Eerdmans Raised the Rainbow Flag, Unitarians and Will Hess

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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00:30

And greetings and welcome to the absolutely worst gaming stream on Twitch Yeah, this is the dividing line and for those of you who don't know what that's all about I I had never even heard of Twitch until I don't know a few days ago and Evidently gamers use it primarily to show each other and that's something

00:53

I've never understood either watching Watching Watching somebody else playing a video game

01:02

I'm okay I'd really rather do that myself personally, but if I was gonna do it, which I don't anyways, so let's not talk about that Yeah, we're just going stop stop.

01:12

Don't do it Anyways, this is the worst Gaming thread great gaming stream on on Twitch.

01:19

We assure you of that do not attempt to utilize your Your controls to get in the game because Nothing works.

01:27

The avatar is an old fat Scottish guys. It's just you're stuck with a nice big white beard now anyway

01:36

I'm being called white beard on on YouTube now. I sort of like that. That's something I've always wanted. So yay

01:42

We're gonna jump right into it here Not everyone is aware

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And I hope Rich remembers to do something that he was said he was gonna do as soon as he got started here um

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The fan please sir. Thank you Short term memory is the first thing to go And it was it was gone.

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It was completely gone anyway Over the past few days a

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Controversy has erupted in light of the fact that the Erdman's book publishing company

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One of the last I mean one of the last big publishers

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It hasn't been to my knowledge been bought up by some big secular company Posted a tweet and a blog article directing people to Listen to LGBTQ voices and these are the books that they would recommend that you listen to to hear

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LGBTQ voices and so on and so forth In fact, here's here's it said regardless of your doctrinal and ethical convictions

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Pride Month is a good time for Listening to LGBTQ plus voices.

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Here are some books to help you do that. And then they sent you to a particular blog article on their own website, well

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There was an immediate response as you would expect there would be and should be

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I I think I mentioned at one point on Twitter that I Don't know why and I could be wrong and my mom's been gone for 12 years

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So I can't ask her and my dad's been gone since February so I can't ask him either But basically,

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I recall, I Think that at some point in time my mom worked for Erdman's.

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I Don't know why I have this recollection. It's weird things you remember from your childhood, but I seem to recall back in the early 1970s my mom talking about maybe talking with my dad about the fact that Christian publishing houses needed to have some type of doctrinal standard and That Erdman's did.

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I Don't know why I remember that. I wasn't playing on writing books for anything at that point in time.

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So but it stuck and That goes a long long long ways back now

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I have been aware of the fact that Erdman's and pretty much everybody with very few exceptions.

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I mean, I don't think Crossway's done it yet But a lot of the quote -unquote scholarly

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Publishers they have been busily working on expanding their

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Expressions and and and and the kind and so on and so forth and hence have been publishing

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LGBT friendly Books and and things like that and Erdman's has been doing this as well but That's one thing then coming just straight out and Joining in Pride Month which is our yearly reminder of Why God's judgment is rightly falling upon our nation?

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It's also when you think back just a year just just think of how much how much More that wrath is being felt in our own nation since last year

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Good reminder not something we want to think about but something we should be thinking about so there was there was quite a response and I would like to look at the very active

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Response that whoever is in charge of Erdman's Twitter feed Has been providing because I think it's

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I think it's important and I think it's certainly at the very least Gives me the opportunity of going, you know, we started telling you this stuff back in the late 1990s that the homosexual movement now the alphabet soup movement

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Does not want equal rights They want uber rights. That's what we started saying. It'd be interesting

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I Was talking to someone recently. I think I was talking with Jeff and maybe

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Isaac at Apologia Studios But there are places now where you can you can you know cost some money, but they will produce

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Transcripts of all the stuff that you have in you know online and Man, can you imagine what the dividing line?

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Archives would look like with fully searchable transcripts Um, yeah, that's that's something that we really need to be looking into and it'd be fascinating if we had that To go back and find when when did

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I first use the phrase uber rights? Because it was a very very very long time ago and now we are in a situation where if where we have we have people clearly stating that if you do not celebrate their sexual perversity that You should be fired.

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You should be considered criminal You shouldn't be allowed to live in certain places and do certain things and Far more than we had even imagined about that back then

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Well, could it ever get that bad? No, I mean, I can't imagine getting that bad, but it could get this bad well, it's gotten worse and That's that's the reality.

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So we all face this and so I think I also said on Twitter that it seems to me like some recent seminary graduate from a

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PC USA United Methodist ELCA Seminary is in charge of Erdman's Twitter feed because They are arguing along these lines so Let me

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I didn't take the time to make a Fancy presentation out of this you can find it on Twitter if you want it this weekend.

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We took down our post Because the overwhelm well the overwhelming vitriol was alarming and we want to protect our authors first sentence first sentence

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Victimization play the victim card We're being attacked. You are mean terrible horrible people first sentence.

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I mean that this is It's it's the absolute playbook of the left We stand by our eared word post.

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So we have tweeted the link again, but we think we should offer some explanation some of the replies to our original tweet could be summarized as Quote with this tweet you have gone over to the dark side

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Your company is now useless and we hope you go bankrupt and your employees become jobless end quote well

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I Would agree that there is definitely a dark side here And I would agree that Publishing with Erdman's would be

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I certainly have books that could never be published with Erdman's and I'm thankful They're still in print with somebody

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But I I didn't see the We hope you go bankrupt and your employees become jobless, but no someone might have said something like that.

