Oneness Mini Debate/Further Response to Derek Frank

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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And welcome to Dividing Line on a Monday afternoon. We are going to do things differently this week because, well, it's

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Thanksgiving week and I leave on Friday for Kiev and Berlin, and so we'll try to do the

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Dividing Line today and Wednesday, so we'll still get two programs in. Don't know what we'll be doing next week yet, but the powers that be, we'll have to deal with that.

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On the program today, what we're supposed to be doing is having a discussion for part of the program on the subject of oneness.

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We don't have the person we're supposed to be talking to yet on the phone. Hopefully he will call in very soon because I only want to spend about 40 minutes on that.

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But what we've decided to do is to discuss a total of four texts of scripture, two that he has chosen, two that I have chosen.

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My suggestion would be to allow the person who has chosen that particular text to start off, have about three minutes to discuss that particular text, make their points on it.

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The other person has three minutes to make their points, maybe a two -minute response from each side, move on to the next text.

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That would put us right at about 40 minutes, which would work out just right. So hopefully that's what we'll be doing, but as I said, at the moment, we don't have any phone calls to allow us to do that.

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And those texts, by the way, if you'd like to look them up so that eventually if we get to do this, we'll look at them, is

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Mark 13 .32 was one that was suggested or asked for, but of that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven or the son, but the father alone, a classic text that one must deal with when speaking with, well, any

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Unitarians whatsoever. I will be interested in seeing exactly.

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My concern is that I'm not a hundred percent certain where people are coming from on this.

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And so I sort of need to know a little bit more about it. The other is 1 Corinthians 15 .28, then I've asked to talk about John 17 .5

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and Philippians chapter two, verses six through eight.

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So am I correct to. OK, good. So let's. There's my cursor, let's.

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Let's put Manuel on the air here first, Manuel, I'm not sure if you heard what

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I was saying, my my suggestion would be that we each take about three minutes on each of the texts and then we'll have a two minute response to what the other person says, and that should take us about 40 minutes.

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Sounds sound like a plan. Sounds good to me. OK, do you want me to go first or do you want to start with Mark 13 .32?

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Why don't you go first, Dr. White? All right. Well, what I'll do then is, you know,

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Rich, I I forgot to would you grab the timer because I left it sitting on the in the other room.

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So you'll have to let me know because I forgot. Well, actually, just bring bring one of the two in here. I apologize for that.

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I was going to get a different one that was quieter. But unfortunately, I the other one's quieter.

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I have so many timers that I've bought over the years for debates and they just eventually just sort of sit around and multiply.

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But thank you. Thank you. I don't know if you have anything, but I'll I'll let you know we get close to the time

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I have. I have programs to do this, too. I just don't have them up at the moment. So we'll do is one of the two texts that I suggested was

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John chapter 17, verse five. So I will I will start with that.

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I'll talk about that for three minutes. Then Manuel will be able to talk about it for three minutes.

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I'll have two minutes to respond to what he said. I'll have two minutes to respond to what I said, and then we'll move on. Maybe the best to split them up.

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So then we'll move on to Mark 13, 32. Let him go with that. Then I'll do

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Philippians two and then he can finish up with First Corinthians. So I think that that would probably be a fair way to do it.

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OK, well, I'm going to start my own timer here. And the text is

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John chapter 17, verse five. It's in Jesus's prayer to the father.

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Now, father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

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The text very clearly has two persons speaking. You have in the preceding context,

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Jesus had identified the father is the only true God in John 17, three.

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This is eternal life. They may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So to have eternal life is to know both.

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And then the son, as the son refers to the father and says, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory which

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I had with you before the world was. So very clearly what you have here are two divine persons.

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One is now incarnate upon the earth and is praying to the other.

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And speaking of a time when these two divine persons together shared the glory.

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This is which the glory which I had with you before the world was. So here is an individual who recognizes his own glorious existence prior to the incarnation and is speaking to another divine person about that situation.

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And here at the conclusion of his public ministry in the situation of the betrayal about to take place, he says, father, glorify me together with yourself, the glory which

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I had with you before the world was. There really can be no question in light of the use of the pronouns that you have two persons speaking to each other.

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And the person that we would identify as the son speaks of a time prior to Bethlehem, in fact, before the world was, when he was glorious in the presence of the father.

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Very clearly, what you have, therefore, is two divine persons mentioned here.

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You have the pre -existence of the son, not merely an idealized pre -existence, but a personal pre -existence in the presence of the father.

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You see para soy in the original language. And so a para say auto in your presence that this is where the glory was had.

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So you have this very clearly presented here in John chapter 17. The prayers of Jesus are filled with these personal identifications of one person, another person.

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And so this is one of the many texts that has to be kept in mind and understood in formulating or understanding in our doctrine of God.

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We can't simply dismiss them. We need to hear what they have to say and allow them to speak. So there's my three minutes on the subject of John 17, 5.

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And so I'll stop. There we go. I'll set the timer for three minutes.

