George Bryson and Micah Coate

Alpha & Omega Ministries

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

Comments are disabled.

00:14

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is the Dividing Line.

00:20

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

00:29

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

00:35

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

00:44

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

00:52

James White. Well it has been an interesting time period since we finished the program up yesterday.

00:59

If you were listening yesterday, you know that we spent two hours starting to work through Micah Coates' new book,

01:07

A Cultish Side of Calvinism. We found it to be significantly less than accurate in its argumentation, citation, and we were looking at one particular element of that, which may possibly be the worst, most obvious misrepresentation of me ever put in print.

01:28

And it was the section, page 285 of the Kindle edition, where we read,

01:36

In debating George Bryson, leading Calvinist James White admitted to Calvinism's view of God.

01:41

This is what Micah Coates thinks we really think about God. And if we were just honest, and I was honest, see.

01:50

The following is a loose paraphrase from this debate. As soon as I saw that,

01:56

I was like, what? And he adds, Bryson, Calvinists believe that God is an evil potentate who causes sin and tyrannically damns people and for no good reason causes babies to be raped.

02:06

White, yes, and here is why I believe that, Genesis 50 says. Bryson, yikes, with friends like this, who needs enemies?

02:12

While White's response is shocking, I deeply appreciate his honesty in acknowledging the sovereign attributes of his small g -gag.

02:20

Because Calvinist theology has misinterpreted certain verses of the Bible for 400 years. They have essentially created a totally new and totally foreign small g -god.

02:27

Now, even my worst enemies know that that is a bold -faced lie. And that I've never said, oh, yeah,

02:35

I believe, yeah, I believe God's a evil potentate. And I believe he causes people to sin and tyrannically damns people for no good reason and causes babies to be raped.

02:44

Yeah, that's, that's my God. Everybody knows that that's just as absurd as the day is long.

02:50

So what would motivate someone to do something like this? And so, as I was discussing it on the air yesterday, certain people in my chat channel who are somewhat frightening.

03:01

As Eric and Kanner learned firsthand, as Eric and Kanner learned firsthand, these folks go a -looking.

03:11

And so they, they, they track down the source of these things.

03:19

And it took a while because they found that, yes, indeed, in George Bryson's book,

03:28

The Dark Side of Calvinism, you have pretty much the same story, but slightly edited.

03:38

And I grabbed my copy, but evidently mine's one of the earliest copies, and it is now, it's now 100 pages longer than it used to be.

03:43

When it's a self -published 8 1⁄2 by 11 thing, you can make it as big as you want, I suppose. And discovered that Mr.

03:53

Cote had misunderstood things and had changed things. He had taken out, well, in, in Bryce's book, it says, even more pointedly, comments found on the

04:02

Internet in a section called, While in Away the Hours, the

04:07

Calvinist John, and again, I forgot to ask, I haven't actually responded to his email, but Robby or Rabe, I'm not sure which, offers what he calls a loose paraphrase in the

04:16

James White and George Bryson debate on the Bible, and it's a man. So here in Bryson, he's not, this guy was sitting in the studio.

04:28

He was sitting right there. He has the recordings of these things. He could have checked this out for himself, but hey, that would, that would show some type of honesty and integrity.

04:39

And when you're a rabid anti -Calvinist, you don't have to worry about Calvinists like that. You can just, you can just, we don't have to like use their definitions or worry about being accurate about what they say.

04:50

We can just let them have it. So at least he doesn't attribute the yikes with friends like this who needs enemies part to himself, because he knows he didn't say that.

05:03

And then he goes on with the same type of absurd application that yes, that's, I was saying, yes,

05:08

I believe these things. So, so both of both, so Coate is just following Bryson and Bryson was there.

05:15

So the, the first, the fundamental guilt here for gross misrepresentation lying through your teeth goes to George Bryson and George needs to be called on the carpet for this, to answer for this, this level of absurdity.

05:29

But people started wanting to go, well, where did this come from? And so eventually everything was tracked back to a, a website, a blog and Calvinist John Rabbe, I'll just go,

05:47

I'll just go Rabbe for now. If it's, it's Rabe, then he can let me know. He, he undoubtedly has to correct the pronunciation all the time anyways.

05:57

So it's not like my last name, mine's pretty easy, but R -A -B -E could be all sorts of things. It was a forum.

06:02

Okay. So in a forum, evidently John did not like how the program went.

06:08

And this morning I got a Twitter message from him and I got into the office. I got an email from him. He doesn't even remember this.

06:15

But he says, yeah, that's a forum that I was involved in. And yeah, that's my style. So this was a, a knee jerk reaction after the program.

06:25

He did recognize that this was a two -on -one but he didn't like how the program went.

06:31

Well, you know what? I did the best I could over three hours to, to drive people to the word of God. And I have met many people that have said that that was the

06:42

Genesis, the starting point of their becoming Reformed. So I leave that in Lord's hands.

06:48

John was very kind in his emails. He's apologized profusely. Not like, it's not like his fault that someone like a

06:56

George Bryson or a Micah Coate can take those words and read into them a conclusion that is just, just,

07:04

I now call it the absurdity. Uh, the, you know, not even the cults have come up with something this stupid, uh, but they've pulled it off.

07:12

Uh, it's not his fault, but, uh, he, he said, man, I must've just got a burn in my saddle and man, uh, talk about a lesson in, uh, um, you know, being careful with your words.

07:22

You never know where they're gonna end up. And, you know, that's just, that's the way it goes. I, I, as soon as I saw his tweet this morning,

07:28

I said, Hey, don't worry about it. You're not the one that wrote all the rest of that stuff. Blessings to you, et cetera, et cetera. So I, you know, there's, there's no problem there.

07:35

And, uh, if I'm ever speaking someplace reason nearby, I'd love to have him come by and say hello, and I'm not going to kick him in the shins or anything like that.

07:42

Yes, sir. You're obviously, well, the clip that you put on the website this morning, I'm going to play it here and I know you will. I just remember at the time, my knee jerk reaction at the time was, wow, am

07:53

I glad this is being recorded because some people might get the wrong impression of how this went down.

08:01

You need to play it back and we need to have it because Bryson and Hanegraaff, in my opinion, at the time where they were shouting you down.

08:10

Well, they weren't shouting me down, but they, they clearly did not. And, and it's, I had not listened to this in a long, long time.

08:16

I don't know that I've ever sat down and re -listened to all of it. I might've right afterwards. I, I don't recall now.

08:22

I normally don't listen to my stuff unless I'm preparing for a debate on the same subject or with the same person again.

08:29

But I was surprised at how, again, my recollection was very, very clear how very much involved

08:36

Hank was on the other side. And that was very obvious at the time. And certainly you can tell that by listening, but it was also so incredibly obvious how

08:45

George Bryson wouldn't answer a direct question of his life, depending on it. I mean, it was, he was just, he was, he was panicked of being drawn into any type of exegetical discussion at all.

08:55

It's, what is it like to know? Don't get me into that Bible. I'll be, I'll be in big trouble if you get me into that Bible stuff.

09:03

What's it like to be a Christian and fear being brought into the Bible? I just,

09:08

I cannot even begin to conceive of that. That was where I am so much at home. That's where I want to be.

09:14

And that's where I just had to keep dragging him kicking and screaming, screaming into the text of the

09:21

Bible. So anyway, once we started getting all this information, first thing

09:27

I did is I downloaded from our website. Actually, it was day one.

09:33

This was day one. Yeah, this was day one. Well, well, maybe it was next day, but, or maybe he heard it.

09:40

He said, remember he listened on the internet, so it doesn't necessarily mean he was listening live. But it was day one and it was part of the, it's within the first 20, it starts,

09:52

I think, 20 minutes and 43 seconds, if I recall, or maybe 22, 43, somewhere around that timeframe into the very first day.

10:01

And that's at least an hour version of it without the commercials in it. If you have the commercial stuff, then that's going to be, that's going to change the timeframe.

10:08

But anyways, I'm going to play it for you. Anyhow, I have posted it on our website, in our, in my neat little, little audio player thingy here that took us about two hours to get up there.

