alone? So Paul knows what the word alone means.
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He uses it in Romans 4 .12 and Romans 4 .16 and he uses it many times in the book of Galatians.
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But never does he couple it with the word faith. We know that Paul would have used alone if he thought it necessary since the same
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Holy Spirit who inspired Paul inspired James to negate the concept of faith alone by preceding it with the words not by.
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The only time the phrase faith alone is used in all of Scripture is when it's negated in James 2 .24.
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So justification by faith alone, if not anything else, is an unbiblical phrase.
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Scripture claims to choose its words very carefully. In Galatians 3 .16,
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Paul says God did not say seeds. He said seed, singular. Jesus told us that every jot and tittle would be fulfilled.
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And so Scripture is very precise with its own words. And if it doesn't use faith alone, there must be a reason for it.
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Obviously, irrespective of how one might understand justification, Scripture chooses not to describe it by the words justified by faith alone.
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And thus, if we are going to be as close to the Bible as possible, faith alone is not the prescribed way to teach the masses about justification.
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This is why the counsel of Trent said in chapter 11, And no one should flatter himself because of faith alone, thinking that by faith alone he has made an error and will obtain the inheritance.
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Now some would argue that the sentence in Romans 3 .28, a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law, is equivalent to saying a man is justified by faith alone.
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But justified by faith apart from works of law only excludes works of law from faith, not such things as love or hope or other virtuous qualities.
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Whereas justified by faith alone excludes anything from being added to faith since it seeks to make faith all alone.
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This leads us to ask and discover what Paul meant by works of law in Romans 3 .28.
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Is it inclusive of everything a man does in whatever circumstance from whatever perspective?
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Or is there a certain meaning, a particular mentality of works that concerns Paul? The answer, as my colleague here has given us, is in Romans 4 .1
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-8. Though I believe he is distorted David, I think he is right about his approach to what kind of works
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Paul has a gripe against. And those are works of debt. If you go and you ask
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God for pay for what you do, to Paul that is anathema. In other words,
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Paul is concerned that one who works places God in debt to pay him as if God owed him something to do.
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God owed him something for what he did. And Paul voices the same concern in Romans 11 .35.
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Who has ever given to God that God should repay him? But rest assured my dear brethren that the
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Catholic Church thinks the same way as Paul about works that put God in debt to pay us salvation for what we do.
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In Canon 1 of the Council of Trent, Session 6, it says, If anyone shall say that man can be justified before God by his own works, which are done either by his own natural powers, or through the teaching of the law, and without divine grace through Jesus Christ, let him be anathema.
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I think that is pretty clear. In Chapter 8, the Council went further than the Reformers and said this,
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We are therefore said to be justified gratuitously, because none of those things which precede justification, whether faith or works, merit the grace itself of justification.
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For if it is a grace, it is not now by reason of works.
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Otherwise, as the same apostle says, grace is no more grace. That is pretty clear too.
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Now let's use a simple analogy to help understand the nature of works of debt. Let's say I am the
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CEO of Microsoft and you are my employee. You have been working for Microsoft for 10 years.
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You come in, you work 40 hours as my colleague has said here, and you get your paycheck and you go home on Friday and you probably don't think about Microsoft until Monday morning when you have to get up and go back to work.
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You have never met the CEO of Microsoft and you have no relationship with him. You simply do your work and get paid.
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If the CEO does not pay you for your work, you can legally sue him in a court of law. He must pay you because you have a legal contract with him that states so.
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Whether the CEO likes you or could care less about you, whether you like him or could care less about him, he is under obligation to pay you your wages.
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You could work there for the rest of your life and never get to know the CEO, never have a personal relationship with him.
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You simply do your work, get paid, and go your way. Paul says that this is precisely the way you cannot be saved and get to heaven.
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You do not have a legal contract with God that allows you to thrust your works in his face and demand payment.
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For God owes no man anything. One cannot sue God in a court of law if God decides not to give him salvation for his works.
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But trying to put God in debt was precisely what the Jews of Paul's day were doing and what
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Paul himself had done before his conversion. They would, in a word, give God their list of works, accomplishments, and even their
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Abrahamic pedigree in order to claim that God owed them salvation, despite the fact that they didn't really care about God or seek to know and love him as Abraham did.
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Paul says, no, for God did not make a legal contract with man. Rather, God made a personal promise,
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Romans 4 .17, by his own word to bless man with salvation through grace, not works of law.
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Promises are made by the integrity of the one giving the promise, a promise that he will indeed bless if one is faithful and obedient to him.
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But by the same token, he does not owe anything to one who has faith, works, or faith and works.
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He will reward because he is just and kind, not because there is a legal contract binding him to pay in spite of your bad disposition.
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Now let's use another analogy to try to understand the Catholic concept of why works can be used for justification.
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I am the CEO of Microsoft and you are my employee. During the week, I call you up and say,
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John, you've worked for Microsoft for 10 years now and I've never really gotten to know you.
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This weekend, I am moving to a new house and I am inviting some of the people to come over and help me move my furniture.
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I would like to get to know you a little better and spend some time with you. Would it be possible for you to come over to my house this
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Saturday and help me move my furniture? John says, sure, I can do that.
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So John comes over and works hard all day. At the end of the day, he is sweating, hungry, thirsty, tired, and in pain.
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Now here is a $64 ,000 question. Do I owe John anything for helping me move my furniture?
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The answer is no. John and I made a personal agreement, not a legal one. John accepted because he wanted to get to know me and help me start my new house.
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In fact, if John had demanded money for his work and just wanted to get the money and go home,
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I would be highly insulted and that would, that someone like him would impose such demands on me.
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Though I don't owe John anything legally, am I going to give John something for helping me?
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I certainly am. I may take him out to dinner, let his family swim in my pool, drive my
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BMW, and many other things. Who knows? Perhaps John and I will get to know each other so well that I will find out what a great guide
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John is and give him a promotion at work, something far greater than John ever expected for his little work of helping me move my furniture.
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But on what basis will I give these things to John? On an obligatory, legally binding basis?
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No. On the basis that I am a just and honorable man who seeks to reward my people for a job well done.
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John worked and I rewarded him. And I rewarded him because we have a friendly, personal relationship.
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In the same way, God rewards because He is a good God, not because man's works legally bind him.
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Thus, Hebrews 6 verse 10 sums up the position very well. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and love which you have shown toward His name.
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Now where else does Scripture teach that God rewards works from His kindness and grace, not as a matter of debt?
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In many places. But particularly in the chapter immediately preceding
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Romans chapter 3 and 4, which my colleague had covered here.
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In Romans chapter 2 verse 4 to 13. And I suggest you open up your Bible and get to that passage.
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Romans chapter 2 verses 4 to 13. Or do you presume upon the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience?
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Do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impetuous heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when
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God's righteous judgment will be revealed. For He will render to every man according to his works.
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To those who by patience and well -doing seek for glory and honor and immortality,
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He will give eternal life. But for those who are factious and do not obey the truth but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.
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There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the
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Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, the Jew first and also the
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Greek. For God shows no partiality. All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law.
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And all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God but the doers of the law will be justified.
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Notice in verse 4 that Paul speaks about God's kindness and forbearance and patience which are all aspects of His grace which are designed to lead one to repentance,
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Paul says. Notice in verse 5 and 6 Paul speaks of God's coming judgment in the day of wrath which is the same for example as what
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Jesus says of Himself in Matthew 16 verse 27. For the Son of Man is going to come in glory of His Father and His angels and will recompense every man according to His deeds.
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Notice He says according to His deeds. Notice in verse 7 of Romans chapter 2
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Paul says that those who persevere in doing good and by this seek for glory, honor and immortality will be given eternal life.
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That's salvation. One who perseveres in doing good is doing good works.
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One who seeks for immortality is seeking for eternal life in heaven. It is assumed that because verse 4 requires repentance from sin that those who persevere in doing good and seeking for immortality in verse 7 have repented of their sins.
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Here we have the essence of the gospel. Repentance from sin, doing good works, seeking immortality and implicit in all this is having faith in God.
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For one cannot do these things unless he already believes in God. In fact Paul speaks of this as the gospel in verse 16.
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Everything he just said prior he says is my gospel. On the day according to my gospel when
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God will judge the secrets of men through Jesus Christ he says. Notice also in verse 13
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Paul says for not the hearers of the law are just before God but the doers of the law are justified.
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Here we have the same word justified as used in Romans 3 .28. Romans 3 .28
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said and man is justified by faith apart from works of law. While Romans 2 .13
01:04:36
says the doers of the law will be justified. Do we have a contradiction in scripture?
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No. We just have works being spoken about from two different perspectives. One from grace and one from debt.
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We saw in Romans 4 verses 1 -8 that the types of works Paul condemns for justification are works of debt.
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Works by which we obligate God to pay us with salvation for the things we do.
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An example he gave in that chapter was circumcision. The Jews thought that because they were circumcised
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God owed them salvation. But we have seen from Romans 2 that the works are done after one repents of sin and is one who does good works not mere rituals and one who earnestly seeks for immortality not for payment on demand.
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The repentance of the man in Romans 2 is in stark contrast to the unrepentance of the Jews in Romans 4.
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Since Paul quotes from Psalm 32 which we already saw about David to show the Jews that true justification comes when one repents of his sin as David did after he committed adultery with Bathsheba.
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Now what do our Protestant brethren do with Romans chapter 2?
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Well if you ever want to see a scrambling of answers read the Protestant commentaries on Romans chapter 2.
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Some claim that though Paul says one will be justified by his works, Paul really means that one is justified by faith alone even though he uses the same word justified with works and that's an impossibility.
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In other words Paul says something but he doesn't mean what he says. He says justified by works but he still means justified by faith alone.
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Now most other Protestants realize that that's a twisting of Paul's words and this cannot be a viable explanation and thus they claim that Paul put these passages in the
01:06:32
Bible as a hypothetical scenario. That is he merely suggests that one can obey the law and do good works to attain salvation knowing that no man can do it which will then drive them to the real gospel which is justification by faith alone which begins in Romans chapter 3 verse 20 through 28.