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It's Twitter. We certainly Get a whole lot more going the other direction For those who thought that cursing and reviling would be an appropriately

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Christian response to an invitation to try to understand LGBTQ plus Christians we offer no response now here is where and I'm I'm not the only one who has been trying to help us to Discern these things for a long long time

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Michael Brown Robert Gagnon many people have been

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Talking about the same things, but you need to recognize loaded language and you need to disarm it

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For those who thought that cursing and reviling Okay, so using

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Really harsh terms that don't even match what was said beforehand. Well, I hope your company goes bankrupt.

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Oh, yeah, that's cursing Okay would be an appropriately Christian response to an invitation to try to Understand LGBTQ plus Christians you do realize that that is an argument, right?

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You do realize that that is now the official position of Erdmann's They are taking a position.

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This is this is Vitally important for for our young people to understand how to be able to listen read and Recognize the presence of arguments, but they're not arguments that are given a foundation their arguments that are just simply assumed and so this is a

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Argument there is such a thing as LGBTQ plus Christians. So that Alphabet, which is completely incoherent.

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It's contradictory and so you'd have to look at each particular letter and It would be

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Child's play and simplistic To be able to go to each one and go that is against God's Word period end of discussion.

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I mean bisexual bisexual really transgender queer

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How about two -spirit and all the rest is wild and insane stuff that utterly denies

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God's creative activity in the world and everything that the scripture says About his will about man being made in the image of God I mean

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It's just it's simplistic to be able to do and I speak as a person who's read far more of the other side than I have ever ever ever wanted to I I Probably Gagnon and Brown are probably two of the only people that I know of and there's there are others

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But they would be the best known who've read more in the pro -homosexual side than I have

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But I have read dozens and dozens and dozens of books in that field including a some

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I'm sure published by Erdman And so I don't say this in some simplistic.

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Oh, we just all know it. No, I know exactly what the arguments I've been in print on this I've debated this for a long long time and So you need to recognize there is an argument.

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There is a stance being taken But no argument being provided to substantiate that position

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We offer no response their self -revelation speaks for itself and it grieves us

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So here is the here is the virtue signaling here is the we're gonna put an argument out there

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That's unbiblical and then we're gonna turn that on its head and make you sound like the bad guys because we've already played the victim

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Card, like I said, this is straight out of the the leftist handbook

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This is this is how it is done And unless we learn how to turn it around and go no

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Wait a minute. You are not putting that on me and you are not putting that argument out there And you can use all the pious platitudes you want

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You're taking a position and you need to substantiate that position We need to be able to do that For our conservative

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Christian readers and friends who may be disturbed by the slander of the revilers

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We want to explain the misunderstandings they voiced The revilers so this whole whole screed is

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Is it does not even does it not even I mean it pretends to be being balanced but it doesn't even try

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I Mean it is creating this this Bifurcation right from the start because the left has to do that That will happen tonight

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With the January 6th stuff You're not gonna get balanced balance has no no place in a leftist

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Vocabulary. All right, and it has no place here either The revilers say we have changed our position and begun to teach heresy

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There are several problems that accusation We do not think it is for us as a publisher to define doctrine for the church but as you know as a publisher you once had doctrinal standard and It is not a matter of a publishing house defining doctrine for the church but a publishing house if it's supposed to be a

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Christian publishing house is going to have has to have some kind of standard and You've had one in the past and you've changed it and you know that You're well aware of that We are not the

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Pope or an ecumenical council or even a pastor again Empty rhetoric to hide the fact that this is bad argumentation being presented

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No one has said the publisher is supposed to define doctrine for the church But it is a very reasonable thing to say that a publisher should have a doctrinal standard

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Are you gonna publish the moonies? Are you gonna publish Jehovah's Witnesses? Are you gonna publish the Mormons? I imagine

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Erdman's would publish them where I think fact I think they have come to think of it now But again, if you want to be a

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Christian publisher, are you gonna have any standard at all? What what about people who defame the name of Christ are you gonna publish them as well?

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I mean, but we don't want to define doctrine for the church, right? Our role is to publish books representing both settled and experimental positions

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Here's here's here's a newsflash for Erdman's Sexual ethics in this area is actually settled and has been for about 2 ,000 years and Experimental positions that serve the church in its ongoing deliberations here the argument

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The argument is that what the church has believed all along in regard to the

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Imago Dei in regards to homosexuality in Regards to Jesus teaching Matthew chapter 19 that God created the male and female

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We need to be having ongoing deliberations about these things. There can't be anything objectively settled in the past These are ongoing deliberations

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We therefore routinely publish books that contradict each other on many contested doctrinal points

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We publish conservative and liberal books. We publish Catholic Orthodox and Protestant books. We are not confused

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We are a publisher that serves the ecumenical Church. Well, there's Much that could be said right there

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Except that Historic Catholic Orthodox Orthodox and Protestants have all believed the same thing about this subject as well

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So that's a little bit of a well see how broad -minded we are

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Even though we're taking a position that historic Catholics Orthodox and Protestants of all

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Rejected until the past, you know, 30 40 years at the most There you go with regard to Christian understandings of LGBTQ plus people

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Erdman's has been publishing books for quite a few years notice a few years not a few decades a few years

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I wonder when the first one was I Don't know. I Would I would be very surprised if it was before 15 years ago, maybe

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But for a lot of these younger folks 15 years is forever. It's like yeah, okay for Quite a few years by authors who have come to an affirming conclusion on biblical and theological grounds.

