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Folks, these are wolves. Truth be told, I oftentimes lay awake at night trying to figure out how I can get rid of wolves.
We are unabashedly, unashamedly Clarkian. And so, the next few statements that I'm going to make, I'm probably going to step on all of the Vantillian toes at the same time. And this is what we do at Simple Riff around the radio, you know.
We are polemical and polarizing, Jesus style.
I would first say that to characterize what we do as fashion is itself fashion. It's not hate. It's history. It's not fashion. It's the Bible. Jesus said, Woe to you when men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way, as opposed to blessed are you when you have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
It is on. We're taking the gloves off. It's time to battle.
Alright, welcome back everybody. This is Simple Riff on the radio and my name is Tim Shaughnessy, not Tim Hurd, the other guy who is the Bible thumping wingnut. We are part of the Bible thumping wingnut network.
Just heard the news that Wrath and Grace radio is not going to be a part of the network anymore. So we want to wish those guys the best in their future endeavors. We're certainly praying for their ministry that God will bless them and that they will succeed.
So, Godspeed guys. With that, we are just going to jump right into a very important public service announcement.
So,.
Let's just dig into this. I have with me Carlos Montijo and he is going to be taking on Andrew Rappaport, mano a mano. No, I'm just kidding. We actually said something that was wrong last week and we wanted to make it right.
We brought on Andrew. After last week's episode aired, Andrew contacted me and we talked about what was said with regards to Andrew. We are very, very grateful that he has decided to come on the show with us today so we can go ahead and talk to him about it.
Set the record straight and ask Andrew to forgive us. I think that this is the way things like this should be done and they should be done quickly. So, thank you Andrew for coming on. Let me give you an opportunity to say hello.
Oh, you know what? Andrew has a ministry called Striving for the Ever After. I'm just kidding. It's Striving for Eternity. That's Andrew Rappaport who cannot pronounce Semper Reformanda Radio. That's Andrew Rappaport.
Andrew, how's it going?
Well, I do appreciate you guys having me on.
It really is.
A privilege to be back with you guys. Maybe not always this way, but I think I'll say something to start off. I contacted you guys privately just to say, hey, I didn't say that. Both you guys were really quick to sort through the issue, to address it and even extend an opportunity for me to come on and be part of your show even for a bit.
It's really a privilege. I do want to encourage others to follow your example.
If we're.
Wrong, myself included, we should say so and we should be willing to admit when we're wrong. Not too many people.
Like doing that.
Once we ask for forgiveness, what else can they do? He said he was sorry, guys. Leave him alone.
Carlos,.
You want to jump in here? Why don't we explain to our listeners a little bit about what was said and a little bit about why you got the wrong impression, how what you said was wrong, and we can just take it from there.
Sure thing.
We thank Andrew very much for coming on and willing to come on and help clear the.
Air and stuff.
This has been a busy, I think the last episode has probably been one of the busiest for us just because of all the updates we've had to make to it.
Unfortunately,.
When the first public service announcement that I made on last episode, episode 46,.
I made a.
Correction, what I thought was a correction to a statement that I thought Andrew made on Theology Gals episode 8 on dispensationalism, and it wasn't about dispensationalism. I mean, the episode was, but his comment was about covenant theology, and what I thought he meant was I wasn't actually sure what he meant, so I assumed that what he meant was that Aquinas, that the threefold division of the law actually came from Aquinas, and so I kind of just assumed that, and I ran with it.
I didn't follow up with him privately beforehand, and we waited a while to get that out. I mean, the episode 8 happened a while ago, and stuff got buried, and so everything just got kind of lost in my head and just sort of conflating together, so that's not actually what he said at all, if you listen to the episode.
So my apologies go out to Andrew, and we thank him for his graciousness and his willingness to come on, and I also, I really, sometimes I can get a little caught up with stuff, and it gave a really bad impression.
Of how.
Andrew is, but if you actually listen to that episode, not even just that episode, but even in that episode, Andrew's always very, very, very careful. He tries to be extremely careful and meticulous when he's describing views that are not his own, and we are extremely grateful for that.
We very much value that here at Simple Referement on the Radio. We actually try to be just like that in our show. We do strive to be fair and accurate when representing others, even though, obviously, we have no problem making pointed criticisms, but not at Strauman.
We try very hard not to do that, and so we've learned a lot from Andrew's example, and.
Again,.
I don't want our listeners to get the impression that Andrew is sloppy or careless, because he is not.
At all.
That was entirely just out of line. It was out of step. It was my fault, and I hope that this helps to clear up any kind of false portrayal that I made about Brother Andrew here, so thank you, Andrew, and is there anything that you had to say about it, or anything to follow up, or anything like that?
Well, I mean, like I.
Said privately, I forgive you. It wasn't.
We all do this.
We all kind of speak off the cuff at times and get things jumbled in our heads. I think what you were referring to really was something I should have made clear. It's something that I've talked privately with Colleen before we did that episode, so she knew exactly what I was talking about, and yet I don't think I made it clear to her audience, and it allowed for some confusion, and I mean, what I had said, one of the things that I had said, I wasn't even talking about Aquinas or the threefold division of law, which was helpful for me that you brought that out, because I always used to say that I don't know where I find that other than in the Westminster confession, but it was actually before the Westminster.
I would always say that jokingly though, but seriously, the thing that I think I said that got me in trouble with this is I referenced the fact that covenant theology is really grounded, the hermeneutic of it was from Roman Catholicism, and people go, ah, he's saying that it's wrong because it's Catholic, and that's the problem.
I didn't really clarify, because the reformers were reforming the Catholic church, and they didn't just they didn't just drop that hermeneutic and start with a brand new one, they took what they knew, what they had studied, the same hermeneutic, they changed it in the sense that they were saying so they weren't allowing.
Councils or a.
Church to interpret God's word. So there were changes that they made, and that was called reformed theology. And so I often would say technically you guys believe in reformed theology, because that's really what the reformers were especially after Luther.
Lutheranism has its own, you can slowly see the changes from Roman Catholicism to Luther to Calvin and.
Others.
And you'd have some, there were more literalists that had come on. And so I made that kind of more offhanded statement without giving the explanation, and I think some people heard me say just reference that Roman Catholicism was founded in Catholicism, and just because it's founded in Catholicism doesn't mean it's wrong.
I mean, not everything the Catholic Church did was wrong. That may freak people out, but especially after the several episodes you guys did on Catholicism. But it was something that I should have clarified, because it's really, you know, people ask me if I'm reformed, if I believe in reformed theology.
I'm either going to say no or I'm going to ask what they mean by that, because the majority of people think reformed theology.
Is.
What's often called Calvinism or God's sovereignty in soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. And yet, that's not really what historically reformed theology was. It was a way of interpreting the Bible separate from the Roman Catholic Church.
And dispensationalism is yet another way, and New Covenant theology, they're different interpretation styles of interpretation or methods.
And.
I think that added, you know, because I didn't give the context and that it added confusion, it made it easy for you, Carlos, to take and misinterpret very easily. I didn't give the context. And so, I think some of that blame falls on me for not providing that context.
And so, therefore, I need to ask your forgiveness, and really for her listeners as well, for the girls over at TheologyGals.
Well, I mean,.
There's definitely no need to apologize to us, but we are thankful for you. And actually, I do have to call you out, though, on that episode, because you actually called Louis Lyons, you called him Louis Loins.
And Colleen did correct you on that, but then you called me Carlos Montino.
That's our public service announcement correction right there. That's what I should have, you know, made the correction about.
Go to the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network and try to find Salt and Light podcast. See where that's at. So, I'm calling you out, Carlos, for that.
Yeah.
Andrew, I honestly don't think that you need to apologize for anything. It was a failure on our part. I mean, one of the things that you pointed out to me that I thought was really helpful was if you have access to somebody, contact them personally and say, hey, you said this.
Is this what you meant? Can you elaborate or clarify? And we didn't do that, so I think that the onus falls on us to do that. So, I mean, I appreciate the humility that you're showing, and just the graciousness that you're showing us to come on and work this out, but I honestly don't hold you responsible for any of it.
But, Carlos, was there anything else that you had?
Yes, I did want to actually also, you know, because I don't know, people may not have seen this already, but I did update the show notes to episode 46, and I posted them on the Bible Thumping Wingnut group, so some people may have seen that.