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Now this is a very convenient way of solving the apparent contradiction in Paul between Romans 2 .13
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and Romans 3 .28. You just dismiss or neutralize one of the passages. You claim that Paul isn't really saying what he appears to be saying.
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You claim that another passage of scripture overrides this one and makes it theoretical. Not only do
01:07:16
Protestants dismiss Romans 2 as hypothetical some just dismiss it altogether.
01:07:23
In Geisler and McKenzie's book 538 pages of Roman Catholics and Evangelicals together
01:07:29
Romans 2 is never mentioned once in reference to justification in 500 pages of work.
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In William Webster's 244 pages the Church of Rome at the Bar of History which contains several sections on justification never once mentions
01:07:49
Romans 2. In Dr. White's book The Roman Catholic Controversy there is no mention of Romans 2 in the entire 264 pages of his book.
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In his book The Fatal Flaw there is not one mention of Romans 2 in the entire book.
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But both books mention Romans 3 and 4 very, very many times.
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Now what's the problem with this? Well obviously they don't want to deal with Romans chapter 2 but this is the chapter that comes right before the very chapter that they choose to teach us about faith alone.
01:08:29
And they just dismiss it as if it didn't exist. Do other scriptures teach the same thing as Romans 2?
01:08:37
That is that men will be saved by the works that they do under God's grace? Yes, many scriptures do.
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We already read that Jesus will reward according to works in Matthew 16 verse 27.
01:08:50
In John 5, 28 and 29 he says the same. Those that have done good will receive the resurrection of life and those that have done evil the resurrection of damnation.
01:09:00
In Revelation 22 verse 12 Jesus says he is coming soon and will render to every man according to his works.
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Jesus says the same thing in Matthew 12 verse 37. For by your words you will be justified.
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The same word Paul uses and by your words you will be condemned. Now unfortunately there is another dismissal of these passages because my opponent says this about Jesus' words on justification.
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He says, quote, instead we must allow the primary expositor of this issue, in this case the apostle
01:09:38
Paul, to speak first. His epistles to the Romans and the Galatians must define the issues.
01:09:44
For it is in them that we have direct discussions of exactly how justification takes place.
01:09:49
Once we have consulted these sources we can then move on to garner other elements of the biblical revelation that are found in tangential ways elsewhere.
01:09:59
So Jesus' teaching on justification is a tangential way to treat the topic of justification.
01:10:06
And the reason for that is because Jesus talks many times about being given a reward or damnation for our works.
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Paul teaches the same thing, however, as Jesus does in Romans 14 verses 10 to 12.
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He says we must all stand before the judgment seat of God for our good and bad deeds.
01:10:28
In 2 Corinthians 5 verses 10 and 11 he says the same thing. We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ to be judged for the things we've done in the body, whether good or bad.
01:10:37
And in the next verse Paul says because of this judgment he fears God and thus preaches the gospel.
01:10:44
Are these hypothetical texts? Certainly not. But they all speak about being judged for our works and the outcome is eternal life or eternal damnation.
01:10:56
Now some prophets claim that in Romans 2 Paul has not begun to speak about the gospel yet, which only comes in Romans 3.
01:11:03
But we have already seen Paul sum up his statements in Romans 2 and Romans 2 .16 as he calls the judgment of God, my gospel.
01:11:13
Moreover in Romans 1 verses 16 and 17 he already introduced the gospel by saying that he was not ashamed of the gospel and that it was for salvation for both
01:11:21
Jew and Gentile, the same two groups. Jew and Gentile he mentions in Romans 2 verses 8 to 12 that we'll receive eternal life of repentance and good works.
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Some prophets have tried to answer Romans 2 by claiming that no one can live a perfectly sinless life and since God's law requires perfection then no one can fulfill the demands of Romans 2 verses 4 to 13.
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But this is where the Protestant hermeneutic goes way off the track. For Romans 2 does not mention anything about perfect obedience to the law.
01:11:59
It speaks about repentance in verse 4, the prerequisite to receiving eternal life for our good works.
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Just as Romans 4 verses 5 to 8 did with regard to David's justification.
01:12:12
He had to repent. Romans 2 is speaking about those who are under God's grace because of their repentance, whereas Romans 4 is speaking about the
01:12:20
Jews who have repudiated God's grace and have invented a system of attaining salvation by putting
01:12:27
God in debt. Granted we as Catholics and as I quoted from the
01:12:32
Council of Trent earlier agree that without coming under the grace of God anything we do to attain salvation by our own work is condemnable since salvation cannot be given on an illegal obligatory basis.
01:12:44
Only on a grace basis as a gift. If anyone tries to attain salvation by their own works outside of grace then the uncompromising, unyielding law will become their judge and for one sin, as James 2 .10
01:12:58
says, they will be condemned. But in God's grace we are under a whole different system than law.
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Grace can forgive transgressions upon our sincere repentance whereas the system of law would never listen to the pleadings of a sorrowful sinner.
01:13:14
Are there people who scripture says have fulfilled the category of Romans 2? Yes, many of them.
01:13:20
We already remarked about David. How he was forgiven of his sin and became a righteous man after being ungodly from his sins of murder and adultery.
01:13:31
And in Psalm 18 verses 20 -24 look at how David speaks of his own works. How God saved him because he says of my works.
01:13:41
But that's all after he repented of his sin. Are there other people?
01:13:47
Yes, in Luke 1 verse 6 it says of Elizabeth and Zechariah that they were both righteous in the sight of God walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the
01:14:00
Lord. Now does the passage describe their righteousness by referring to an alleged legal imputation of Christ's righteousness?
01:14:09
No, not at all. It describes it in terms of their obedience to God and notice that God is making the judgment here, not man.
01:14:18
But you say, did not Elizabeth and Zechariah sin in their life? Yes, but in God's grace they repented of those sins.
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A grace that was afforded to them by the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ. In this grace
01:14:33
God does not look at them through the eyes of the uncompromising law where one sin is unforgivable and condemnable.
01:14:41
He looks at them through the eyes of grace as it says of Abel and his offering in Genesis 4 .4 in the
01:14:48
Hebrew Sha 'a God looked with grace upon Abel's offering. Of Noah the same thing is said.
01:14:55
It says Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Notice like Elizabeth and Zechariah God is making the judgment upon Noah and he says he was a blameless and righteous man walking in all the ways of the
01:15:09
Lord. Now how can that be if Noah was a sinner? It can only be one way because God is not looking at him through the eyes of law where one sin would condemn him.
01:15:21
He looks at him as it says here through the eyes of grace. That's Scripture's terminology. I did not invent that.
01:15:29
Thank you. Now we move into the rebuttal portion of the debate and each debater will have 15 minutes and we'll begin with Doug White.
01:16:08
He does not apply it to David. It was said that I've never met a Protestant who caught this.
01:16:15
Well there might be a reason for that because in Romans 4 .7 he uses a plural.
01:16:20
Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven. Paul applies it in a general sense and he himself interprets the words in these words.
01:16:31
He's speaking of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works which he had just illustrated in Abraham.
01:16:41
So the application of Romans chapter 4 is not to some work of repentance on the part of David.
01:16:46
The application in Romans chapter 4 of Psalm 32 is as Paul says the blessing on the man to whom
01:16:53
God credits righteousness apart from works. Now what we see very clearly this evening is again and you're going to see this over and over again.
01:17:03
One side is going to look at these passages and I am not in any way shape or form being unkind to say this and say see that's what
01:17:11
David did. And the other side looks at it and says see that's what
01:17:17
God did in David. And there's a difference between the two. One is God centered and the other is man centered.
01:17:24
And so the passage in Romans 4 speaks of the blessing on the man to whom
01:17:29
God imputes righteousness apart from works.
01:17:35
Not the idea that the man is good and therefore because he is inherently good God gives him more righteousness.
01:17:44
The focus is upon what God does not upon what man does. Now reference was made of course to James chapter 2 and we do need to deal with James 2 this evening.
01:17:55
I invite you to take the time to look at the passage because I believe you will discover that James is completely in harmony with Paul in teaching that salvation is fully a divine not a human work.
01:18:06
James 1 .18 makes this very clear. Please just note these as we go by because we have a very small amount of time together.
01:18:14
His is a completely different concern however than Paul. Because while Paul addresses how the ungodly are made right before God, James warns of an empty meaningless claim to faith.
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Note his words in James 2 .14. What good is it my brothers if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds can such faith save him?
01:18:40
These are the key words. The faith James decries is a faith that is claimed but cannot provide any evidence of its existence or reality outside of mere words.
01:18:53
James says this kind of faith cannot save. Those who believe in the historical doctrine of sola fide, faith alone, agree wholeheartedly that one is not justified, one is not saved by a dead non -existent claimed faith alone.
01:19:12
One is however declared righteous upon the exercise of true saving faith which is the gift of God.
01:19:19
Paul and James address different issues obviously. A faith that exists only in words as we see in verses 15 -17 of James chapter 2 is by nature non -salvific.
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And as verse 18 teaches us the only way we can show our faith is by what we do not by the repetition of words.
01:19:42
But the very use of that word to show, to demonstrate by James is death to the misuse of the passage to deny justification by grace through faith alone.
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For this proves that we are here talking about the demonstration that one is righteous, not the declaration of God based upon the merits of Christ that the person is right in His sight.
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Verse 19 tells us that a person can have an orthodox confession of faith, a belief in monotheism, but if that confession exists only in their words then their faith is useless.
01:20:24
It cannot prove its existence without deeds. This is then illustrated in the life of Abraham.
01:20:31
The NIV translates James 221, was not our ancestor Abraham considered righteous for what he did?
01:20:38
And another translation reads quote, shown to be righteous on the basis of deeds end quote.
01:20:44
Likewise when James expresses the perfect union that exists between saving faith and the deeds that flow from it by stating that the two worked together his deeds bring his faith to perfection.
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Verse 24 then reads in one translation, you see that a person is shown to be righteous on the basis of deeds and not on the basis of faith only.
01:21:09
Merely proclaiming oneself to be righteous does nothing to show one's righteousness.