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This is not new for us Underlying message. We don't really know and if you think you know, you're being arrogant

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So scripture is not clear enough to actually explain these things despite how clear it really is

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At the same time Erdman's has continued and will continue to publish books by and for people who have not come to this conclusion

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This conclusion I assume that would mean who have not come to an affirming conclusion

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Well, isn't that wonderful of them since everybody they published for the first 60 years of their existence

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Had not come to that conclusion It's just wonderfully open and loving But Erdman's does not publish books that deny the existence or ignore the voices of LGBTQ people propagate false teaching about discredited slash harmful therapies or in general condemn slash revile

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LGBTQ people. Oh You don't take a position but If they deny the existence of what is that even supposed to mean that I've I hear that all the time

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We all hear that all the time, don't we? if you say that God created men male and female and that transgenderism is a myth you're denying the existence of Transgender people and transgender rights and transgender rights or human rights and blah blah blah blah blah blah

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All this insanity is Erdman's now saying we will not allow that historic Christian position to be expressed because that is the historic

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Christian position the historic Christian position is that Homosexuality bisexuality

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Transgenderism are all whatever whatever terms were used in the past are all violations of God's law.

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So the historic Christian position That was pretty much agreed to by everybody up until The earliest in 1980s and really well into this century is no longer

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Gonna be published by Erdman's sounds like what they're saying or in general condemn

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LGBTQ people so if you Conclude with Paul in 1st Corinthians 6 that homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of God You can't be published by Erdman's.

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Is that what is being said? Important questions Too much of that has been done over time and we know want no part in continuing it

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Again, it really makes me wonder is whoever is writing this whoever is tweeting this

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Did they run this past the board? The people the top because if they did

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Erdman's is done It's it's it's become an affirming Leftist propaganda organ like all the rest of them have been and a believing

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Christian should go I can't I can't work with that. I Sorry Can't go there

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But if this is like I said sounds the terminology is so Gen -z

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Laden with all sorts of empty terms that it really does make you go

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You know what seminary they just graduate from It's yeah We reject the tendency to promote division and discord by categorizing

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Christians into two camps Considering us to be right about everything and them to be wrong catch the horrible argumentation catch the spin

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Catch the we are actually creating division, but we're gonna accuse you of creating division.

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Okay? Two camps so affirming non -affirming or in other words historical up until a fat past few decades and now the progressive in the current decades and Most these folks could could not defend their thoughts on this if they tried they don't bother reading the other side

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They just just do the thing Considering us to be right about everything and them to be wrong

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Everything what do you mean everything on this particular subject or all subjects in general or what again?

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it's it's language meant to create emotion not truth we decline to swear loyalty to one factions us and Join their hostilities against all corresponding them again

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This is that kind of language So we declined to swear loyalty to a historic biblical

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Christianity and And hence we are becoming hostile toward it.

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That's that's what you've got from Erdman's right now So we reiterate our invitation

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Especially to our conservative friends. Oh, it sounds like you're pushing a position here Huh whom we value and respect, but we're really not a part of you anymore

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Use pride month to read a book by lgbtq2 plus Christians. In other words, we're saying that is consistent with biblical

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Christianity And their allies blah blah blah blah blah as always Our aim is not to tell you what to think though We just did and attempted to do so by using really bad argumentation.

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That's really obvious if people actually studied logic today It is to provide books that we believe will promote informed and charitable thinking

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So we'll use the nice words We just made our arguments and we just did it to try to deal with your emotions and Hopefully we'll get away with it.

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There you go. I You know, I Just can't imagine what my mom would say

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Really just can't imagine what my mom would say about all of that kind of stuff because it truly truly is amazing now

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Some of you may recall switching gears not much of a place there to throw the clutch

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Realize half the audience No idea what a clutch is Going you clutch your bag.

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No, it's never mind. I love those memes where it says millennial anti -theft device and it shows the

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Gear shift of a manual transmission. I miss I do I do miss shifting it's it's

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It made driving. I mean the older I get probably I'm not all that concerned but I I I don't remember what the last manual

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I had but I remember once doing a leg workout years ago to gym and I had to drive home and I had just fried my legs and trying to push that clutch.

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I almost didn't get home. It was ugly It was a very very long time ago.

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Anyway, some of you may recall And I only have these in This form right here and I do not know why that's silence

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Oh you had it sounds okay rich had it sounds it's Richard's fault once again just pointing these things out

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I Remember Back, I was coming back from I think it was in February yeah,

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I think it's in February because I came back through Wilcox that time and I Remember sitting in the

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RV at the KOA and Wilcox writing up a blog article documenting how

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Wilhess Of church the church split webcast had just Mangled my words.

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It was yeah, it was February because it was after the Molinism debate. I Remember he he just took my words and just made a mean the opposite of what they very obviously meant on any

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English grammar lexical any rational person Recognized that he was turning my words upside down misrepresenting me and he would not accept correction would not

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Nothing and then I think twice after that we did some programs where he and that young kid

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Were going after the potter's freedom and just the argumentation was Barely up to a standard that it was even worth trying to respond to to be honest with you, but I Think that was the last time

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I've mentioned anything about Wilhess We haven't had any back and forth because I had been on their program last last year and we'd had fun talking about King James Only ism and things like that mainly because we didn't really get into much doctrine

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Anyway The the church split seems to be doing splitting getting it's good at the split part

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Because they had gotten involved with with other former fundamentalists and Had had done some

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Webcasts and things like that and then Started getting into doctrinal statements that started causing some real issues.