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And Manuel, your thoughts on John chapter 17, verse 5. OK, thank you,

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Dr. White. Yeah, watch that close for me, because I have no idea. Being on my phone is my timer.

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But anyhow, the continued context of John 17, you know, you're going straight to John 17, 5.

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And you know, that's a passage that Trinitarians use to try to prove text pre -existence.

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But I think, I believe the continued context tells us, especially in verse 22 and 24, going to verse 22 first, it says,

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And the glory which you gave me, Father, I've given them that they may be one, even as we are one.

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I in them and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved me, loved them as you have loved me.

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Father, I will that they also whom you have given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory.

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Now, the glory that Jesus is speaking about is not a literal pre -existing glory.

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When Jesus is talking about his glory, he's talking about what the whole world was waiting upon was redemption, the plan of redemption, the plan of God through the ages being fulfilled in time from eternity.

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And that's what John spoke about in John 17, 5, and that's what he spoke about in Revelation 13, 8, and that's what he spoke about in John 7, 39.

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Jesus stood up on that great day of the feast and said, the Holy Ghost was not yet given, for Jesus was not yet glorified.

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His glory was in being slain, and the plan was going to be fulfilled, and the disciples were about to witness that glory before their eyes.

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The plan of the ages fulfilled and unfolded before their eyes, and it was going to be their redemption.

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And Jesus was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. That was the glory that he was speaking of, that the

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Father had from the foundation of the world, was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

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I don't know how much time I have, but... About 30 seconds. I'm sorry? About 30 seconds.

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Okay. Well, in a nutshell, that's what the oneness position is. The glory that Jesus spoke of was not a literal pre -existing glory of the

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Son, because the Son was born of Mary. Was the Son born of the Virgin or not? Okay.

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Okay? That's my time. Alright, thank you. Alright, so I'm going to take two minutes to respond to that.

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And very briefly, I just simply point out that the text says nothing about this being a gospel plan or anything else.

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In fact, Jesus' words are very clear. The glory which I had. Hey, Icon.

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Pra -tu -tan -kas -man. So, the glory which I had before the world was.

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So, this is a divine person saying, I had glory before the world was in your presence,

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Father. There really isn't any way around this. You can try to go to other texts and try to idealize it and say, well, this has to do with a plan or things like that.

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But this is all eisegesis. This is an exegesis. Manuel has to explain how

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Jesus, the Son, says, hey, icon in John 17 5.

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You just have to explain that. It's right there. There's no textual variation involved.

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It's right there in the midst of the text. And so, you have one person specifically stating to another person who he identifies as the

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Father. Distinction from the Father and yet the clear deity of the person who was glorious before the world was.

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And I would simply submit that the oneness position has never been able to provide a meaningful understanding of this.

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What you just got is pretty much what everyone has done. So, Manuel has done what his group does and that is to say, well, it's this idealized idea of this great plan or things like that.

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But that's not what Jesus said. That's not what icon means. And if he can show me a place in the New Testament where icon could be used in that way, where a plan speaks in that fashion, then we'd have a basis upon which to discuss it.

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But I don't think such a passage exists. But we'll leave that to him to tell us.

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There's my two minutes and stop and clear. And this thing is weird.

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And your two minutes, Manuel. Go ahead. Okay, thank you, Dr. White. Yeah, no, a plan is not going to say anything.

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The plan was from the pre -existing God, like in your debate with Roger Perkins.

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Roger Perkins said you don't start with a roof and build that way. You start with a plan and you build that way.

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So, in verse 23 of John 17, this is said, the same type literal language that Jesus uses in John 17 5.

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He says, I and them and you and me, that they may be made perfect in one, that the world may know that you've sent me and you've loved them and you've loved me.

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Father, I will, that they also, whom you've given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which you have given me, for you love me before the foundation of the world.

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Now, back in verse 22, it says, the glory which you gave me, I've given them. In verse 22, what glory did he give them?

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Did he literally give them glory? He's using the same literal language you're talking about in verse 5.

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He says, I've given them glory. What glory was that, Dr. White? That glory was a glory that was coming that had not yet been fulfilled.

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As John 7 39 says, the Holy Spirit was not yet given for Jesus, was not yet glorified.

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He was not yet slain in the plan of God for the redemption of mankind, the plan of the ages that the whole world waited upon from God himself.

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It was the redemption of mankind. And verse 22 uses that same literal language.

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The glory I have given them, like it's in a past tense, like he's already given it to them, but they haven't received it yet.

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I don't believe they received that glory until Acts chapter 2. They don't actually receive what

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God had for them from the foundation of the world until actually in Acts chapter 2.

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Please let me know how much time I have because I have no idea. Time's up.

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You pretty much ended right on time there. Okay, let's go back to three minutes and let's turn to your comments on Mark chapter 13 verse 32.

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Okay, I've got that pulled up on my computer here. I think, you know, both of us,

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Dr. White, we both say that Jesus is God. Now, how that claim is made between the two, you know, between our two traditions and understanding is quite a ways off.