01:21:17
James addresses the demonstration of righteousness not the means thereof.
01:21:23
In most of the situations and most of the passages addressed the context of the passages is extremely important.
01:21:32
For example, in looking at Romans chapter 2 and verse 13 and the discussion of man being justified by deeds of law the context is vital.
01:21:44
For if we remember the book of Romans is an argument. It is an organized argument and if you present an argument and you have points 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
01:21:57
If a person were to come along and take your argument and focus upon point 2 not recognizing the relationship between that and points 1 and 3 and what comes afterwards they would obviously be misrepresenting you.
01:22:12
Romans chapters 1 and 2 and through 3 .18 is
01:22:17
Paul's demonstration of the universal sinfulness of man. In chapter 1 he demonstrates the universal sinfulness of the
01:22:25
Gentiles and then in chapter 2 he addresses the issue of the
01:22:31
Jew. The Jew who claims that by the mere possession of the law I have a special covenantal relationship with God.
01:22:39
By the mere possession of the law I am not under the condemnation of what Romans chapter 1 says.
01:22:45
I agree with you Paul you rip them Gentiles. Instead in Romans chapter 2
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Paul is addressing the Jew and he says so you have the law but you don't do the things that are in them.
01:22:57
In fact the Gentiles condemn you when they do things by conscience that you know you should do in the law and you don't do them.
01:23:04
So the point of 2 .13 when he speaks of doing of the law he is saying look just hearing the law, being in possession of the law, being a
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Jew who hears the law being read will not make you right before God. Don't you realize that the law itself says that if you are going to be righteous in God's sight you have to do these things.
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It is not merely a quote unquote theoretical thing. It is taking it in its context because Paul has not yet gotten to the point where he begins to discuss how anyone
01:23:38
Jew or Gentile is made righteous in God's sight and that happens in Romans chapter 3.
01:23:44
So it is an issue of context. It is just not messing up Paul's own argument. So when it was said well
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Mr. White wrote all these books and never mentioned it. That is because I wasn't writing them to self -righteous Jews.
01:23:57
Why should I address a passage that is talking about Jews who believe they are righteous because they hear the law when
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I am actually dealing with the issue of what Roman Catholicism says about justification. So it is not a matter that these individuals that were cited were trying to deduct something.
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They can't deal with it. The simple fact of the matter is we recognize that it is in a context that isn't relevant to the subject at hand.
01:24:22
Now we were told and reminded that it is good to use biblical terms. Faith alone not being a biblical term we shouldn't use that but I would simply point out if we are fair if that is an objection against Sola Fide then obviously it is very difficult to teach biblically on such things as masses, venial sins, purgatory indulgences, merit popes and cardinals and so on and so forth.
01:24:45
So if we are going to say that biblical terminology that you have to limit yourself to that if that was an objection well there is a lot of other things that we could talk about at that particular point in time.
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Now it has been said that Rome's demand of works is not a violation of Paul's position because Paul only speaks of works of debt.
01:25:05
However, I simply ask you to consider the following. Would not the
01:25:10
Judaizers have said the same? They like the
01:25:15
Council of Trent did not reject the necessity of grace. Nowhere in the book of Galatians when
01:25:21
Paul writes against the Judaizers does he say these people say you can be justified apart from grace.
01:25:27
In fact he makes it very clear in Galatians chapter 5 they claimed grace.
01:25:33
They claimed you need grace, you need faith in Christ but that is not enough.
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There is something more that you must do and Paul described those who claimed the necessity of grace, claimed the necessity of faith in Christ.
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He called them those who are seeking to be justified by law in Galatians 5 .4
01:25:58
and he said you are severed from Christ and you are fallen from grace. Don't try to bring
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Christ and grace into a system that speaks of human merit. There is only one merit that avails before God.
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It is the merit of Jesus Christ. Don't bring anything else in. Don't try to join Christ to that.
01:26:22
Now there is a quotation given of page 147 of the
01:26:27
Roman Catholic Controversy where it was said, now you see Mr. White doesn't believe that Jesus is teaching on justification is relevant.
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I invite you to read page 147 and you will not find my saying that Jesus is teaching on justification is not relevant.
01:26:42
What I said beginning about 145 and following is that the
01:26:48
Gospels do not address every issue in the Christian life if you want to know about the function of elders in the church.
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Can you go to the Gospels to find out anything about elders in the church? No, Jesus never talked about them. In fact he used the term church very, very rarely.
01:27:04
What I said in the book and I think everyone will agree with me is that the Bible addresses certain issues in certain passages with great clarity.
01:27:15
Therefore we must go to the plain passages first, understand what they say and then go to passages where maybe a word is used in passing or a word is referenced and interpret them in the light of the main and plain passages.
01:27:30
My argument was Romans 3, 4 and 5, Galatians 2 and 3 are long extended discussions of what it means to be justified before God.
01:27:41
In fact they are specifically designed to communicate to us exactly how a person is made right before God.
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They are not parables, they are not apocalyptic literature where you have visions and things like that, they are plain teaching.
01:27:58
You go there, you interpret them in their own context, you interpret them in order and you understand what they teach and you don't go over to, for example,
01:28:08
Jesus' statement that wisdom is justified by her children and try to build a doctrine of justification out of that phrase because that's not what
01:28:17
Jesus intended to do. The simple fact of the matter is the Lord and His Spirit in His wisdom allowed the
01:28:25
Apostle Paul to be the one through whom that information was given. God in His wisdom did not believe that had to be a part of the 4
01:28:32
Gospels. That is what I was saying there. Now in just a few moments that we have left, it was said, you know, the standard is not perfect obedience, it's repentance and we've already seen that repentance wasn't the context of Romans 4 has been asserted over and over again.
01:28:51
You see Galatians chapter 3 argues exactly against that. Galatians chapter 3 says the function of the law is to show us our sin and to drive us as a schoolmaster to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
01:29:03
The standard is perfection. The law brings death. Those who live by the law must do all the things in the law and that's why
01:29:10
Paul says in Galatians chapter 5 if you start walking down that road, you have to keep walking down that road.
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There is one road that is the road of grace. There is one road that is the road of law and you cannot walk down those two roads very long at the same time.
01:29:25
And once you start down that road, that law can give you no mercy or grace. That's exactly right. But once you start there, you can't put the two of them together.
01:29:34
And so the standard is perfection. Those who live by the law must do the things of the law and if you break the law, then you're under the curse of the law and that's why
01:29:43
Jesus becomes a curse in our place and His righteousness becomes our possession.
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I said it in my opening statement and I repeat it now with my last moment that I have now. The debate this evening is between an anthropocentric gospel based upon the accomplishments of men and a theocentric gospel based upon the accomplishments of God and Jesus Christ.
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The debate is between a God who saves perfectly without failure and a
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God who attempts to save but very often fails in that attempt.
01:30:22
What righteousness do we have? The righteousness that I have is the righteousness of God which is mine by faith in Jesus Christ.
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It is His perfect righteousness imputed to me, credited to me as Paul says in Romans chapter 4 verse 6, apart from works.
01:30:44
That is the message of the gospel. Thank you. Now for 15 minutes,
01:30:57
Mr. St. Genes. Well, I would start off with Dr.
01:31:28
White's interpretation of Romans chapter 4 and David. What I would like you to do is go back and read
01:31:34
Psalm 32 and tell me if you don't think David was talking about himself when he talked about the man who was ungodly whose sins
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God forgave. He says in verse 1 of Psalm 32, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
01:31:52
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I declared not my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
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For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me, my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
01:32:09
I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the
01:32:16
Lord, then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin. Now how anyone can say that that is not applying to David, which is the very
01:32:25
Psalm that Paul quotes in Romans chapter 4 and it applies to some other man or other group of men is beyond me.
01:32:35
If there is anything that is clear in this passage of Romans 4 is that David is the prototype of the man who repents of sin and whom
01:32:44
God justifies. And yes, all of us who believe and repent like David will also be justified just as Paul says of Abraham after he sets him up as the example.
01:32:56
He says in Romans 4 verse 12, And you also must follow in the footsteps of our father
01:33:02
Abraham. So yes, he was the example to follow just as David was. Now dealing with Romans chapter 2 verse 13,
01:33:12
James says that context is important and yes I would agree with that wholeheartedly. And then he went on to say that this passage is talking about the universal sinfulness of man.
01:33:24
And so it doesn't qualify as a strict chapter dealing with justification.
01:33:30
But yet when we read Romans chapter 5 verses 11 and 12, we find Paul giving the same universal understanding of the sinfulness of man in that very passage right after he talks about justification in Romans 3 and 4.
01:33:46
We find Paul doing this in Romans chapter 1 where he says all men have sinned and the gospel has now come in verses 16 and 17.
01:33:55
So Paul intersperses the universal sinfulness of man all throughout the book of Romans. It's not just in Romans chapter 2.
01:34:02
So if we want to look at context, let's expand the context to look at all of Romans. He says he concentrates on the
01:34:10
Jews in Romans chapter 2. Paul says in Romans chapter 2 verses 8 to 12, as I already quoted when
01:34:20
I was up here the last time, he says, I am writing this to Jew and Gentile. Whoever of you obeys the law will be justified.
01:34:30
And he's using the same Jew and Gentile formula that he opened up the epistle with in Romans chapter 1 verses 16 and 17.
01:34:38
And we'll see Jew and Gentile throughout Paul's writing. So it's not just to the Jew. As a matter of fact, the
01:34:45
Gentile must fulfill Paul's requirement to be justified by obeying the law in order to have a representative case to use against the
01:34:54
Jew. Otherwise, Paul's argument will fall flat on his face if there was no
01:34:59
Gentile who obeyed the law and was justified. And he says
01:35:04
Paul has not gotten to how men are justified. Well, I don't know then what
01:35:09
Romans 2 verses 6 to 8 means because it says here that God will render to them according to their works.
01:35:17
Those that have done good will get eternal life. And those that have done evil will get wrath and indignation.
01:35:24
And then Paul says in verse 16 that this is the gospel. So how can it not be the same gospel?