You know, basically laying out my apology and the time stamps and the errors that I made regarding Andrew, what I thought Andrew said. But I also actually really want to thank Andrew and his ministry.
Because.
What he does is actually it's a very helpful it's very helpful to the cause of Christ and to the edification of the Church, because what he likes to do is, you know, set up opposing views to get together and hash things out.
You know, you have the Clashing of Theology series, you have the Covenant vs. New Covenant Theology episode that I did with Louis Lyons, and he also did some previous ones with, actually Pastor Paul Kaiser of the Porch, and Dispensationalism vs. New Covenant, and so on and so forth.
So, I think those are very helpful ways of dialoguing as Christians with differences of certain kinds of doctrines that may not necessarily be primary issues, but are still nevertheless important, and especially important when.
You're disagreeing.
To somebody's theology or reacting to it. You don't want to be reacting to a straw man or to a misrepresentation of that. So, I think those forums and those opportunities that you provide for people to jump on and hash things out and clarify and correct things I think has been a very.
Tremendous blessing.
And very edifying for people to take a look at that. Actually, we just did one, a clashing of theologies episode on sanctification. It was like a two and a half hour clashing of some of the different network hosts from Bible Thumping so I highly recommend people to check that out.
We got to talk a lot about different things and a lot of different kinds of issues were involved there. So, again, we are very thankful for Andrew. It was really not I don't want people to think that we that what my initial statement about him kind of made it seem like he was irresponsible or anything like that.
It's quite the exact opposite. I've actually met very little people who is as careful as he is. And actually, for that reason, I want to get Andrew's book, What Do They Believe? It's probably a very good book seeing how careful Andrew tries to be.
So I do plan on getting that sometime in the near future and I would also recommend that book to our believers which is to our listeners which is actually it's like a systematic theology of other major world religions or something like that, right?
Correct. Six of the major Western religions.
Awesome.
Yeah, I took a religious studies class and I have a religious studies minor from a secular university and the textbooks are terrible.
I was going to say that's probably worthless.
Yeah, they are absolutely terrible and so I need to up my game with those and get a better reference.
But yeah,.
That was mainly what we wanted to communicate. We highly recommend that you check out Andrew's ministry, his.
Episodes.
He's a dispensational so we do disagree with him on certain issues and you kind of saw some of that if you saw the episode on sanctification. But by and large we have very much in agreement with a lot of things, a lot of important issues and doctrines as well.
We thank you Andrew. Hopefully we can have you come on in the future over something.
That's.
Not for the same reason hopefully.
Hey Andrew, do you have time to answer a question?
Sure, let me just say I thank you for your kind words. You mentioned the clashing of theologies. It's actually going to play because Matt Slick and I did not do a recording of Slick Answers. Folks, tune in to Slick Answers.
That's a separate RSS feed than Bible Thumping Wingnut, but if you do a search for Slick Answers it'll play. You'll hear Carlos referring to the shine as.
Lights.
Salt and lights. People that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
So you're posting the audio on that feed then? Okay, that's good to know.
Yeah, we're going to do that. We did the previous one when Matt and I missed. That'll become its own podcast eventually, but right now we're just slipping them in when Matt and I can't record. Awesome.
Good to know. Do you know what the next one is.
Going to be about? Well,.
Originally I thought it was going to be on apologetics because that was in our list. That was the next one, but suddenly some folks got in and the historical genesis moved up the line, which I'm going, okay, so we'll see.
We'll either do... The sanctification one, and a lot of the comments from the... And for folks that don't know, Clashing of Theologies is a once a month podcast where all the guys who are on, or guys and gals, on the Bible Thumping Wingnut Network get together and just hash through different theologies.
We did one on sanctification and people were going, what do you agree with? Well, we found plenty to disagree with.
But it was good. I really think that this is a spirit that we should have with one another, even in areas we disagree. I disagree with a lot of my friends, and some of that disagreement is strong and gets heated, and we love it because it's iron sharpening iron, but we never hate each other.
Matt Slick and I, he's a real good friend of mine, and I don't agree with much of...
But there's a lot of things he and I disagree on. A lot of people like to watch us disagree because the love and care we have for one another when we disagree. We're actually going to do... There's a conference in New Jersey called the New Jersey Apologetics Conference.
It's going to be in October. Matt and I are going to do one that I thought I was never going to be willing to do with Matt. We're going to discuss spiritual gifts, and we're going to do it live in front of an audience.
Nice.
Look forward to that. Yeah.
That should be really good. Well, I know it's late where you're at, and I don't want to keep you up too late, but I really appreciate you coming on, and I really appreciate everything that you are doing, and I'm very grateful to be a part of this network and a ministry under Striving for Eternity.
Carlos, do you have anything to add before we go?
No, that was all. Thank you very much, Andrew, for coming on, and we do hope to have you in the future sometime about future topics that we'd want to pursue with you.
Like what? Like all my heresies? Because I've got plenty.
No.
Maybe we'll invite you to talk about.
Dispensationalism.
Uh-oh.
It's coming. I think that when you get to heaven, you guys will figure out that you should have been following it all along, but that's okay. No, I really do appreciate the privilege of being able to come on here and talk with you guys.
I do see it as an honor. You guys have a very serious podcast with serious content, and every time I'm learning something. And so I really appreciate it. It's one of the podcasts I will always listen to because of the content, the amount of information given in a short period of time.
It's amazing how much you guys pack in, and it's one of the podcasts I suggest many people to listen to.
Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, we're very humbled by that.
Thank you, and we do.
Want to say that.
Wow, I just went blank. And I was going to say something really important. That sucks.
Oh, my.
Gosh.
I'm sorry. I remember now. I remember. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. The privilege is all ours. It is a privilege to.
Have you on here.
Stay tuned, folks. We do look forward to it sometime in the future to have him on and hash things out with dispensationalism maybe or something like that. But thank you again, Andrew.
How did you forget to say that?
I have no idea. And I just thought about it.
Yeah, that's a really strange thing for your mind to go blank on. All right, Andrew. We'll see you again.
We'll be.
Hopefully catching you on the Theology Clashing. What's it called again? The Theology Clash?
It'll be Clashing of Theologies.
Clashing of Theologies. All right. And with that, I'm just going to go ahead and take a break, play a word from our sponsors, and we'll be right back. This podcast.
Is a member of the Bible. Thumping.
Wingnut Network. All right. Welcome, everybody.
To another podcast episode with Semper Reformanda Radio. Hi, welcome.
To Theology Gals. Welcome,.
Everyone, to the Logical Belief Ministries podcast. Well, welcome to.
School of Biblical Harmonetics.
Welcome, everybody, to Grappling with Theology. What is.
Going on, guys? Shine his lights. Coming.
At you. Well, welcome to Slick.
Answers. Good evening, and welcome to Conversations from.
The Port. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Bible Thumping Wingnut podcast. The Bible Thumping Wingnut Network. Ten podcasts. One network. Check them out. BibleThumpingWingnut .com. Looking for that perfect track for your next evangelism outreach?
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Alright, we are back and I just wanted to let everybody know that Shina's Light is not salt and light. So Adam, I apologize on behalf of Carlos for that little mix up. And also the Wrath and Grace guys, they are, as I said, moving out.
So maybe we might be updating this little promotional clip that Tim put together. Hopefully we'll be getting some other podcasts to come.
On.
With that being said, I have with me Carlos and we're going to go ahead and jump into this. Carlos, you recently jumped onto the latest clashing of theologies episode with the guys from some of the other networks.
I think Vince was there, Paul Kaiser was there, Coleen Sharp was there, Adam was there,.
Then John Wilkinson popped in for a little bit. I saw that. I don't think that he said much. And then Andrew Appelport, of course, was there. But overall impression, man, what did you think?
I had a really good.
Time. I thought it was really helpful, a really good discussion on a number of different issues tied to sanctification. I would have liked to pursue some.
Other.
Topics pertaining to it a little bit more, but they already had a list of questions that they wanted to cover. But it was nevertheless a very good discussion. And I was actually kind of... I enjoyed Andrew jumping in more because when Louis and I had our discussion, it was more just me and him and Andrew.
He wasn't really... He was just kind of letting us.
Talk, but.
I enjoyed his interactions. You can tell when somebody's been theologically trained because he knows how to ask all the right questions. So Andrew always asks very good questions that kind of provoke the issue, expose the issue and see where you land on and stuff like that.