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I think, and I mean no disrespect by saying this, but I think the weakness of the

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Trinity doctrine is Jesus' genuine humanity. I really do not believe that the

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Trinitarian position has a genuine man in Jesus. I really believe that it's

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God the Son, and you keep talking about natures and things like that, but in Mark 13, 32, it says that concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the

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Son, but only the Father. I think that's a pretty good, that's the English Standard Version. You look at other ones and it says the

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Father only, and I think that's a good understanding. Jesus, we do have two persons, but do we have two

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God persons? I say no. I say that there's a genuine man, a person of humanity, genuine humanity with a genuine mind, a human spirit.

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Jesus has two spirits. He has a divine spirit and he has a human spirit. And in that, that human mind, he had to have things revealed to him from God, and he did not know his own

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Second Coming unless the Spirit of God revealed it to him. And Jesus' understanding would understand all things when

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God revealed all those things to Jesus. But in this one instance, he did not reveal to him the

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Second Coming. And how much time do I have left? One minute. Okay, that's good.

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That's good to know. So, Dr. White, with me, it's the genuine humanity of Jesus that lacks the understanding, and it's the limitation that's placed on God, God's existence.

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God took to himself humanity, God the Father. As Malachi 2 .10 said, the totality of God is called the

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Father. In Malachi 2 .10, the totality of God is—it's not talking about a person.

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It's talking about the totality of God. Have we not all one God? Have we not all one

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Father? Has not one God created us? The totality of God is the Father.

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There are no three persons within God. The Son is the genuine humanity, not another person of God, and was born of a virgin.

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And that's who Jesus is. He's all of God and all of man. He's not just a nature. He's a genuine man with a limited understanding who is incarnated by God.

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He wasn't God just inside of a man. Okay. That's three minutes.

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Okay. All right, thank you. And my comments on Mark chapter 13, verse 32.

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But of that day or hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father alone.

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I may hapater, translated alone or only, et cetera, et cetera. In this context, in the discussion with a oneness perspective, and again, one of the reasons we're doing this is to illustrate how you respond to different kinds of Unitarianism, because Islam is

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Unitarianism. The Watchtower is Unitarian. And yet there is going to be different kinds of Unitarianism and how they understand text.

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Notice that what's being said, I think what was being said, if I'm accurately understanding, is that the

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Son here is a human being. Not eternal, not divine, a complete human being alone.

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The problem is this very text says the exact opposite of that. And I guess

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I think Manuel missed it. But of that day or hour, no one knows. No one knows. No human beings know.

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Not even the angels in heaven. So now we're going beyond the human realm to the angelic realm.

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Not even the angels in heaven. And then above the angels in heaven, nor the

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Son, but the Father alone. So the Son is placed at the second highest level.

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He is distinguished from the Father, but he's placed above the angels. So this isn't some human nature because this is no one knows.

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Angels don't know. Son, Father. So this is one of the things I point out to Muslims.

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They don't believe Jesus ever said this because he would never refer to himself as the Son in this exalted fashion as you have here in Mark 13, 32.

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And so, well, why would Jesus say something like that? Well, the same reason why only once is Jesus' inherent glory, the

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Son's inherent glory, seen on the Mount of Transfiguration. It was proper and appropriate during incarnation for there to be a veiling of certain of the divine attributes.

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Not a putting away of them. Not a ceasing to possess them. But obviously, if Jesus walked down the streets of Jerusalem glowing with the brightness of the

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Mount of Transfiguration, he would not have been able to accomplish the ministry that was his as the

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Messiah. So there is a veiling in the incarnation of certain aspects of the divine nature, certain exercises of the divine nature that were the

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Son's in his glory in the Father's presence in eternity past. And that's what's in reference here.

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But the fact of the matter is the text itself puts Jesus above the angels, above humanity, in the very language that it uses here in Mark 13, 32, which is the significant point in regards to oneness.

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All right, two minutes. And Manuel, your two minutes begins now. Okay, thank you very much,

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Dr. White. I think that you're kind of compartmentalizing what

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I'm saying because I focus my attention upon his genuine humanity. That's what

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I'm saying. Within the Trinity doctrine, I think there's a weakness. I think the weak point is the genuine humanity of Jesus.

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And as far as Unitarians go, I don't consider myself a Unitarian because Muslims do not believe

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Jesus is God. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe Jesus is God. I believe Jesus is God.

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And Jesus is God manifest in the flesh. And what you've just done is you've compartmentalized his flesh and tried to put upon me that I don't believe

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Jesus is God. I absolutely believe Jesus is God. He's God manifest in the flesh. But by saying he's

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God manifest in the flesh, there's a couple of elements there that we can't just focus upon, like you've just done for me, and I need to do that myself.