10:20

But hey, you know, at least now it might work and I'll be able to do this in the future.

10:26

I've put it into the same place where I put the links for all the dividing lines, so I should have it. Anyhow, even though I don't have access to that subdirectory, so it's useless to me, you better get it to me because I should be able to post audio on the website without having to involve 20 people and taking three hours.

10:41

It's silly. But anyhow, um, I want y 'all to listen.

10:47

Let's, let's, let's, let's remind ourselves one more time. Here is Michael Coates' new book.

10:53

Here is, here is the, all of this, but before we listen to this, let's just step back and go, okay, let's compare how responsible

11:03

Calvinists deal with the issue of people who disagree with them and how

11:11

George Bryson, Micah Coate, Lawrence Vance, Norm Geisler, Dave Hunt, and all their endorsers,

11:21

Paige Patterson, Jerry Vine, C. Gordon Olson, who have endorsed this kind of book.

11:28

Let's, let's compare and contrast the two sides. And here's what, here's what

11:35

Coate has. Bryson, Calvinists believe that God is an evil potentate who causes sin and tyrannically damns people and for no good reason causes babies to be raped.

11:43

By the way, why didn't Bryson catch the fact that he never said that? Didn't he see that this was a caricature?

11:51

Because it was. This was, this was a caricature on John Robbie's part of saying, well,

11:58

Bryson's way off on this side and, and White's saying yes, and look at Genesis 50 and it never, from his perspective, got to where it really needed to be.

12:08

And of course, all that really represents is I was doing everything I could to get it back into the text of scripture. So why didn't, why didn't

12:15

Bryson catch that? Because he didn't want to. He doesn't care if it's a caricature, as long as it's anti -Calvinistic.

12:23

And all of these people and their endorsers need to be held accountable and responsible for this. I dare anyone, anyone, find one single parallel in the

12:33

Potter's Freedom. Find it. And if you go, if you, and be careful, if you go to Geisler's appendix, which is no longer there, there's a reason why it's no longer there, folks.

12:46

The publisher pulled it. Because just go to the appendix of the current edition of the

12:53

Potter's Freedom and be embarrassed for Dr. Geisler, for the number of outrageous and outlandish errors, page number citations, complete fabrications of citations, the

13:06

Gale Ripplinger -esque level of that appendix. So don't go there. It's not going to do you any good.

13:13

Even though Michael coded from it. And anyway. So what a contrast.

13:19

What a massive contrast. Why does one side have this incredible willingness to engage in dishonesty and strawman argumentation and everything else, and the other side doesn't have to?

13:33

It's simple, folks. One side has the truth and the other doesn't. That's why. I mean, that's obvious, but that's just the way it is.

13:41

So let's actually listen. Some of you, this is only a few minutes long, but here is what became paraphrased and turned into the absurdity by George Bryson as he was trolling the internet looking for something to make himself look better after the debate in 2001.

14:02

It was God's purpose to preserve the children of Israel alive in Egypt. So it was his purpose to send

14:08

Joseph, and he did so by having him sold into slavery in Egypt. Well, let me answer that with a question.

14:13

Let me ask you this question, and this will put it into perspective to show the difference. When a child is raped, is

14:19

God responsible, and did he decree that rape? If he didn't, then that rape is an element of meaningless evil that has no purpose.

14:28

What I'm trying to point out by going to Scripture... So what is your answer there? Because I want to understand the answer. I'm trying to go to Scripture to answer.

14:35

Yes, but what is the answer to the question that he just asked so that we can understand what the answer is? I mentioned to him, yes, because if not, then it's meaningless and purposeless, and though God knew it was going to happen, he created without a purpose.

14:49

Now by the way, let me stop right there. The only thing I was responding to was the use of the term decree, not responsible.

14:55

I have so clearly, already up this point, had so clearly differentiated between primary means, secondary means, the whole nine yards.

15:04

All I was responding to was, did God decree? What does the Westminster Confession of Faith? Freely decreed whatsoever takes place, and isn't that what it says?

15:14

Whatever takes place in time. Isn't that there? So you're asking a Calvinist, do you really believe what Calvinists believe?

15:19

Yes, I do, and let me explain what that means. They don't want to explain what that means. George Bryson does not want anybody to really understand what we believe.

15:27

He wants people to hear his distorted version of what we believe. He doesn't want anybody to know what we really understand.

15:34

And how we accept these things, and how we understand primary causation, and secondary causation, and what the basis for moral culpability is.

15:42

Does anybody remember that two weeks ago, I spent over two hours on this program discussing this very thing for a single person who had written an email.

15:53

Two hours discussing these very issues. Remember about Adam and Eve, and moral culpability, and the basis upon which

16:01

God holds men accountable in the homeland yards. Two hours. And they don't want you to hear that.

16:08

They want you to hear a monologue from their side, because they just can't interact with it.

16:14

God brought the evil into existence. No, it was going to exist, but for no purpose, no redemption, nothing positive, nothing good.

16:21

So he did decree it, and if he decreed it, then there's meaning to it. It has meaning, it has purpose.

16:26

Now, Hank's summary was exactly right. Hank heard me.

16:32

Hank got it right. He didn't say, he didn't use response. He said he decreed it, and because he decreed it, it has a purpose.

16:40

Exactly. Does that mean that you had a morally neutral human being with God, the big gun behind his back, saying do evil?

16:49

No. In fact, you probably had restraint involved even at that.

16:55

But that was part of the rest of the conversation. Got it. Suffering, all suffering has purpose.

17:02

Everything in this world has purpose. There is no basis for despair, but if we believe that God created, knowing all this was going to happen, but with no decree, he just created, and all this evil's out there, and there's no purpose, then every rape, every situation like that is nothing but purposeless evil, and God is responsible for the creation of despair.

17:23

For years, I've been trying to figure out why it is that in order for rape to exist, or unless God caused it to happen, there can't be any purpose in it.

17:34

God can use evil, and he does, but to blame God, which is what a decree does, to blame

17:40

God for the rape. Now, I just, I wasn't going to comment on this, which is what a decree does.

17:46

Only if you insist, like George Bryson, to simplify to the position of stupidity.

17:52

Only if you will not allow for distinctions that we all make in our theology. That again, this is where, you know,

17:59

Michael Coate gets this stuff. He's just simply following in line in this kind of, we will not defend our theology, we will assume our theology, we will not ask these questions of our theology, we will presuppose all of our distinctions, but you can't examine them, but we will examine yours.

18:20

You can't, you know, when people come into our chat channel, what's one of the first things we ask them? Where are you coming from?

18:25

What's your church background? And we can tell immediately when the lamers don't want to tell us. But why do we ask that?

18:31

Because we're info Nazis or something? Because you have to have a context from which to have a meaningful conversation and you need to know where both sides are coming from.

18:41

And this side just simply won't lay their cards on the table. We're only attacking Calvinism. We ain't talking. It's just a mystery to us.

18:47

But we just think your answer is terrible. No, you have answers. You just don't want to have them examined on the same level.

18:54

And that's what they don't like about me. And that's why Bryson won't do a debate with cross examination. Because cross examination means his position gets examined for consistency.

19:03

And he knows it's not consistent with a child is a horrible attack on the very character and how about of God?

19:12

How about to blame God for for the destruction of the heart of a father thinking that his son has been killed for many years, the weeping that he underwent

19:20

Genesis 5020 has not been answered yet. And Acts chapter four tells us that the early church believed that Pontius Pilate and Herod and the

19:29

Romans and the Jews in the crucifixion of the sinless son of God, which I believe we would all agree is the greatest evil that man has ever committed, that that took place on the basis of the sovereign decree of God, Acts chapter four, verses 27 to 28.

19:44

If you could tell me both what you believe acts for 27 to 28. I didn't say what you both.

19:51

Yeah, that's pretty obvious by that point. Let me ask you if you think that rape is a sin.

19:57

I believe that's funny. When I asked him earlier, Are you an open theist? Hank really got upset with me.