So it's a very good way of.
Drawing out certain things and getting people's perspective on how well they answer it consistently according to the Bible and things like that. So it was a really good discussion. We covered a lot of different stuff.
I highly recommend people to check it out. Like Andrew said, it's going to be in the Slick Answers podcast. So you can search for that.
Check it out.
I did also want to.
Kind of.
Set the groundwork for that a little bit because there are some things that we wanted to kind of talk about a little bit more and sort of give our take on.
I did.
Want to take the time to read my apology to Andrew and to the... just some of the statements that I had made to clarify what I said specifically on episode 46. I'm just going to start from the top here.
It says I, Carlos Montijo, am deeply sorry and apologize to Andrew Rapoport for misrepresenting what he said about covenant theology in his interview with Theology Gals episode 8. I misunderstood what he said at minute 1240 by assuming he was referring to the claim that the threefold division of the law came from Aquinas based on a previous discussion that was in public.
We are removing that portion from the episode. I deeply regret giving our listeners the impression that Brother Andrew was sloppy or careless in his presentation of covenant theology. Quite the opposite is true, for anyone who knows him is aware that he is extremely diligent to be as fair and accurate as possible when presenting views that are not his own.
We at Semper Reformanda Radio share the same convictions and strive to emulate his quintessential example. I'm also very grateful to Brother Andrew for the opportunity he provided me to discuss covenant theology and new covenant theology with Louis Lyons and for being able to participate in his Clashing of Theologies series because he recognizes the importance of direct interaction with one another especially opposing views, which in many cases is far more fruitful than one-sided monologues.
I also want to clarify my comments about Jason Mullet being largely ignorant of new covenant theology. It was not at all meant to be an insult or jab nor was I at all implying or suggesting that I would have been the better representative against Dustin Seegers who is a knowledgeable and seasoned NCT proponent.
It was simply based on what Jason himself said on Conversations from the Porch episode 50 at the 1-hour 4-minute 30-second timestamp that he had not done a lot of reading on NCT and that the only thing he had read was the first three chapters of Charles Leiter's The Law of Christ.
Anyone who actually listened to our episode knows that I commended Brother Jason for being an excellent debater, especially on topics that he knows well, such as his discussions with Leighton Flowers.
On Calvinism.
And even Flowers commended Jason for representing the Calvinist view well. So I said I was disappointed because if Jason had done more reading he would have been better prepared to interact with Dustin's arguments, some of which were based on misunderstandings of the Reformed faith.
One example is in.
Our.
1-hour.
Minute 23.
Of Conversations from the Porch episode 50, where Dustin claims that the Reformed view equates the moral law to the Ten Commandments exclusively, and further claims that historically this is how covenant theologians have always defined it.
Unfortunately, many new covenant theology proponents make this error. Conversations from the Porch has continued to repeat this error despite our attempts to correct it, including in this episode. All they need to do is read the Westminster Larger Catechism questions 93 and 98.
Question 93 says, What is the moral law? The moral law is the declaration of the will of God to mankind, directing and binding everyone to personal, perfect, and perpetual conformity and obedience thereunto, in the frame and disposition of the whole man, soul and body, and in performance of all those duties of holiness and righteousness which he owes to God and man, promising life upon the fulfilling and threatening death upon the breach of it.
Question 98. Where is the moral law summarily comprehended? The moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments which were delivered by the voice of God upon Mount Sinai and written by him in two tables of stone and are recorded in the 20th chapter of Exodus.
The four first commandments containing our duty to God and the other six our duty to man. I nevertheless think Jason did a great job and hope he continues to study NCT and engage in discussions or debates with them.
Perhaps we can even join forces in the future. Maybe it would have been better for me to say that Jason's knowledge of NCT was limited as opposed to largely ignorant of. I myself am largely ignorant of many things, and I'm sure Jason is far more knowledgeable than I am about many things.
As fellow Reformed Baptists, we are very much in agreement with Jason and even listed his episode critiquing NCT on our playlist, on our Semper Reformanda New Covenant Theology playlist that we have on the Bible Thumping Wingnut website.
I did not at all dismiss Jason for not being a Sabbatarian, as Pastor Paul Kaiser of Conversations from the Porch claimed in Minute 53 of the recent episode, their last episode, which I believe, I don't think it had a number, but it was supposed to be, I think, 53, but they called the latest one 53.
I think it's called Ramblings from the Porch or something like that. Nor did I ever say that Jason didn't know what he was talking about or immodestly imply that it would have done better, as Ryan Dozier claimed in Minute 5130.
I hope we can all have more fruitful discussions in the future and sharpen each other as brothers in Christ. Semper Reformanda, Carlos Montijo. I posted that yesterday and kind of initiating the process of correcting what I had said about Andrew.
Right.
Just on that note, your comment about Jason not holding to the Sabbath was nothing more than a caveat and it's very similar to the caveat that J .D. Hall gave of us when he played our episode over Tim Keller.
If you listen to that, he said these guys are Reformed Baptists, he said this was a very good episode or something like that, but then he let his audience know, he said, but they hold to the gifts and he said he encouraged us to just embrace Article 1.
Yeah, the word is.
Confession. He wasn't dismissing us at all. It's a little caveat and that's really, with regards to that, you were not dismissing Jason for not being a Sabbatarian. He's a Reformed Baptist. I'm still working through the Sabbath issue myself.
I find that I'm agreeing more and more with the Reformed Baptist position than when we first started out. But hey, Semper Reformanda, right? That's what that's all about. I really appreciate you for the humility and.
Just.
Tackling it this way because I hope that these guys will see that you weren't trying to be proud. I think that for us, seeing that, we've been wanting to have these conversations and this was actually prior to when we recorded this, this was prior to us learning that Paul Kaiser was going to open up the door to have these conversations on their podcast.
So maybe you can jump on there and join them and we certainly would want to commend them for willing to have direct dialogue.
Be willing to interact on that level. So I hope that this little ordeal just ends there.
If you listen to their episode, the rambling episode where they said some of those.
Incorrect.
Statements about my motives or about what I was trying to do or come off as, they did say that they don't want to do another back and forth. They don't want to do a back and forth with us. And I agree.
I agree 100%. We don't want to do that again. And I recognize, we've recognized that the opportunity that I had to jump in on the sanctification episode with the other hosts as well as Paul Kaiser, I think that was a very good, that's pretty much the best opportunity to talk about stuff like this with them.
And so, yeah, it's a great opportunity that they're opening up for whoever who wants to join them on their episode and just jump on and hash things out. We may very well take them up on that opportunity.
And the reason we wanted that from the beginning was because of what actually happened.
We.
Don't have a problem admitting that we're wrong and we want nothing more but to be on good terms with Conversations from the Porch. We love them. We appreciate them as brothers very much. We care a lot about them and we care a lot about the issues that they are.
Raising.
New Covenant Theology is a very important issue and it is.
Sweeping.
Into, you know, it has a lot of influence. It's becoming influential in a lot of Baptist churches especially. Even in my church, that discussion has already started. My pastor is already starting to address it.
They are very important issues and this is why we did take the time to address them and we're going to continue to take the time to address it and to continue to refine, to hone in on our criticisms, to help them point them into a more consistent direction with the Scriptures.
You know, when we bring corrections to what they say, it's not so that we can prove that we're right and they're wrong. It's to get them to stop what they're doing so that they don't give their listeners the wrong impression of what Reformed Theology is and what it holds to and so that they can actually understand the position well enough to formulate a decent argument against it should they wish to do so.
So, that is why we're doing this. You know, as Christians, we have the responsibility of understanding.
The.
Opposing view, respecting it and representing it accurately in all of our dealings.
Rhetoric.
And using rhetoric and all this other stuff, that's not what Christians do, especially with other believers. That's just unacceptable. That shouldn't even be.
A.
Thought in our mind to do that. And so, the reason, you know, we have tried to bring correction to a lot of the things that Conversations from the Porch has said, especially about Covenant Theology and Reformed Theology.
Because, as I said from the very beginning, their episodes, just about every time they talk about it, they misrepresent it, even in their latest, in their later episodes. And that's why I commend it. I did commend Brother Paul Kaiser, and I'm still very grateful that he's reading Reformed Baptist Theology and recommending it to his listeners.