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And so I didn't I couldn't follow all the argumentation and there was a lot of stuff going back and forth for a while But a statement of faith was written up and they days days wouldn't even sign it.

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It was just a really really really basic level confession of the basic Christian faith and At one point as They were responding to this statement of faith they made reference to Unitarianism and Remember not aside from just being a

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Molinist There's that there was an openness on his part to open theism and if we started seeing very clearly that on a on a doctrinal level there was serious issues with Wilhess and his and his folks and And other people who have more time to listen we're seeing the same the same things and that's where all the controversy started with and so in Responding to the statement of faith that they refused to sign and therefore there is this splitting of the ways parting of the ways of Necessity that that had to take place

29:18

This little segment came up and so I hopefully this will will work Let's let's see if it if it does

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First level theological issues would include those doctrines most central and essential to the Christian faith Included among these most crucial doctrines would be doctrines such as the

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Trinity the full deity and humanity of Christ justification by faith and the authority of Scripture These first order doctrines represent the most fundamental truths of the

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Christian faith as a denial of these doctrines Represents nothing less than an eventual denial of Christianity itself, and I'm not gonna lie

29:52

I disagree with that like somebody is such as the Trinity the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ Somebody cannot believe in the deity of Jesus Christ and still not deny

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Christianity and of itself because nowhere in Scripture does say you have to affirm his deity Now it doesn't make it clear that he is

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I think so. Yeah, but now let's let's catch what

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I said What so what Wilhess is saying is the Trinity and deity of Christ are not definitional the

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Christian faith Which of course the Christian faith has denied for a very very long time His position that has affirmed that most definitely the

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Trinity deity of Christ. These issues are Definitional without them. There's nothing left to be definitional of Christianity and he keeps going this direction and Unitarian Universalism is right there right around the corner and Just look at what they've been like throughout their entire history but when you have

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Someone say what the Bible never says you have to believe in Christ deity to be a Christian and Then they say no,

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I think they're wrong. I think it does teach that what you've done is you have diminished

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The teaching of Scripture on Who Christ is

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You have brought that down to No Bible's really not clear on that.

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We really don't know That's what that's what's being said We really don't know my personal feeling is that that's the better Interpretation, but hey, you know this

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Bible thing. It's pretty it's pretty complicated, you know and so yeah, it's

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Yeah, you know there's these passages and Well, okay.

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Yeah, so so Colossians tells us that The Christ is the standard of all things and in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form and we are we are awaiting the appearance of our great

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God and Savior Jesus Christ and and Yeah, there's In fact, we can't really explain

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How the atonement were work of Jesus truly wasn't the God -man and we can't really understand any of that stuff

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But then again, I don't think he believes in penal substitution atonement anyways, so there goes that But yeah, you end up with this

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Vanilla mishmash of Whatever Theological stuff you want to end up thinking you're seeing in Scripture, but hey, that's just me

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You know, it may may not be somebody else. I don't know And so you can be a

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Unitarian and You're just as you're that's that's fine. I really does does does this guy go to a church?

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Do these guys go to a church? Or are they We are the religiously abused we've we've been kicked out of churches

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And so we don't go to the church anymore and and that kind of a person. I don't know. I really don't know

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But do you go to a church? It has no statement of faith do you go to church where you can either worship

33:11

Jesus or not worship Jesus or believe Jesus is Michael the Archangel or believe that Jesus is this spirit child of Elohim and one of his heavenly wives and and Just a great moral teacher

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I what you throw it all together and hey, we're perfectly happy Let's just sit down and and have potluck after Sunday service, even though I'm not sure what you're doing during Sunday service

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You don't know who you're worshiping you don't know who you're praying to you know, what message you have for the world it's

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Pretty much a mess, I guess but don't know That's that's what happens.

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So So you don't really have to believe all those things and then you have this statement Does it mean that someone's less

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Christian for it? Because they are because actually if you listen to Unitarians They actually have various reasons for what they believe and they have ways to deal with those proof those other proof texts

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I have some friends of mine. Like I said that are Unitarians and they are some of the strongest Believers of God that I know so Believers of God that I know so whether you believe

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God is triune or Unitarian Trinitarian Unitarian, those are not that they are contradictory things.

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They're not the same thing So you can believe in God strongly but believe he's

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Unitarian Right, that seems I mean Wilhess is a very confused man a very very confused man.

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And there are a lot of people that are confused like him and What happens to a lot of these folks who they leave an authoritative system and they overthrow all authority they overthrow all authority and Then everything just becomes

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Grab bag of whatever you want. I Wonder now

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I Was I was gonna I was gonna bring up Oh Rat, I forgot to this atop the program

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We're not gonna be talking about the stuff we've been talking about for months now today, but I I did want to mention and I see the reason

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I thought about this is Might they fit into the solo scriptura nuda scriptura

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Type thing, but I don't think they'd have a high enough view of Scripture To even fit into that conversation to be honest with you when when they're going when they're saying stuff like this

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But one of the things I wanted to say at the top of the hour I want to say was we're not going to talk about all this stuff today but There's an article by I think it's

35:49

James sweat At the g3 ministry blog today it was posted this morning and He does something a lot of other people have done but it was really well presented

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I had thought about using Bob Inc and maybe Voss and stuff to do some of this stuff, but I've really wanted to focus especially on biblical exegetical aspects, but there's an excellent article there about natural theology and He makes the strong argument

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That whatever you do along with Bob Inc You have to start with the primacy of special revelation of Scripture the norm that norms all of the norms the

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Norman Amata and so he's he's dead -on in recognizing the direction you have to go and The authority issue that drives from what

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Scripture is as they are new stocks. It's it's it's good article So I recommend it to folks.