20:04

Um, but now he just asked now he just asked me Do I think rape is a sin? And Hank did not get upset with him for that.

20:11

That Yeah, that was young. Let's let's let's see. Can we use a biblical example? Can we use a biblical example?

20:18

George Bryson? No. At least that's a direct quote. At least I didn't have to make that one up. Rape is a biblical issue is rape a sin just as the crucifixion was a sin.

20:27

Okay, so does God decree and therefore is God the cause of sin? Again, as you catch catch see

20:34

Bryson does God decree and therefore is the put into parentheses primary cause he will not allow for for the he cannot criticize

20:45

Calvinism as it is. He has to create this straw man. It's just that's, that's all he's capable of doing.

20:51

That's what he's built his entire shtick on that. And it's just it's sad to see.

20:58

But you know, that's just that's just Bryson. And if you're gonna follow Bryson, you can't go any higher than Bryson.

21:03

Well knows having read all of these things. Let me just read this into everyone's hearings. They can see it.

21:09

The early church said for truly in a city they were gathered against your holy servant. Let's see instead of going after George, what am

21:15

I trying to do? I've got a purpose in this program. I know I knew

21:20

I had already written and Eddie, Eddie Dalkor will testify to this and I could probably go in the other room and find the notes from this even though this was eight years ago.

21:31

I'll bet you because I remember which notepad I had. And I know about where that notepad is on my shelf.

21:36

So I bet you I could even find this. But I and Eddie will tell you.

21:43

I had written on the notepad is that you know, I'm taking notes as you know, and what would really be cool now boy,

21:49

I wish we'd had this is I've got that live scribe pen. Because what people don't hear is what went on during the breaks.

21:56

Which very much substantiates what I have said concerning what was really going on in this situation.

22:04

But I had written on my pad, this is the last time

22:09

I'll ever be on BAM. And I'd showed it to Eddie and he just sort of looked at me because I had been on 13 or 14 times that point.

22:16

I was starting to become a regular. But I could tell that this was last time

22:22

I'd ever be invited on. And it was. I've not been on since then. And so I knew what was going on here.

22:33

And so I had a purpose. I had decided early on, the people that I want to get to in this conversation are the people who honor the

22:44

Bible as the Word of God. The only way you're ever going to believe these things is you believe God has spoken. And I've told the story many times of Susan V.

22:52

who came into our chat channel years ago from a Church of Christ background, still attending a Church of Christ. And how we explained

22:59

John 6 to her. And she'd come back a few days later and she'd talk to her elders and they said this. And we'd respond to that.

23:05

And then she'd come back. She read some commentaries. We respond to that. And over a period of time, she'd come in and she'd say,

23:11

I'm losing sleep over this. And I'm losing friends over this. And it's impacting my family and all the rest of this stuff. And yet her commitment to the

23:21

Bible is Word of God never varied. And she accepted what the

23:27

Bible states because she looked into it just that carefully. And those are the type of people I'm concerned about.

23:33

I'm not concerned about the philosopher who wants fancy philosophical language, because if you're a philosopher who wants fancy philosophical language, and I convince you with fancy philosophical language, then another philosopher can come along and convince you to another viewpoint with fancier philosophical language.

23:48

And I don't, you know, life's too short to even bother with such things. Real edification of the body of Christ comes from the application of God's truth from His Word by His Spirit.

24:03

Period. End of discussion. And if that's what you're looking for, then you're not going to be interested in what I have to say to you at all.

24:09

And I'm not going to try to make you interested. And if you want to fill the blogs with insults to me,

24:15

I was looking at the very place where John Robbie had put that initially. And you scroll down the pages, all sorts of just snobbish, insulting, he's such an idiot, he's no scholar, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

24:28

I mean, if I believed 10 % of what I read about myself on Google, I'd jump off a building. But it's just the way it is.

24:35

But that's what I was trying to do. And so here I am trying to get it back into the text of Scripture. And there's

24:42

George Bryson trying desperately to keep it out, because he knows that's the one place he cannot go.

24:48

He has to stay in the realm of emotions. He cannot go into the realm of actually thinking through these things, because his position will collapse.

24:57

Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod, Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.

25:08

And so here is an example where men committed evil, and they did so at the predestining purpose of God.

25:16

God is glorified. His intention is positive and good. The intention of Herod, the intention of the

25:22

Jews. Intention. Something you'll not hear George Bryson talking about.

25:27

What is the intention of the heart? Because that's the basis upon which judgment takes place. But no, no, no, we can't have that.

25:32

God, these were not innocent people, and God's standing behind them with a big gun, pushing them down the road, going, be evil, be evil.

25:39

In fact, how many times did God restrain them? So they're making a choice in the process, in your view.

25:46

They're not only making a choice. So they have the ability to choose. Within the realm of their nature, since they are fallen.

25:52

Remember, God restrains men from committing evil. Do we? Let me ask you, do you believe that? Why are men fallen?

25:58

Now, it is absolutely clear how relevant my question here is.

26:07

Can God restrain men from committing evil? Isn't it obvious?

26:13

If God can do that, then there's a question, isn't there? Why doesn't He? Why doesn't

26:20

He? And if George Bryson will admit that God can restrain the evil of men, then he has to answer the question, why does

26:28

God not restrain someone from raping that little child? Now, the fact of the matter is,

26:35

God has restrained people from raping little children every single day throughout the course of human history.

26:40

But since it didn't happen, we almost never thank Him for that. But the fact is, see, once again, the

26:47

Calvary Chapelite has to answer these questions too. And He may duck and make excuses, but He's got to answer these questions just like anybody else.

27:02

And a refusal to do so is simply dishonest. Do you believe that? The question is, why are men fallen? Could I ask, could

27:08

I finish a point here? Do you believe that God can keep someone from sinning? I would like to ask you the question, is

27:15

God the cause of that sin? That's the issue. I've already pointed out in Genesis chapter 50 that God's decree is based upon His good intention.

27:24

Can God keep a person from sinning? Will He violate libertarian free will to keep a person from sinning?

27:32

Yes or no? Well, it's not a yes or no question. George, it is, and we all know it.

27:42

So there's the section, folks. There is the clip that was turned into the absurdity by George Bryson, a paraphrase.

27:53

It was meant to be a somewhat mocking paraphrase of both of our positions, but mainly more of a mocking of the debate itself.

28:02

Well, it's just, you know, it didn't get to where it needed to go. Okay. But to turn that into, oh, look,

28:10

James White has admitted that he worships an evil God that causes sin and damns people and has little babies raped just because it's fun to do.

28:22

What an incredible insight, not only into the rabid anti -Calvinist mindset, but into those who would aid in a bet through the promotion and endorsement of such material.

28:39

Men who sit in positions of high honor. I really wonder if Al Mohler read this book what he would say about it.

28:50

I mean, he would be shocked at anyone who's ever graduated from the seminary. And someone's told me since last night that Michael Cohen has an

28:57

MDiv. And if that's the case, okay, then there's absolutely no excuses whatsoever for all the things we've talked about.

29:09

And just outside of just abject laziness or dishonesty on a level that's just beyond comment.

29:17

But if Al Mohler read this book and then saw Paige Patterson's endorsement on it,

29:22

I wonder what the next meeting of Southern Baptist seminary presidents would be like. Just amazing.

29:30

Just absolutely amazing. Well, I wanted to get that out because that had developed since yesterday's program.

29:39

And I wanted to deal with that. We had gotten it posted this morning. And I just,

29:45

I don't even know what to say. But I did want to. Oh, the way back, we'll be playing the entirety of this debate after the live show.

29:54

Yay. That'll be interesting. So if you want to hear the whole thing, you want to hear how many times

30:01

I tried and tried and tried and tried to get Calvary Chapel leader

30:06

George Bryson to do exegesis. And how many times, well, remember that was what eventually led to read my book, which is part of the

30:18

Radio Free Geneva theme. I finally looked at him. How do you interpret that text?

30:25

Read my book. Don't ask me to actually deal with the

30:30

Bible. What are you talking about? That's not fair. What an amazing thing.