That is most definitely a step in the right direction. We have been doing the same. We are reading NCT authors, we are critiquing them, we are seeing what they actually say, and giving you our perspective on it.
And so, we've tried to bring correction to a lot of things that they say. We've done it on the show several times, we've done it on Facebook, and we've even tried to do it privately on some occasions as well.
And, you know,.
Sadly and disappointingly, none of it seems to be working. And so, but I think the opportunity that we have to address each other directly in the kind of dialogue that took place on the clashing of theologies on sanctification, I think that's probably the best way to go about it.
To address, air out our concerns, our disagreements, and actually engage, and actually, really, because when you're on a forum like that, you can't back out of stuff, and you can't just ignore the comment or whatever.
That is our hope. You know, we do want to be able to learn from each other and sharpen each other, okay? And that means that we're going to make very pointed criticisms about New Covenant theology because, you know, we have some serious concerns about it.
There's a lot of problems that New Covenant theology is perpetuating, and we're going to address them. So, it is in the spirit of brotherly love in Christ, and we're hoping that things get better from here.
It does seem like they will be, but we can't, at the same time, whitewash the history of what actually happened before, you know, because Paul Kaiser kind of gave the impression that, oh, well, you know, we didn't really have a, you know, we made it clear that we wanted to do this from the beginning.
We didn't want to engage anybody yet, and it's like, well, no, that's not true. You know, that's not true. They gave us a different impression from the very beginning. We decided to engage them, and so, like, and then it just completely fell apart because they ended up not wanting to, and, you know, we don't have to revisit that all over again, and I'm not trying to, you know, bring, resurrect all this stuff all over again, but let's be honest with what actually happened.
Yeah, we've covered all of that before. From the beginning, we had one impression, and then Paul Kaiser, I think, you know, he did say that afterwards here, because I do remember him saying that, you know, we want to, when we were asking them to engage and they were reluctant, they didn't want to, that then he corrected our misunderstanding about where they were at, and he said, you know, that they wanted to lay the groundwork first, so he did say that it was just at a later point, it wasn't the initial impression that we got, and, you know, hopefully that's all water under the bridge, so we don't want a back and forth between them.
It's funny because they said that they didn't want a back and forth between us and them, or maybe it wasn't about us, but they said that they didn't want a back and forth after.
They.
Critiqued the episode of Clashing with Theologies, and so I'm hoping that we can do the same thing that they did, that we can sort of critique some of the things that came out of that episode, because that's what we're going to do right now, and I'm hoping that we won't be accused of trying to create a back and forth, because, you know, we're not holding that to them.
They critiqued some of the things, and then they said they don't want a back and forth, and okay, we understand, we're fine with that. We want to just give our perspective about some of the things that were said, and so one of the things that we wanted to talk about was the Ordo Salutis, and the arguments made by Paul Kaiser and Conversations from the Porch, and, man, Carlos, I stepped in it big time, man, because I sent Paul a text.
And I.
Said, I think you're right about the Ordo Salutis, and then I went back and, man, I'm trying so hard. I'm like, I'm trying so hard to just like, you know, I want to affirm them in some way, and I realized that I guess I wasn't paying attention clearly enough, because I did not hear him say that conversion was synergistic,.
It's actually pretty funny, man, because I'll play the clip, and so I think what happened was I was distracted,.
You know,.
I was listening to it on my phone, and I probably just didn't catch this one part, but I'll play the clip that explains why I thought, and I was even kind of baffled, like, I was like, why are you disagreeing with him on this?
But let me see if I can go ahead and play this right now. Hold on.
Did you hear what I said?
Conversion is still a result of regeneration.
Absolutely, and God regenerates us monogistically. Just look at the Reform Dodo Salutis. Google it.
No one would say what you said.
Yeah, that's not, I don't think that's true. So,.
That's what I heard, God regenerates us monogistically, and then right on the heels of that, Colleen said no one would say that, and then Carlos said I don't think that's true, and I didn't realize that you guys were actually objecting to the thing that I missed before that where Paul said that.
That.
Conversion was synergistic. I believe that's what he said, but we're going to go ahead and play the clip so that way we're sure to get him right, but I sent him a text and I said, yeah, I think you're right, and then I had a conversation with Carlos later, and he said, no, that's not what we were objecting to, and he pointed out that he said that conversion was synergistic, and I thought, oh man, oh man, I got it wrong.
I mean, fortunately in the text it said I need to go back and listen to it again, but anyways, I tried so hard. I really did. So, Brother Paul, I'm sorry, man. I tried so hard. So, in their episode of Rambling with Theology, they kind of doubled down on that point of conversion being synergistic, and I think probably the best thing to do would just be to play.
Them.
From that episode.
That I was looking at, and this is by Stuart, how do you pronounce his last name, Ryan?
Oliot? That's what I would say, Oliot.
I'm not sure. Yeah, he's from the UK, pastor in the UK, writes for Banner of Truth, and you can go find this article. It's The Order of Salvation, Study Notes by Stuart Oliot. It is on Monergism's website, so that's not a New Covenant website.
You guys don't have to get scared, and he does a chapter and he talks about repentance and faith. What I asserted was conversion is synergistic, and everybody, all of a sudden, when we started talking about the Ordo Salutis, everybody went bonkers.
I mean, I don't think Adam did, but I'm not sure if Andrew did, but everybody went bonkers, like, you know, Paul, you're absolutely incorrect, Paul. You're absolutely incorrect, and what they did is they truncated regeneration with conversion, and we have to understand a proper Ordo Salutis.
I'm going to play another, let me just, before I get to this article, let me just go ahead and play one more clip so you can see what I'm.
Talking about. I want to emphasize, obviously, with our catechism question from the Westminster, shorter catechism, we want to emphasize that it's a work of God, because if it were on our own, I mean, if you pressed me, I would say monergistic, even though I find the terms unhelpful, but ultimately, it is a work of God.
I would not desire obedience. I would not be growing in sanctification if it were not because of justification and my union with Christ. Right.
I don't think anybody disagrees with that. I would just quote Philippians 2, 12 -15,. So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, verse 13, for it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to will and to act for his good purposes.
So it is the Holy Spirit, it is God, enabling us to act, but we do act. The Holy Spirit doesn't act for us. We're not robots,.
But.
We are commanded. Well, it comes.
Into God's knowledge then. Can we do contrary to what God already knows.
In that area? Well, of course.
Not. See, I mean, that's why I think, that's why I.
Describe it the way I do. Here, Vincent, this is not the Google Hangout or Google Plus, but does Christ believe for you? Is it because of Christ's faith or your faith? Because of the faith.
He gives to us. Yeah.
Philippians 129.
I'll quote Philippians.
129 for that, and it says, you know, it says that it's been granted to you, for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.
So I would say it's been.
Granted. It's been granted, but we believe. Yep. Yeah. I would say conversion is synergistic.
That's the proper Reformed.
Ordo Salutis. Go ahead and look it up. Google it.
I would take issue with that.
Maybe we have a different definition of synergism.
Just look at the Ordo Salutis. When you guys get home, go look at the Ordo Salutis and see where they put conversion.
Exactly. Regeneration.
Precedes faith.
Here, hey, Carlos, regeneration is not conversion.
But it precedes.
Faith.
Regeneration is not conversion. Did you hear what I said? But conversion is still.
A result of regeneration.
Absolutely, and God regenerates us monogistically. Just look at the Reformed Ordo Salutis. Google it.
No one would say what you just said.
Yeah, I don't think that's.
True. I know you don't think it's true, but I'm more Reformed than all you guys right now.
No, I don't think so, because I don't understand correctly our position.
I don't know how to do a screen share, but please Google Ordo Salutis and hold up an image and see what it shows.
It's Romans 8. That's the Ordo Salutis. Those of you who call it justified, glorified,.
Sanctified, that's.
The same.
That's the Ordo Salutis.
I'm talking theologically.
That is what the Ordo Salutis.
Is based on.
Brother R .C., what are your thoughts.
On that?
I can't help but laughing that you point out that you were more Reformed than they were during the conversation,.
The discussion centered on the Ordo Salutis, and the disagreement was they were conflating regeneration with conversion, and they were saying that in essence, both of them are monergistic,.
And that.
The way in which you outlined or defined conversion was incorrect.