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So what I'm showing is Jesus is God, but as the

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Son, he is a genuine man, and as God, he is the Father. As Malachi 2 .10 says, Have we not all one

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Father? Has not one God created us? And who incarnated

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Jesus? The next passage I bring about is the very passage

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I believe that shows who incarnated Jesus is the

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Father. The Father incarnated Jesus. That's why Jesus said in John 10 .30,

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I and my Father, we are one. We can use that plural pronoun, we, because we have a genuine man, and we have one genuine

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God of all eternity that incarnated that man. That's who Jesus was. He wasn't just a man. He was the very

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God of all eternity, but he was also born a virgin, and he also died. He slept in a boat.

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He hungered. But he also fed the multitude. He healed. He raised the dead. He was

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God manifest in the flesh. He was not just a man. Okay. All right.

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There's the two minutes. And if I am correct, I still have two minutes, right?

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Sorry about that. See how easy it is to distract me. Okay. My two minutes.

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I fully am aware of the fact that you believe in what you believe to be the deity of Christ. The issue is not the deity of Christ.

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The issue is the pre -existence and personal existence as a divine person of the sun.

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That really is where the issue is in regards to oneness theology and the various views of oneness theology.

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And the point is that Mark 13, 32 tells us that the sun is above the angels, is above the realm of the human.

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He is a true human being, but you cannot limit him simply to that. And when we're talking here about the sun, we're talking about the son of God.

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It was the son of God who was incarnate, not the father who was incarnate. And that'll become clear,

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I think, in Philippians chapter 2, which we're going to look at here in just 60 seconds. But once again, the real issue that we have to deal with here is, is the sun a divine person?

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Or is the sun merely a human being who was created and came into existence in Bethlehem?

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And so when we see these texts, and so far, both texts have said what

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Trinitarians have been saying all along. And that is that the sun cannot be limited to a description of a human being only.

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Jesus, the Messiah, was one person with two natures.

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He was not two persons with two natures, which is what's being argued here in essence.

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And so Mark 13, 32, and John chapter 17, verse 5, have both now made that very same point.

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And the next text, which we'll look at now, Philippians chapter 2, will really nail that down very clearly as well.

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Okay, clear. I'm starting to figure out how to use this thing. All right. At least it's better than the one Jerry Matitox had that one time, where he had to press the button every single time for 20 minutes, 20 times in a row.

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Oh, it was great. It was just wonderful. All right, three minutes. My turn. Excuse me. Philippians chapter 2, verses 6 through 8.

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Very quickly, the Carmen Christi, the hymn to Christ is to God. Here we have the pre -incarnate son being described who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant, being made in likeness of men, being found appearance as a man.

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He humbled himself by becoming a being at the point of death, even death on a cross. Now, please notice this is

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Jesus who is active here, even though he existed in the very morphe to say you the form of God did not regard equality with God, which would be meaningless if we're talking about the father here.

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This is clear. The son we're talking about did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped or to be held on to.

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I will argue that, but emptied himself. Notice this is something that the son does.

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He emptied himself. The father doesn't do this. The son does this. Now, the father sends the son, the father's involved in all these things, but you've got to allow all of the

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New Testament speak. And it says, but he made himself of no reputation. Notice it says, this is this is something he does.

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He is the one who makes himself no repute by doing what? By taking on human nature.

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It's by it's by addition that he makes himself of no reputation, because that's what the incarnation is entering into his own creation.

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And so what he does is he takes the form of a bond servant made in the likeness of men.

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And so here's the incarnation. So what do we have? We have the son. We have the son equal with the father.

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We have the son pre -incarnate. We have the son active as a person, because it says he did not regard.

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That's something only a person can do. Plans can't regard things, but persons can. So the son regards the position he has with the father, and on the basis of that regarding, acts in making himself of no reputation by doing what?

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By taking on a human nature, by the positive addition of that human nature, so that Jesus is one person with two natures.

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And so in each one of these phrases, you have a fundamental refutation of the oneness position, because the son, as the son, pre -exists, he does things only a person can do, and he is the one who makes himself no reputation by taking on the human nature.

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So there you have, I think, a very clear presentation of the understanding that the

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New Testament gives us of this relationship between the divine and human in Christ. All right, three minutes.

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And Manuel, your three minutes start now. Okay, thank you very much, Dr. White. This is

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Philippians 2, 6 through 11. We do not teach that this is talking about a plan.

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We actually teach that this is incarnational, but I find the interpretation of this passage, when it's taken to its logical conclusion, as nothing but Christ -ism, conceptual

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Christ -ism. And this is why, being in the nature of God, who God did not consider equality with God, God did not consider equality with God.

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Well, I would not think so, something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of the servant.

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Being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself. Therefore, God exalted him, who

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God. I find it kind of preposterous with that interpretation.

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But that's where Trinitarian interpretation of this passage takes us.

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Is God thought it not robbery to be equal to God? And no, this passage is incarnational.

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When you look at it that way, of course God preexisted. God preexisted.

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God did not consider equality with God. Please consider that when you think about this passage.

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The man thought it not robbery to be equal to God, because he was God manifest in the flesh.

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He didn't use it to his own advantage, rather he made himself... God made himself nothing. Yes, it's going back and forth between the incarnations.