30:41

All right. So what we're going to do here is I had promised to do this. And there are numbers of you who go, hey, this is much more important to me than that other stuff.

30:51

And so, you know, we understand. We want to try to continue to have things that a wide variety of folks can find useful.

31:01

And I had mentioned on Tuesday, and I was going to do it on Thursday.

31:07

We moved it off today, which is why we're doing another hour and a half this week.

31:13

That will give us four and a half hours of dividing lines this week, four and a half hours two weeks ago, three hours last week.

31:20

So I'm trying to pack up the archives. So it takes more than just a month to go through all of them.

31:25

So we're just going to keep stretching it out there. It'll take much longer now. But I was talking about the three -part lecture series that was delivered in Scotland by Dr.

31:44

Simon Gathercole, Dirk Junkin, and Peter J. Williams, and how useful

31:50

I found it. I thought Peter J. Williams' presentation was just, well, since he's

31:56

British, smashing. And just very, very well done.

32:03

But I really enjoyed this portion of Dirk Junkin's presentation.

32:09

It's a little bit difficult to follow this kind of talk without seeing the slides.

32:16

And I didn't hear this until the slides had already been pulled down, but there was for like a week or so right afterwards, you could actually download them from a website, but I didn't know about it until it was too late.

32:26

And so it can be, I've often commented,

32:31

I would not even want to try to do my King James Only presentations, my Textual Critical, New Testament reliability presentations, without using a digital projector.

32:41

I just, I don't know how people did it before you could show people stuff. Trying to describe it is just a death sentence.

32:51

It's just, yeah, it's rough. And so anyway, what

32:59

I want to do is I want to play a portion of Dirk Junkin's comments. Now he's commenting on, misquoting

33:07

Jesus, I was reaching over here and grabbing the book, but then I realized I have it open in Kindle, so I don't need to do that. Now, misquoting

33:13

Jesus, he's going to be commenting on pages 158 and 159, at least of the printed edition that I have.

33:23

It's interesting, I just realized something, that in the Kindle edition, for some reason,

33:28

I don't know why, this says page 158 of 247.

33:37

With this new book, now this edition of Kindle is showing me the page number. I'm sort of wondering if I would reopen

33:43

Coates' book if I'd now have page numbers. I'll find out soon enough. But anyway, this book is the popularization published by Harper San Francisco of the book that put

33:58

Ehrman on the map called The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, which is an

34:07

Oxford publication. And mine is rather dog -eared, from 1993.

34:14

And you will find the same discussion beginning on page 54 and extending for a number of pages, very well marked in my edition here.

34:25

And I think you could make an argument that Ehrman is more careful in his scholarly work than in his popularization.

34:35

That may be due to a lot of things. Given the publisher,

34:41

I have to wonder if it's not the editing. In the sense of, there is,

34:50

I have discovered, I sense, and I don't know if anybody else has sensed this, but I think a lot of people would have sensed this.

34:57

I sense that Bart Ehrman, when you read the cover copy, when you read the stuff that Harper San Francisco puts out, or Harper One now,

35:12

I think is what it's called, puts out, promoting his stuff, it's always much more rabid than what Ehrman actually says himself.

35:19

I mean, these folks are the main publishers of the atheists out there, other than Prometheus, which is normally even worse.

35:26

But they love anything that is anti -Christian. I mean, the bias there is unbelievable.

35:33

And ironically, they put out Rob Bell's book, too. But I just have to have to wonder if it's the publisher juicing it up, because they know who's going to be buying this book.

35:46

I don't know. But Dirk Jankin is responding specifically to the popularized version in Misquoting Jesus.

35:57

And so let's take a listen to what he had to say. And then what I'm going to do is I'm going to go back through, and I'm going to give you more of the details of the specifics regarding the text.

36:08

So grab your Bible, if you have a Greek New Testament, especially the UBS fourth, or even better, be the

36:13

Nessie Olin 27th. Sure wish I'd get the 28th out as far as printed. Grab yours, take a look at the textual critical data, because we're going to be looking at that.

36:23

And then in the last half hour, we're going to go back to probably the

36:28

Perkins slick debate. So here's here's what Dirk Jankin now it's

36:34

J. O. N. G. K. I. N. D. And as you're going to hear from his accent,

36:40

English is not his first language. That's the wording of the New Testament is not the same in each

36:49

Greek New Testament. So along the way, those differences in wording were introduced.

36:57

And the question is, why? Why did this happen? Now, but Ehrman has a beautiful, and to some convincing theory.

37:09

He basically says that many of the variants we have in the

37:16

New Testament are deliberate. They were made because scribes wanted to change the text.

37:26

And they wanted to change the text for a very good reason. Because in the early church, there were all sorts of wars going on between various groups.

37:36

That is nothing new in itself. Because if you read the New Testament, if you read the Apostle Paul, or whatever, if you read the first letter of John, you get indeed the impression that even before the time about which what

37:49

Ehrman is writing in the first century, there was a core group of Christians, but there were also all sorts of groups around them.

37:58

But in later centuries, second and third century, there were issues about whether Christ was born as the son of God, or only became the son of God at his baptism.

38:12

So that means that he was adopted as the son of God at the moment the spirit descended upon him.

38:20

And that's a widespread kind of heresy, we call it these days. And in those days, it was called heresy as well by the people who didn't agree.

38:29

It's a widespread thought, and it's called adoptionism. So Christ being adopted as the son of God.

38:36

And Ehrman says, well, this sort of heresy influenced the text of the

38:43

New Testament quite a bit, because scribes changed the text of the New Testament, so that it could not be used by the heretics anymore.

38:53

So there is deliberate change in order to avoid misinterpretation.

39:01

And of course, it is in the end, one group won, they called themselves the

39:09

Orthodox, and all the others who lost were called the heretics. And if you read his work, then there seems to be some sort of bias to favor the heretics.

39:23

Actually, no, the heretics, they were the losers, but they were the undeserved losers in a sense, because what they promoted was perhaps part of what

39:32

Christianity was all about in the first place. Now what does he write?

39:40

He says this, the thesis of this chapter is that sometimes the text of the New Testament were modified for theological reasons.

39:48

This happened whenever the scribes copying the text were concerned, to ensure that the text said what they wanted them to say.

39:56

Sometimes it was because of theological disputes raging in the scribes' own day.

40:02

There's something going on, of course, in this quote that is very imprecise in what he says.

40:10

And this happened whenever the scribes copying the text were concerned. That seems like a systematic way of editing the

40:19

New Testament. Whenever they were concerned, they changed it. But then we get twice the word sometimes, just in order to tone down his own claim a little bit.

40:34

Let us have a look at his strongest example. I think at least it is his strongest example, and I make his case for him.

40:48

Adoptionism. Adoptionism works with the idea that Jesus was born from Joseph and Mary, but became the son of God only at his baptism.

41:05

If you are an any text that could be used to support the adoptionist heresy.

41:18

So if the text might be used to say that Joseph and Mary are the father and mother of Jesus, you have to change it in order to avoid any adoptionist reading of the text.

41:33

Now here we have a quote in Luke 2 .33. If you have a Bible with you, why not browse through Luke 2 passage.

41:41

Luke 2 will be the only place we are looking at. In Luke 2 .33, we have the words, his father and mother were marveling at what was said to him.

41:54

And then Bart Ehrman writes, his father? How could the text call

41:59

Joseph Jesus' father, if Jesus had been born of a virgin? And not surprisingly, scribal error in my slide, not surprisingly, a large number of scribes changed the text to eliminate the potential problem by saying

42:16

Joseph and his mother were marveling. I agree here.

42:21

I mean, the change is there in the text. And it seems that a large number of manuscripts have the text

42:28

Joseph and his mother. Well, okay. He may have a case. And then a little bit further, as the text says, his parents did not know about it.

42:41

But why does the text speak of his parents when Joseph is not really his father? A number of textual witnesses correct the problem by having the text read

42:51

Joseph and his mother did not know it. Sounds convincing to me. You avoid a potential problem here, don't you?