01:35:30
Paul himself says it in verse 16 that it is the gospel. He says that he's not writing to self -righteous
01:35:38
Jews in Romans chapter 2. That he's writing to self -righteous
01:35:48
Jews and that's all we have to be concerned about. But read Romans chapter 3 and 4. He's also writing to self -righteous
01:35:55
Jews who claim circumcision as their right to life, as their ticket to heaven.
01:36:01
How much more self -righteous can you get? Yes, self -righteousness is dealt with throughout the chapter.
01:36:08
And he says that terminologies such as masses and purgatory don't appear in the scripture. But here is the caveat.
01:36:16
The Bible does use the word alone. And so if we're going to be biblical, we better see how the
01:36:23
Bible uses the word alone. Because if it doesn't use it the same way we're using it, then we're being unbiblical.
01:36:33
He did not deal with the other passages that correlate to Romans chapter 2. For example, in Matthew 16 verse 27
01:36:40
Jesus says He will render to each man according to his works. In John 5 verse 28
01:36:45
He says to those who have done good, they will receive the resurrection of life.
01:36:51
And Paul does the same thing in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 10 that we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
01:36:57
And in Romans 14 in the same book he says that we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
01:37:04
Now, are these the same thing as Mr. White described that they're only talking to Jews? No, not at all.
01:37:11
All these passages talk to everyone in the world. The same thing that we found in Romans 2.
01:37:19
Because He says to any man who does good and seeks for immortality, God will give him eternal life.
01:37:26
It's not just the Jews. And that's why all these other passages, which include
01:37:31
Jew and Gentile, have no contradiction. But you will notice in all the commentaries they have a very hard time with how to reconcile all these passages because they clearly speak about being given eternal life for our good works.
01:37:49
Now, he said that he didn't say Jesus was, he accused me of saying that Jesus was not relevant to the issue.
01:37:56
I didn't say that. I quoted from his book and he said that Jesus treated justification in a tangential way.
01:38:05
And that we must go to the plain passages of Scripture. And what this implies is that Jesus is not plain.
01:38:13
That Paul is clearer than Jesus. And yet, it was Peter who said that Paul's ratings were hard to understand.
01:38:23
And we have in Romans 2 .13 Paul saying that the doers of the law will be justified and then one chapter later saying no, a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
01:38:33
Now, that seems to contradict. And many men have written, have spilled many gallons of ink trying to figure out why
01:38:41
Paul seemed to contradict himself. And the way that Mr. White's, or Dr. White's crowd deals with it is just to dismiss the passage as hypothetical.
01:38:50
And there's other ways that they deal with it which we have already discussed. He says that the function of the law was to show us our sin.
01:38:59
But that's exactly what I said when I got up here the first time. I said that if we are under the system of law, we will be condemned for one sin.
01:39:09
And I quoted James 2 .10. So, I agree with that. We have no problem with that.
01:39:16
And that's why I spent so much time dealing with the fact that we have to get out from under the law.
01:39:22
And the way we do that is by repenting of our sin, receiving Jesus, and then
01:39:29
God will look at us much differently than He did prior. That's what we call grace.
01:39:35
And God gives us the power to obey Him because He infuses that grace into our souls.
01:39:42
And that's how we can be obedient to God. Just like a father looks at a son. If a father were to judge his son under law, then anything wrong that that son would do would be condemnable.
01:39:58
And he could take him to a court of law and put him in jail. But that's not what fathers do to their sons.
01:40:04
Why? Because they have a relationship with them, you see. They have a gracious relationship with them.
01:40:12
And when the son does something that's wrong, yes, the father may punish him, but he's not going to condemn him to an eternal banishment in hell.
01:40:20
Because he's looking at him through the father's eyes of grace. The same grace that God said
01:40:26
He looked at Noah with. Why was Noah chosen? Because he didn't sin of all the people in the world?
01:40:33
No. But because he pleased God sufficiently and loved God and tried to be obedient in every area of his life that God said,
01:40:43
I look with grace upon him. And to me, he is a righteous and blameless person. Those are
01:40:49
God's words. They're not just Catholic words. That's what God said about Noah. And yet he was still born in sin, just like David said of himself in Psalm 51, verse 5, that I was born in sin, as all of us are, you see.
01:41:03
So we don't disagree that the law, if you're under law, will condemn you. That's why we preach the gospel of grace.
01:41:10
Don't be caught in the gospel of a law. Now, let me also deal with James 2.
01:41:24
In James 2 .21, James says, was not our father Abraham justified by works when he offered his son
01:41:32
Isaac on the altar? And James 2 .24 says, you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.
01:41:41
Now, Martin Luther was so upset with these words that he spoke of the book of James as an epistle of straw. Quote, for it has nothing of the nature of the gospel about it.
01:41:51
Therefore, James concludes falsely that now at last Abraham was justified after that obedience. I almost feel like throwing
01:41:58
Jimmy into the stove. Now, in Mr.
01:42:04
White's book, or Dr. White's book, he says that James uses the argument in James 2 .24,
01:42:09
you see that Abraham was justified by works. And he says that in there, that refers to the fact that men are witnessing the works and therefore
01:42:21
James is teaching that all James is interested in is the fruit of your salvation.
01:42:28
Because men are observing your works and they confirm, yes, you are a true Christian. But if you look at the account in Genesis, there are no men witnessing the act of Abraham offering his son
01:42:41
Isaac on the altar. Not one. As a matter of fact, the men that were with him were told to stay at the bottom of the mountain so that God Himself could see the work that Abraham was doing and thus declare, now
01:42:53
I know that you fear me. Now I, God, know that you fear me and therefore
01:42:59
I justify you. There are no men witnessing that action. Dr.
01:43:05
White also said that James is only speaking of a demonstration of justification, not an actual justification.
01:43:13
Now, if James intended to speak of a demonstration or a vindication, which is also sometimes used, there were plenty of Greek words that he could have used as opposed to using the word justified.
01:43:26
He could have used dokimadzo, paristemi, zumbibadzo, or funeros.
01:43:34
Any of those words he could have used if he wanted to talk about a demonstration or a vindication, but he didn't use any of them.
01:43:42
He used the same word that Paul used, justified. If by justification
01:43:48
James means vindication or demonstration, then it must serve as the referent for both faith and works.
01:43:56
And thus we must render the sentence in James 2 .24 as follows for clarification, quote, you see a man is vindicated by works and not vindicated by faith alone, which would necessarily apply vindication to faith and would cease to make faith that which justified
01:44:18
Abraham for it only vindicated him. That's what the grammar requires. In James 2 .23,
01:44:26
James quotes Genesis 15 .6, which says, quote, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, unquote.
01:44:37
Now this is the same verse Paul quotes from in Romans 4 .3. The word for righteousness is dikaiosune, which is the noun form of the word justified, the verbal form being dikaio.
01:44:50
Now I just gave you a Greek lesson, but you'll see why that's going to be important as I go on. Protestants assert that the usage of dikaiosune, righteousness, in Romans 4 .3
01:45:01
refers to an actual justification of Abraham. Thus we must assume that when
01:45:07
James quotes the same verse in James 2 .23, James must be referring to an actual justification of Abraham.
01:45:17
This is obvious since Paul and James would have to agree on the definition of dikaiosune in order for them to be quoting from the same verse,
01:45:25
Genesis 15 .6. That being the case, it would be totally incongruous for James to suddenly switch to a non -justification meaning of the verbal form dikaio, making it into a word referring to a demonstration or vindication in the very next verse,
01:45:44
James 2 .24. If so, it would mean that James is working with two totally different definitions of one word, one definition for the noun form and one for the verbal form.
01:45:57
Since dikaio is also used in James 2 .21, such a mixing of definitions would mean that James uses a vindication meaning or a demonstration meaning for the usage of dikaio in verse 21, switches to a justification meaning in the use of dikaiosune in verse 23, and then switches back to a demonstration or vindication meaning for dikaio in verse 24.
01:46:23
Suffice it to say, there is no such occurrence in all of Greek literature, including the
01:46:28
New Testament. Alright, well let us begin then with Dr.
01:46:41
White beginning with his first question. Thank you. Mr. St. Genes, given the
01:46:47
Catholic position that a person can be justified and then unjustified and then re -justified, etc.
01:46:53
through sacraments, and that a person who is once justified can still end up lost in eternity, and that because a person's sins rather than being imputed to Christ and born by him are imputed to the believer, so the believer can be charged with sin and hence fall into eternal condemnation, could you please explain one of the last words that you used in describing the
01:47:12
Catholic position where you said that we are in a gracious relationship as a father and a son.
01:47:18
How can the commission of sins cause a person to cease being in the relationship of father and son with God?
01:47:27
Mr. St. Genes? I guess. Is this working? I think that's the one.
01:47:36
You have two minutes. The question is how can
01:47:43
I, can you just repeat that last statement? In light of the Roman Catholic position that you can be justified, lose your justification, become re -justified, and in light of one of the statements you made right toward the end of your closing statement where we are in a gracious relationship with God as a son is with a father, how can the commission of mortal sin and then the sacrament of penance cause a person to be a son, not be a son, be a son, back and forth in that type of situation?
01:48:15
The person remains a son. I didn't say that he loses his sonship, but that's the awful tragedy of hell is that a person who was baptized, who has the indelible mark of baptism on his soul and was a son of God, will be forever in hell wishing that he had obeyed his father.
01:48:37
So, when we talk about mortal sin, we are not saying that they lost the sonship, we are saying that they lost the inheritance, and that's why the
01:48:45
Bible constantly speaks in, for example, Ephesians 5 verse 5, Galatians 5 verse 21, 1
01:48:51
Corinthians 6, 10 and 11, that we will lose the inheritance after we've been baptized, if indeed we fall into mortal sin.
01:48:59
Now, regarding David, which is the example, is this microphone okay? Is it okay?
01:49:07
David in Psalm 51 says, please do not take thy Holy Spirit from me, and that's referring to his sin that he committed with Bathsheba, and he is repenting and asking
01:49:19
God to forgive him so that the Holy Spirit does not leave him. He also says that the righteous man, in Psalm 32, is one in whom no deceit is found.