Okay, so yeah, I had apparently missed that he said that conversion was synergistic, and then he doubled down on it on his show, so we're pretty confident that we want to be charitable and believe what he actually said.
So.
We're pretty confident that that does accurately represent what Paul thinks is the Reformed position, and we want to try to bring some clarity to that from our perspective, because we do not see that as entailing the Reformed position, and we actually think that it's a little bit problematic to use that terminology and say conversion is synergistic, but the first thing that I want to point out is this.
In the chart that Paul put up, nowhere in that chart does it actually use the word synergistic.
Yeah, it doesn't define anything.
Not only does it not define anything, but it doesn't actually use the word synergistic.
And it misleadingly.
Uses,.
It puts God and man underneath conversion, and God and man underneath sanctification, almost as if the terms were kind of the same there, like they applied in the same way. So it was actually kind of misleading.
Yeah, and that's just it. So under conversion, there's a little parenthesis, and it says God and then dash man, and then out from man it has faith and repentance. And Carlos, I'm going to let you get into this a little bit more, but the graphic of the Ordo Salutis is I think depicting where God acts entirely alone, and then it's also depicting where both God and man act.
But man's actions should not be regarded as being synergistic, and I think that once we define what it means to be synergistic, we'll see maybe why this is a problem. So, let me go ahead and read what I thought was helpful on monergism and synergism.
Synergism, a belief that faith arises out of an internal capacity of the natural man. In other words, synergists believe that faith itself is a principle standing independent and autonomous of God's actions of grace.
It is something the natural man must add or contribute toward the price of his salvation. Unregenerate man, in this scheme, is left to his free will and natural ability to believe or reject God. Synergists teach that God's grace takes us part of the way to salvation, but that the fallen, rebellious human will be human will must determine the final outcome.
And so, understanding what synergism implies.
At that section of that chart, you have under man, faith and repentance, and to say that conversion is synergistic, and then to say that man's part is faith and repentance is to imply, basically, what I just read.
The synergistic view that.
Man.
Cooperates on his own will, apart from God causing him to, or gifting him, faith and repentance. And so, I think that it would be better to say that God, at the moment of conversion, is gifting man or is causing man to have faith and repentance, and we see that scripture labels both of these as a gift from God.
So there's absolutely nothing in man that can bring these things about in of himself and out of his own will that God has to act upon his will, upon man's will, and give him the gift of faith and give him the gift of repentance.
And so, a couple of things here. I can totally see how Paul would come to that conclusion. I can totally see that. But I've not been able to find anybody who would actually, from the Reform side, who would actually, I was looking through some books, and who would actually say that that conversion was synergistic.
I need to go back and listen to his episode to see if he did that, because I know that he doubled down a little bit on that, but I can totally see why he would get that impression from this. I think that the chart is unclear.
The chart does not use the word synergist or synergism, and none of the terms in the chart are defined.
From what I'm taking away from this is that does not accurately represent the Reformed position. And I think that's what that Colleen chart from Theology Gals, who's a Presbyterian, where Reformed Baptists, with the caveat of we have a couple of caveats that we've talked about, but that's really what I think that you guys are trying to get at.
Tell me if my assessment was correct. What else would you add to that? Well, we have.
To set up the context a little bit more, I think, because the first problem was that nobody defined what conversion was. Conversion was never defined in the discussion. And so, when I heard Paul say that conversion is synergistic, I had a sort of immediate gut reaction against it.
But, you know, if you notice, he said, like, everybody said you're absolutely wrong. You know, they said you're absolutely wrong. No, that's not what I said, at least. And I don't think anybody actually I don't think anybody else actually said that.
They were just kind of reacting because they sort of had an implicit notion that that was wrong. And I said, I think it is wrong. I said I thought it was wrong, but I wasn't sure because I forgot what conversion meant.
So, the first thing to establish is what conversion actually means. And Paul does talk about it on his episode, even though in the sanctification episode where we were talking, it was never defined. And all conversion means is just repentance and faith.
And that's what I kind of was thinking that, but I wasn't sure. That's why I said regeneration precedes faith. Because faith is what makes, faith is part of conversion. And so, regeneration is prior to faith in the monergistic view, whereas in the synergistic view, regeneration comes after faith.
And so, the other problem here is, so, I kind of, I have to take some responsibility for sort of like, not really putting my finger on the actual problem. But I will actually commend Vincent Lancone, what's his last name?
Lancone or Lancone? Vincent from Council of Google Plus, he actually put his finger on the problem. He was the one who pointed it out. And I didn't hear him when he said that, but, and I kind of like, I was still kind of scrambling to remember what conversion meant.
And so, I wasn't too sure, and so I didn't want to commit to anything too much, but I just kind of had a feeling it was wrong. And then, so, I almost kind of thought like, okay, well, maybe he is right, because I'm just not sure, but I still don't think it is, but like, I wasn't sure.
But Vincent put his finger on the problem because he said, maybe we have a different understanding of synergistic because synergism is the Arminian view. It has nothing to do with Calvinism or the Reformed Ordo Salutis, or Order of Salvation.
It is very improper and confusing and just plain wrong to use the term synergism when you're describing the Reformed position. And it's funny because all of the authors that he quoted, I don't think any one of them used the term synergism either.
And I will give Paul this. We will give him some credit, you know. I do think Paul was perhaps explaining the right position, but I think he was using the wrong terms to explain it. And so, because what he was trying to say, yeah, we're not robots, we obviously, we have the faith ourselves.
God doesn't have the faith for us. God doesn't need faith and God doesn't need repentance because He's God. Whatever He knows is true.
Yeah, I agreed with everything that he was saying. You know, that we have to have faith and we have to repent.
Yeah, but the problem is, okay, so now we're tying into some other issues because now faith becomes an issue. What exactly is faith and what exactly is repentance and all of those things? And so we kind of touched on this on our episode on the Lordship Controversy because another issue becomes, you know, first of all, we need to, okay, let's just establish right away as to what synergism actually is.
I'm going to read the entry on synergism from the Concise Evangelical Dictionary of Theology by Walter A. Elwell, who is the editor.
And the.
Thing about this issue, and I think this is why everybody had a sort of gut reaction against it, because anybody who's familiar with the monergistic and synergistic controversy, it's like, okay, that's the opposing view, you know?
It doesn't make sense to use synergism when synergism is the opposing view to monergism. And so what does it mean? So here, here's the entry. It says, synergism, Greek synergos, working together. Reference to the doctrine of divine and human cooperation in conversion.
Did you hear that? Reference to the doctrine of divine and human cooperation in conversion. Synergism seeks to reconcile two paradoxical truths, the sovereignty of God and human moral responsibility. Nowhere do these truths so intersect as in the theology of conversion.
The Augustinian tradition emphasizes the sovereignty of God in conversion, or monergism, or divine monergism. The other, the opposing view, in other words, which is synergism, emphasizes cooperation of God in humankind.
During the Lutheran Reformation, the synergistic controversy occurred arising from statements made by Philip Melanchthon. In the second edition of his Loci, published in 1535, Melanchthon wrote that in conversion three causes are conjoined.
The Word, the Holy Spirit, and the Will not wholly inactive, but resisting its own weakness. God draws, but draws him who is willing, and the Will is not a statue, and that spiritual emotion is not impressed upon as though it were a statue.
His followers were called Philippists, his opponents were called Nessio, or genuine Lutherans. And this was written by C .G. Fry. So as you can see, obviously, synergism is not the Reformed view. It's actually the compromising Melanchthonian position that ascribes some credit to the human will.
As you can see, he says the Will is not wholly inactive, but resisting its own weakness. Synergism, in other words, presupposes human free will. The fact that you have the ability to choose God without Him regenerating you first.
So the whole thing is just completely wrong. It's a completely confusing and inaccurate statement that Paul said about conversion being synergistic, because that's not correct. It's not true.
And also, it's completely wrong to say that that's the Reformed view.
Absolutely.
Yeah, exactly. You cannot say, again, synergism presupposes human free will, and that's why regeneration is after.
That is completely at odds with the Reformed order of salvation.
And so,.
It's really interesting, because I was actually reading, I was doing some more research on this. I was trying to look at, there's actually not a lot on the internet about this, but I did see some articles by Sproul, and he talks about it a little bit in his book, What is Reformed Theology?
And he says it a little bit differently than the dictionary entry that I just read. He says that synergism is with respect to regeneration, that you believe that you regenerate yourself, or that you initiate regeneration by first having faith, which is still completely.
