Jeff Responds to the Mormon Debate

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00:00

Non -rockabodas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it!

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Are you going to bark all day, little doggie? Or are you going to bite? We're being delusional. Delusional?

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Delusional is okay in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.

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So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. She hung up on me!

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Yes! What? What? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

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The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosifs.

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Don't go into the world and make homies. Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck.

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That's a joke, pastor. When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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You see some classes of the human family that are black, uncouth, uncomely, disagreeable and low in their habits, wild, and seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind.

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Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would... I want to make sure I don't ruin that there.

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This is too important to blow it up. Cain slew his brother. Cain might have been killed, and that would have put a termination to that line of human beings.

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This was not to be, and the Lord put a mark upon him, which is the flat nose and black skin.

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That, of course, is horrendous. Unbelievably racist and evil, not from God.

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And that, of course, is the prophet of Mormonism, President Brigham Young.

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Good old Brigham. Good old Briggy. Brigham Young was extraordinarily racist and an evil, evil, disgusting man.

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And, of course, he taught all kinds of horrible things about God himself, from Adam God to the doctrine of polygamy for exaltation, becoming a god and goddess of your own planet one day.

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But that, of course, is what Brigham Young said about black people. There is more than that, but we won't waste your time or fill your head with that nonsense anymore.

02:56

I am Pastor Jeff Durbin. You are now watching Apologia Radio live or listening to it on iTunes or any other podcatcher.

03:05

This is the gospel heard around the world and they call me the ninja. That is Luke the Bear right there.

03:11

Luke the Bear, Pastor Luke Pearson, Discipleship Pastor at Apologia Church. And that over there is Zach Attack.

03:18

Zachary Conover, Director of Communications for End Abortion Now. You guys can get linked up with End Abortion Now at endabortionnow .com.

03:25

Join the over 250 churches across the United States that are now engaged in the gospel mission coming against the evil of abortion in our day.

03:35

And so hook up with Zach to do that. And I want to encourage you all to give a big praise to God, a thanks to God for what he's doing right now with End Abortion Now.

03:42

Many of you all supported us and have provided for us on this mission the last two years.

03:48

I encourage you to join with us again for next year. But we have just things we never anticipated happening right now with End Abortion Now.

03:57

We are in the midst right now of planning a conference in Australia, in Brisbane, also in Sydney, and then also in Christchurch, New Zealand.

04:05

By the end of 2018, by the grace and mercy of God through his work, there are

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Christians now internationally who are fighting this mission under the same banner, End Abortion Now.

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No more incrementalism. No more neutrality in this fight. Gospel -centered approach to fighting against abortion in our cultures.

04:22

You have it happening in Ireland now. It's happening in Canada, the entire United States. By the way, I did mention you got word from Brazil last night that they want us to connect with them down there.

04:33

And Australia and New Zealand. By the end of 2018, praise God. It wouldn't be possible without all of you who participated with us.

04:40

This ministry isn't about us. It doesn't center around us. It's about Jesus. It's about God's word and his gospel.

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And it's only made possible through our working together. So whether you are sitting behind this desk, whether you're one of the churches out fighting this mission, or whether you are somebody who in 2018 in January you pushed a button and you sent funds to Apologia Church to fight this mission, you are in this with us.

05:05

It's because of you that this is happening. That is Joy the Girl. She is one of the

05:10

Sheologians. You guys can go and check them out. They're at ApologiaStudios .com. They have a link there for you to see all their episodes.

05:17

You can also go to Sheologians .com and you can get all their episodes there. Her and Summer are doing a banging job.

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Thank you, sir. A real bang out job there, Joy. It's amazing.

05:31

Actually, it really is good. It's my favorite. One of my other favorite podcasts. So it's one of the only ones I actually listen to.

05:37

They be mobbing. I feel like the word, you know, Sheos, that's a

05:43

Greek word, right? Sheos, Logos, Sheologian. Well, you'd be amazed how many people see the name and the only thing they get out of it is

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Sheol. Yes, Sheol will be coming around the mountain. It's Sheologians. You talking about the grave?

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Yeah. It's an obvious play on the word

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Theologians, right? But it's just one letter difference.

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But for some reason, some people read it and all they can see is Sheol. We just talk about death on this podcast.

06:14

Speaking of punny jokes that are so clever, what do you call a bee that comes from America? A USB.

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A USB. I knew you'd love this. You missed school yesterday. To tell you the truth, I didn't really miss it.

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That's not fantastic. I didn't get that one. Decent. Can February March?

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No, but April, May. That's a good one. That's good. That's good. I like it. I laughed the first time

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I heard it. That one's not so funny. He's having to look them up. Ours has come naturally. What do you call a bear with no ears?

06:52

Bee. That's a clever one.

07:00

What do you guys think in the comments? I'm sure the comments are already beginning and it has nothing to do with the show itself.

07:09

Right now, I guarantee you there's probably already comments about Flat Earth and other things. Hey, by the way, did you hear about that pier?

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Yes. What do you call an elephant that doesn't matter?

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Irrelevant. That's a good one. I feel like I found that one on a popsicle stick as a kid.

07:30

I'm sure you did. Welcome to Apologia Radio, everybody. Hey, important episode today.

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Sorry we're a little bit delayed. We had some technical issues starting up today, but of course, we have wonderful staff, Daniel and Carmen.

07:41

Got everything fixed up, so now you're able to watch Apologia Radio right now, live across them. Internets encourage you all to please share this episode because this episode we are going to respond to some of the comments from Kwaku, one of the three

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Mormons that joined us right here in Joy's Seat last week. Dr. White and I talked with Kwaku. Very lively discussion, long discussion, about two hours, and touched on some important subjects.

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Didn't get really to dig in in the way we would have liked to, really sticking to Scripture and unpacking

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Scripture. I think many of you guys recognized it was a difficult conversation to listen to because a lot of the interruptions and everything else, but we thought it would be good to actually dissect an important element of that conversation.

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Kwaku misrepresented the Trinity in his episode where he talked about the

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Trinity on the three Mormons. They both misrepresented it very, very badly.

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And on the episode with us, Kwaku demonstrated that he really did not have an understanding of the historic doctrine of the

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Trinity. He misrepresented it. He didn't show really any understanding of it when he asked the question. The thing

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I found most compelling, we may get to it here, was where he started asking questions about the Trinity and he asked something about whether before the

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New Testament God was a duality or still a Trinity. Right. So really wondering if before the

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New Testament, if God was only two persons or something to that effect. Yeah. When we say

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He was eternally existent as the three persons, that's what we mean. Yes. Yeah. So just difficult to listen to and to hear the misrepresentations, but we thought it'd be good to actually handle some of those comments and go through those here on the show.

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Before we start, anything you guys want to say about last week's episode? I don't think so.

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I mean, it kind of spoke for itself like you said and what it was with the interruptions and all of the misrepresentations.

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Yeah. I don't know what else you could say about that. Yeah. Just do it. So hey, popular saying right now, just do it.

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Right. Yeah, that's all over. Controversy around that. So we are going to dissect some of them guys. We'll try to do this in as quickly a fashion as we can.

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So just kind of bear with us. So let's start with, let's go here. Let's lay this down here.

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This is from Kwaku's testimony. He seemed really shocked that Dr. White at one point said that he listened to his testimony and he sort of like bit back.

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Like, how could you know me? We only met today. I said, well, your testimony's up online for the world to see.

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This is labeled, Why I Joined the Mormon Church. It's Kwaku's story from the three Mormons published on February 24th, 2017.

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I just wanted to play this snippet here because it's relevant to one of the comments he made. I figured I'd lay it down ahead of time.

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So Dr. White and I had seen this before the episode itself. Kwaku, of course, is a

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Mormon convert. He converted from the Methodist Church in Texas.

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And so I would... They have their own issues. I would want to talk about that as some critical theological points.

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But be that as it may, he converted at the age of 15, I believe, from the Methodist Church. And if you listen to his 19 -minute testimony online, you'll see that it's pretty clear from that testimony that he tells us the church that he went to didn't have really solid doctrinal instruction.