01:49:33
So, this is the quality of righteousness that God is looking for in a person, and that is infused by God's grace.
01:49:42
It's not because of David's own righteousness, although David himself says that after he has
01:49:47
God's grace and does his works, that he claims that it's his righteousness, because he's indeed cooperating with God's grace.
01:49:53
So, the same thing I want to zero in on is when David says, take not thy
01:49:59
Holy Spirit from me, and that's what we don't want to happen, but that's what happens when we commit mortal sin.
01:50:05
All right, Dr. White, you have one minute to rebut. I don't believe the Bible teaches anywhere that a person who is a son of God, who has been sealed by the
01:50:14
Holy Spirit of promise, would ever find himself in the pits of hell. A person who may have once claimed to be a son of God might indeed be there, but the fact of the matter is, those that Jesus sends into eternal punishment, he says, depart from me, for I never knew you.
01:50:31
Not I knew you once, and I don't know you any longer. Not I knew you, but you haven't remained faithful to me.
01:50:37
The statement the Lord Jesus makes is depart from me, for I never knew you.
01:50:42
The Spirit of God testifies to our spirits that we are the sons of God, and if we are sons, then we're joint heirs.
01:50:49
And the Spirit is the down payment that is placed upon us, and God is the one who promises that He will redeem
01:50:56
His own possession. We again see the difference between seeing salvation as something that God does by His power, or the cooperative effort of two different people.
01:51:07
Mr. St. Janice, your question to Dr. White? One of them's for the video, and one's for the area,
01:51:18
I think is what it is. So they sort of both have to be somewhere. There you go. Dr.
01:51:27
White, in Hebrews 11, verse 8, it says, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called out to a place which he was to receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was to go.
01:51:43
In verse 17, it says, By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son.
01:51:55
In verse 11, it says, By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.
01:52:06
Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven.
01:52:12
Now my question is, what do you do with the faith of Abraham in verse 8, since it refers to Genesis 12?
01:52:20
Since it seems as the Hebrew writer is writing about faith, they are all instances of genuine faith in Abraham, akin to all the other personages in Hebrews 11.
01:52:31
Dr. White? I interpret the justification of Abraham in the same way the
01:52:36
Apostle Paul does. In Romans chapter 4, he interprets Genesis 15, 6 as being the point in time when
01:52:45
Abraham is justified. And he demonstrates this when he says, after quoting from Psalm 32, is this blessing, and that blessing is not repentance, it's the blessing of imputational righteousness without works, is this blessing then on the circumcised or on the uncircumcised also?
01:53:02
For we say, faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness, again Genesis 15, 6.
01:53:08
How then was it credited, Paul asks, while he was circumcised or uncircumcised?
01:53:14
Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith, which he had while uncircumcised.
01:53:23
So Paul's entire point against the Judaizers in Romans 4 and his interpretation, the
01:53:29
Holy Spirit of God inspired interpretation of an Apostle of Jesus Christ of Genesis 15, 6, is that that was the point of justification, and if in point of fact
01:53:42
Abraham was justified multiple times, not only in Genesis 12 and in Genesis 15, but in Genesis chapter 22, then his opponents would be able to refute his argument by simply pointing out that justification was a process, and that justification later on did involve the works of law, or in that case, the receiving of the sign of circumcision.
01:54:04
So that is why I said in my opening statements to interpret the Apostle Paul in such a way, and to go to Genesis 12 as the
01:54:11
Apostle did not do, and say this is a place when he is justified, where the
01:54:16
Bible never says that he is, that is an assumption that we make, that assumption cannot be made because it is contradictory to the inspired interpretation of the text of Genesis provided in the text of the
01:54:27
New Testament in Romans chapter 4. Okay, Mr. St. Genesis, you have a minute to rebut.
01:54:32
This assumes that when Paul speaks about justification in Romans 4, that that is the only time that Abraham was justified.
01:54:39
Paul does not say that. All he says is that justification occurs before circumcision, but the fact remains that Genesis 12 occurred before circumcision as well.
01:54:50
And as I suspected, the verse in Genesis 12 was not dealt with, but it says here in Hebrews 8 that that was a faith of Abraham just like the faith in Genesis 15 and just like the faith in Genesis 22.
01:55:03
Furthermore, in the previous verses of Hebrews 11, it talks about Abel who offered a sacrifice by faith and God accepted it and took him to heaven.
01:55:13
Enoch walked with God by faith and God took him to heaven and Noah had faith and was a righteous person in God's eyes and by this saved his house and became an heir of righteousness.
01:55:24
So these men were all saved by that faith that they had and now he comes to Abraham in verse 8 and he says by faith
01:55:31
Abraham left this place, but you are telling me that that was not a justifiable faith even though Abel, Noah, and Enoch were already justified by that faith.
01:55:40
Dr. White, your second question. Mr. Jennings, I have asked this question of every Roman Catholic with whom
01:55:45
I have discussed justification. Given the Roman Catholic view that a justified person is not in possession of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed to him by faith, but has instead an infused righteous quality that can both grow as well as be destroyed by the commission of immortal sin, how can you say that you have peace with God, true shalom, the concept that would lie behind Paul's use of the
01:56:06
Greek term Irenaeus in Romans 5 .1 which reads, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our
01:56:13
Lord Jesus Christ. How can it be said we have true peace when in fact the war between man and God could re -erupt at any point when man commits immortal sin?
01:56:23
Because in our baptism in Romans 5 .1 it actually should be interpreted since being justified by faith, either we have peace with God or let us have peace with God because there's a
01:56:35
Greek variant here. The point of fact remains though is that when we are baptized we do have peace with God because that's the point of our justification.
01:56:42
So we're not biting our nails and wondering whether we're saved before we go to sleep at night. We can rest confidently on our pillow that we are indeed justified.
01:56:51
The only thing we do not know is whether we will remain faithful to God and not commit sin that God detests.
01:56:59
Because the Bible tells us in Ephesians 5 verse 5 and 1 Corinthians 6, 10 and 11 and Galatians 5 .21
01:57:05
that if we do commit those sins we will lose our inheritance which is what I had said on the previous question. So we do have peace with God and I think the burden is on the reformed position because the reformed position says that a person can live his whole life thinking that he is justified by faith and yet come to the point in time where he stands at the judgment seat of God and finds out that he did not have the works that qualify the faith to be justifying faith and therefore
01:57:33
God would say to him I'm sorry you were never justified in the first place. So if there's anyone that lives under a cloud of terror it's the reformed position because he never knows whether he did the proper works in order to qualify the faith that he needs for justification.
01:57:49
And this is especially important because the reformed position says that works can never enter into the faith that procures my justification because works are all in sanctification.
01:58:02
So if works can never enter into the faith that I need for justification how can they ever qualify the faith that I need for justification?
01:58:09
So he's in a double dilemma now. So in our Catholic theology yes we can rest very firmly that we are indeed justified and have peace with God.
01:58:20
Dr. White. Well I don't believe at all that when we say that our works somehow add to the process of justification how that could possibly give a person peace.
01:58:30
The peace that the reformed person has is the acceptance of the fact that there is only one type of righteousness that can avail before God.
01:58:39
And it is the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is given to us by faith not by any works that we can do.
01:58:45
If the idea is that we must do works to maintain God's gracious view of us if the idea is that we have to have works that somehow qualify our faith then there is no peace.
01:58:57
And since Rome does teach that there are mortal sins that you can commit that will sever that relationship then
01:59:03
God himself becomes your judge and the idea of terror really comes when you recognize that there is no way that you can know whether you have truly done all those things which are necessary for obtaining justification as Ludwig Gott says in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma.
01:59:20
So I don't see how that is an answer that explains how you have true peace and I'll stop right there.
01:59:28
Mr. St. Janice your second question. James, in James chapter 2 verse 25 he says this
01:59:39
And in the same way was not also Rahab the harlot justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way.
01:59:50
From your perspective could you explain why James uses that example and what it means in the context of justification with Abraham.
02:00:01
Certainly as I commented before the context of James chapter 2 is given to us in two ways.
02:00:09
Verse 14 tells us that this is a section where James is decrying the said faith the faith that exists only as words that individuals within the
02:00:20
Christian community were claiming. And then in verse 18 he uses the word show us demonstrate to us the reality of your faith without deeds.
02:00:30
You cannot do so. None of us can look upon the outward person and simply see that they truly have faith without what they do.
02:00:39
And so in each of the examples Abraham and then the example that you bring up we are able to see and I disagree with what you said earlier you said there was no man witnessing the act that Abraham undertook on the mountain.
02:00:51
I think you forgot about a man named Isaac who became a patriarch of Israel and I think he was probably present at the altar himself since he was the one being offered.
02:01:02
And so James' context is show me, show me. He's the Missouri apostle.
02:01:08
He says show me your faith. He wants to see the deeds and those deeds demonstrate that a person is righteous.
02:01:14
Indeed as I used the very translation that comes from Luke Timothy Johnson who is a
02:01:20
Roman Catholic scholar. In his commentary on James in the Anchor Bible commentary page 237 he is a former monk, a conservative opponent of the
02:01:30
Jesus Seminar professor of New Testament at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. And I would actually highly recommend his discussion of this particular passage because he recognizes that what
02:01:41
James and Paul are talking about are completely different contexts, completely different issues. So when Rahab did what she did she was demonstrating her righteousness.
02:01:51
She was demonstrating by what she did the consistency that must exist between true saving faith and the deeds of our lives.
02:01:59
If we do not have true saving faith that faith will not demonstrate itself. Mr. St.
02:02:05
James? First of all Isaac did not say now I know you fear God when
02:02:10
Abraham was going to stick the knife in his chest. It was God who said now I know you fear me.
02:02:16
So God was the witness to that work. Second of all you said that Rahab was demonstrating her righteousness and that is an impossibility because in Joshua chapter 2
02:02:26
Rahab had faith and works simultaneously. She was a harlot prior to the visit of the
02:02:32
Jews. She then repented of her sin and did the work of hiding the spies. So there is no demarcation between her faith and her works.