Wrong.
That's not at all the Reformed position.
Well, Paul did say that regeneration was monergistic.
Right, but that's the problem. That doesn't mean that conversion is synergistic, again, because it's a contradiction to say that. Because synergism claims that regeneration.
Follows.
That was just a total mess. And I commend Vincent for actually pointing that out. He was dead on about that.
And Colleen was trying to point it out.
As well. Yeah, I know. It's just that we had a, you know, it just wasn't made very clear because we weren't actually defining the terms as to what they actually mean. And, you know, the fact that Paul was saying that there's an element of synergism in conversion, it's just because he was trying to explain that we do something ourselves, it was just completely misleading because synergism is synergos, right?
It means to work together with or to cooperate with God in our conversion. It's completely wrong. It's not the Reformed view at all. And so, obviously, God gives us the faith, God gives us repentance, and we repent and have faith.
But those acts of faith are not cooperation with God and they are not works. Faith is explicitly clear in the Bible that it is not a work. It is a gift of God and it is given to us by God. And so, we don't cooperate with God to get it, in other words.
I wanted.
To read a little bit here. This was really fascinating about this whole synergistic controversy that I kind of touched on a little bit. This is from a book called The History of Christian Thought by J .L. Neve.
He has a.
Section here on the synergistic controversy. It says,. We know of Melanchthon's disagreement with the strict Lutherans in regard to the condition of man's will and the experience of his conversion. So this is exactly what we're talking about.
The role that the will plays in conversion. In his Loci of 1535, he emphasized the point that original sin has not deprived man of the faculty to make right decisions when incited by influences of grace.
That's the Arminian view. As to spiritual righteousness, there is no faculty in man's will capable of producing something new. But the will of man is able to assume an attitude and give assent when this new makes its advance to him.
Thus, Melanchthon arrives at the constantly repeated formula of the three concurrent causes in the process of conversion. The word of God, the Holy Spirit, and man's will, which is not entirely inactive, but which struggles against its own weakness or infirmity.
Sackert remarks correctly,. The ethical motive of Melanchthon is altogether respectable, but in the formulation of his thesis he was unfortunate, for the divine work and the human attitude must not be thought of in the form of an addition of coordinated factors.
Lutheranism is very sensitive when it comes to its Augustinian monergism of grace and conversion. The synergistic expressions of the Leipzig Interim have presented a strong appeal to many theologians who cannot be charged with desiring to surrender anything of the sola gratia, as can be seen from the utterances of such men as J. Feffinger and Victor Streigel.
The Interim said God does not deal with man as with a block, but he draws him in such a way that his will also cooperates. Again, folks, this is not the Reform view, this is completely, this is the Arminian Compromise that many scholars point out about Melanchthon, that he began to become more man-centered.
And so, Feffinger adopted the phrase of the three efficient causes instead of the third of these, namely the will of man, that it does not resist, but adapts itself to the working of the Spirit. He said that there must be something within us which explains why some assent and others do not.
So there you have it. They are attributing some credit or something in man that God does not first attribute to him. There, that's the problem. And that's what synergism is, that's why it's wrong.
Yeah, that's why it's not the Reform position and it's wrong to use that terminology.
Yes.
I want to, let me just finish this, this is a really good little sentence here I want to finish off with. In public disputation with Flacius in 1516, Strigal said that sin has not been abolished and has not destroyed free will, but only depraved it.
The will acts in its own way in conversion with a peculiar mode of action, so that no inward transformation can be real except the will has given its assent. To use the words of Seberg, Strigal conceives of the natural man as only bound, wounded, and hindered by sin, not dead, in other words, not dead, okay?
Although it is but weakly, yet the will of man cooperates. Its attitude toward grace is not simply passive, but only more passive than active. So that's, I mean, that's the context and that's what synergism actually means, okay?
It is not the Reform view, at all.
I guess the big question I have is, this is not the first time that this has happened. Do you think.
It's.
Do you think they're going to accept this,.
Or.
What? I have, I honestly.
Have no idea.
I was kind of hoping he wouldn't double down, I mean, I kind of expected it to happen that he would follow up in his episode, but I don't know.
I'm glad that he doubled down, because.
Confirmed for us what his position was, and what he was saying. But this, again, is another instance of Reform theology being misrepresented.
Yes, unfortunately, yeah.
You know, at this point, I'm not really sure what to do, because we've never seen them acknowledge any of their misrepresentations of Reform theology. And so, Paul said in his last episode that he doesn't like to, that he likes to represent people accurately, or he doesn't like to misrepresent people.
I forget how he said it, but well, let's see. I mean, I hope that I hope that, for our listeners, I hope that our listeners.
Will.
Just hear us say that this really doesn't represent the Reform position to use synergism in relation to the ordo salutis, or use synergism as it pertains to the issue of conversion. So, I mean, that's pretty much all we can do.
We're just trying to give our view and say, I don't believe that this is the Reform Baptist view. If you want to use the word particular Baptist, that's fine too. Labels are labels, and whatever. I don't believe that this is the Presbyterian view.
I don't believe, so, I mean, maybe somebody could find some professing Reform theologian who was wrong about this and sort of use that to say, see, Reform people do say this, but I think that if you're going to deal with Reform theology, I mean, I don't see this anywhere in history as it pertains to the Reform tradition.
That's where it's at right now. I'm sort of trying to not step on toes here. We do appreciate these guys. We're glad.
You had the opportunity, Carlos and Colleen and Vince,.
To sort of challenge what was being said, but that's our take. Anything else, Carlos?
Well, you know,.
We gave you the history, we gave you the definitions. You can't ignore that. You cannot ignore that and just it's very confusing and misleading to claim what Paul claimed. And they tried to say that there was an element of synergism and compatibilism, and then compatibilism is another kind of loaded word because from what I was seeing, it has a different, it seems to have a different meaning in the theological sense as opposed to the philosophical sense because, you know, I was looking at the Stanford encyclopedia definition of it, and it sort of was saying that determinism and free will are compatible.
But the theological definition is actually that the will is free in the sense that it does whatever it wants according to its nature. But since our nature in the monergistic view is corrupt and evil, all we do is sin and evil.
And so we're free to do what we want, but that which we want is always sinful and evil, and therefore we cannot choose God unless He first draws and gives us faith. But even then, like, here's the thing.
If you really want a good answer, the best answer to the free will,.
Divine,.
What is it called, divine sovereignty and human responsibility problem, the problem of, there is no such thing as free will, folks. There's just no such thing, okay? God is the first cause of absolutely everything, the ultimate cause of everything.
Ultimate means He ultimately causes everything or is responsible for everything that happens indirectly, including sin, okay? He does not cause sin or commit it, but He indirectly causes it in the sense that He orchestrates everything so that it happens, okay?
So the best work on this that we can recommend to our listeners is read Gordon Clark's.
Chapter.
From Religion, Reason, and Revelation called God and Evil. It is a masterful treatise on this very issue. It is a brilliant answer, consistent answer, a reformed answer, a biblical answer to this problem because it takes into account the fact that there's primary and secondary causes, right?
The primary cause of everything is God. The primary cause of our salvation is God, but God uses secondary causes such as our human will, our human choices as means to accomplish His ultimate purpose and that's why God grants us faith and repentance, which also, by the way, and in order to have a better understanding of faith and repentance, we recommend that our listeners check out Clark's book from the Trinity Foundation called Faith and Saving Faith.
It's actually a collection of two books. One is called, I think, Saving Faith, and the other one is called the Johannine Logos because faith, repentance is actually implicit in faith and that's why sometimes in the Bible you see them say believe in the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved without necessarily mentioning repentance.
Of the fact that when you believe, it implies that you actually didn't believe previously before and so repentance is a change of mind. It is not a turning from sin. I think Paul defined it as a turning from sin and that's not what it means.
Biblically, repentance or metanoia, meta means change, noia means mind. It is a change of mind. God grants you faith, repentance and faith, so the faith, you go from not believing the gospel, the God of the Bible, to now believing the God of the Bible because you have been regenerated and so there's a lot going, as you can see, there's a lot to explain here and things can get a little rushed in the discussion and so we never really laid out the terms carefully.