42:59

And then a third example from Luke 2 .48, which is all pretty close together, isn't it?

43:06

I mean, we're systematic here. And Mary, she upbraids him. Your father and I have been looking for you.

43:13

Now, once again, some scribes solve the problem, this time by simply altering the text to read, we have been looking for you.

43:23

So what we see here is some sort of a consistent pattern where it indeed seems that the text has been changed deliberately to avoid giving a chance to the heretics.

43:40

In a sense, this is worrying that scribes went systematically through the text and to adopt it towards their own idea.

43:54

At this point, it is always useful to ask, but what about the data?

44:00

I mean, how strong is this argument, actually? Let's have a look at the first example.

44:08

Let's see here in Luke 2 .33. No doubt about it, there is a very large number of manuscripts that has indeed the change to Joseph and his mother.

44:23

However, I was quite careful. I said there is a large number of manuscripts that have this reading.

44:31

I did not say a large number of scribes made this change. If you are a faithful scribe, you copy what you have in front of you.

44:43

So if your predecessor made a change, then the only thing you can do is copy what you have in front of you, even though you are not making the change, but some predecessor.

44:56

So rather than writing a large number of scribes change the text, what

45:03

Erdman should have done is a large number of manuscripts have this change, and this could be because of two reasons.

45:12

One, because at many different times and places, many scribes made all this similar change independently of one another, or alternatively, very early on in the tradition, there was one scribe who made the change and all the others copied him, simply.

45:30

But okay, we'll give him that. In the second example...

45:35

Now let me just stop it there, just to make sure you understood what Dr. Junkin just said, because this is very important, and it's what's missing in the popularized version of Bart Ehrman, and let me tell you something.

45:50

The vast majority of the local college professors that your children are going to be dealing with, who default back to Ehrman, have no first -hand textual critical knowledge.

46:05

They could no more read the textual critical data in the bottom of the NA -27 text than they could run a marathon, or whatever else.

46:14

They are going by his statements, and they're primarily... they're not reading... I remember the wild -eyed anti -Christian bigot at Glendale Community College that my daughter ran into years ago there, and I can pretty much guarantee he didn't read the

46:34

Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Very few people have. I could list on one hand the number of people

46:40

I've encountered that have read the Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, misquoting Jesus, and Bart Ehrman's doctoral dissertation.

46:46

I have, but there's almost nobody else I know that has, outside of a very small community of people.

46:54

And so, what they are going on is primarily the popularized versions, like misquoting

47:00

Jesus, as well. And so, since these inaccuracies are there, that's why you need to understand this.

47:06

What he's saying is, sure, if you're looking at your NA -27, you look at Luke 2 -33, and you see the variant marker before Ha -Pater -Al -Tu, and his father, and you look down at the bottom, and you see

47:25

Joseph, Yosef, and following Yosef, you have

47:32

Alexandrinus, you have Theta and Psi, you have Family 13, Unseal 33, you have the majority text, you have the italic, you've got manuscripts of the

47:44

Vulgate, you have the couple strains, the Syriac, and part of the

47:51

Boheric tradition, listed as having Joseph. And then the text is read by Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, DLW 1 -712 -41,

48:01

Lectionaries 22 -11, a few others, a majority of the Vulgate, evidently, margin of the

48:09

Heraclian Syriac, etc. There's divisions amongst even these earlier translations as to what they read.

48:18

But you have two readings, either Joseph or his father. And so, what he's saying is, and this is what a lot of people understand is, if you say many scribes did this, what you're asserting is that this was a change made independently by multiple scribes.

48:39

What Dirk Junkin is saying is, what about the possibility of a single scribe early on, very early on, that makes that change, which results in numerous lines from him having that change?

48:55

That's obviously what the question becomes at that point. The idea that, oh, you just, this was just, scribes just did this willy -nilly, is not supported by the fact, well, look at the majority text!

49:09

The majority text has that reading. Yeah, but that's a localized text. And if the scribe that made that alteration, if that's before that localized text comes into existence, and that localized text is based upon that change, that's not multiple witnesses.

49:28

That's just one witness to that one change. You have to understand how many scripts were done, the passage of time, etc.,

49:36

etc., to be able to follow that. So it is important to recognize this, and you'll see why it's especially important as he continues.

49:47

We see that a number of textual witnesses. And indeed, there are much less.

49:55

Here, I have the numbers. Do I have the numbers? No, but it is considerably less.

50:03

All right, let's take a look at that one. Again, some of you, I know Stephen and Chan will have NA -27s out.

50:10

And I believe this is Luke 2, 30, and his parents, there it is, 43, 243.

50:25

And if you look at 243 in the

50:32

NA -27, I'm not sure that it's that much less, to be honest with you.

50:39

Yosef Kayhay Mater is read by A .C. Psy 0130, family 13, which is the same family that we saw in the previous one.

50:48

Majority text, italic, looks like the same split in the Syriac and Boheric, actually.

50:56

And so that one seems to be about the same, as far as I can tell, as far as the distribution of manuscripts and the range of manuscripts and stuff like that.

51:07

And that's at the end of Luke 2, 43. And again, this is why listening to this without seeing the slides is a little bit difficult.

51:14

That's why I'm trying to sort of give some added material. Actually, there are very many manuscripts that have the change in the first place, but for one reason or the other did not bother or were not interested to make the change in the second place.

51:31

How worried were those scribes really about protecting their doctrine then? What about the third?

51:38

Now, let's stop there for a moment. The point is that if there is a systematic desire to alter the text, why is it that you can point to manuscripts that make the change in the first place, but not the second or in the second, but not the first?

52:00

Now, this is one of the reasons I brought this up, not just because I went, oh, I never thought about this. Let's tell people about this. Sadly, I had come up with this same argument back about 1995.

52:12

And why did I come up with this argument in 1995 on the very same texts? King James only -ism.

52:19

Because one of the pushbacks to the release of the King James only controversy in 1995 was a lot of exchange and dialogue with folks that saw this as a great threat to their promotion of King James only -ism.

52:34

And I remember pointing out, you know, they would, they had a different motive than Ehrman.

52:40

But as I've said many times, the thinking and the presuppositions behind King James only -ism and Bart Ehrman have this amazing intersection.

52:51

Bart Ehrman says, if God inspired it, he never would have allowed any variance to exist in it. The King James only -ist says, if God inspired it, there must be one absolute text we can look to today.

53:03

Bart Ehrman rejects there is an inspired text and all the inspiration of scripture. The King James only -ist ignores everything else and says, this is my final authority, and I'm not going,

53:11

I'm not going to apply the same standards to it that I applied everything else. They go opposite directions from the same flawed foundation.

53:20

And so I had pointed out to people, and I had gone to these texts, wait, listen, the fact,

53:25

I think it's in, actually now I think about it, I think at least a part of this argument is in the King James only -ist controversy, where I point out that manuscripts that have

53:36

Joseph will, just down the line, actually even the

53:41

King James has parents at some point. So if there's something wrong with saying parents at one point, why is it wrong?

53:49

Why is it right then to say parents at another point? And that this idea that there is this, every scribe that was trying to alter the

53:57

Word of God or something like that, why weren't they consistent? This conspiracy theory, and that's really what is part of Bart's argument here, this conspiracy theory would require some level of consistency.

54:11

Now, that's why, that's where I need to point out, and this is where, you see, this is where I'm different than my critics, because they would go, oh, just rip, just rip

54:22

Ehrman, don't, don't, don't be fair to Bart Ehrman. I mean, just, he's not fair to us, don't be fair to him. That's not how you do things.

54:29

There are a number of places in this section, and y 'all see the, y 'all in the studio audience, see the, see the markers here and the orange and, okay, they're, they're all shaking their heads, where he makes, he points out, here, this is page 58.

54:48

Oh, man, I gotta get the reading glasses on anymore. It's just terrible. Page 58. The tendency to become increasingly clear as I begin to survey the surviving data, but this matter of survival itself should give us pause, for scribes do not appear at least in materials considered so far to have been thoroughly consistent or rigorous in their attempts to rid the text of latent ambiguities, ambiguities, and so to eliminate the possibility of interpreting these texts in adoptionistic terms.