02:02:40
So there is no demonstration that you would have the same with Abraham where you separate Abraham's faith and his demonstration of that faith and works by several years.
02:02:49
And the import of this is the fact that James says in the same way that it was not
02:02:54
Rahab the harlot justified. So if she was justified without a demarcation between faith and works that has to be the same with Abraham else it would have two different justifications.
02:03:04
Dr. Wright your third question. It is your assertion in your book not by faith alone that justification is a process wherein our works play a role.
02:03:14
You likewise say that God chooses men upon the basis of seeing something in them that is pleasing to him.
02:03:19
Specifically on page 671 speaking of Esau of God's choice of Jacob over Esau you wrote election is intimately related to the individual's pleasing of God and quote hence love indicates that God has a personal liking of Jacob even though Jacob sometimes sinned.
02:03:37
We can understand God's personal liking of Jacob since scripture portrays his life as one of love and service to God while Esau is portrayed as godless and despicable from the beginning and quote
02:03:46
Could you please explain why your words contradict Paul's teaching in Romans 9, 11 through 13 where he taught that God chose
02:03:54
Jacob quote before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad not by works but by him who calls end quote as well as Paul's teaching in Romans 8, 7 through 8 that the unregenerate man is incapable of doing anything that is pleasing to God.
02:04:10
First of all the Bible never says that man is incapable of doing anything that is pleasing to God. Second of all in Romans chapter 9 when
02:04:19
Paul is talking about the Jews the Jews were the very ones in verse 32 that Paul said tried to get to heaven by their works.
02:04:26
The principal work being circumcision and ritual sacrifices and all those kinds of things. And so Paul has to take the argument back to the beginning where Jacob in his mother's womb had no chance to do ceremonial works had no chance to do any ritual which the
02:04:42
Jews were claiming as their own before God. God says I chose him based on my own criterion which is not what the
02:04:50
Jews were claiming before God. They had claimed that because of circumcision and other things that God owed them salvation.
02:04:56
So God says no that's impossible because God chose Jacob before all that could take place in his life.
02:05:02
Now Paul then quotes from Exodus 33 in Romans chapter 9 when he talks about I will have mercy upon whom
02:05:10
I have mercy and compassion on whom I have compassion which is taken from the conversation
02:05:15
God has with Moses. Now Moses was in that chapter the very one that God was pleased with and God says in verse 11 of Exodus 33 that God spoke to Moses face to face and then in verse 17 he says
02:05:32
I am pleased with you and I know you by name and therefore
02:05:37
I have compassion on whom I have compassion and will have mercy upon whom I have mercy. So right from the very passage that Paul quotes in Exodus 33 he shows us the very reason why
02:05:49
God chose mercy and that's because of his relationship with Moses as opposed to his relationship with Israel who had sinned by worshipping the golden calf.
02:05:57
Alright Dr. White you have one minute. First of all Romans chapter 8 verses 7 -8 says because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even able to do so and those who are in the flesh cannot please
02:06:13
God. My question was how is it that a person an unregenerate person cannot do anything that is pleasing to God and Romans 8 -8 says that such a person cannot do so.
02:06:23
In Exodus 33 if you look at the actual text you will discover that Moses' choice by God was not based upon Moses being pleasing to God.
02:06:33
The specific thing that it says is that he found chesed loving kindness, mercy, grace in the eyes of God and the emphasis in Exodus 33 is upon God's free choice of Moses not that Moses was somehow better than someone else.
02:06:48
God's election and choice is always based upon his freedom never upon anything that is in the creature man.
02:06:56
Mr. St. James you have a third question. Dr. White in Psalm 106 verse 30 and 31 it says this
02:07:04
Then Phineas stood up and interposed and the plague was stayed and that has been reckoned to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.
02:07:15
Now in this phrase reckoned to him as righteousness we have the same exact Hebrew phrasing as used in Genesis 15 -6 when
02:07:23
Abraham was credited with righteousness. The difference in this passage in Psalm 106 is that Phineas is credited with righteousness because of his works whereas Abraham was credited with righteousness because of his faith.
02:07:36
Can you explain that from your perspective please? Again I think we find the very very important issue in this debate being illustrated and that is the argument is not in this case with the quote unquote
02:07:49
Protestant interpretation. The argument here is with Paul's interpretation. Paul's interpretation in Romans chapter 4 is that Abraham was justified by faith without works of righteousness.
02:08:01
This passage is not cited by any New Testament writer in the context of discussion of how a man is made right before God.
02:08:08
In fact interestingly enough the same is true with Hebrews chapter 11 which is not about the same subject.
02:08:14
We see again the vital importance of doing exegesis on the basis of the context of what is being discussed.
02:08:21
If Psalm 106 was cited by a New Testament writer and the discussion was see here is another means.
02:08:27
There is a secondary means. Here is an added way in which a person is made right before God then we might have a reason for thinking it was relevant.
02:08:35
Instead since the New Testament writers, the inspired writers and I do not believe that there is any infallible interpretation of Psalm 106 in Roman Catholic writings by the way so we are just talking about our own interpretations here.
02:08:49
If it were to be raised in the New Testament then we could discuss it. But since it is not raised in the
02:08:54
New Testament then we look at Psalm 106 and we recognize that the term righteousness is used both morally and judicially in the
02:09:01
Old Testament and in this particular instance it would be used in that moral sense. And since the
02:09:07
Apostle Paul did not feel knowing of course as he did that the passage existed that it was in any way shape or form relevant to a discussion of how a man is made righteous before God the
02:09:18
Holy Spirit does not guide him to bring it up to interpret it or to present it as being a means of justification and to my knowledge neither has the
02:09:26
Roman Catholic Church in any infallible documents whatsoever. And so the argument I would insist is against Paul's interpretation in Romans 4 and I simply follow after his interpretation itself.
02:09:39
The Catholic Church not only brings up Phineas in the Council of Trent but it brings up Cornelius, Zacharias, Elizabeth and many other figures to prove its doctrine of justification.
02:09:49
And I think the problem with Dr. White's position is he puts Scripture at odds with itself. He says that Paul can't refer to Psalm 106 verse 30 and 31 because that would be a contradiction.
02:09:59
As a matter of fact that's what Reformed theologian John Murray also says that Paul can't refer to it because it would contradict his argument.
02:10:07
But then what happens is you put Scripture at odds with itself. Why is the verse there then is the question.
02:10:14
Scripture cannot contradict itself and Paul does not contradict himself. We saw in Romans 2 verses 6 to 8 that Paul says that by the works that they do, doing good, they will attain eternal life.
02:10:25
He says that the doers of the law will be justified. He says in Romans 14 verses 10 through 12 that they will stand before the judgment seat to be judged by their works and they will gain eternal life or eternal damnation because of that.
02:10:37
Also in 2 Corinthians 5 .10. So Paul does not disagree with Phineas in Psalm 106.
02:10:43
Your final question Dr. White. Mr. Genesis, this evening you have presented your particular view of the
02:10:51
Roman Catholic position. And yet only two months ago I sat in the exact same position in the state of Utah and debated an
02:10:59
RCIA instructor who told me that you can use the phraseology
02:11:05
St. Martin Luther. You can pray to Martin Luther that the Catholic Church has agreed with everything the
02:11:10
Reformers believed in including forensic justification. He handed me the documents, including those documents signed last year in regards to the
02:11:19
Lutheran -Catholic accord, said that we could talk about forensic justification. In fact, he used sola fide, sola scriptura, and sola deo gloria as being representative of the
02:11:30
Roman Catholic faith. So in essence, my question to you is that as you interpret passages of Scripture and present passages of Scripture this evening, upon what basis can you tell us that this is in fact the official
02:11:42
Roman Catholic position and that we should accept the weight of that authority in examining these things?
02:11:54
Well, if the comparison that you're trying to draw is between an RCIA teacher who obviously doesn't know his
02:12:01
Catholic faith and the Council of Trent and the Catholic catechism and Augustine and Aquinas and all the other councils that I quote in Not By Faith Alone, well, you've made an easy task for me because there are many
02:12:13
Catholics out there who don't understand their Catholic faith, and they would probably be better as Protestants, and that's a well -known fact.
02:12:21
I don't quote anybody teaching RCIA classes in Not By Faith Alone. You'll find that if you read the book carefully,
02:12:28
I quote only from the official sources, the official dogmatic sources of the Catholic Church, the primary reference being the
02:12:35
Council of Trent, which gave us our definitive doctrine of justification. So, I mean, that's relatively easy.
02:12:43
There's going to be all kinds of people out there with all kinds of ideas about justification in the
02:12:49
Catholic world, and they're part of my audience too. I have to teach them as well as I have to teach other people about it, so I have a big task ahead of me.
02:12:59
But just to answer your question very simply, whenever we back up what we're saying about justification, we go to the official dogmatic sources, and I think you know what they are.
02:13:09
Dr. White? Yes, sir, I do know what they are, but that really wasn't my question because he likewise handed me all sorts of official documents from the
02:13:16
Catholic Church as well, some of which claim to interpret the Council of Trent. When you write a book, you're interpreting the
02:13:22
Council of Trent, you're interpreting the Catholic Catechism or things like that. I agree with you. That's where we should go. But the fact of the matter is, once those things are put in writing, they are then subject to interpretation, and there are all sorts of interpretations by Roman Catholic scholars and leaders out there on these very issues.
02:13:39
There are Roman Catholics today who are saying the Council of Trent allowed for forensic justification. You say in your book the
02:13:45
Council of Trent did not allow. There were books written within 20 years of the Council of Trent by participants at the
02:13:51
Council of Trent disagreeing with one another as to what they said. And so in each one of these instances, my question
02:13:58
I think still is, how do we know that your interpretation of those documents is the correct interpretation of those documents over against a person who is instructing in the official capacity in the
02:14:09
Church as well? Okay. Mr. Stengenitz, your final question? Mr.