36:56

I retweeted it this morning and things like that But I'd recommend it to you. So I forgot to mention that 36 minutes ago,

37:05

I apologize that but this sort of reminded me of that so Here you've got this going and then we had this so I disagree with them

37:16

But I'm not gonna sit there and say that they're less Christian. I believe they're wrong. But whatever actually we had them on To on a

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Torah debate. So whatever shout out to alternate media Idea all right alternate media alternate media is what

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He refers to said we had him on We had Unitarians on now.

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It doesn't sound like they were debating the Unitarians but we had them we had them on and so here are the

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Clips That now, okay, that's part one part two

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Okay, that's the John 21 Okay, hold on a second. I I know that I have it here and I think

38:05

I have it Nope, that's not it. Oh, no, that's right Here it is

38:13

Eat the meat to eat the meat You have to spin the mouse many times. So here's alternate media.

38:19

I don't know these guys from Adam. Sorry you know if I I Suppose I probably should have contacted and said hey,

38:27

I'm gonna be responding to some of the stuff you said, but I didn't have that Feel free to let him know if you have no know who they are

38:35

Let me see There we go, all right now when this first happened

38:47

I was Sent some of these links and I I happen just pop this up and I was started just you know

38:53

How you'll jump through something and I landed on their discussion of John 1 1 so Let's take a listen to this and then we'll do a little a couple little sections

39:07

Because what Unitarians to do these men are Unitarians. They deny the doctrine of the Trinity Unitarianism inevitably leads to a collapse of the supernatural level of the supernatural nature of Christianity Unitarian Universalism Just just look historically.

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I don't believe that a Unitarian perspective can maintain the highest view of Scripture and so we've dealt with Unitarians for a long long time and eventually what happens is they start questioning and what we'll see in the other clips is they start questioning the historical validity of the gospel of John's testimony to the deity of Christ because There's only a certain number of ways around John 20 28.

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There really are and they're they all collapse upon examination There's no question about that as we will see

40:06

But I caught this section. I think I have it at the right spot. I Hope I have at the right spot because that little slider down there is really really small but here is a discussion of John 1 1 and so let's

40:23

Let's see if this doesn't sound familiar and respond a bit to it. Um and You know what, you know what just for Yeah for Trinitarian sake

40:37

I'll pull out the absolute most Trinitarian version of the Bible that exists the

40:42

King James Version the Bible I'm holding now is still a and at the end of the day

40:49

That the major standard translations are still some of the best translations on the market hands down but Primarily all of them are for sure

41:00

And you know, we me and Brad will get in later on. I'm sure we'll discuss this but we don't really have a problem with that and we'll get into why and everything as we do this, but Yeah Yeah, the the truth behind scripture gets through regardless of the inherent translational bias

41:20

But the reason I say the KJV is the most Trinitarian Translation that exists is because it was very specifically translated with that in mind

41:32

Like the the purpose one of the chief purposes behind the translation was to support the doctrine of the

41:38

Trinity. I Don't know where they get that That was

41:44

I mean, I suppose, you know, Sir Vedas had come along before the before that and things like that, but I can

41:54

I can think of at least two or three modern translations that are more consistently Usable in defense of the deity of Christ, for example, then the

42:05

King James not because the King James translators had any issues with it, but in one case the

42:13

Rule of grammar hadn't been identified yet. And in other cases, they were just a little bit more

42:19

Latin friendly than then Greek friendly in some things and stuff like that, but interesting assertion anyway

42:29

So beginning in John 1 See in the beginning was the

42:35

Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God The same was in the beginning with God all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made

42:47

In him was life and The life was the light of man

42:54

The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not There was a man sent from God.

43:00

Okay, so this is when it gets into the whole Yeah, John the Baptist narrative and let's see isn't it's like in verse 14,

43:09

I think yeah And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us Right, so, okay, obviously if you really want to Hear the prologue of John's testimony to the deity of Christ.

43:23

You can go to verse 18, which is the book end of John 1 1 No one has seen God any time the unique God who is in the bosom of the

43:29

Father. He has made him known so Point out that they're stopping early, but Yeah, so there you go

43:37

Jesus is God it blatantly says and for our Greek scholars out there, you know in our

43:42

K and ho logos Kai ho logos and pros Prost honed theos

43:50

Kai theos Kai theos and Okay, I Teach Greek.

44:00

He doesn't know it. Okay, the the number of Times that he pronounced the same vowel in a completely different way

44:10

In saying in our cane how long I was kind of like a same process on thing like I say, I think I like us was

44:16

Dead giveaway that we are not talking about Greek scholars here or even

44:21

Greek students here Ho logo, excuse me. The definite article is present. So Yeah, my

44:29

Greek is not nearly as fluent as Hebrew but I can still read it and I know when to recognize definite articles and Indefinite articles actually

44:36

Greek doesn't have indefinite articles. Oh Bet you didn't know that Yeah, that I did not know actually

44:45

I don't read Greek at all man a is indefinite Greek doesn't have that it would just put man

44:51

Mm -hmm, but it does have the definite. It's like he doesn't have indefinite articles either So there is a little bit of similar right there and that that actually is gonna come up very importantly here in a second, but Yeah, so in the beginning was the word and the word was with God Rather I should allow me to translate this literally in the beginning was the word and the word was with the

45:21

God and God was the word or even and Divine was the word.