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We can't compartmentalize right here and say we're just talking about the Son, because we're not just talking about the

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Son. We're talking about the preexistent God, and the one

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God who incarnated a man, the Son, Lord of Mary, in time.

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And it was God manifest in the flesh, and that's what we're talking about. We're not talking about God thinking it not robbery to be equal with God.

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Please, please, everyone listening to this, please consider that. When you look at this passage, consider, was

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God thinking it not robbery to be equal to God? That's the very thing you're being told. How much time do

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I have? Thirty seconds. Okay, we're good. Go ahead, Dr. White. Okay, all right.

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Okay, very briefly, well, I think most people in the audience already recognize that that response didn't touch upon what

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I said, because I wasn't saying God was equal with God. The text is about the Son. That's clear when you go to the end, because the

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Son is exalted to the glory of God the Father. And so, an attempt was made to make it sound so confusing by equivocating on the term

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God. But what we're talking about here, of course, is the Father and the Son. And it's the Son who existed in the

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Morphe 2 Theu, and did not regard equality with God, that is, the

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Father, a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, which is what the Son does.

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And it was the Son who took the form of bond -servant. It was the Son who was made in likeness of man. It was the

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Son who became obedient to the point of death, therefore, even the death on the cross. Therefore, this reason also,

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God, the Father, highly exalted Him, bestowed on Him the name which is above every name. That name of Jesus, every knee will bow, those who are in heaven, on earth, and on the earth.

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Every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, kurios, to the glory of God, the

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Father. So, we are not doing anything other than what the Apostle himself has done in the text in making the differentiation between kurios and theos,

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God and Lord. This is fundamental to an interpretation of 1 Corinthians 8.

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It's right here at the end of the text. There's no way to understand this. What are we saying in the confession, verse 11?

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What happened to the human nature of the Son? Is the human nature glorified now?

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These are questions we might ask, but the point is that nothing was said that refuted the reality that what we have in Philippians 2 is the

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Son, as the Son, acting as a divine person in a preexistent fashion, which, again, is the fundamental refutation of Oneness theology.

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And two minutes begins now. Okay, thank you very much.

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Absolutely it's the Son, Dr. White, because this is an incarnational passage. It's not a pre -incarnational passage.

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I don't know how you can get that, but we have God and we have man.

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That's what it takes for the Incarnation. I don't know how you view that, but for Oneness, that's how we view that.

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It takes one God and one man. It takes God to incarnate the man. Malachi 2 .10

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says that God, the God, all of God, the totality of God is the Father. Have we not all one

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Father? Has not one God created us? So, when it talks about who being in the very form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, it was talking about the

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Son. It was talking about the man. The man thought it not robbery to be equal with God, because otherwise you have

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God thinking it not robbery to be equal with God. And that, to me, that seems a little absurd, but that's the logical conclusion that Trinitarian doctrine takes us to.

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I know, you know, you said that you don't have

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God. You're not talking about God, but you are talking about God. Who is Jesus to you?

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Pre -incarnate Jesus. Do you believe that He's God the Son who is equal with God the

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Father? So, I don't know how you can get around this by not saying that's what it is.

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God thought it not robbery to be equal with God. We have, you say, God the Son and God the Father, and it's God the

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Son thinking it not robbery to be equal with God. Well, why would God think it's robbery to be equal with God in a pre -incarnate state?

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He is God. That wouldn't exist whatsoever, that kind of thought process. All righty.

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Thank you very much. And let's clear that. Three minutes.

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And 1 Corinthians 15 .28, last segment of our discussion here.

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I'm sorry? 1 Corinthians 15 .28. Is that not what you had?

36:42

No. What? 1 Corinthians 15 .28. No. Okay, what was it?

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2 Corinthians 5 .19. Okay. Okay, it says,

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To wit that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and has committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

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You all see the distinction that's being made here in 2 Corinthians 5 .19.

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To understand, to know that God was in Christ. Christ is the anointed man.

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That's who Jesus was. He was the Christ, the anointed man. He was, as Isaiah 11 and 2 says, the seven spirits of God, the fullness of the

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Godhead was in Him bodily. That's what Isaiah 11 and 2 says, the seven spirits of God, the completeness of quality of God was in Jesus, because you can't fit all of God in one little man.

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God was both in heaven and in the man at the same time. He was, Jesus was God manifest in the flesh.

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And this passage shows that distinction. God was in Christ. It wasn't perichoresis, the inner penetration of God persons.

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What it was was, that was, we're talking about the incarnation, and that's how God was reconciling us to Himself, was through that, the shed blood of the

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Son. As Hebrews 9 .15 says, He is the mediator by the means of death.

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He does not stand before God and plead our case. His death pleads our case.

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And there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. As John 8 .40

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says, You hate me, a man who heard from God. Jesus was a man.

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He was a man that was incarnated by the one God of all of heaven and earth. He was not compartmentalized as just a man.

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Jesus Christ was the Lord God Almighty from heaven. Okay.

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I don't know how much time I have. One minute. Okay. I just want to say,

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I will speak to myself and say that Jesus is God in the flesh. We've got to make that distinction.