02:14:14
White, in 1 Timothy 2, verse 4, it says, Also, in 1
02:14:35
John 2, verse 1 and 2, it says, Could you explain those two passages in light of your
02:14:53
Reformed perspective, please? Dr. White? You'll be glad to know there's almost an entire chapter in the
02:14:58
Potter's Freedom on those exact passages that you mentioned. 1 Timothy chapter 2 begins by talking about prayers made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority.
02:15:09
Those are classes of men, kings and all who are in authority. And the consistent interpretation of 1
02:15:15
Timothy 2 then is that when it says this is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and comes to knowledge of the truth is to know that he then says,
02:15:24
For there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ does not intercede for those that he fails to save, that the all men that is used here is all kinds of men, kings and those in authority.
02:15:38
And the same is true in 1 John 2 where John himself gives us many indications that he's talking about kinds of men when, for example, in Revelation chapter 5 he says that the
02:15:47
Lamb has purchased with his blood men from every tribe, tongue, people and nation and has made them a kingdom of priests unto our
02:15:55
God. I think this actually gets us right back to the issue of the debate this evening because Revelation chapter 5 says that Jesus Christ, by his sacrifice, by his blood purchases men for God and has made them a kingdom of priests unto
02:16:11
God. Not he has given them an opportunity, not he tries real hard and he's succeeded with some but he's failed with others, but the work of creating the elect of God by his redemptive work is something he is able to accomplish.
02:16:27
He actually accomplishes it without having to depend on anyone else's assistance. That is the theocentric message of the scriptures in regards to the gospel and if we then focus solely upon man we miss that very important emphasis and that is
02:16:42
God is the one who saves. Salvation is of the Lord. Jonah knew that a long time ago and we proclaim it again today as well.
02:16:49
Mr. Sugenis, you have a minute. Obviously, Dr. White doesn't,
02:16:58
I think, deal with the very explicit nature of these two passages because it does say who desires all men to be saved and the way the
02:17:07
Reformed position would interpret this is by saying God desires all the elect to be saved not every man in the world and therefore we feel there is a contradiction in his theology because in the
02:17:18
Catholic theology we do say yes, Christ was a propitiation for everyone and that is why we say they all have the opportunity to be saved which coincides perfectly with 1
02:17:29
Timothy 2 .4 and 1 John 2 .1 Now as far as the theocentric or anthropocentric understanding of salvation
02:17:37
I would say this in John 6 .39 -40 And this is the will of him who sent me that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me but raise it up on the last day for this is the will of my
02:17:47
Father that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life and I will raise him up on the last day so they have the opportunity to believe
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Finally, and we'll have questions after this but we're going to take 10 minutes for each of the debaters for a closing statement and we'll begin with Dr.
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White I truly thank all of you for being here this evening
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I thank you for your attentiveness and if you have to leave now we do understand but I hope you'll stick around so that we can have our final opportunities of presenting our case to you
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Very briefly I'd like to respond to just a few things and then close Yes, David in Psalm 32 was speaking of himself
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I never said otherwise However, my point was that if, and I invite you to do this if you will go home and you will take your
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Bible and you will read Romans chapter 4 you will discover that the Apostle Paul quotes from David but he doesn't apply the words specifically to David instead he's making a much broader point that is, he said even
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David spoke of the blessedness that is upon the man to whom God imputes not infuses imputes righteousness apart from works and that is the blessedness of the gospel that is at stake this evening the
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Holy Spirit -led Apostle interpreted those words for us and I believe that we must follow apostolic example as it's found in Scripture Now many passages have been cited to you let me give you an example
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He who endures to the end will be saved, Jesus taught there are two ways of interpreting these passages there is the prescriptive way and the descriptive way there are those who look at these passages and say this is a prescription this prescribes how it is that a man is to be made right with God by enduring to the end we gain salvation that's the prescriptive way the other is the descriptive way and that is that these describe those that God in His grace draws unto
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Himself so that those who endure to the end are those who are the objects of His electing grace and in fact the only ones who endure to the end are those who have that gift of saving faith which has been given to them by God He will render to each man according to His works yes indeed
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He will how will you do if you stand on the basis of your works if you stand before Him tonight and you know that the standard and you know the
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Holy Spirit of God will convict your heart of what the standard is if you know the standard is not mere repentance it is perfection how will you do yes there is a judgment of believers in regards to their works but it's not the judgment of salvation you see
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Jesus says those who believed in Him have already passed out of death into life they've already experienced judgment and you know when they experience judgment
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Paul said in Galatians 2 .20 I have been crucified with Christ that's when
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I experienced the judgment for the eternal nature of my sins because God in His gracious mercy not for anything in me not because He foresaw anything in me but solely to the praise of His glory and grace united me with His Son Jesus Christ by grace so that His death is mine and His life is mine
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I would like to read to you the words of an ancient Christian he is explaining why
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Christ came into the world so late and he says this was not that he at all delighted in our sins but that he simply endured them nor that he approved the time of working iniquity which then was but that he sought to form a mind conscious of righteousness so that being convinced in that time that of our own unworthiness of attaining life through our own works it should now through the kindness of God be vouchsafed to us and having made it manifest that in ourselves we were unable to enter into the kingdom of God we might through the power of God be made able but when our wickedness had reached its height and it had been clearly shown that its reward punishment and death was impending over us and when the time had come which
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God had before appointed for manifesting His own kindness and power how the one love of God through exceeding regard for men did not regard us with hatred nor thrust us away nor remember our iniquity against us but showed great long suffering and bore with us he himself took on him the burden of our iniquities he gave his own son as a ransom for us the holy one for transgressors the blameless one for the wicked the righteous one for the unrighteous the incorruptible one for the corruptible the immortal one for them that are mortal for what other thing was capable of covering our sins than his righteousness by what other one was it possible that we the wicked and ungodly could be justified than by the only son of God oh sweet exchange oh unsearchable operation oh benefit surpassing all expectation that the wickedness of many should be hid in a single righteous one and that the righteousness of one should justify many transgressors having therefore convinced us in the former time that our nature was unable to attain to life and having now revealed the savior who was able to save even those things which it was formerly impossible to save by both these facts he desired to lead us to trust in his kindness to esteem him our nourisher father, teacher, counselor healer in wisdom, light honor, glory, power in life you see a man who wrote an epistle to Dionysius at the beginning of the second century long long ago understood the imputation of the righteousness of Christ the imputation of my sin to Christ so he becomes my sin bearer all of my sins imputed to him and his perfect righteousness imputed to me he understood what
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Paul meant when he spoke of being justified freely by faith without works that is what
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I want you to understand you see when we discuss the difference between what it is to believe that God saves perfectly and saying well
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God tries to save God makes a way of salvation available and he really wants people to take advantage of it but in reality when we boil it all down it's up to man it's a very common message and I know
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I place myself in the minority today to dispute it but I have to because it's not the
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Bible's message fundamentally I can understand very well this evening the words of the
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Apostle Paul I cannot with wisdom of words with craftiness of speech or anything else convince your heart of the necessity of believing that grace and grace alone without any mixture is what saves you
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I can't do that but you know what my confidence is? My confidence is that any heart that is experiencing the conviction of the
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Holy Spirit of God of sin knows knows that there's nothing
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I can add to what Christ has done that's my confidence I don't have to add anything to it
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I can simply reiterate to you the fact that the Bible teaches that God saves grace is free faith is a gift justification is something in the
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Apostle Paul's argument in Romans 4 if you allow his argument to stand on its own it is something we look back upon and so when
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I say that I have peace with God this evening I do not rest in complacency it was a very costly peace it was a peace that cost the judge his son that is why
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Paul can say who will bring a charge against God's elect this evening we've been told oh but if you look at this passage here yes you can bring a charge against God's elect but there is no answer to Paul's question no one can bring a charge against God's elect because it is
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God himself who is the judge who has brought down the gavel and on the basis of the perfect work of Christ and their behalf has said not guilty because you're in my son and he ever lives to make intercession for them
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God centered gospel focused on what God does in Christ versus a man centered gospel focused upon what we attempt to do prompted by grace that is the issue this evening
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I entrust it in the very hands of the living God thank you and Mr.
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St. Denis you have a final ten minutes thank you
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Dr. White let me make a few comments about what you said and then try to wrap things up here you said that the
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Bible speaks about the imputation of Christ's righteousness now
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I would suggest that if you're interested in delving into this assertion that you look in my book
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Not By Faith Alone and see the Greek word that Paul uses here for credited, reckoned, imputed sometimes it's translated differently by different versions it's the
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Greek word logizomai and if you look this word up you'll find that it means nothing regarding imputation because imputation is defined as seeing in something, seeing in someone something that is not really there that has to be given to him from an alien source but this word logizomai in the
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Greek is used exactly the opposite way in the New Testament it refers to actually seeing something in the person recognizing something intrinsic in the person itself look that up in your concordance and you'll see that the
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Protestant interpretation of this word is totally wrong Dr. White never gave us one good reason why
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Romans 4 cannot refer to David himself as well as everyone else he tried desperately to separate everyone else who receives this righteousness from David and the reason why is because he has to he cannot have
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David be the recipient of this justification because that would show that justification is not a one time forensic event it is a process we can back this up also in Romans 1 17 where Paul says the just shall live by faith and he's referring to the little book of Habakkuk in Habakkuk chapter 2 verse 4
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Habakkuk uses the same phrase and the book of Habakkuk is only three chapters long and if you read that book you will not find one hint of forensic legal imputation of righteousness at all what you will find is a man who has to believe in God despite the fact that God is not judging
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Israel as soon as he would like him to judge it and that's the Catholic concept of faith he has to remain strong in his faith despite all the circumstances around him that say
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God is not who he says he is that is the Catholic concept there is no legal imputation in Habakkuk Dr.
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White talked about he who endures to the end will be saved and said that we can't interpret it the way that it stands the
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Greek will not allow that to happen we have to interpret it as a conditional that's the way the
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Greek gives it to us if you endure to the end you will be saved he talked about saving faith let me pose this to you if you are justified by faith alone most
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Protestants agree that it has to be good faith or what they would call saving faith faith that produces good works if so then someone must judge the quality of your faith to see if it qualifies as saving faith that judges
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God but if God were to judge your faith by his perfect standards your faith would not be acceptable to him look at Abraham's lapses of faith in Genesis 16 and Genesis 17 obviously his faith wasn't perfect was it?