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They weren't very serious about these things. I'm going to go ahead and play that right here for you guys. And then we would see some kind of meme or sermon about, hey,

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God loves you no matter what. And we're like, I love Jesus. I'm going to go back to smoking weed and having sex.

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Like that really was the mentality. I know that's really messed up. But that's the way it was. So I was sitting there and I was in this wonderful conference and I just didn't really buy a lot of it.

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I didn't believe that some guy, some pastor with no authority, it's not like an angel came and told him, or God was like, hey, you can preach my word.

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He was just some guy who signed up to do it. And who knows if he's right? He was just spewing his opinion out.

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And a lot of it was good, but it was still his opinion. There was no way to know if it was completely true. And I knew that it wasn't completely true because I looked at the fruits and the fruits weren't that good.

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So I began praying about the Book of Mormon. So there you go. So, yeah, two points there.

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I think the beginning portion there is most relevant to what we're going to be playing here. And this isn't the only spot in this testimony where he talks about the nature of his

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Christian upbringing. But talking about the nature of where he was at, the community that he was a part of, doctrinal training was not a big part of that group he was with.

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No talking about the atonement, those sorts of things. It just wasn't what they did. He calls it meme Christianity.

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Which, unfortunately, is often the case. So when Dr. White pointed out to him that he didn't really have a background to justify all these claims he was making in terms of his understanding of the

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Trinity and all these different things, it's from his own words, his own testimony, is that that wasn't the nature of the conversations that he was in and his doctrinal instruction and training.

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The way he describes the group he was a part of is pretty awful.

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A pretty awful state. I mean, if you were a part of a youth group where there wasn't solid doctrinal instruction coming and people were just living their lives however they pleased, we would also be condemning that right alongside you,

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Kwaku, and should have obviously left that church, but certainly not have left it for a non -Christian cult.

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That was, I think, the wrong decision. So those are his own words. I wanted to make sure we had that on record there because that does come up here.

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So I'm going to play a little bit here. Just tell me to stop, guys. We'll stop. This is Kwaku talking with Dr. White and I on last week's episode.

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...to teach it in that sense, but it has never, ever been claimed. This is the exact way it is, period.

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That's how it is. That's not the reality. However, I would like to push back, though, because this idea that God being, you know, a man, even an exalted man, if we do read the

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Bible, we do see how he's a man. We see he's a man. Please demonstrate it. And I think we also see that...

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Okay, just quickly there. He doesn't. He made a lot of claims last week like that. Because that's how it happened.

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Because that's what it says. The Bible says that God is a man. Or the

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Bible doesn't teach this anywhere. Right, exactly. Those kind of broad sweeping claims. Yes. So the difficulty here is that when you read the

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Old Testament and you have descriptions that are anthropomorphic descriptions or phenomenological languages...

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Wow, those are two words hard to say. Phenomenological. Phenomenological language. You have wording in Scripture.

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You have, of course, metaphor. You have all kinds of instances where you have to say, let's take the language and let's say what does the

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Bible teach here. So of course you have instances in Scripture where you have the

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Christophanies where Jesus appears in the Old Testament. Jesus appears in the

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Old Testament. He shows up. He interacts with God's people. And that cannot be missed.

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You see that the Christophany in the Old Testament where Jesus is actually worshipped. They're monotheists.

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They believe there's only one God. But God shows up and they worship him. And that's, of course, the pre -incarnate Christ. How do you know that it's a pre -incarnate

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Christ? Because John chapter 1 tells you. No one has seen God at any time.

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Now you're either going to believe that or you're not going to believe that. An inspired apostle, the apostle John, Kwaku quoted from John and said

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Jesus said, I am. So apparently he believes John is reliable and can be trusted because he quotes from the apostle

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John. Well that same apostle John said that no one has seen God at any time. God who?

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God the Father. That's the context. John chapter 1. The only begotten God, Jesus, the unique and one -of -a -kind

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God, Jesus, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. So, of course, in the

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Old Testament, all the examples of speaking to God face to face as one speaks to his friend, that, of course, describes everything you need to understand about that.

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Are we talking about face to face as in terms of two human faces interacting with each other, or as a man speaks to his friend?

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The description is right there. So, you also have instances in the Old Testament where God uses the phenomenological language, or anthropomorphic language, and you have language like, for example,

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God covering you in the shadow of his wings. You have the Bible saying things like, our God is a consuming fire. Are we going to read all those texts and say that God is a blazing furnace?

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Or are we going to read those texts and say that God has feathers? What kind of feathers does God have? Are we going to understand it in the context that it's given?

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And so, when we look in the Old Testament, no, you cannot find any instances where God the Father is described as a man, that God is a physical body of flesh and bone, as tangible as man's.

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No. You have to read the Bible in its context with the language, and I'm not saying the language is meaningless.

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And that's the thing that got me about Kwaku, is that he would often say, well, that's poetic. Meaning, that's meaningless.

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I can wave my hand at that. That's not what I'm saying when I say something is poetic, or it's hyperbole, or metaphor.

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I'm saying that it has real meaning, but God uses these different forms of language to communicate his message to us, and what you do not see in the

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Old Testament is that God the Father is a body of flesh and bone, as tangible as man's, or that God was once a man who lived on another planet one day and exalted to become a god one day.

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You cannot find that, will not find that. And, of course, in the Old Testament, where you do see the

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Christophanies, or God showing up, walking in the garden, or interacting with Abraham on the mount, on Mount Moriah, you have

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God, of course, showing up. Doesn't mean that God was a man, at all. And you, of course, have instances that Christians use for, this is the interesting thing, and I said this, and I don't think you caught it.

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The instances from the Old Testament, where you have God showing up, and interacting with his people, the pre -incarnate

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Christ, I use those very same verses to demonstrate the triune nature of God, and the pre -existent nature of Jesus Christ, that he always existed as God.

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He doesn't become God. And that was also another interesting thing about Kwaku, when I was talking about Jesus, the pre -incarnate

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Jesus, as was he God then? He said, yeah, he was God then. That's interesting, because in the case of Jesus and Mormon thought, their

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Jesus, really, it's confusing how you could say he was God before the incarnation and the resurrection. He hadn't gone through his earthly ministry and done all those works and been exalted to become a

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God one day. Also, it's interesting, if you take Brigham Young's approach to this discussion,

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Brigham Young said that the only men who become gods, or even the sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.

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So polygamy is that necessary portion of becoming a god or goddess one day. So the question is, was Jesus a polygamist in the pre -existence, where he was a spirit offspring of Heavenly Father and one of his goddess wives, and Lucifer, and all of us?

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Was Jesus a polygamist then? Or do you go with the early Mormon apostles and prophets, where they taught that Jesus actually married the

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Marys and Martha, and that Jesus was a polygamist in his earthly ministry? So there's all these problems with that.

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But, be that as it may, I'm going to go ahead and play some more. Him being a man is more clearly supported than him being a

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Trinitarian spirit, which is what my wonderful evangelical friends believe, but that, in my opinion, and I mean this with kindness, that's not scriptural.

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That's a later idea. That's a mathematically impossible idea. It's just not true.

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And it can't be demonstrated with scripture. I was actually reading a wonderful Stanford article last night about the

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Trinity, and it says, yeah, I mean, it isn't demonstrated in the New Testament or the Old Testament, clearly, at all.

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Has been done for hundreds of years. No, it hasn't. That's why the debates still go on. Let me ask you one question.

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Please name the book on your shelf written by a Christian in history on the Trinity, defending the Trinity. Name one book on your shelf.

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Name one book on my shelf. I offered to send it to you, and you didn't hear it.

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Fun fact, I would have taken it. If I could just point this out to you, I think the reason you're struggling for the name of a book is you made another audacious claim, again, that Trinitarian doctrine is not scriptural, it's false, it can't be shown from the

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Bible, and I just wanted to say this humbly to you. I'm making Sense of God by Timothy Keller, by the way, for a nice Protestant book.