45:30

It's just the word Thales and there's no definite article before the word Thales So it can be divine. It can be God it can be a number of things

45:39

Well, okay so You will hear this kind of argumentation

45:47

From Jehovah's Witnesses if they come to your doorstep and and things like that and and they will

45:52

I've told the story many many times that Many many decades ago now it would have been in the 1980s

46:01

I Was at a Christian's home and the Jehovah's Witnesses had come over and a Jehovah's Witness lady

46:09

Went into about a four or five minute pre -memorized speech might have been shorter than that, but it seemed like pre -memorized speech on the significance or lack of significance of the presence of the definite article in the third clause of John 1 1 and most people's eyes start rolling back in their heads and and the like and we

46:34

We just sort of go well, okay, I'm not really gonna get into this particular argument

46:40

But we need to and of course in that situation I was I remember I was a second -year

46:45

Greek students that would have put me in that would have made in 1984 -85 so that actually nails it down as to route where it was and I was sitting there and I had the

46:57

Nessie Island 26 edition the Greek New Testament my hand and of course, they had their kingdom in a linear translation and So I After she got done talking about the

47:11

Greek article and so on so forth. I Handed it over to I handed my Greek New Testament over to her and I said

47:17

Could you show me a Greek article and she didn't even know which way to hold the whole detect because it unlike hers

47:24

There's no English in mine and so she didn't know what she was looking at and Yet the the pre -memorized speech had sounded very impressive and So it wasn't just that I've also warned people and I've told the story before Around the same time no

47:50

About three years later, I would say No, no, no. No, no. No, this would have been

47:58

Five or six years later. I Was asked to meet with some Jehovah's Witnesses over lunch with a friend of mine and This very knowledgeable and well -studied

48:13

Jehovah's Witness showed up and He started we immediately got into it and immediately, he quoted one of the many passages in the

48:26

New World Translation, which are mistranslated and I challenged the translation.

48:31

He said oh you you read Greek and I said why yes, I do. Oh And he opens up his

48:39

New World Translation to the back And he takes out this little piece of paper from a it was torn off of a yellow pad, you know yellow pad of paper so it had rough edges and it was faded so he had had it for quite some time and He unfolded it and he slid it across the table to me and he said what does that say and So written there's two lines of Greek handwritten on the piece of paper now

49:13

Without a context it can be very difficult to read someone's handwritten Greek But It was a fairly easily recognizable passage

49:29

He does he's not gonna be able to Read he's not gonna be able to compose in Greek so I expected that it was probably copied out of the kingdom in linear which it was and I looked at and I said well you didn't quite write this letter, right?

49:46

But the rest of it says let no one take you captive With empty words

49:54

And he his eyes got big and he was absolutely astonished and he said

50:01

I have carried that piece of paper around for at least 15 years and I Can't count how many people claimed to be able to read

50:12

Greek and when I got that out you're the first person That it was ever able to read that so if you're gonna make the claim

50:21

You're ready to back it up now The funny thing was a few minutes later. I handed him a paper that I had written on historical dishonesty in the

50:27

Watchtower Society and had my name on it and he's like You're James White and I'm like, yes

50:36

It turns out he is a Jehovah's Witness apologist and he had heard me on the local

50:41

This is back when I was still doing stuff with Bob Mohan and what was that shorter guy?

50:48

Very young very young. Yeah, and so he'd hear me and well, yeah,

50:54

Tom Likas was was well before that and He wanted to do as a

51:01

Jehovah's Witness what I do so it ended up being quite the interesting conversation But anyways, if you're gonna say it, you know back it up be ready to be ready to go with it and Because some of these folks will dick

51:16

I think anyway These the confidence that these people have in this type of argumentation the the issue is

51:30

They're saying well, you know, it could be a divine one or you know, the lack of the definite article

51:37

Let me let me show you something Let me Throw a cordons over here just for the fun of it.

51:44

Let me let me show you something Here is John 1 1 and I can't have

51:49

August I log us in prostant. They on kite. They us in her log us They us does not have an article because you have ain

51:59

The imperfect form of I me You have logos If they us had an article here's your article ha logos

52:09

There is no ha before they us is nominative in form blog us is not an inform because of the form that we have here if the

52:18

OS had an article then They us and log us would be interchangeable

52:27

But the anarthritis they us is placed before the verb the verb of being and it does not have the article and That way it is differentiated that's what that's how you know

52:40

That log us is the subject and they us is not the subject It's the word was

52:47

God not God was the word nine in English We only know that by word order but Greek is an inflected language much more heavily inflected than English is and so it uses case forms and Word order issues to communicate things and in this case the presence or the non -presence of the article so again

53:14

If it said Kai ha they us ain ha log us and log us and they us are interchangeable and you would have some form of Civilianism being taught at that at that point the vast majority of Greek scholars would say that they us is placed before the verb so as to be saying and the word was deity

53:33

The word was as to his nature God Because that's what the parallel down in in verse 18 is going to tell you