55:15

The reasons for this lack of consistency are not too difficult to find, as I've already argued, the majority of Orthodox Christians and presumably

55:20

Orthodox scribes could live perfectly well with the text as originally written, interpreting it, that is, according to Orthodox criterion beliefs.

55:29

So he says it, it's just that that kind, and this is my concern, that kind of careful scholarly observation of objections to your thesis, which is a part of good scholarship, doesn't get translated into the popularized version.

55:52

Or maybe Bart's getting less careful as he makes more and more money from the popularized books.

55:58

That's a possibility as well. But note, if you're going to be honest, you read stuff like that.

56:06

Oh, but that, that shines a better light on Bart Ehrman. Yeah, it does. She just said,

56:11

I am the way, the truth, and the life. You have to be truthful. Just in case you're wondering why

56:18

I'm emphasizing that, go back and listen to the first half of the program. You'll understand why. All right. So there's the background information.

56:24

Now, this third one's very, very interesting. Listen to what Dr. Junkin has to say. I had a look,

56:31

I counted all the manuscripts that have the change here, all the Greek manuscripts that have this change in Luke 248.

56:39

You know how many I found? None. He says,

56:44

Bart Ehrman, some scribes solve the problem. But he is talking here about the translation.

56:50

Because when the Syriac speaking church, whatever, made their translation from Greek into Syriac, they indeed changed the text to, we have been looking for you.

57:04

As far as I know, there is not a single Greek text that has this reading here.

57:11

So that means that some scribes or many scribes may have been concerned at first instance, some the second, but none the third.

57:23

And it gets even slightly worse, because these are the three examples we had so far. But in 227, if you have your

57:31

Bible in front of you, you will see again his parents.

57:39

And indeed, there are four manuscripts all after the year 950 that have that read here.

57:49

They have changed, what do they have? They have omitted the word his parents altogether, simply have they.

57:57

So the first instance of this whole section of talking about his parents.

58:04

Now, let me just comment on that. Because if you are looking at the NA 27, you only see you see 245 and then

58:12

PC, policy, a few others. And let me see if I can bring up here real quick, shut down the

58:23

NET and see if I can bring up CNTTS and see if CNTTS gives the rest of that information.

58:32

Did he did he did it? Is it? Yeah. 227, Ailthon, Numity, Nu, Ni, Ento, Lacunae.

58:41

There it is. Now, see this one only.

58:50

Boy, I. Hmm. I don't even see that listed as I see manuscript 28 listed, but I don't see 245 listed as the omission for that.

59:07

That's interesting. And then I've got one other listed, and that is a

59:12

Latin version for the omission there. So obviously,

59:18

Dr. Youngkin has access to a lot more textual data than than even is available in the

59:23

NA 27. So if you're looking at that going, how do you know there were four of the minor lists, one with a policy, probably because he has access to stuff that isn't generally available.

59:34

Parents, most early scribes in those wild years when the church battles were raging, were not bothered to change the text.

59:45

They did not do it at the first one. And same situation in 241, where, again, his parents, and there is only one medieval manuscript.

59:59

So there you go. I, again, I think it's an excellent example that more examples could be brought up to to illustrate this very thing.

01:00:11

But I want to sort of expand upon that a little bit, because it can be a little bit difficult to understand. But again, this is why we take the time to listen to these folks.

01:00:23

I hope you appreciate the fact that when Forged came out, I did a hundred mile bike ride just to get that thing ready to go, the dividing line.

01:00:34

That was the only way I could get through all of it. And we want to hear what's being said. We want to respond quickly.

01:00:41

And there is no reason, if you believe in the truth, to hide from the truth. So we're going to take a brief break, and we come back.

01:00:48

We're going to continue with the Roger Perkins -Matt Slick debate here on a Jumbo DL on a

01:00:53

Friday. See you in a moment. This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the

01:01:05

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

01:01:13

The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the

01:01:20

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming Lord's Day. The morning

01:01:25

Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m., and the worship service is at 10 .45. Evening services are at 6 .30

01:01:33

p .m. on Sunday, and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7. The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805

01:01:41

North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE.

01:01:48

If you're unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org,

01:01:55

where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

01:02:02

More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and evangelicals are working together. They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils.

01:02:10

They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements, and many evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the

01:02:18

Roman Catholic Church appealing. This newfound rapport has caused many evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided

01:02:28

Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,

01:02:35

The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine.

01:02:45

James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the gospel itself that cannot be ignored.

01:02:53

Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at aomin .org.

01:03:00

Hello, everyone. This is Rich Pierce. In a day and age where the gospel is being twisted into a man -centered self -help program, the need for a no -nonsense presentation of the gospel has never been greater.

01:03:12

I am convinced that a great many go to church every Sunday, yet they have never been confronted with their sin.

01:03:18

Alpha Omega Ministries is dedicated to presenting the gospel in a clear and concise manner, making no excuses.

01:03:25

Man is sinful and God is holy. That sinful man is in need of a perfect Savior, and Jesus Christ is that perfect Savior.

01:03:33

We are to come before the holy God with an empty hand of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Alpha and Omega takes that message to every group that we deal with while equipping the body of Christ as well.

01:03:45

Support Alpha and Omega Ministries and help us to reach even more with the pure message of God's glorious grace.

01:03:50

Thank you. Hammering 180 miles a week and climbing 9 ,000 feet in that week, you can have a couple of pieces of pizza.

01:04:33

It's not going to kill you. In fact, I could use the carbs before I do another outrageous, insane, killer ride in the heat tomorrow.

01:04:41

Actually, it was nice this morning. That storm coming through last night, it was like 81 degrees or something like that.

01:04:48

We desert rats start shivering at about 78, so he's not even going to comment on it.

01:04:54

Yeah. We did get another dust storm come through, though. That was so neat to see the big blob. Yeah, he's just reached for the dust can, blowing all the stuff off the electronic equipment out there.

01:05:06

That's living in Arizona, man. I forgot to look at the radar.

01:05:12

Have the storms left Tucson yet? When are they going to get the phones back?

01:05:17

I don't understand what the problem is, because we've got the phones. Certain people that live down in Tucson would like to...

01:05:28

That seems to work. It works here anyways. Yeah, that's good. All right. That ain't going to happen.

01:05:35

You and I both know it. All right. Let's at least try to finish Roger Perkins' opening statement with Matt Slick.

01:05:42

I mean, how are we ever going to get to the rest of this stuff if we don't start picking up the pace here?

01:05:47

But there's just so much to respond to that I don't want something to go flashing by.

01:05:53

So we're getting toward the end here, and we'll pick up with Roger Perkins' opening statement against Matt Slick.

01:06:11

So when Jesus says, the Father dwells in me, he's trying to say that the one divine person is dwelling in a second divine person, rather than recognizing, of course, that when

01:06:24

Jesus is talking about this, he's talking about the unity that exists between the Father and the Son.

01:06:29

And in fact, this is going to be laid out in the fact that when Jesus says that he will make his abode with us by the

01:06:38

Holy Spirit, that's a question I may be asking, because who was speaking? If in John 14, it's the human nature talking about the divine nature, how then does the human nature say he will make his abode with us by the

01:06:52

Holy Spirit, if that's only the human nature speaking about the divine nature?

01:06:57

I mean, there's lots of ways you can approach that. He that seeth me, seeth him that sent me.

01:07:15

Who sent him? If this is the human nature speaking, are you saying that when we look at the human nature, this is an exhaustive revelation of the divine nature?

01:07:27

Again, the very fact that Jesus, as a single person, differentiates himself from the

01:07:34

Father is destructive of oneness theology. God was in Christ, bringing his out in the world to himself.

01:07:40

First John 3 says the Father was man. There. That's the first John 3, 5 thing.

01:07:56

That was the one thing that I had never heard a oneness person do prior to listening to this debate.