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No, that's certainly not what we'd be aiming at there. My point in bringing this up, he says that it can't be demonstrated from Scripture, and the debate's still raging.

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No, sir, it is not. Of course, false teaching existed in the first century itself.

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You have the Apostles dealing with false teaching in their day. Does that mean the Apostles weren't clear, and the debate was raging on with the

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Gnostics because it just was undecided doctrine? No, you have false teaching everywhere, false teaching very much codified in, say, the

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Mormon fellowship, Mormon communion. The Bible teaches there is only one eternal

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God, only one God by nature, and yes, the Bible does teach from Jesus' own lips, he says in John 4, that God is

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Spirit. If you want a definition from Jesus, now this is important, if you want a definition from the

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Lord Jesus about what that means, because he was asking, what do you mean by Spirit? And Dr. White said non -corporeal,

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I said, well, immaterial, and Jesus, I think, is the authority on what

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Spirit is, and so when Jesus says God is Spirit, we have to ask, well, did Jesus ever describe what

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Spirit is, what it's like? Well, at the resurrection, when

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Jesus appears in the upper room, or in the room with Thomas, Thomas doesn't believe that Jesus has risen from the dead, he's not going to believe unless he puts his finger into his side and into the holes in his hands, and Jesus says to him, it's

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I, myself, he says, handle me and see, a spirit does not have flesh and bone as you see me have.

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That's what Jesus says to Thomas when he says, I want to touch his physical body and put my finger in those nail prints,

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I want to make sure I touch it myself, Jesus says, spirit does not have flesh and bone as you see me have, and Jesus himself said in John chapter 4 that God is

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Spirit. So the Bible teaches that God is Spirit, God is eternal, from eternity into eternity,

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Psalm chapter 90 verse 2, it teaches that the Father is called God, the Son is called

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God, and the Holy Spirit is called God. Now, that's three distinct persons, and the

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Bible describes them as co -equal, as co -eternal, and John chapter 1 was one of the, and I want to hear what you guys have to say about this, this is what really was interesting to me.

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When Dr. White very graciously, very humbly went through John chapter 1 with Kwaku, he opened up the text, he walked through a few texts in John chapter 1,

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Kwaku acted bewildered by Dr. White's description of John chapter 1, and it wasn't complicated, it was very, very clear and precise, it was not something that was over everybody's heads, he was demonstrating the pre -existent nature of Jesus, that he existed eternally alongside the

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Father, in arke ein halagos, kai halagos ein proston theon, kai theos ein halagos, in arke ein halagos means as far back as you want to go, without any reference point to stopping, the word was already there, and he was proston theon, face to face, toward the

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Father, he was an intimate relationship and fellowship with the Father from all eternity, in arke ein halagos, so Jesus was always existent with the

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Father, an intimate relationship, and he was God, Dr. White demonstrated that, Kwaku acted completely bewildered, he said, nobody will understand what you just said,

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I'm 100 % positive, no one can understand what you just said, I found that compelling that he couldn't just grasp that one point, so, uh, they would have to say, you know, of this earth, essentially, but even then, that still, like you mentioned earlier, that doesn't comport with their view of God, so Jesus and Heavenly Father existed co -equally as separate gods from eternity, you know, if they tried to apply that to that verse, it still doesn't make sense.

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No, it can't work, because it's a convoluted, contradictory, unbiblical system. So again, the

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Bible teaches only one God by nature, eternal from all eternity, into all eternity, the

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Father, God is described as the same yesterday, today, and forever, and Jesus is described as the same yesterday, today, and forever,

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I am the Lord, I change not, therefore you sons of Jacob are not consumed, so the

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Bible says one God, Father is called God, Son is called God, the Holy Spirit is called God, and yet, the

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Bible always makes a distinction, proper distinction, from Genesis to Revelation, between the Father and the

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Son and the Holy Spirit, there is never a time in Scripture where you'll see the person's confused, and you see that distinction, three eternal co -equal persons,

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Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and yet one God, one substance, one essence, one

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God by nature, that's what the Bible teaches, and by the way, as an aside, that's what, of course, the

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Christian church has always taught for 2 ,000 years. Have there been heresies? Have there been false teachings? Yes, all the way into the pages of the

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New Testament, you see heresies and false teachings being dealt with. Does that mean that the Christian church was unclear or muddy on this issue?

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No. What took place is God allowed heretics to rise up in the early centuries of the church, the church unified together, they came against those heresies with the

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Word of God, and they actually gave creeds and confessions to respond to false teachings that were coming up, but those creeds and confessions were based upon the text of the

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Bible, they were rooted in Scripture, and so that's, I think... That's clearly where they invented the Trinity. Right, yeah.

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Somebody just commented and said, does the woman speak? She talks all the time.

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She has an entire show where she talks all the time. Yeah, I think that there's a little bit of confusion.

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There is the topic of what is the held belief of Trinitarians and do

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I agree with it? So I think there was a problem separating those two things, because it is one thing to say, like,

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I disagree with Trinitarianism, and it's another thing to say, no, that's not what the church has been teaching all this time, and then it's another thing entirely to say it to James White.

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Not that I'm Dr. White's apologist by any means, but he knows this.

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He's done a little bit of studying. Right, yes. And so I do think that there I think there was a little bit of a disconnect there.

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Like, those aren't one topic. They're two separate things. You can absolutely disagree, but if you have a scholar telling you that, no, this is what we claim to believe, then that's a separate issue in and of itself.

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Right, also... Does that make sense? Yeah, no, absolutely, and I think the issue he brings up there about mathematics is mathematically impossible.

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No, it's not, not in any way. Claiming so doesn't make it so, Kwaku, and it is not mathematically impossible.

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By the way, I would just say that there is a great discussion to be had here in terms of mathematics itself.

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Is it possible apart from the biblical revelation and the triune nature of God himself?

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I believe that the Bible provides a foundation for mathematics, arithmetic, I mean, period, and I do not believe that you can get that foundation from Mormonism that teaches a materialistic view of the universe, that even spirit is material in nature.

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You do not have a basis in Mormonism to have immaterial, unchanging, transcendent laws like laws of logic or laws of arithmetic, and so I think that the

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Mormon worldview itself militates against arithmetics. Period. That's a good point.

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You can't really have it, because arithmetics, the laws of math, what are they? Are they made of matter? Are they immaterial in nature, or material in nature?

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You've got Mormonism that has essentially a materialistic view of the universe, and I don't believe that you can actually justify the laws of mathematics through the

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Mormon worldview. But, again, we're trying to go fast here. A humble nudge to you, not a slam, but a nudge to you.

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When you can't name a single book on your shelf written by a Christian in 2 ,000 years and there are countless ones where they've done solid exegesis from the text itself, in context, to demonstrate

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Let me just finish the thought. To demonstrate the triune nature of God from the Old and New Testaments, and you make the kinds of claims that you have that it can't be done.

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Well, I think the reason you feel like it can't be done is because you've never actually even listened to a Christian really defending it.

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But I imagine you do have books on your shelf written by people from the opposite perspective that want to ultimately insert the kinds of things that you're suggesting into the text.

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Far Eastern studies and those sorts of things. I'll say this. I do. I have Making Sense of God by Timothy Keller touches on this subject.

29:15

I'd also like to say I was raised Protestant. Which means nothing. According to your own testimony that I did listen to, you made it pretty clear.

29:28

Wait, wait. You can't tell me about my own testimony in my life. We met today. We met today.

29:34

Did you not record? No, we did. And I did listen to it. It's on YouTube in a couple places.

29:40

And you made it very, very clear that doctrinal studies was not the central aspect of your interest in Evangelical Christianity.

29:51

I don't think that's what I said. And coming from... That's exactly what he said.

29:57

Yeah. I mean, we just played... If you guys are just getting into the live broadcast when this posts later, just review what he said at the beginning of this episode.

30:04

We played the clip from Kwaku's own testimony where that is in fact what he said throughout his testimony.