53:42

The book end down here in verse 18 They on udice hey, or I can

53:48

Pope a tame, but I can a say us and one of the variant readings is hominogen a sales by the way

53:53

Ha own ice tan call pon to Patras a kynos X a gay set ah

54:01

So no one has seen they on please notice something they on in the accusative here does not have an article

54:07

So you would not translate it. No one has seen a God It's no one has seen

54:14

God there's a specific God in mind just as there is in most of times when the house is being used and If you've seen the debate with the folks in the

54:27

Philippines a Glacian to Christo there is no meaning difference as far as the meaning of the word between the

54:39

OS and the on what is not a two ones accusative and Even though they've made an entire theology out of that anyways no one has seen

54:49

God any time Monogamy stay us. It's textual variant, but the two earliest manuscripts of the

54:56

Gospel of John And the two earliest unseal manuscripts of the Gospel of John both have the

55:01

OS here The unique God the one who is in the bosom of the father that one has exegeted him

55:10

He has made him known he has explained him this is the parallel to John 1 1 their book ends 1 1 1 18.

55:19

This is you put them together the ones restating the other and When you see that then the the

55:25

God that is being spoken of here very clearly is the father No one has seen

55:30

God. That is the father any time the monogamy stay us Who is the logos made flesh the one who's in the bosom of the father that one is exegetic that one has explained him the reason we have true and accurate knowledge of the father is because of the nature of the son and He is monogamy stay us he is the unique God, but let me put out something else here if you're going to argue as Unitarians do that they ask without the article is a

56:04

God Then let's let's be Consistent we go down here to verse 5 again, it's our anthropos a

56:14

Pestle on menos put off a you on a ma alto Ioannis there was a man sent from God whose name was

56:21

John and please notice But off a youth a you genitive form Has no articles.

56:28

So do you translate it? sent from a God or is there a specific

56:34

God in in in view here now for those who take translating Greek seriously and Translate passages other than John 1 1 or John 8 58 or John 20 28 and things like that Unitarians and Jehovah's Witnesses, especially my experience with those who wander into the

56:53

Greek area is Those the only text that they can they can look at drag them off into some narrative text in Paul or Some historical section in the gospel something like that and they have don't even know where to start

57:07

Because they don't actually read the text and actually translate the text They're just going for the key text to make it sound like they know what they're talking about So there is a man sent from a

57:18

God No people who read the language. No, okay put off a you

57:27

Very very common When you have a preposition to have an anarthros form

57:33

It's just sort of how Queen a normally does it and again, that could be something where different New Testament authors vary in their styles

57:41

So there is a you know, I stopped with the infinitive and in Paul just all over the place

57:48

And and Mark has youth ooze everywhere and so there's there's there's Marken style and there's your honey in style

57:56

There's Pauline style and and so on and so forth So, yeah when you're when you're serious about the language and you translate more than just The controversial stuff you see stuff like this and go.

58:08

Oh, well, yeah, okay that that makes that makes perfect sense And so he was in the world came to his own

58:16

So then the word became flesh Sarks again, it's ah, oh here a verse 13, but Eck they you but were born of God No article, so they were born of a

58:30

God who knows which God it was but No, and so as soon as you know,

58:36

I've a few times I've had the opportunity only a few times I had the opportunity in homes and things like that to Actually force a

58:43

Jehovah's Witness to look at their own kingdom in linear and say well Let's go down a few verses here and let's apply your if there's not an article.

58:50

It's a God Or it's something other than the true God that's being and it falls apart

58:57

Instantaneously in the gospel of John itself because it's no one who reads the language is actually going to argue that Because they could never translate that way and the word became flesh and dwelt amongst us plural and We beheld his glory the glories of the monogamous para patras.

59:18

Oh Patras doesn't have an article from a father who what father was it? We don't know

59:23

No, of course, we know exactly what father is being full of grace and truth. And so just just be aware that the

59:31

Unitarians Are out there and they they throw their their stuff out.

59:37

We have done debates. We've done, you know, I did the Unbelievable radio broadcast

59:44

You can watch Michael Brown and I debating Sir Anthony buzzard and Joseph good that was that was a good one we've we've been around this bend a few times and the arguments are pretty pretty straightforward, so There is that now.

01:00:09

I am not ever gonna get to the James White is teaching heresy stuff

01:00:15

Having too much fun with more useful stuff, but I haven't queued up but I've told you I was gonna play you the other part of this and so I do want to at least do this and And so there's there's that and John is an incredibly mystical book right part of the background of the whole gospel of John Okay, so this is the same program

01:00:39

But I think they have moved to John 2028 Thomas answered and said to him to Jesus I could ask

01:00:50

Mukai hath I asked with my lord. Oh my god, and You you can you can find out very very quickly the depths to which a

01:01:01

Unitarian will go to try to get around this tech You can see some really entertaining though sad attempts on the part of various Muslims Many people to try to say is what

01:01:16

Jesus was doing is My lord to Jesus and then my god to the father or just my god

01:01:25

Problem being that both Kodioss and the awesome in the same form and so it's he said to Jesus.