I know Paul was trying to define everything and I commend him for that. I do commend him for that. He was trying to define everything but unfortunately using the term synergism to apply it to the Reformed view is just, it's historically inaccurate, it's theologically inaccurate, it's definitionally contradictory, it is just not appropriate at all.
So, you know, we exhort them to that and hopefully they recognize what's actually going.
On here. Yeah, definitely. So, I know that you touched on God and evil, so we would hold the view of supralapsarianism. Is that the way that you would say it?
I know some people were asking me about that recently. I'll just say that right now I need to re-read Gordon Clark's book and go over this stuff again but I remember at the time that I definitely agreed with what he said.
I agreed with his position and the book God and Evil. If you're also looking for God and Evil you can go to the Trinity Foundation and look up, it's volume 4, Christian Philosophy and the signature series.
Of.
It's the fourth book in the signature series, it's titled Christian Philosophy and that combines a couple of books. One of the books that's included is God and Evil because I don't think that they sell that as a stand-alone book.
Yes, they do.
They actually do.
You're right, they do. Some of the other books that are compiled in these signature series, they don't because I know I was looking for the one on science and that's I think in volume 5 and I can't find it as a stand-alone book.
Yeah, it is but I would just buy the fourth book in the signature series because that's where he also talks about axioms and the axioms of revelation and he talks about logic so I would say just to get that book the one that combines the smaller books.
Yeah, they.
Sell God and Evil as a separate pamphlet which is a chapter in Reason and Revelation which is also sold as a separate book and is also included in volume 4, Christian Philosophy which is, yeah, like if people remember from our previous episode where I recommended that people get volume 4 because it includes that and some other really good material that Clark presents for presenting the Christian worldview and refuting.
Opposing worldviews. But yeah, you know.
And I did want to comment on this too because I saw that Ryan had jumped in on the episode and he was kind of commenting on things that, you can tell that Ryan hasn't listened to our previous episodes and I would encourage him to do that because they brought up the point about.
The law. Well, hold on, let me correct you you got the impression that he didn't listen to our episodes. Ryan, we don't know if he actually.
Did.
Well, yeah, right. And I don't think he did because of the fact that when he tried to you know, they pointed out the issue because I said that the lighter did not completely do away with the tripart division of the law.
If people remember our previous episodes where we talked about the law and we threw down the gauntlet in response to Christopher Fale's challenge to.
To.
It's funny, his challenge was to actually give us some scriptures that either implied directly or even indirectly that the tripart division of the law was actually in the Bible and so and then it was funny because Paul actually before we answered to their challenge, Paul was actually saying that all of the law is moral.
There is no you know, there's none of these distinctions, it's all moral and so, you know this is in the comment that he made on the episode in this last episode was that we've always held to a distinction, we've always held to that we just don't hold to division and so Ryan explained used the analogy of the Trinity to explain that division is not the same thing as.
Distinction.
And you know, we already pointed this out.
That's been our view from the beginning and that's actually what we said. It's, you know, when we critiqued Christopher Fale's article that was one of the points of criticism that we said.
Yes, that's always.
Been the Reformed view it's, they are correct that it is, the issue is semantic and they are correct that it's not the better term is distinction and not division. They are correct about that but because a lot of these criticisms come from shallow regurgitated arguments from other new N .C .T. authors rather than actually reading the original sources themselves this error tends to get perpetuated a lot and we've already corrected that from a long time ago you know, we've already pointed out that no Reformed author and I challenge anybody to find me one who actually divides the law into three separate pieces.
No Reformed author does that they all acknowledge that it's the law of Moses as a unit but there are distinctions between that law namely the ceremonial, the civil and the moral. And the reason it's called the moral the moral law is not that the other ones are optional or that you don't have to obey them or that they're not moral in the sense that you have to obey God, it's called the moral law.
And Calvin, I think we might have and I think we did quote Calvin where he explains that it's called moral because of the fact that it continues into the New Testament, it's eternal law. It's part of the moral law of God that never expires and so that's why it's called moral, it's not that you can just ignore the other commandments.
Right, and we would also say that, you know, I think I don't know if it was Paul or somebody else, I think it was Paul that was talking about the Ten Commandments and you know I don't know, this might not have been Paul, but somebody was talking about how, you know, we point back to the Ten Commandments and thou shalt not kill, but you know, it also says in the New Testament that we're to love and so we would actually include the new Testament commands as part of the moral law to love your neighbor, to to, you know, fulfill the law of Christ so we're not limiting, so we're not saying that the Ten Commandments that that is the exclusively the moral law.
Yeah, we've made that very clear and you know, I'm really glad you brought up that point because Pastor Paul did say that, he said, I'm not being morally conformed to the Decalogue, I'm being conformed to Christ and because and even in that very show, he was misrepresenting the view, the misunderstanding is so basic and it's so shocking because we actually had confronted them about this directly on Facebook and so it was just really surprising, like, you know, we had already addressed this, or so we thought and it's like, you know, what's going on here, why aren't you guys listening, you know and so he said that we're not I'm not being morally conformed to the Ten Commandments because Christ also said to love your enemy and it's like, right but that's our point because first of all, the Ten Commandments is not the entire moral law.
We've made that very clear, we've quote you know, read the larger catechism. I just read it, right? Westminster larger catechism question 93 there is no serious disagreement between all of the Reformed camp on this, they all they all agree on this point on the point of the law there's very little disagreement on this issue and they definitely agree with the concept of the moral law so, he said because Christ also said love your enemy and he was implying that the Old Testament didn't teach that or that the Ten Commandments or that the moral law didn't include that it's like, okay, well what about what about Proverbs 25, 21.
I guess he forgot about that one, right because it says if your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink and that's why I made the comment in the episode that that's a false disjunction, that's a false dichotomy between the Ten Commandments or the moral law which is not just the Ten Commandments but it's summarized in the Ten Commandments and Christ there is no dichotomy there Christ affirmed it all he affirmed all of it and that's why I also said that he said the entire law and the prophets hangs on the two great commandments so that that obviously includes to love your enemy that's part of the moral law it's clear because it says it in the Old Testament and it says it and it repeats it and reaffirms it in the New Testament.
So this is.
This is why we're showing people and we've been doing this we've been doing this from the beginning and people jump on afterwards and they make it seem like you know, oh well it's like.
Like the misunderstanding was ours.
Exactly, exactly like no, I'm sorry but we've addressed this several times, we've tried to point it out to them several times and it continues to get perpetuated so, you know.
It's interesting because I'm wondering if just if so this is just a thought, okay. I'm wondering if they understood the Reformed positions better if they would actually just agree with us on some of these points.
And the example that I'm thinking of is the sanctification issue because repeatedly I've heard New Covenant theologians say that we're not sanctified by the law.
So then and it's meant as a correction to Reformed theology and so then we point out and so in having conversations with a couple of friends and then also some of the stuff that I heard online this is what I heard them saying, was that we're not sanctified by obeying the law.
Well.
So then we bring correction and we say well that's not the Reformed position and I actually read in one of my episodes, you weren't on. I read the thing from John Robbins where John Robbins says that works are a fruit of sanctification, that we're not actually sanctified by obeying the law.
So then we point out that the Reformed position is that we're primarily sanctified by the word of truth, as it says in John 17. Was it 17 3 or 17 17?
17 17.
Yeah, we're sanctified by the word of truth. Your word is truth, and so we point out that we're sanctified by the law in the sense that it is part of the word of God and that the law has a more immediate effect of bringing about that sanctification because it pertains to holiness.
And I thought, man, I thought you did a really good job of explaining that on the episode of the clashing with theology. Guys, I thought you did a really outstanding job of explaining that.
Because you used.
Big, big words and I can't exactly repeat what you said but, so we point out that that is the sense in which we are sanctified by the law, but then what they do is then, from what I understand, I think that they would agree with that so then it becomes, okay so then the question is, okay, so then you agree that we are sanctified by the law and then, so now they're contradicting themselves because earlier they were saying that we're not sanctified by the law, now they're in a position where they'd have to say that we are sanctified by the law and really, in the same sense that we're saying it so then, either your earlier criticism which said that we weren't sanctified by the law, that's wrong, or your criticism of us which says that we're not sanctified by obeying the law is wrong, so I'm not really too sure how you would escape that because if, I mean I just laid out the argument, I don't see how you would escape the fact that either you're misrepresenting us or you're contradicting yourself and so I get the impression that they don't understand the reform perspective on some of these issues and I'm thinking maybe if they did, we could just agree about it and there wouldn't be this back and forth and we could say yeah, I think we agree with that and I'll just throw this out there there was a prominent theologian New Covenant theologian that I talked to and I said hey, what's your view of sanctification and he said yeah, it's the same as the Reformed Baptist and I was like, really?