30:11

He describes his upbringing in Protestantism in ways that are not very helpful or conducive to an understanding of the

30:18

Trinity. When he says it was meme Christianity and they didn't deal with really important theological issues and that everyone just went off and smoked weed and had sex afterwards,

30:27

I'd say that that probably qualifies as not a very good Protestant upbringing. You didn't have theological training.

30:34

Well, and we just know that that is commonplace in churches today.

30:40

Unfortunately. Not a lot of churches are really, really tackling the Trinity. Proper exegesis isn't done when we approach the text and we see something that scares us or that we don't understand.

30:52

And so we go, well, that just can't be true then. That's not how the study of anything happens, really.

31:00

So, again, it's just, it's not what, like, the only thing that I heard in regards to the

31:08

Trinity is that it doesn't make sense to me. So I have to find what makes sense to me.

31:15

Right. And that is not, if you believe that God is sovereign and you believe that God is not a man, that is not how you're supposed to exegete the text.

31:24

His word to us. Yeah. And I don't want to interrupt, but just want to say,

31:30

I want to make sure I'm clear so no one misunderstands me. When I said, when he said I was raised

31:36

Protestant and I said that means nothing. Yeah. What I'm not saying there is that there aren't solid

31:41

Protestant churches worldwide. There are good churches everywhere, all over this planet.

31:46

Solid, solid, solid churches. And you regretfully say that means nothing. Yes. That's not a celebration for you.

31:52

That's my point. That's my point, is that we live in a time in the 21st century, Evangelism in the

31:58

West, Protestantism in the West is in a horrible state. And by the way, in case you think anything special about that, so is

32:07

Mormonism. And so is Catholicism. I mean, you can name it across the board.

32:13

Because of the Western mindset regarding truth today.

32:19

And so when you say to me, well, I was raised Protestant, that means nothing to me. Tell me what that means.

32:24

What kind of training did you have? What kind of Protestant training did you have? Because if you were to say to me,

32:30

I was trained in Protestantism in Dr. White's church growing up, I would say that means something.

32:36

Because I know what kind of doctrinal training you got. And even part of a larger historical context, what do we mean when we say

32:42

Protestantism? What are we protesting? And where does that come from? There's a historical meaning that goes all the way back to the

32:48

Reformation, which the same doctrines that came out of that time period actually conflict with the views that you hold about man's will.

32:57

And God's predestining power. That's right. That's what the Reformers held to, by the way, was predestination. And Augustine, and the early church, second century church, and of course the

33:05

New Testament itself. I gotta just say this quickly. You're using that as a historical context. You're not using it to flash your

33:16

Reformed knowledge and how much smarter you are than your opponent. That's not what it was.

33:23

There's no comment being made on the age of the person who engaged in this dialogue. That's not what's being said.

33:30

When you guys asked him who do you have on your bookshelf, you were asking him how, what, you were gauging the completeness of his knowledge on the subject.

33:42

You weren't making a comment on his age. Nope. I'm so glad you brought that up. Now that's critical.

33:48

I want to just say officially, it's very important. I'm so glad he brought that up. Because when I brought up the point about what book is on your shelf, what

33:55

I meant by that is when you say the Bible cannot be demonstrated from Scripture, it cannot be done, there are 2 ,000 years of Christian exegesis of the text of Scripture and defending the

34:06

Christian faith. That is, I'm sorry, I'm just going to say this in the classical sense, that is asinine.

34:12

That is asinine to make that kind of suggestion. That for 2 ,000 years in history that no one has been able to defend this from Scripture, it shows me something that you have not taken the time to try to even read on this.

34:22

Because I'm telling you, there are descriptions, discussions, exegesis on this subject that are so deep and so far you can't get three pages into it without your head blowing up with the amount of Scripture and the logical argumentation, the consistent

34:36

Biblical exegesis and historical references. It is just insane. So when someone says, well it can't be shown, it can't be done, that's why we're still having a debate.

34:44

That's why I said, what do you even have on your shelf to demonstrate that you've even given this a shot?

34:49

Because I can tell you right now on my shelf are hundreds, if not thousands of pages of Mormon sources.

34:57

I'm talking about historic Mormon sources from your own sources and library where I've taken the time as a

35:04

Christian to understand your worldview and to read these texts and to understand this. I've sacrificed time for my family, my work, my hobbies, my joys, to make sure that I invest in understanding your perspective so that I might properly represent you.

35:19

And my point there was to demonstrate that you don't seem to have done that for us. And that was the point.

35:25

Also, I was just thinking one, the Methodist Church came about about the same time period as Mormonism.

35:32

They came out of that same kind of nonsense going up there around New York. That's where we get a lot of our denominations from that same revival, if you will.

35:42

So there's that. Again, that's just evidence from him. It's more subjective evidence referring to well, they were smoking pot and having sex.

35:53

Don't tell me that the kids in the Mormon Church aren't doing that. Because I don't buy it. I moved to Gilbert, Arizona when

35:59

I was 18 years old. I was still in high school. I was living on my own. At Gilbert High School, I mean tons of Mormons at Gilbert High School.

36:08

I befriended many of these. I drove people home from school. And I'll tell you right now, the problem is the same in the

36:17

Mormon Church. I can promise you that. Absolutely promise you that. But that's not the main source of my argumentation.

36:24

The point there is to say, let's get down to brass tacks and let's get to what the Bible says. Let's get to the theological discussion, what actually matters.

36:32

These claims aren't ultimately helpful. I think it represented very well.

37:06

It's three persons and one God, correct? Do you know what the difference between person and being or nature is?

37:13

That was not brought up, right? Would you admit you didn't? Alright, here we go. So that was the intro to the discussion, so let's do it.

37:21

What Mormons believe about the Trinity. Kwaku says this was published about a year ago. December 5th, actually, 2017 is when it was published.

37:28

So let's go ahead and run through this together and do it as quickly as possible. Let's talk about the

37:34

Trinity, huh? Oh, cause you can't because your church is false.

37:40

Joseph's con man. L .D. Dollar Sign Church. See you later. So, the

37:51

Trinity and the Godhead. This is a big topic a lot of people have asked us to address. I think we need to really talk about the

37:56

Trinity because the Blade Trinity is one of the best trilogies of all time. I wanted to say, that is horrible.

38:05

Cause that movie only Blade 1 was good. You think so? No, I'm sorry.

38:13

I totally disagree. Three Mormons are absolutely wrong. First one's definitely the best. You can't do one better than the first one.

38:19

You're disagreeing, Daniel? First one's definitely the best. You gotta admit that.

38:25

I think Pirates of the Caribbean is a great trilogy. No, I know the three. No, they're not. Four and five.

38:32

You said four and five was good. No, no, no. Five was good. Four was, I enjoyed it. But I recognized that it was bad.

38:38

But the first three are just synergy. Synergy.

38:45

Synergy. We're gonna talk about real sagas. New Hope, Empire Strikes Back. But you don't even know what those are.

38:52

I haven't seen Star Trek. This is something you mentioned a couple days ago. You said the Trinity and Godhead at face level seem like the same thing.

38:59

You just look at them and you're like, what's different from Mormons and other churches? You got God, Jesus, and the

39:05

Holy Ghost. So why are they different? Why is there such a discussion online about why they're different? We're gonna talk about that today.

39:12

A lot of times people confuse the Trinity with modalism. So that's important to make a distinction. This was good.

39:18

Thank you for that. Very glad that you actually brought this in and you got this kind of right here.

39:26

The doctrine for modalism is the doctrine that the persons of the Trinity represent only three modes or aspects of the divine revelation, not distinct and coexisting persons in the divine nature, quoting from Google .com.

39:36

So I'm glad you made this distinction. But this is where it falls off. Sometimes I heard this before I was

39:42

LDS. God is kind of like, if you have a cup of water, that's a liquid. But if you freeze it, it's ice.

39:48

And then if you leave it out forever and the hot sun evaporates, it turns into gas. That's modalism. That's what he was told.