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He's not just God, and He's not just a man. He's God manifest in the flesh, as the

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Scriptures teach us. And 2 Corinthians 5 .19 shows that distinction, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto

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Himself. That's who Jesus was. And it was, as Hebrews 9 .15

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says, He's the mediator by the means of death. But thank

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God He didn't stay there. He rose. He was, as Romans 8 .11 says, He rose, and that's why we have salvation.

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And that's who Jesus Christ is. Okay. Alright, thank you very much.

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My three minutes. I don't know how much was actually said about 2

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Corinthians 5 .19. There was a lot thrown out there, many assertions made from other texts that would be inappropriate for me to go after those other texts, or to introduce a bunch of other texts myself.

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Once again, the key issue between historic Trinitarian understanding of God and the oneness position is focused upon whether the

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Son, as a divine person, preexisted His birth in Bethlehem. This text does not answer that question.

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I'm assuming that the relevance in the oneness understanding of it, at least this particular expression of that oneness understanding, is namely that God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.

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So you've got God in a human person. The problem is, that misunderstands

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En Cristo. This is the instrumental utilization. He was by means of Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.

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It's not locative. It's not spatial location. It's not even really an incarnational text.

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It's primarily an assertion that Christ was the only means that God has used to bring about reconciliation of the world to Himself.

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And the emphasis is not upon the locative, but upon the instrumental use of the language at that point.

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So, outside of that, there's really not much more that I can add to this particular text because it's really not directly relevant to the subject because it's not specifically saying that there is any type of – the context is not about, well,

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God entered into a human man and that's what you've got going on here. Again, if we allow the

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New Testament to define its own terms, as we've already seen in the preceding three texts, the

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Son preexists His birth in Bethlehem as a divine being. He is engaged in activity.

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Jesus Himself differentiated the Son from angels and others in Mark 13, 32. He empties

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Himself. He makes Himself of no reputation. He does not consider equality with the

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Father. See, He voluntarily – that's the whole point of humiliation is He voluntarily laid aside those privileges that were

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His in service to others. That's why Philippians 2 is a sermon illustration about humility of mind.

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And so, what do we have in each one of these? Well, we have the historic, Trinitarian, Biblical understanding of the relationship between the

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Father and the Son. And 2 Corinthians 5, 19 really doesn't address that particular issue. All right.

42:51

Two minutes. Go ahead. Well, Paul, you're right. I think you're absolutely wrong on that because what was the purpose of the

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Incarnation? Was it not to reconcile the world back to Himself? So, the

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Incarnation, it comes from two words, incarnae, in flesh, in meat, carne, meat.

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From the Latin, in. You know, in is a preposition.

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Everybody knows what in means. God was in Christ. And the purpose of the

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Incarnation was to reconcile the world to Himself. To say that it has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

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It absolutely has everything to do with what we're talking about. And the passage you keep going back to with the

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Son. I admitted myself that it was the Son that thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

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Of course, we cannot compartmentalize and say, God thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

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That's, you can kind of throw off that interpretation, but I think that's what brings us, that's the logical conclusion of the

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Trinitarian understanding, is God thought it not robbery to be equal with God. So, these passages,

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Philippians 2 -6 -11, Mark 13 -32, John 17 -5, there is no passage of Scripture that definitively says that Jesus preexisted

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His birth in Bethlehem. The Son was born of Mary, was He not? Was the Son born of Mary true or false?

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How can you compartmentalize those things? I just don't understand that.

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Please. All right. All right, yes. Thank you very much. Very quickly,

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I'll try to take up my whole time here. We were just told that everybody knows what in means.

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Well, that's the problem. We might assume that we know what in means, but in the original language there is something called the dative case, and underneath the dative case you have such uses as locative, location, and instrumental.

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And when you have en Cristo, that could be in Christ, locatively, as a location or sphere.

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But it also can be utilized in the sense of by means or instrumentality.

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And I remember a number of years ago I was walking down a hallway at a large

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Baptist church I was a member of, and Dr. J. Niles Puckett, who himself studied under A .T.

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Robertson and William Hersey Davis, and I had a conversation in the hallway about this very preposition, this very text.

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And he says, how do you take that? And I explained my understanding. He says, that's exactly how I understand it.

46:00

We had a nice discussion of the locative, instrumental, and dative in the Greek language. So when you say, well, everybody knows what in means, you're going to English there rather than the original language, and that's one of the problems.

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The point of this text is that God was by means of Christ reconciling the world to himself. Yes, that was the purpose of the

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Incarnation, but that has nothing to do with the reality of the fact that the Son was the one who was incarnate, not the

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Father. The Father was never made incarnate for us. It was the Son who was incarnated for us.

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It was the Son who preexisted. It was the Son who was from eternity. And it was the

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Son who was referred to in John 1 in the beginning was the Word. And so that is the consistent understanding of these particular texts.

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So with that, I want to thank Manuel for calling in today and for discussing this subject with me.