01:01:31

How could he ask Mukai hath they asked me? grammatically syntactically stylistically

01:01:37

He is saying my lord and my god to one person Jesus again

01:01:44

Honest Greek readers know that dishonest heretics don't Harsh way of putting it but it's true

01:01:52

So I think they've gone to John Chapter 20 at this point. Remember these the same guys that will has to say no strong believers in God Interesting So that's where they've gone here

01:02:07

Is it is not one of the synoptic Gospels at all and it's not historical like at all there's almost

01:02:14

It's not historical Okay. Now I'm used to hearing that from progressive leftist liberals

01:02:25

Who do not believe in the inspiration of Scripture do not believe in the consistency and harmony of Scripture and stuff like that But I've always found it very odd when people if you if you don't believe

01:02:36

That what we have in Scripture is consistent with everything else in Scripture and John certainly claims

01:02:44

To quote -unquote be historical. He uses place names. He he taught

01:02:50

We knew what the pool Bethesda Looked like before it was discovered a couple decades ago and unearthed in Jerusalem.

01:02:57

Why because John described it for us. Oh That's not historical he could have written this it's just a it was just a mystical place

01:03:06

No, they dug it out of the ground. It's exactly how John described it Don't give me this.

01:03:13

It's not historical stuff He gives us place names and locations and movements and everything else and when in John chapter 6

01:03:21

Jesus is speaking in the synagogue Capernaum. We know where that is and We know where they got in the boat from and we know which direction he went across the lake and we know where they landed

01:03:33

Don't tell me that's not historical. Is it different than the synoptics?

01:03:40

Obviously that doesn't make it a historical the left likes to do that and If you're gonna promote heresy like these guys do then hey go ahead and grab what you want

01:03:52

The problem is you're left with nothing you're left with no consistent foundation for anything That's why Unitarianism always creates this nebulous.

01:03:59

It just flies apart because there's nothing to hold together They can't they can't accept what the

01:04:05

Bible teaches about who Jesus is and so you end up with all sorts of different perspectives and viewpoints Like if you take the skeleton, okay of all of the synoptic

01:04:15

Gospels and the story of Jesus, right? Let's just take the basic outline of his life

01:04:20

Almost none of that skeleton is in John right from this in the Senate You think that might be because John already knew about the synoptic so he wasn't trying to repeat himself so you have to have the four of them trying to do the same thing, even though Mark clearly isn't going to do the same thing that that Matthew's doing

01:04:40

So there's even differences you have to recognize in any meaningful synoptic study Synoptics, you know him a

01:04:48

Lot of his teachings a lot of the things that he does They're almost not there. John is like the black sheep of the family.

01:04:55

Just It's a completely different set of Record, it's not multiply attested.

01:05:01

It's incredibly mystical it's really late in its writing and it doesn't even attempt to be a historical recording of Jesus life.

01:05:09

It seems to be more like a Record of theology a way of thinking

01:05:16

But written in the way that history was written pretty commonly back then

01:05:24

Basically a Lot of what's said in John that is attributed to as though Jesus said it himself

01:05:30

It's likely he didn't say those things verbatim like that But rather from John's perspective, that's what he meant to say.

01:05:37

And so he records what he got out of so again sadly

01:05:43

This is the kind of description of John that you will get going almost anywhere these days with only a few exceptions

01:05:53

Believing Seminaries and Bible colleges will interact with this kind of stuff

01:06:02

The non -believing ones will not interact with our responses, but you'll get this in in just just all over the place

01:06:09

I certainly did in in seminary and didn't enjoy the time but in hindsight

01:06:14

We now know why I had to go through these things, but this is this is how I'm not gonna waste any more time

01:06:21

I mean we could we would go through the rest of it and I and I had it but This is

01:06:29

What people have to do? to get around What you have in John 20 28 now

01:06:35

I had I did I remember preaching a sermon series a number of years ago The Testimony to the deity of Christ in the gospel of Mark Because Mark has the lowest

01:06:48

Christology, but low knee That's the Italian for baloney and So all of the

01:06:59

Gospels testified to the deity of Christ very plainly But John is so clear

01:07:05

That this is where you're gonna gonna hear this kind of, you know, it's a spiritual gospel

01:07:10

You see and so I just probably never really said these words you know and and Thomas probably never really said my

01:07:18

Lord and my God and and and this is this is how you You break the scripture up because you don't believe it

01:07:24

You don't believe what it was meant to communicate to its original original audience And It's it's what

01:07:34

Unitarianism is all about and it's it's sad I would have to go for a

01:07:40

Jumbo today if if we were going to get to the rest and I just need to make see stuff happens

01:07:50

I predict That stuff may happen this weekend There's stuff happening in the

01:07:58

Valley of the Sun here in Phoenix right over that way About me about 20 miles.

01:08:05

I'd say about that direction. There's stuff going on right now There's a conference going on that I spoke at in 2015 and Now I'm probably being talked about in 2022.

01:08:17

I'll seven years will change things Anyway, so who knows what will be around on Tuesday?

01:08:26

But I will just simply have to prioritize and get to it because I've said twice now

01:08:31

I was gonna get around to responding to the errors in the accusation of teaching of heresy

01:08:37

By someone to start off his article saying that I used to be his favorite theologian it's it's great when when when the when the kids grow up and Figure figure stuff out.

01:08:50

Anyway, so we will get to it. But I wanted to cover these things today with sufficient

01:08:57

Depth to be able to make it all work for you folks today And it's a it's a hot one.

01:09:03

It's what's what's the high supposed to be 114 today? What 116 tomorrow? That's because there are some people who play video games for 48 hours in a row

01:09:22

I got lots of time Okay. All right. Well Yeah Okay, thanks for watching the program today