01:08:03

I had never heard anybody, and that could just be because it's been a long time since I've dealt with oneness folks.

01:08:08

I don't know. But I had never heard a oneness advocate use First John 3, 5.

01:08:14

Now, I'm not going to refute First John 3, 5 on this program. Why? Because I posted an entire video on YouTube where I go through verse by verse, starting, if I recall correctly, at First John 2, 28, or 226, one of the two.

01:08:28

And I go through this whole thing. I play one of the cross -examination questions here, go through the whole thing.

01:08:34

So we'll never get done with this if I redo stuff that's already out there and is available for anybody to look at.

01:08:42

So if you want to have a response to First John 3, 5, I think we provide a very full response to First John 3, 5 in the

01:08:49

YouTube video that I posted just a few weeks ago. Galatians 3, 20,

01:08:55

God is one. Again, this is the scattergun, throw it out there, red meat, my side thing, which doesn't accomplish anything because none of this is actually relevant.

01:09:09

Well, most of this is not actually relevant to what Matt Slick had said. So what kind of an argument is that?

01:09:37

Well, I just interpret that if God's going to be the Almighty, he has to be Unitarian. That's what that argument is.

01:09:45

If God's going to be Almighty, then I'm going to assume that if you're a Trinitarian, that means he's only one -third of Almighty.

01:09:52

And of course, it's one of the reasons that Trinitarians have always asserted that the being of God cannot be divided.

01:09:58

Jesus isn't one -third of God or anything else. I do believe that Jesus is identified as the

01:10:05

Pantocrator, the Almighty, the creator of all things. But that doesn't change the fact that the

01:10:12

Son is differentiated from the Father. And the Son is not just a human nature, but the

01:10:18

Son himself is identified as deity. And that's why Christians believe in the

01:10:24

Trinity and are not Unitarians. Aspect of God's nature.

01:10:33

There's what's called the First Mention Principle, and probably you don't have time to go into that. But simply put, the

01:10:38

First Mention of the Spirit is that the Spirit moves, the Spirit covers. You know,

01:10:44

I remember hearing somebody years and years ago introduce me to the First Mention Principle.

01:10:50

And that is that the first mention of something in Scripture is determinative of its definition for everybody else.

01:10:57

But I've never seen anyone try to prove that. He just takes it as a given.

01:11:03

I want to go, what's the basis of that? I mean, I heard it as a young person.

01:11:09

But again, I just want to go, okay, if you want to embrace that, what's the basis for that?

01:11:14

I'd like to know what the basis of it is. Every time you read the term Holy Spirit, there's always an action involved.

01:11:20

Zachariah, invoiced by the Holy Spirit, prophesied. Elizabeth, invoiced by the Holy Spirit, spake with the mouth of the

01:11:25

Lord. The Spirit, not the Father, of Yahweh, came upon Samson, and he slew one thousand men. Luke 1 says,

01:11:32

The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary. Therefore, that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the

01:11:37

Son of God. Therefore, because the Holy Spirit is overshadowing Mary, therefore, that which is inside of thee shall be called the

01:11:44

Son of God. But according to my own theology, person number three was omnipresent. And God, person number two, was omnipresent.

01:11:50

And they were both God. So God was conceived by God. And then God, number two, was confused with anyone his whole lifetime.

01:11:57

He referred to person number three as person number one. And then he further, further claimed paternity to a child, and he never even fathered.

01:12:04

And on and on and on. Now, that is pure rhetorical nonsense. That is, again, that is not even...

01:12:13

At one point, Mr. Perkins accuses... I don't think it was in Matt Slick.

01:12:18

I don't think it was in this debate. I think it was in the Graves debate. Somebody was using argumentum ad absurdum, but it's clear he doesn't know what argumentum ad absurdum is.

01:12:28

But that is where you purposefully present a confused and confusing caricature of your opponent's position.

01:12:41

Again, all just to rev up your own base. He is...

01:12:47

Both Matt and Mr. Graves both corrected Roger Perkins on this, and I will be glad to do so as well in Brisbane.

01:12:56

He takes, interestingly enough, very similar view to Anthony Buzzard in regards to the issue of the incarnation and the role of the spirit therein.

01:13:08

And he says, well, because the spirit overshadowed Mary, that makes the spirit the father of the child, as if the overshadowing is some kind of siring or something.

01:13:19

And yet, very clearly, Jesus never confuses the spirit and the father.

01:13:26

In John, he's very clear in distinguishing that the father and the son send the spirit.

01:13:33

The spirit is another comforter like Jesus, who is sent from the father.

01:13:39

It's not the father, even though in one of the theology, the spirit is the father. But the reason that Jesus is called the son of God is not because of the virgin birth.

01:13:49

It's because of his supernatural nature. And he's reading into, because of this, because of the overshadowing, he'll be called the son of God.

01:13:58

No, it's because of the virgin birth and the fact that of the nature of the child, not this mechanism, which the

01:14:05

Bible never actually explains to us, does it? And in fact, certainly Mary wasn't interested in attempting to present an explanation to anybody.

01:14:14

He'll be called the son of God because he has always existed as the son of God. And that he will not be called the son of Joseph or the son of another person or the son of Pantera as years and years, years later, some

01:14:29

Roman soldier's name was attached, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years down the road as an accusation of unchastity on Mary's part, et cetera, et cetera.

01:14:40

He'll be called the son of God because of his divine nature, not because it's the Holy Spirit who overshadows her and therefore the

01:14:47

Holy Spirit somehow becomes his father. And interestingly enough, there's somebody else who had some comments about that.

01:14:55

A man by the name of Brigham Young, if you may recall some of his comments from many, many years ago, where he mockingly said that we should not give the

01:15:05

Holy Spirit to women, otherwise he will pawn children off upon them, upon the elders of Israel. And Brigham Young said some pretty amazingly dumb things.

01:15:15

Paul says that's the way which they call heresy, so worship I, the God of my father.

01:15:20

Paul was a Jew and any time a Jew regards the God of his father, we talk about the

01:15:26

God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Who did he worship? Jesus Christ was his

01:15:31

God. Now, immediately on the one part, Roger Perkins wants to say, we're like the

01:15:38

Jews, we're Unitarians. And on the other part, he wants to say, we worship Jesus Christ as our God.

01:15:43

Well, the Jews never did that. That's one of the dividing lines. And it is interesting that it does seem like he is suggesting to people at one point that the

01:15:54

Jews are actually expecting the Messiah to be deity incarnate. Now, there were all sorts of different views about the

01:16:00

Messiah. There was no single Jewish view. And there were some very high and exalted views.

01:16:06

But it almost sounds like, and I hope I'm wrong about this, but it certainly,

01:16:11

I think, is a fair interpretation of some of his comments. That he's actually saying that, well, that the Jews actually expected, are expecting today the

01:16:21

Messiah to be God incarnate. And I can guarantee you, it's pretty easy to debunk that one.

01:16:26

Jesus Christ is our God also. God is a Holy Spirit. It is his fundamental nature.

01:16:32

The Holy Spirit refers to the title, the title of the Spirit, refers to God in spiritual activity.

01:16:38

Romans 8 -9, Philippians 1. God in spiritual activity. Is what the

01:16:44

Holy Spirit is. Even though Jesus says, I will send you another comforter who will be sent from the

01:16:50

Father. That's just God sending God in spiritual activity.

01:17:13

The Lord is the Spirit. The audience microphone was very, very close to the

01:17:32

Oneness Pentecostal group. And so you do end up with some rather interesting commentary.

01:17:39

And there you had a whoop that showed up there. And, you know, they're excitable folks.

01:17:47

They can be anyways. So the last text there was, the

01:17:55

Lord is the Spirit text. And I must have gotten the text as I was, because he was, he was

01:18:00

Russian there. And he, no, he's not Russian, but I mean, he was rushing. Did a ding.

01:18:06

Yeah, thank you very much. And what's the reference?

01:18:15

There it is, 317. Second Corinthians 3, 317. So let's, let's go back and look at this.

01:18:24

Since we have such a hope. And I'm going to, I'm actually back up a little bit more to understand what's, what's going on here.