39:57

Encourage everyone out there who's listening to this right now or watching this right now. Very, very important that you never, ever, ever use that example because it is undeniably false and not biblical.

40:09

And yes, modalism is all over that. So Christian out there, if you've heard that and you just sort of picked it up as a child, someone told you that and you've just been passing that around, please never use that.

40:19

It is absolutely unbiblical and false. And there's one thing about that too. Remember Bavink and Reformed Dogmatics, he makes the very astute observation that any time you compare the triune

40:28

God to anything at all, your comparison automatically falls flat on its face.

40:34

So we should just stop doing that. We should stop comparing the Trinity to any created thing.

40:41

Just give what the Bible says. That's all you need. It falls flatter than the flat earth. It creates this sort of environment where you are attempting to understand something fully in a physical, human way when a part of it is that God is not a man.

40:59

So there are things about him that we will not comprehend in the way that we comprehend things that are here on this earth.

41:09

So when you do propagate bad examples of modalism, what it does is it creates groups of people, my generation, that completely misunderstand what the

41:23

Trinity is. So don't do that. Don't make the comparisons. Just give what God says about himself.

41:30

That's more of modalism. Modalism is that you have one being who takes on three separate forms. And that's not actually what the

41:37

Trinity is. Now a lot of Christians believe in modalism, and they call it the Trinity. So the actual

41:42

Trinity itself, what the actual doctrine is, is that God is three persons in one.

41:48

So you have God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Co -equal, co -eternal, all -powerful together, three separate beings in one.

41:55

There you go. Right there. So he had it. He was doing okay until the distinction between beings and persons.

42:03

That's what we're talking about. Yeah. Three beings in one. No. You got that wrong.

42:08

And I believe that he said here, before I played that, he didn't say that. He said three in one. Yeah. Three persons in one, but he didn't specify what that one was.

42:17

Yeah. And we said, I think we said to him that you said three beings. Let me just go back to here to make sure I get this right here. I don't want to misrepresent him.

42:23

No, you guys talk over each other. Let me just finish the thought. To demonstrate the story.

42:28

Let me just finish the thought. Own testimony that I did listen to. You made it pretty clear.

42:34

Doctrinal studies was not the central aspect of your interest in Evangelical Christianity.

42:40

I don't think that's what I said. Well. And coming from here's what I'll say. Actually, the Trinity has been something that's been on my mind probably since fifth grade, starting at Harvest Bible Church in Cypress, Texas.

42:50

This has been something discussable. I've read a lot about the Trinity. Then why have you misdefined it consistently?

42:56

Yes. I don't think I have. Okay, you said that there's one being who's three beings. No one.

43:01

I didn't say that. You did. Yes, you did. Yes, you did. It's right there in this your own video.

43:10

We'll go ahead and... All powerful together, three separate beings in one, and that whole thing is what they call God. And there you go,

43:16

Kwaku. So you wanted to know where it was? There it is. It's in the first two minutes of your video on what

43:23

Mormons believe about the Trinity. So what do Mormons believe then? Yes, so we have three beings.

43:29

You have the Son, and the Father, and the Spirit. And the Son is not equal to the

43:35

Father. He is subordinate, but he is still, you know, a God. And you have the Holy Spirit, and they work together, and they are the

43:41

Godhead. So at face value, you go, those are the same things. Those are three beings. You're just calling them different things. However...

43:48

So that demonstrates that you have at least there, and I think on our show, a confusion about being and person.

43:55

And in there, you just tried to make an application to say, well, it seems kind of the same. Three beings, right? As though Christians are believing in three beings.

44:03

We believe in three persons. One being, one nature, one substance, one essence of God, one eternal

44:10

God by nature. Three persons. Christians do not believe, have not taught, and the Bible does not teach that there are three beings of God.

44:19

Three persons. We believe that God actually had an only begotten

44:25

Son, Jesus Christ, and that they are separate beings, and that like Jesus Christ, we came to earth as well, and we can live a mortal life.

44:34

So my point here, and continuing this on, is I want to point out to you that they have a clear understanding from their perspective, and they're making sure that they're very precise with their language, that they have three beings, three gods, three beings over this earth.

44:51

So they know what they're saying, and they're being very precise about it. We believe in three beings. Three separate, distinct persons and beings,

45:02

God. That's what they believe. Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost is going to confirm to us that these teachings about God and Jesus Christ are true.

45:11

Three separate entities, three separate beings, for three different purposes. Isn't that still the

45:17

Trinity? No. Actually, no. And notice,

45:22

I like to hang on to this point here. He stresses three separate entities, three separate beings, and Kwaku has such a little understanding of the historic doctrine of the

45:35

Trinity, that he actually stops him there and says, well, isn't that the same as the Trinity? So by that, he demonstrates his misunderstanding.

45:43

And he has not understood this doctrine. And the whole point here is not to run Kwaku through the mud and to say, see, see, see, you don't know what you're talking about, but it's to demonstrate that you don't know what you're talking about.

45:55

And you speak about it publicly, with confidence, and you pontificate on your show, pretending like you understand what you're talking about, and you say things like, it cannot be demonstrated, no one's been able to do it.

46:08

Well, the only reason you would think that, Kwaku, is because you actually haven't studied this perspective from the other side to understand what the

46:15

Christians for 2 ,000 years have been teaching about God. You have not. Proof is in your own words and descriptions about what the

46:22

Trinity is, and proof is in your, yeah, your misrepresentation of what Christians actually teach.

46:29

They're still three separate beings, are they not? Except they have, in physical time and space, they are different personages.

46:35

Yes. A lot of times, people will say, I believe Jesus is God. Because, you know, they believe in the

46:41

Trinity. Jesus is love, and love is God, and God is love, and love is Jesus. At that point,

46:47

I'm not even sure what's being said. Don't understand what the point of that was.

46:53

I've never heard anyone say it like that, so, but, okay, onward. See, to me, in all due respect, that doesn't quite make sense to me, because if God is the three personages, and you're saying that Jesus is

47:05

God, you're saying that the second part of the three is the encompassing three. What?

47:13

Or not? Yeah, none of that sounds anything like what Christians have taught about the

47:20

Trinity, and I'll go ahead and just play that again so we can make sure we're understanding you properly. The second part of the three is God.

47:26

You're saying that the second part of the three is the encompassing three, is the three personages, and you're saying that Jesus is

47:33

God. You're saying that the second part of the three is the encompassing three. Around 325

47:39

AD, you'll see that the factions were very diverse, believing in Christ, but they decided to create their own creeds.

47:44

So we see some creedal Christians. They take upon themselves the name of Christian, and they decide to make their own dogmas or doctrines, listing out what they believe

47:53

God to be. And so you'll see with Constantine and the Nicene Creed, you'll see that they'll create that God is part of this

48:02

Trinity, but it is one unit. It's one person with three purposes. Nope!

48:09

And anybody who's read the Nicene Creed would know, would understand right away that that is absolutely not what was being said in the

48:18

Nicene Creed. And I wonder if they even understand the controversy or know about the controversy that brought about the

48:24

Nicene Creed, if they know anything about Arius of Alexandria, the bishop in Alexandria, if they understand at all what was being taught there, because his description there of what was being said in the

48:33

Nicene Creed is not actually what it taught. Right. Sorry.

48:39

And the word Christian is in the New Testament. They were using that term in the

48:46

New Testament. Right. He just claimed that they started using that in 325. Right.

48:51

That's another thing. I'm glad you caught that. I wanted to point that out. Christians were first called Christians in Antioch.

48:56

Right. And it's in your New Testament. So it wasn't 325 when

49:03

Christians finally took on that name or anything like that at all. So here we go. You'll see that they'll create that God is part of this trinity, but it is one unit.

49:13

It's one person with three purposes. And they can separate and they can be each other, but it's still one person.

49:21

Yeah. Now, this is what I'm going to get at. This is important. Did you hear I want you all to hear

49:27

Kwaku. Kwaku said he didn't misrepresent it. He said that it might have been his friend on the show that did it. We demonstrated that's not true.