46:48

We've had almost 40, looks like 43 minutes, but about a good 40 minutes of discussion on this subject.

46:56

Thank you for being patient. It took us a long time to do this, but as you know, we discuss a lot of different topics, and it's just been a challenge to get around to it.

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But I appreciate your participation today, sir. All right. Thank you very much, Dr. Wise. Thank you very much.

47:11

All right. Thank you. All right. I'm going to shift gears rather severely.

47:20

We only have a number of minutes left on the program today. I want to address just a couple of points from Derek Frank in his

47:30

November 22nd response to me that I think are just begging for a kind of response.

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Notice this is on Facebook. It says, beyond his multiple misrepresentations, which he doesn't bother to document, his criticism exposed how he was speaking out of a position of replacement theology.

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So evidently, it's a similar situation to when we're dealing with Muslims.

47:58

The Muslims have a theological system that defines the Trinity as shirk. And when we point out that the

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Trinity isn't shirk and that it's not what the author of the Koran thought, they just default back to, but the

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Koran says that's what you believe. And that's what we have here. I can sit here and say God's eternal purpose has always been focused upon his particular people who have faith in him.

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And that extends, as it's seen in Romans chapter nine, down through the genealogical offspring of Abraham, but not all of them.

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And the Old Testament demonstrates that there were numerous kings of Israel and everything who were the offspring of Abraham, but they had no faith and they were not a part of the remnant.

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They were not a part of the people of God. And they will be under God's judgment because they rejected.

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They did not walk in faith. It's so obvious. And so I believe that there's a thing called the covenant of grace and it extends all the way through and it's not a replacement.

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And notice what it says. By this, I mean, quote, the allegation that when Israel rejected its

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Messiah, God saw fit to transfer his covenants and promises the church.

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Mr. Frank, I don't believe that. I do not believe that.

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Can you hear me, sir? I don't believe that. I do not believe that with my

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God, there's a plan B. I don't believe that God went, oh, wow. Look at that.

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Israel's rejected me. What do I do now? Well, I'm going to come up with a church and there's going to be this period of time and then

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I'll get back to Israel later on. I don't believe that. And sir, if you say

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I do, you are lying. L -Y -I -N -G. It's dishonest. Stop it. Stop lying.

49:53

We can't get anywhere if you keep lying about people. It's terrible. From then on, the church was deemed to be the new, improved, new and improved version of Israel.

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Don't believe that either. Which superseded Israel and God's purposes. Don't believe that either. Then the quotation escaping the great deception, page 81.

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Hey, a page number. That's good. As a result, the church appropriated the new covenant that was explicitly promised to Israel.

50:20

No, if you read Jeremiah chapter 31 and you really read Jeremiah chapter 31, you are arguing with the author to the

50:26

Hebrews. That's where your argument is. That's where it is. That's where it is. But one of the things that really bothered me.

50:34

You know, he talks about he affirms Calvin's view that the Israel of God is what Paul calls the church. Yep, I do.

50:41

I sure do. No question about it. But this is this is where this is where, folks, you need to start realizing

50:49

I saw I saw this in the film. But it's not getting fleshed out and we need to I need to find out where this is going.

51:04

He talks about allegedly allegorizing the promises made to the nation of Israel. No, we're not. I'm just allowing the actual

51:10

Old Testament text to define who the nation of Israel truly is. You hear what's being said?

51:33

I mean, it's confused. The man's very, very confused. Very, very, very confused. But what's being said is this compromised gospel.

51:42

It all goes back to the your view of Israel and the church. Not your view of election, not your view of holiness, not your view of repentance.

51:54

No, no, no, no, no, no. It goes back to your view. It's it's it's Calvin's fault. Wow. Really?

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You want to try to prove that? Declaring the new covenant has replaced the old covenant.

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Um, what is growing old is about to pass away.

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Man, you're the scary thing here is Mr. Frank, you and the book of Hebrews are not on the same page.

52:23

You seem to be really dancing with some some heresy here.

52:28

I mean, you're saying you're saying I'm the satanic deceiver. OK, I'd like to try to avoid that particular type of language.

52:35

But you're the one come along with visions and dreams and now trying to overthrow the plain teaching of the book of Hebrews in the

52:42

New Testament. What does that mean? This leads to the belief that grace is completely replaced the law again.

52:52

I just got done preaching through Hebrews. Nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody who can read that book could ever make that statement.

52:59

That is an absurdity. Prove it. That's just an assertion. Prove it.

53:06

Prove it. Show, show, show where this necessarily follows. This is what's really starting to bug me about all these people that are just getting they're getting their pitchforks out and man, they're going to storm the ramparts and all the rest of stuff.

53:19

Y 'all won't listen and actually substantiate with arguments rather than assertions.

53:26

Your positions, you just keep repeating them as if you're your assertions are actually arguments. If you're going to say holding your position is going to result in X, prove it.

53:38

Don't just assert it. Prove it. Logically, rationally. I'm not seeing that.