01:18:32

Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone came with such glory that the

01:18:39

Israelites could not gaze at Moses's face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the

01:18:47

Spirit have even more glory? Now let's just immediately stop there. You have a contrast here between the ministry of death and the ministry of the

01:18:57

Spirit. That is the condemnation that comes from the law under the old covenant brings death.

01:19:04

The ministry of the Spirit under the new covenant brings life. So this new ministry is said to have more glory.

01:19:14

And even though the old ministry was glorious in the giving of the law, so much so that Moses's face had to be covered.

01:19:20

How much more glorious should be the ministry of the new covenant now? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, and I know a lot of people don't allow

01:19:33

Paul to define his own terms. And they, they say things like, see, Paul just, Paul was totally against the law and all he saw was his condemnation.

01:19:41

Well, but the result that he's focusing on one thing, and that is that the ministry of the old covenant brings condemnation.

01:19:49

It does not bring the means of recovery from that condemnation. It's a, the law is a, is a tutor to point us under Christ, to lead us under Christ.

01:20:00

So if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.

01:20:06

Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it.

01:20:14

Now, this is very connected to much of what we've seen in Hebrews as I've been preaching through Hebrews at PRBC.

01:20:20

The glory has passed away because of the fulfillment that has come. I think that's important.

01:20:27

For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.

01:20:34

Okay, so we've, are we following Paul's point? All right. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses who would put a veil over his face so the

01:20:44

Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened for to this day when they read the old covenant, that same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ is it taken away.

01:21:00

And boy, did I see that. I'll never forget moderating the debate for Michael Brown against Rabbi Shochet at ASU in 1995.

01:21:10

I'll never forget that because 2

01:21:17

Corinthians 3 .14 fulfilled right in front of me. Jewish rabbi, I wrote in my notes,

01:21:23

I've mentioned this on the air before, I wrote in my notes, the Pharisees yet live.

01:21:31

2 ,000 years and I was listening to someone whose attitudes, words, behavior were exactly what you read in the pages of the

01:21:40

New Testament. Just to the T. It was fascinating. So yet to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts.

01:21:54

I wonder where that veil comes from. What does that, would be interesting to apply some of these questions to the reformed issues and the questions of man's free will.

01:22:05

Why is there a veil? Why is there a hardening? Anyways, well, it's just all their choice, evidently.

01:22:15

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

01:22:21

When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the

01:22:26

Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

01:22:32

And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

01:22:40

For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit. Now, evidently, what was just presented to us is that this somehow identifies the

01:22:58

Lord as the spirit. And so there is no distinction between Lord and spirit anywhere in the

01:23:04

New Testament. I think that's what was being said. It was said so quickly that I think what might be good, if I have time to do it, because I don't want to misrepresent

01:23:13

Roger Perkins. I sometimes hesitate to focus upon what someone says in the last 60 seconds of a presentation.

01:23:22

Because he even said, my time is passing. And I have said things in the last 60 seconds because I knew, you know, when you've got that time limitation, that sometimes what comes out the mouth is not necessarily what the brain was intending to come out the mouth.

01:23:40

So maybe it's just because I am a debater that I want to be very careful. If I'm recalling correctly,

01:23:46

I mean, I have to check. And sometimes it's hard to check these things. But I think there's a longer discussion of this that isn't time rushed in one of the

01:23:57

Graves debates. And so what I might do, because he does bring it up more than once, is see if I can find a better presentation that's fuller.

01:24:05

Because I'd rather interact with a fuller presentation than a brief one. But looking back at the text, now the

01:24:12

Lord is the spirit. I think what he's doing is he's jumping out of this to saying there is only one

01:24:19

Lord. And so kurios could never be used of more than one person.

01:24:25

Now the problem with that from my perspective, of course, is that theos is used of more than one person. Theos is the normal term used to the father, but there are places where it's used to the son.

01:24:35

Kurios is the normal term used of the son. That's his Trinitarian name.

01:24:41

But here it says the Lord is the spirit. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. This comes from the

01:24:46

Lord who is the spirit. The term kurios Yahweh, direct connection to the

01:24:54

Old Testament. But it sounds like what he's saying is, well, since there's only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, he's assuming that the phrase one

01:25:03

Lord means, what he's inserting there is, can only refer to one person.

01:25:10

But since the term Yahweh is used of the father in Isaiah 53, it's used of the son,

01:25:17

John 12, 41, Hebrews chapter 1, Psalm 102, 25, 27.

01:25:23

And here, as the spirit of the Lord, then clearly the term

01:25:28

Yahweh is used of more than one person. And so that's why

01:25:33

I'm thinking that there's a longer exposition of this. I'll see if I can, you know, maybe tomorrow listen to, instead of listening to the next book

01:25:44

I have listed, I don't know, I really need to get that book. We'll try to find a time. We'll try to find the time for the next time.

01:25:51

Or maybe we'll run into it in the rest of it. I'm not sure. But we'll try to get to it and see if I can provide a fuller response because that was really rushed.

01:26:01

So there's the end of that. And I've still got about five minutes. Let's move to the first rebuttal.

01:26:09

This is, you know, don't get me wrong if I don't, I'm not playing Matt Slick stuff.

01:26:14

You can go get this stuff from Carmen. You can listen to it if you want. I'm trying to respond to Roger Perkins. I'm not saying, oh,

01:26:19

I can do much better than Matt Slick did. I thought his response was fine, much more measured. But I'm not skipping over that stuff saying, you know, oh, that's terrible.

01:26:28

Oh, by the way, I've heard from Mr. Graves. Someone, I had sent an email through to their church.

01:26:38

And I'm talking about the Church of Christ minister that debated Roger Perkins. I heard back from him this week. And actually someone from our audience contacted him.

01:26:46

Even though I had sent an email myself through the church, evidently that didn't get to him. And so I actually have a couple emails

01:26:53

I need to respond to. And he would be interested in debating me on the doctrines of grace.

01:26:58

But he has debates and it would probably have to be a good year in the future, which is fine.

01:27:07

That's about where I'm scheduling stuff right now anyways. But I would like to try to schedule something with him because I was impressed with, there were a number of times,

01:27:18

I'll be perfectly honest with you, Roger Perkins was baiting him. He was looking over him, trying to get him to talk to him during his time, which you're not supposed to do.

01:27:26

And he was baiting him and he wouldn't do it. And so I was impressed with the self -control that he demonstrated and how he stayed focused on the topic.

01:27:37

And so I think a debate on the doctrines of grace with him would be very good because we only have the one with that fellow by the name of Barker.

01:27:45

What was his first name? I don't remember what his first name was. Pastor Barker. I just don't remember what the first name was.

01:27:52

What? James Barker? That sounds about right. Yeah, it may have been.

01:27:57

Yeah, I think you might be right. But it was on Long Island and it was pretty brief. It wasn't a real long debate.

01:28:03

But that's the only one we've done with the Church of Christ minister and I think that would be worthwhile. Paul Barber?

01:28:10

Paul Barber, you're right. I've been saying Barker all along. I was wrong. I've had, you know, you've got

01:28:15

Dan Barker. And remember, who is that Mormon guy? Stan Barker.

01:28:22

There's a lot of heretics named Barker, man. Is this rough? Sorry, Mr.

01:28:27

Barber. It was many, many moons ago. Paul Barber was the name. That's right. So anyways, we'll see if we can arrange that for next year.

01:28:33

I think that would be very useful. Thanks for listening to a jumbo Dividing Line Day. Three very different topics.

01:28:39

But we'll be back next week, Lord willing. Who knows if we'll come up with a mega jumbo?

01:28:45

Who knows? We'll find out. We'll see you then. God bless. The Dividing Line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries.

01:29:36

If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -4602. Or write us at P .O.

01:29:41

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the

01:29:47

World Wide Web at aomin .org. That's A -O -M -I -N dot O -R -G. Or you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.

01:29:55

Join us again this Thursday afternoon at 4 p .m. for The Dividing Line. The Dividing Line.