49:33

He in fact did misrepresent it, but I want you to hear what he, listen to Kwaku's response to this very strange description of what historic orthodoxy is.

49:42

And they can separate and they can be each other, but it's still one person.

49:47

Yeah. And by the way Yeah. So they can, it's the same person, but they can separate and then be the same person or something like that.

49:56

And then Kwaku says, yes. So Kwaku doesn't correct him. Kwaku encourages this very fallacious description of what was happening in Nicaea or what the early church taught about the

50:08

Trinity. Yeah. Go ahead. And just the convoluted nature of the explanation too, maybe this will help a little bit in terms of providing a definitional aspect maybe that we haven't emphasized yet, but each of the persons in the triune godhead are not the other.

50:24

The father is not the son. The son is not the spirit, but all of them are God. So when you say things like, well, does the second person,

50:31

Jesus, comprise the three then? Or does he make up the three? Right? I think there's something that's not being understood about the

50:38

Trinity in that the persons are not the other. Right? They're each their own persons, but each of them share the one being of God.

50:45

That's right. And their descriptions here are in a way unitarian where you have one person, one

50:50

God. Matter of fact, isn't it interesting at the beginning of the episode he says Christians don't believe modalism.

50:57

Modalism is not the Trinity. It's the idea that it's one God, three modes. Right. But then as his friend here begins to describe what historic orthodoxy is and what

51:05

Christians believe about the Trinity, as he describes it, he describes a modalistic view, and Kwaku is saying, yes, yes, yes, that's what the...

51:13

And again, I want to stress this. The point here is not to drag Kwaku through the mud here, but to demonstrate that he does not understand what the

51:22

Bible teaches about the Trinity or what the early church taught. So when he makes claims, audacious claims like this can't be demonstrated from Scripture, no one's been able to do so, it needs to be pointed out to you that when you can't even tell us what

51:36

Christians have taught about the Trinity, it begs the question of whether you've actually listened to Christians actually defend the

51:44

Trinity or read what the early church has taught about the triumvirate of God. Or read the Nicene Creed itself that they're referring to because it says in that creed that Jesus is of the same essence as the

51:54

Father. That was the point is that Jesus is not a created being like is taught in Mormonism.

52:00

He's actually of the same essence as the Father. Just to be clear, when this happened, there were no apostles around, and Jesus was not around.

52:06

So this is just men kind of doing this. This came after all the apostles were killed after the New Testament. And what they also did was, it was a way to kind of be able to keep the very clear three,

52:17

God the Father and the Son, but still not seem polytheistic. So they basically changed the definition of God for them.

52:24

I can imagine. Considering that the Christian tradition has always and everywhere affirmed at every time that there's only one

52:34

God. That's right. Monotheism. And as much as they want to say, I think they go on to say later in the video that that term wasn't around until later on in history.

52:41

Well, the point is we use words like monotheism, one God, to describe what we mean about what the

52:49

Bible teaches. Just like Trinity, even though that does not appear in Scripture, we are talking about the triune nature.

52:55

There's three in one. So we use words to describe what we're talking about. And they understand this very well, especially in light of the last three weeks in the

53:03

Mormon Church where they've received revelation that they're not to use the word Mormon, the title Mormon, anymore.

53:09

They understand what it means to use titles and to have words that are descriptive of a particular position.

53:15

They understand quite well what that means. I would also again point to the fact that the word Bible is not in the

53:21

Bible, but they use it copiously. But I would point to the fact, this is very, very important, and it was one thing

53:29

I didn't get a chance to talk to because there was a lot of cross -talk and everything that was happening when Kwaku was here in the studio, but he actually was trying to allege that Jews pre -

53:40

Christ ministry believed in polytheism. And the rabbis all know that today.

53:46

Jewish scholarship today all agrees that early Mormonism was polytheistic, essentially. That's essentially what was being argued for, is that everybody knows now that the early

53:57

Jews were polytheistic. And I would say Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Elenu, Yahweh Echad. I would say, yeah, tell that to the

54:03

Jew who's saying his morning and evening prayers every day. I would like to see a rabbi, a rabbi who truly is a

54:10

Jew, who believes Judaism is not an atheistic or secularistic rabbi. I'd like to hear that rabbi say that, yes, the

54:16

Jews have historically been polytheistic. That is pure ignorance of history.

54:21

And I would say, is it true that in history there were Jews that went off into polytheism?

54:27

Yeah, it's in our Bibles. It's in our Bibles. And what are they called in the Bible? They're called apostates.

54:34

And they're called the whore, the harlot who went off and went off to all the other surrounding nations and adopted all their customs and their beliefs.

54:42

They are condemned by God. And what is the condemnation? It's that they have left the true and living

54:47

God, the one who's the first, the last, the beginning and the end. He even says in Isaiah 44, it's his argument, he says, I don't even know of any other gods.

54:54

And yes, so he is addressing their idolatry and their polytheism. But the words monotheism and polytheism have meaning in the context of Mormonism.

55:04

Monotheism, the belief in one true God. Monotheism, Jews are monotheistic,

55:09

Christians are monotheistic, and of course Muslims are monotheistic. They believe in,

55:14

I'm not saying they're right, I'm saying they believe in only one true and living God. Everybody understands that, but I agree with Dr.

55:20

White, and I think it's compelling to think about, Mormonism truly is the most polytheistic religion in the history of mankind.

55:27

It's got to be. It's unending. Yeah, it's an infinite regression of gods and a limitless move forward in terms of gods and goddesses.

55:35

It's never ending. And the word polytheism, polytheistic, it comes from the word poly meaning multiple or many and theism from theos meaning gods.

55:48

So you believe in many gods. Whether you worship those gods or not is irrelevant.

55:54

It's the fact that you believe in many gods. In an astounding number of gods.

55:59

I mean, one of the Mormon prophets or apostles said that there are more gods than there is matter.

56:07

That's insane. Does that even make sense? Yeah. Well, and they believe that Genesis 1, the council of the gods, let us, it's the council of gods.

56:17

But I was just going to say, I know you mentioned this earlier, but if you're listening to this, what we're evidencing here, what you're seeing is they are very, very good at just throwing out claims left and right with nothing to back it up.

56:34

No scriptural support. Not even any historical evidence for a lot of these claims.

56:40

I'm bummed that you guys never got to Psalm 82, the council of the gods because if you have

56:46

God, who is the creator of all things, himself saying, is there a god besides me?

56:51

Yea, I know not one. That pretty much puts to bed the idea of a council of deities or gods.

56:59

If God has no knowledge of any other gods at all. Right. Exactly.

57:05

And Psalm 82, might as well go ahead and do it now. He brought it up and I said, let's do that.

57:10

We never actually got to unpack it. This is quoted by Jesus when he in John chapter 10 is surrounded by unjust judges.

57:18

And that alone should give you the answer as to the meaning of the passage. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

57:23

In John chapter 10 Jesus quotes from Psalm 82 when Jesus is surrounded by unjust judges who are judging unjustly the

57:31

Lord of glory himself. Jesus quotes from Psalm 82. Here's the Psalm, Psalm 82. It says,

57:37

God has taken his place in the divine council in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

57:46

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy.

57:53

Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. So here's what's important is when we see the word gods there, the divine council, we need to understand that in God's Old Covenant, God actually decreed that the judges of Israel would rise up and take his place as godly, divine judges over the people of Israel.

58:14

He's the king of kings. Yeah, God appoints them as divine judges to judge justly using

58:21

God's law. This Psalm, let me just say this, it's so, so important. If you're quoting

58:27

Psalm 82 in a positive way, in terms of, I want me in that passage.

58:33

I want me there. I want that to represent me and my future, divine council and gods. Let me just say to you right now, it is so important that you remove yourself from this passage because God in this passage isn't speaking well of these unjust judges.

58:47

He actually says here in the same text, they have neither knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness.

58:55

All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.

59:01

Nevertheless, like men, you shall die and fall like any prince. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations.