53:43

Not only from Mr. Frank, but man, I put a, I put a post up on Facebook about how even talking about eschatology results in people just exploding emotionally.

53:54

And what does the comments get filled with? People exploding emotionally. I didn't need the documentation.

54:02

I didn't, I didn't need somebody to come along and say, here, I'll do it for you. Just to illustrate what I'm talking about.

54:08

Wow. Uh, without, without the greater context of God's continuing purposes for Israel.

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And by this, I guess you mean just the ethnic people and nation. There cannot be any vision of the greatness of what was achieved on the cross.

54:26

Colossians 2 15 salvation gets focused on a personal gospel, a dumbing down of truth and a nominal

54:32

Christian lifestyle. Prove it. Give some reasoning, sir.

54:40

Not just, I don't, I don't care about your visions. I reject your vision. I don't,

54:45

I don't care what you've seen. I don't care what Mormons have seen and the visions they've had in their temples and everything else.

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And I don't care what you've seen. You're within the realm of the scriptures here.

54:58

Prove it. Give some real arguments. What is the logical basis for you saying that if I hold the position that I hold that there cannot be any vision of the greatness of what was achieved on the cross.

55:17

Prove it. Show me something logical there. I mean,

55:22

I have preached about the cross and the atonement for years out of the book of Hebrews, and I never had to adopt your position.

55:30

How did I pull that off? How have I talked about the grand sweep of God's redemptive purpose and the perfection of the atoning work of Christ?

55:40

I'm going to have to ask you, Mr. Frank, do you believe that Jesus Christ death actually atones for sins for a specific people?

55:48

I haven't seen any of that. I haven't seen any of that anywhere in your book. You don't even seem to be aware of the great controversy about that.

55:56

But of course, I don't know why I'm bothering to ask you questions because you never answer any of the questions that I ask.

56:02

You just come up with new stuff like this. How does taking the position I do result in a personal gospel, a dumbing down of truth and a nominal

56:10

Christian lifestyle? Prove it. Show me. What's the evidence? All you've got is allegations.

56:17

Allegations are not evidence. I'm not sure if you understand the difference, but you need to come to understand the difference.

56:25

Replacement theology is the root cause of these deceptions and many more.

56:31

Sir. Nominal Christian lifestyle. Horrible problem in the church.

56:37

You know where it comes from? What you win them with is what you win them to. It comes from the gospel that's being preached.

56:42

It's not a gospel of the lordship of Christ. It's a gospel that's focused upon man's personal needs. You and I happen to agree.

56:48

I'm part of that, but has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with one's view of Israel in the church.

56:56

Zippity dippity do not nothing. And if you think otherwise, stop repeating yourself and reason.

57:06

Argue. Please. Because this is worthless.

57:12

This accomplishes absolutely nothing. This is just repeating yourself.

57:18

If you can't give anything more than this, you are, in essence, capitulating. This is a capitulation.

57:25

That's what it is. You got to do better than this. You got to do better than this. But this doesn't tell me that you can.

57:33

I'll be perfectly honest with you. I don't. Let's put this way. If you can't do better than this, let's just drop it there because it's not going to accomplish anything.

57:41

It's not going to accomplish anything. It really isn't. So there you go. Huh. Put it all in there.

57:48

Talk about two different topics. So what we're going to do, we'll be back on Wednesday.

57:56

And then that'll be it. We've got a day of Thanksgiving on Thursday, Friday. Lord willing, please pray for traveling mercies and weather.

58:05

I really and pray, please, for the teaching in Kiev and Berlin.

58:13

And I'm going to tell this, hopefully, to those guys who may watch. There are not two more important topics that we can address than we are going to be addressing in those classrooms.

58:26

The Trinity. Holy ground. Holy, holy ground. What an awesome, not only opportunity we're going to have, but what an awesome responsibility is mine and you, the students, as we address the very highest revelation that God has given to us of his own nature.

58:46

What a privilege that we will have. And then the next week, justification. THM seminar.

58:54

It's open to people attending and auditing at EBTC in Berlin. So if you're in the area, we've put that up on the website before.

59:02

It's something that is available to you. There still will be time to do that between now and then. The doctrine of justification.

59:10

Vitally, vitally important subjects. We're going to be talking. We're going to listen to my dialogue with N .T.

59:16

Wright. And I'm going to be talking about stuff like that. And there's just so much stuff to cover. I don't know how we're going to get through all of it.

59:22

But please pray for those times. Pray for my health. Traveling is a challenge.

59:28

But pray as well for our binding together as students of the word.

59:36

That these men's lives will be greatly enriched. Their ministries will be enriched. And the cause of the gospel in Ukraine and there in Europe, right there in the center of Europe and Germany, will be greatly enhanced as well.

59:50

And so I'd appreciate your prayers for that. Don't forget, next month, G3 conference in Atlanta.

59:57

All sorts of stuff going on. Hopefully, I'll be keeping up with some things on the blog,

01:00:03

Facebook, and things like that while I'm both in Kiev and Berlin. But we'll let you know what's going on. Thanks for listening to the program today.