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but God accepted it he accepted Abraham's faith for justification through his grace not through looking at Abraham's faith through his perfect standards of law because no one's faith could measure up to God's expectations if it was judged by the perfect standards of God God has to look at his faith through grace but this is precisely how
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Catholics say that God looks at our works through his grace in fact the Catholic theology teaches that God looks at both our faith and our works through his grace and that's why he can accept them if he judged either our faith or our works by the law by his perfect standards no one could measure up to God there is a fallacy in Protestant thinking that James when he speaks about works is talking merely about the fruit of faith that is not true the impression is given is that works automatically flow once you have the faith you will find
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James never teaching that in his book the impression is given that as soon as you press the button of faith that the works automatically run down the conveyor belt and that is not what
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James teaches as a matter of fact the whole book of James is an admonition to stop sinning and to do good works that's what he talks about the works are not automatic they don't inevitably flow from your faith it takes hard effort as a matter of fact in James 2 verse 1 he says you are all believers you all have faith but what's your problem you are showing favoritism to the man who is rich and denying the man who is poor now are those works automatically flowing from them automatically do they love the poor man no that's the problem and that's why he says in verse 14 the issue is if you have this faith but you don't love this poor man can you be saved that is the issue at stake and as far as the standard of perfection is concerned in James chapter 2 verse 13
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James says seek to be judged by the law that shows mercy the law of liberty that's exactly what the
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Catholic theology teaches James says seek to be judged by God's liberty and freedom his grace because if he has to judge you by law you will never be able to reach his perfect standards of righteousness and you will be condemned and who are those that end up under the judgment of law it's the sinners those who commit murder and adultery in verses 10, 11, and 12 of James chapter 2 they will be judged by the law and they will never measure up to God's righteousness therefore he says seek to be judged by mercy in verse 2 .13
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John 5 .24 was mentioned it says we passed out of judgment but that is the judgment of eternal damnation because in the next verses in John 5 .28
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and 29 which I mentioned three times tonight it says that those who have done good will receive the resurrection of life and those who have done evil will receive the resurrection of damnation so four verses later after the verse
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Dr. White quoted it says we will be judged by our works now he mentioned also without works that we're justified without works and I have already agreed with that tonight but I made a grand distinction and that distinction is that Paul is talking about works of debt if someone says
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God you owe me for what I have done despite the fact that I don't like you or want to serve you or have hope in you you owe me as if I am your employee
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Paul says that's anathema God will never accept that God wants faith why?
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Because faith is a personal relationship it believes in God for who God is and that's what
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God wants because he's a personal being God does not want work stuck in his face because that means you don't care about God all you care about is your paycheck now
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Elizabeth and Zachariah as I already mentioned in Luke chapter 1 verse 6 were called blameless and righteous by God himself for obeying the commandments and Noah the same was blameless in his day and Job it said he was the righteous man in the east and David and Abraham you can go through all the list and David says that by my works
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God acquits me in Psalm 18 we saw that as well so all through the
02:37:20
Bible we see men doing works that God enjoys how can God enjoy them?
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Not by his perfect standards but by his eyes of grace in Zachariah chapter 1 verse 3 dealing with this idea of theocentric or anthropocentric
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God himself says Israel turn to me and I will turn to you the very verse used by St.
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Augustine to show that yes there is a free will man has and God gives us the grace to have that free will now who has the sovereign
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God? the one who has the sovereign God is not the one who has to take free will out of the picture so that God can be sovereign the sovereign
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God is the one who can give you free will and still control all the details of life that's being sovereign that's the very potent
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God that we have in Catholicism and Dr.
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White said nothing I can add to what Christ has done there is nothing I can add to what
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Christ has done Amen we agree with that only Christ could give the sacrifice to the father to open up the gates of heaven
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I could not do that you could not do that only he was righteous only he was perfect to do that job so we don't add anything to what
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Christ did all we do is follow in his footsteps to please the father so the father knows that we have accepted what
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Christ has done we don't bring a charge against God's elect not at all no one can do that but we do obey what the bible says thank you we've got a few minutes
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Dr. White and Mr. St. Genesis will entertain some questions we have a microphone in the front here if you would kindly identify yourself and again because of the lateness of the hour we would urge you to keep your questions short to the point no sermons or sermonettes and sir go ahead my name is
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Paul Rothermel I'm a Roman Catholic priest I'm a convert from Evangelicalism and there is a verse in the bible that I would like James White first to comment on and then
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Bob St. Genesis a verse that seems to me to have great potential for the Catholic position it's in a book of the bible that didn't get much mention tonight it is 1st
02:39:55
Corinthians chapter 6 verse 11 and it goes this way and that is what some of you were but you were washed you were sanctified you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ and by the spirit of our God that's from the new international version my concern
02:40:15
Dr. White so that I can direct your comments is I find it very interesting that we are justified in the spirit or by the spirit you projected a view of justification that is extrinsic outside the person in the mind of God what does the spirit have to do with that and secondly
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I notice the order of salvation here there is the washing of baptism and then there is a sanctification that allows a person to be declared righteous because he is righteous so how do you treat that Dr.
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White and then Mr. St. Genesis I take it
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I'm being ignored we're just trying to organize a response here you would like Dr.
02:41:23
White to respond and you would also like Dr. St. Genesis I would like Dr. St. Genesis to respond as well we have a long line of questionnaires and so we would like to establish a time to respond to it within some time constraints without cutting you short and feeling as though you're ignored how about a minute for each of them that would be fine if we can do it in that order of time let's do that I think how we did it last year is the person who has asked the question has a minute to respond and then the other person has 30 seconds to comment that's what we were trying to remember how we worked it all out that's all we were trying to do, no one was trying to ignore you 1
02:42:09
Corinthians 6 verses 9 through 11 Paul is talking here about the fact that Christians are not fornicators idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals sodomites or anyone else he says however, and such were some of you that is they engaged in that but you were washed, but you were sanctified but you were justified in the name of the
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Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God all of these actions are actions that God undertakes I do not believe there is an order of salutis presented here that is an order of salvation
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Paul nowhere indicates that this is somehow an order that you somehow have to follow especially since he himself in Romans chapter 8 presented a very clear order of salvation
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I'm not sure what you meant by the spirit of our God as if that is somehow relevant to the question the point is that the washing the sanctification and the justification of these former sinners was all accomplished by God and not by anything that they themselves did that is his point and I feel it's extremely supportive of everything
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I've said this evening ok, I just wanted to say that it ends by saying you were justified in the name of Jesus and by the spirit of our
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God let Mr. St. Jonas answer in order to do this orderly we don't disagree that God does it because nothing we can do is going to give us justification
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God has to start the process we all agree with that, so there is no problem with that as a matter of fact, the word washed here refers to baptism, that's a complete act of God, God gives grace through baptism that's why
02:43:39
Paul uses the word washed and I don't know if you've noticed, he uses sanctified which comes before justified and this is the only place in the
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New Testament where sanctified and justified are used in the same verse and it happens to be that sanctified comes before justified and that's the
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Catholic position because we believe that the sanctification and justification occur simultaneously and never stop is that my 30 seconds?
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alright, next question please My name is Steve Sherman, I'm a Jewish believer in Jesus as our
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Lord and Savior first I'd like to direct this to St. James Jesus himself said when his apostles were kind of annoyed about him blessing little children he said, suffer the little children of me and forbid them not to such as the kingdom of heaven, in light of Jesus' own word, which is unless you come to me as a little child you will not enter the kingdom of heaven what kind of good works does an infant do?
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as far as I understand, infants are totally dependent upon their parents I don't think in that passage he's referring specifically to infants,
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I think he's referring to be like this child in humility he's using the children as an object lesson for the adults who are proud who think they know everything who think
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God owes them something he says no, it's the same thing he told to the Jews you can't get to heaven by thinking that God owes you something, you have to be humble like this little child, so it's just an object lesson,
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I don't think you can draw out what you're drawing from it well
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I think again it goes back to the issue of what is a sinner capable of doing before he is justified and I don't believe a sinner is capable of anything because he is dead in his transgressions and sins, he's an enemy of God, he's opposed to everything that's good and right and any good that exists in anyone is due to the fact that God has placed it there by his grace to then say that we are then chosen on the basis of God seeing that goodness in us,
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I just don't believe that the New Testament can possibly allow for that kind of viewpoint to exist. Next question please.
02:45:50
My name is Bobby Goodwin and I would like Mr. St. Janice to comment on Romans 10, 9 through 10 which says that if you confess with your mouth that the
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Lord Jesus can believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes righteousness and with the mouth one confesses and is made to salvation.
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Is there a way to comment on it? Do you have a specific question? No, just a comment. Just a comment? Okay. Well, we believe this as Catholics that if you do confess with your mouth and believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, you will be saved.
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Now, the interesting about this is if you go back and you look at the place from which Paul is quoting
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Deuteronomy chapter 32 he paraphrases Deuteronomy 32 because Deuteronomy 32 talks about obeying
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God's commandments. And Paul paraphrases this and says that it's by faith. And so what
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Paul is doing is coinciding faith in Jesus with obeying the commandments.
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So they're one in the same with Paul. So if your implication in asking the question was that it's only by faith,
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I would suggest you go back and read Deuteronomy 32 and find out the full context of this. And you'll notice that he doesn't use the words faith alone here.
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We as Catholics will have no problem in saying a man is justified by faith. Just not faith alone.
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Because when we said Paul is denying works, what kind of works is he denying?
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He's denying works of debt. That's the issue. Dr. Boyd, you want to comment? The Apostle Paul did not use the terminology that's been used tonight in regards to strict legalism, eyes of grace, all of these things are unbiblical phrases that have been thrown about a lot.
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The fact of the matter is Paul says that we establish the law by faith. What he means is the function of the law was to show us our sin, and it still is.
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And there is no law by which we can then be justified in God's sight. Romans 2 already hasn't been shown to be taken out of that context.