59:10

This is, and I love how even Walter Martin addressed this issue in his debate with Van Hale. This is an irony reference where God himself is condemning and mocking the unjust judges of Israel.

59:22

And from what I understand, and I just don't have the reference myself, but I have looked it up in the past. I believe

59:27

Talmadge gave commentary on this subject, and he says that this is God mocking the unjust judges of Israel, not saying that you can become

59:34

God. Oh, we've got to find that. Or saying that God himself has a surrounding of divine council of other legitimate gods.

59:42

This is God mocking the unjust judges of Israel who were supposed to, listen, represent

59:49

God as a judge on the earth. That's what it's about, and when you see Jesus quoting from it in John chapter 10, that's exactly the context he's quoting it in.

59:57

And the reason why they wanted to stone him, by the way, was because he was claiming to be, what do you say he is not?

01:00:04

God. Eternal God. And they knew exactly what he was saying, because they picked up stones to stone him. Oh yeah, one of the things too,

01:00:10

I think was made to claim, it's a long video so I'd have to go back to find out where, about Jesus never making himself equal with God.

01:00:16

Really? Really? Is that why he takes the divine name upon himself?

01:00:21

Ah yeah, I am, I am, I was, I will always be. He takes it upon himself. Is that why when the

01:00:27

Jews heard him they picked up stones to stone him and said that you being a man, make us thyself God.

01:00:33

They knew he was making himself equal with God, and the text says as much, that they knew that he was making himself equal with the

01:00:40

Father. Wanting to lean away from the pagans at the time, so they can really establish themselves as a, we adorn one

01:00:48

God. Yes. Actually, if we're talking about the Nicene Creed here, this did not really have to do with the issue of trying to move away from polytheism, this had to do with addressing a heretical teaching rising up in the church that created

01:01:00

Jesus as a subordinate and second God, and so that was the context of that, it wasn't like they were running away from accusations of polytheism and paganism large scale.

01:01:11

So they made the three into one. We really focus on the Ten Commandments. We believe in one God. Yes, yes.

01:01:17

So again, we talked about this in an episode before, it is the rejection of the Trinity and belief of the

01:01:23

Godhead that the three separate gods is not necessarily polytheistic or monotheistic, because again, those terms were not biblical, they post -date the biblical world, that whole concept post -dates the biblical world, kind of doing their own thing.

01:01:35

That whole concept post -dates the biblical world. Monotheism post -dates the biblical world.

01:01:42

Okay, well, if we look in the Old Testament and say Deuteronomy chapter 4, verses 35 and 39, it says that God is

01:01:49

God alone in the heavens above and on the earth below, there is no other.

01:01:55

Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4, in the Hebrew, Pastor Luke just quoted that, Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad.

01:02:03

Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is Echad, one, one Lord, one God. You can look at Isaiah 43 .10,

01:02:10

Before me there was no God formed, neither shall it be after me. Isaiah 44 .6, I am the first and I am the last, besides me there is no

01:02:16

God. Isaiah 44 .8, Is there a God besides me? Indeed there is no other God, I know not.

01:02:22

One. We could go on and on and on again. This doesn't, it doesn't, these concepts and words don't post -date the biblical world, they come from God's revelation of Himself.

01:02:34

That's where it comes from, it's within, it's embedded in the revelation itself. We're really just doing our own thing.

01:02:41

But, Ian, you know what predates Trinitarianism? It's a word that's called...

01:02:48

That is also true. Hold on, Aristotle? Socrates? I think you're thinking...

01:02:53

Jesus? Yes, but... Peter? Falafels? Waffles. That is not true.

01:03:01

There's a word that's called subordinationism, and it actually predates the Trinity. And I'm not saying that, you know, we're subordinationists, but I am saying that it does line up a little more with our doctrine that you have what

01:03:13

Origen called deuteros theos, which is secondary God, which is called Christ. So God the

01:03:18

Father, Jesus Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit and the Son are subordinate to the Father. There's no specific date, as far as I'm concerned,

01:03:25

I might be wrong, fact check me when this came to be. Yeah, you are wrong. You are wrong.

01:03:31

Subordinationism, first of all, his description of subordinationism is not ultimately helpful. And when he talks about that subordinationism predates the doctrine of the

01:03:39

Trinity, I would say once again, Kwaku, with respect, you demonstrate that you have not done your homework in this area.

01:03:45

Subordinationism is definitely a heretical view, and it's not...

01:03:51

the issue of subordinationism is, and what makes it heretical, is not just that there's a relational subordinationism to God the

01:03:59

Father, but it has to do historically with their subordinate in nature.

01:04:06

That the Son and the Spirit are subordinate in actual nature itself. And so that's really the issue with subordinationism.

01:04:12

But of course, this is not a discussion that we can get into too deeply with Kwaku, because he doesn't understand the context.

01:04:18

He doesn't understand the historic... he says, we don't really know when it started. Yeah, Kwaku, if you would spend any time studying a subject, you would understand the terms, the definitions, where they came from, where the controversies first started.

01:04:31

But Kwaku just pontificates and acts like he knows this subject, and he just... he just, I'm sorry, respectfully does not.

01:04:38

Let's look at some early Trinitarian quotes, shall we? They're quoting 325, Council Nicaea, they say.

01:04:45

We can look at Polycarp. Polycarp was a disciple of the Apostle John.

01:04:51

So I'd say he's a fairly reliable source. Polycarp says... Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, he says,

01:04:59

Glory to Jesus and the

01:05:12

Holy Spirit, both now and forever, and Jesus, listen, our eternal and heavenly

01:05:20

High Priest. Eternal and heavenly High Priest. Justin Martyr, a

01:05:27

Christian apologist, he says, There's the early

01:05:39

Christians using all of these terms about Jesus the Father, the Holy Spirit together.

01:05:45

One God, Ignatius of Antioch, he says, Forever. Glory to Jesus and the

01:05:58

Holy Spirit and the Father forever. You can't say that consistently with the

01:06:03

Word of God when the Bible teaches there's only one God, unless, of course, the Spirit and the Son are also fully

01:06:08

God. He says, there's so many here, my goodness.

01:06:14

Irenaeus, 115 -190, One God, the

01:06:25

Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are in them, and in one Christ, Jesus, the

01:06:31

Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets and dispensations of God and the advents and the birth from a virgin and the passion and the resurrection from the dead and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved

01:06:45

Christ Jesus our Lord and his manifestation from heaven in the glory of the

01:06:50

Father to gather all things in one and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race in order that to Christ Jesus our

01:06:58

Lord and God and Savior and King, according to the will of the invisible

01:07:05

Father, every knee shall bow of things in heaven and in earth. That's against heresies. This is

01:07:11

Irenaeus, 115 -190. He was, as a boy, he listened to Polycarp, the disciple of John.

01:07:18

He was the bishop of Lyons. Irenaeus, second century. This is pre -council of Nicaea.

01:07:25

This is how the church fathers were talking about Jesus. How about Tertullian? Love Tertullian. Early Christian apologist fought against Sebellianism ultimately.

01:07:35

He says, we define that there are two, the Father and the Son, and three with the Holy Spirit and this number is made by the pattern of salvation brings about the unity and trinity interrelating the three, the

01:07:45

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are three, not in dignity, but in degree, but not in substance, but in form, not in power, but in kind.

01:07:53

They are of one substance and power, because there is one

01:08:00

God. They are of one substance and power. That's Tertullian fighting against the heresy in his day saying that the

01:08:10

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one undivided substance.

01:08:17

Second century Kwaku, we're not talking 325 AD, we're not talking Council of Nicaea, we're talking about the early church fathers fighting for the triune

01:08:25

God of the Holy Scriptures from the earliest stages of the Christian church. The Christian church was not muddy on this, not unclear on this.

01:08:33

The New Testament and Old Testament are vividly clear on this point and you see that the early

01:08:38

Christians and apostles and the early church fathers fought very clearly for the triune nature of God.

01:08:45

One God, three persons, one undivided substance. We could go on and on and on.