Okay, well there we go, I mean so, can we just save some time and move on to something else? So what do you think about that, man?
That would require a lot of revisions and corrections to a lot of New Covenant theology books.
Because you know,.
I don't think they all agree on this either because, you know, David Gaye, the subtitle says it all and that's what I pointed out to Pastor Paul, he says no sanctification by the law and then he said, you know, you're taking him out of context and I said no, I'm not, I'm not because I actually read it, I read it where he said that, where he said he was interpreting Galatians a very specific way and, you know, I know we don't have time right now to get into all this stuff, we will have to dedicate a full episode to, you know, a lot of this stuff about, regarding NCT, but, you know.
Right, and I'll.
Just say that that gets old after a while, it's like, you know, read, it's like we're trying to interact and you know, one thing about NCT is it is not monolithic. No two ways about it, it is not monolithic and so when we try to have a conversation with a NCT proponent, we think it's better to interact with them directly but then, you know,.
That's when you have the problem. Yeah. That's the problem that happened with my encounter with Pastor Paul on the sanctification hangout because he was, he claimed to hold to David Gay's view, but then he said, no, we're sanctified by the word of God, and so it's like, okay, well that includes the law then, and he says, yeah, he actually affirmed that he said, yeah, we're sanctified by the entire Old Testament, the New Testament, I think he said something like that, something like that, basically agreeing with the Reformed position except David Gay, in his book, he rejects all three uses, all three Reformed uses of the law in his book, and what's the third use of the law and that's what I pointed out, it's that the law is a guide to our sanctification, it sanctifies us and it guides us in our sanctification.
That's the Reformed view, and for David Gay to reject that, obviously is showing you that he rejects that the law sanctifies us and so, and not only that, but he also goes into Galatians and he says that, you know,.
We're not.
Sanctified by the law, you know, because of what you have begun in the Spirit, why are you trying to complete by works of the law or by the flesh or whatever, you know, whatever it says, but you know, we're going to give you, we're going to provide quotations and everything because if David Gay does say in that book, and I don't think I found it, but if he does say that we're sanctified by the entire Word of God, then he's contradicting himself.
That is a contradiction. And the problem, unfortunately, is that they end up shooting themselves in the foot, either once or twice, because you shot yourself in the foot because now you're disagreeing with the Reformed faith, which is actually the correct view because it affirms that we're sanctified by the Word of God.
And Paul Kaiser even read the chapter on sanctification from the Westminster Confession that affirmed that. It affirmed that we are sanctified by Christ's death and resurrection by His Spirit and by the Word of God.
The entire Word of God. And so, the funny thing is, you either reject it because and that makes, which would make you antinomian with respect to sanctification. That is an unbiblical view of sanctification.
It's an error, which is what seems to be the view that David Gaye holds to, based on what I've read.
Or,.
You're actually contradicting yourself because you're actually misunderstanding the Reformed view. You're misrepresented by claiming that we're by claiming that the Reformed guys say that we're sanctified by keeping the Law.
Or exclusively by the Law. Which again, they're gross misrepresentations of what the Reformed faith is, as we've already made clear several times. We've pointed this out already a number of times on a previous episode.
So...
Right. Well, and the other thing is, I was really perplexed because, and you pointed this out in the Clashing with Theology episode. I was really perplexed. And just,.
I mean,.
I don't know what to do, man. I don't know how to deal with this or how to interact with this because prior to this, Paul said in a Facebook conversation that his view is that of David Gaye's. And then, you kind of held him to that in the conversation.
And so now, it sounded like, okay, so are you disagreeing with David Gaye? But then, he said that you took David Gaye out of context, which is, I mean, every time we talk about David Gaye, we're taking him out of context, apparently.
That seems to be.
Go-to argument. It's like, oh, man, okay.
So, yeah.
Yeah, here's, this is what we're going to do, you know, because the point of this episode is not to make it a back and forth. That's not what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is lay out our arguments and put all of our cards on the table.
We're presenting our arguments to our listeners and to them. If they want to listen, they can listen. They can take our arguments and wrestle with them because we're going to present them when we encounter them again on these hangouts or on their show.
We're making it very clear where we stand. And I've always thought this for a while now. I've had this thought for a while, man, that the reformers were really onto something, you know? There's just a lot there that they got right.
And the more I read and the more I study the Reformed faith and the Reformed tradition, and obviously, I'm not, you know, we obviously, the Reformed tradition holds Scripture to the highest regard, okay?
That doesn't, you know, we need to get past this Biblicist mentality where, oh, it's just me and my Bible. It's just the Bible. That's actually unbiblical, you know? And we've pointed that out as well on our previous shows.
But that's what we're doing. That is what we're doing. We invite them to listen and to take the arguments. We're going to keep coming, we're going to keep presenting them on our show. We're going to interact and we're going to formulate our arguments and we're going to present them and we will, hopefully in the future, you know, God willing, present them in more direct interactions and see who has, and see who's more consistent.
See who's more biblical.
Yeah, and, you know, we'll just leave it with this. Man, we appreciate the dialogue and we appreciate these brothers. And, you know, we want above everything else, because I very much appreciate what Andrew Appleport is doing and I think it's unique and I think it's commendable because I don't see, you know, it's unfortunate that there's a lot of wars out there among ministries and that's not what we're after and I very much appreciate Andrew Appleport trying to bring us together to say, let's talk about this, let's work this out, let's, you know, have the clash of theologies where we can just have direct dialogue and I think it's unique.
I haven't seen anything else like it out there.
You know, I think that a lot of people out there that they don't really maybe necessarily want to be challenged in their view but, you know, it's like going back to Gordon Clark, man, we're Clarkians but we don't agree with everything that Clark said or wrote.
You know, if you are doing that with any teacher, you know, I love R .C. Sproul but I think that R .C. Sproul's apologetic is wrong. We love John MacArthur but we've said that we think he's wrong in some areas.
Carlos and I,.
Carlos thinks I'm wrong in some areas, I think he's wrong in some areas but, you know, at the end of the day, it's like, well, we go back to the Word of God, we go back to the Bible and we, you know, that's the ultimate standard and so, you know, if we're wrong, then we're wrong.
And, hey, we're being sanctified in the truth, we're being refined in the truth, we're being reformed and made new in the truth.
We very much appreciate these guys. I will say that, you know, a special thanks goes out to Owen Pond because Owen Pond really helped me to understand the Reformed Baptist views a little bit better and going through this stuff with the New Covenant Theology, they're asking some great questions.
They're asking some great questions that I think the Reformed world needs to address and in particular issues about the Sabbath. It's surprising at how many churches you go to and you just ask them basic, you ask the members basic questions and they can't tell you anything.
And I think that that's, you know, I think that's a problem. And so, I very much appreciate these dialogues. I've learned a lot. I've learned a lot about both views.
I think that's a good place to leave it, man. What do you think?
Yeah, yeah.
We look forward to the opportunity and you know, I think that ultimately.
We're.
Hoping.
The best of this, you know, it's not to, as I said in the sanctification episode, I don't think there's no animosity here. We're not being argumentative or anything like that at all.
Points have been very clear from the beginning. We have some serious concerns about New Covenant Theology and that's why we're raising up these issues. And we will continue to raise them and challenge them on it because they need to be addressed, right?
And just as in the same way that we need to understand, really, that's what happens. Since most people have the impression that John MacArthur is Reformed or that, you know, he's very far removed from the Reformed faith, actually.
He doesn't even hold to Covenant Theology and he's not a Sabbatarian. And so it's like a lot of people don't even know what Covenant Theology or Reformed Theology actually is. And really that's what we need to do is actually understand what it is because so many NCT guys, I would venture to say that even most of them don't actually understand it.
And that's actually why they're NCT to some extent. And so that's what we need to do. I think that would be good for all of us to do. Seek to understand the Reformed tradition and the Reformed faith better.
And that's why I'm grateful for these opportunities. And I look forward to it.
Alright. Well, with that we will check everybody next week. God bless.