01:08:51

Comments, guys? How about the importance of church history in terms of being able to respond to the same kinds of apostate worldviews that have existed for so long.

01:09:02

Now, if you have that foundation underneath you, you'll realize that there's really nothing new under the sun in terms of things that come against the

01:09:08

Christian faith and against the Trinitarian God. That's right. It is more likely and more accurate that that is close to the true nature of the

01:09:16

Godhead. And it's very similar to LDS doctrine. And it's not like Joseph Smith was like, let me get those books before the

01:09:24

Catholics got around, let's match that. It was more so when the revelation was given and the Father and Son appeared to him, it became very clear.

01:09:30

Supplement that, Jesus Christ, he was very reverent when he talked about the Father. You never saw him speaking in public as,

01:09:37

I am equal to the Father. Many people thought he was saying that when he would say, well, this is the Father's doctrine which is my doctrine and my doctrine is the

01:09:44

Father. He's emphasizing the idea that they were of one purpose and that he was on a mission. Father and I are one.

01:09:51

Well, let's do it. John chapter 17. I encourage you all to go there in your Bibles. Jesus actually says all the things necessary to make himself equal with the

01:10:00

Father. He actually tells the Father, now glorify me with yourself with the glory that I shared with you before the world began.

01:10:08

Here's Jesus saying that he shared the glory of the Father before the world began.

01:10:14

And he tells the Father, now glorify me with yourself. Very important to note that God says in his word,

01:10:21

I am the Lord. I don't share my glory with anyone, with any other. And yet with Jesus, the glory is shared, and it was shared before the world began.

01:10:32

Also, of course, yes, you see in the New Testament narrative, you see that they did understand that Jesus was glorifying himself and sharing glory with the

01:10:38

Father. That's why they wanted to kill him. That's why they picked up stones to kill him. Read John chapter 10.

01:10:44

I and the Father are one. They pick up stones to kill him, and they say what? And he says, many good works have

01:10:50

I shown you from the Father. For which of these do you stone me? And they said, for thy good works we stone thee not, but for blasphemy.

01:10:57

And that you, being a man, make yourself God. That's what they said in John chapter 10.

01:11:03

That is the record itself. These men are not telling the truth about the biblical record. And I will say one more point.

01:11:09

Not only does Jesus call the Father God, of course, because that's exactly what the

01:11:14

Messiah as a man must do. How would our perfect representative, how would the perfect image of God have to interact with the

01:11:21

Father as a submissive, righteous, worshiping man? And so Jesus in his earthly ministry does that.

01:11:28

He glorifies the Father. He worships the Father. He calls the Father God. But guess what? That's not it. If you read Hebrews chapter 1,

01:11:35

I encourage you to go there. In the Bible, Hebrews chapter 1, the Father calls the

01:11:41

Son God. And he tells all the angels to worship

01:11:46

Him. Here you have in the record itself, Hebrews chapter 1, the Father calling the

01:11:51

Son God and telling all the angels to worship Him. So that's not a problem to see Jesus calling the Father God because the

01:11:57

Father also calls Jesus God because three persons, one God. Except when

01:12:03

He is, like you said, on the cross crying out, Abba, my Father, my God. It would make no sense to be reverent towards His Father and to call out in the moment of desperation to yourself.

01:12:14

Once again, misunderstanding of the Trinity. And Kwaku saying, yep.

01:12:21

Which demonstrates, Kwaku, you do not know what you're talking about. I'm just saying there's much love and grace and respect and humility to you that I can, but you just simply do not know what you're talking about.

01:12:31

And I would encourage you, truly encourage you, and I'm not saying this because I'm a Christian, because I believe that Joseph Smith's a false prophet and you're preaching a false

01:12:38

God, and ultimately I see you as hostile to the truth of God. I'm not just saying this to you because I want to beat up on you in any way.

01:12:44

I'm saying that the right thing for you guys to do here, the righteous thing for you to do here, the thing that is in accordance with truth, is to pull this down.

01:12:54

Now I said earlier this week that I hope they don't pull it down before we do the episode because I needed to capture it still, but you should at this point pull this down because it is filled with misrepresentations and false witness.

01:13:08

Now I would respect you as a Mormon if you had the integrity to say, you know, we got that wrong. We really actually said a lot of false things on that episode.

01:13:15

We lied about the Christian church teaches. We lied about what the doctrine of the Trinity is. We made a lot of false statements.

01:13:20

We were just in error. We'll go ahead and pull that down because we want to make sure that we at least are honoring the truth and wanting to uphold truth.

01:13:26

I'd respect that decision. I'd strongly respect it, but as long as you keep this up, you demonstrate that you have no concern for the truth itself and that you're willing to lie about what people believe in order to make your point.

01:13:40

And anybody who would do that is not to be trusted. Calling out to himself.

01:13:53

Jesus in the garden calling out to the Father. You think Christians believe that Jesus is calling out to himself and yet you think you know what the doctrine of the

01:14:01

Trinity is? That you've studied this since fifth grade? That you were raised Protestant and understand this and you didn't understand that the

01:14:08

Bible does not teach anywhere that Jesus is the Father or that Christians anywhere have thought that Jesus is the

01:14:13

Father? It's just totally man -centered. It absolutely makes sense if it wasn't

01:14:21

God. It would make no sense for someone to call out to themselves. You're absolutely right, but the foundation's wrong.

01:14:30

We're not talking about I don't know. We're not talking about you or me here. And I guess we've been going for a while now.

01:14:37

Let's go ahead and end the show. I'm about to fall out over here. You need to eat. We are going to continue this discussion further.

01:14:46

There's a lot more to be said on this subject. But I think, I'm going to try to say this as gracious a way as possible and loving a way as possible.

01:14:59

The issue here for us on Apologia Radio and with Apologia Church is we want to engage in meaningful dialogue with the

01:15:09

Mormon community. And I want to say this right now. If I am ever guilty of misrepresenting what your prophets and apostles have actually said, then

01:15:19

I would need to make a correction on that. But see, the way that I want to operate as a Christian and engage with the Mormon community is

01:15:25

I have spent I don't even know how many thousands of dollars on Mormon materials, Mormon resources, making sure that when

01:15:32

I represent the Mormon position, I'm representing what your prophets and apostles have actually stated and believed.

01:15:39

And that we interact in a meaningful way so that we can get to the actual truth. We cannot get to truth when you won't even represent your opponents properly.

01:15:49

When you actually say false things about history and what the Christian church has taught, you make it very difficult to have a dialogue.

01:15:55

And what's at stake here is the truth. That's what's at stake. Jesus says, I'm the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the

01:16:01

Father but by me. He said that he's the only way to the Father. 2 Corinthians 11 verses 3 and 4, you see that early on in the

01:16:07

Christian church, the Apostle Paul has to deal with false Christs, false Gospels, false spirits that have crept into the church and he's worried for the church in Corinth that they might even put up with these people.

01:16:17

So having a false Christ, having a false Gospel and a false spirit is not new. It's as old as the

01:16:23

Bible itself. And so we need to get to the truth. What is the truth? Who is Jesus? Because the

01:16:29

Mormon church teaches a different God. Kwaku said as much. He said as much on the episode that that's not his

01:16:35

God. He doesn't believe in the God that we're teaching. So the question is who is Jesus? Because the Jesus of Mormonism is not the

01:16:41

Jesus of Scripture. He is not. Neither is the Heavenly Father in Mormonism or the Spirit. All those different things.

01:16:47

So we need to get to the truth of the Gospel because here's the thing. We're all going to die. We're all going to die.

01:16:52

This isn't a fear tactic. We're all going to die. Life is very, very short. It is over before you know it.

01:16:58

I'm a grandfather now. I'm 40 years old. Before I even knew it, I can't even believe where I'm standing right now.

01:17:03

It happens so fast. And we are going to face a real God. We're going to stand before His throne. We're going to have to give an account for our lives and we're going to have to have a righteousness that is greater than our own and it is not found in the

01:17:15

God of Mormonism. The Jesus of Mormonism cannot save you. He is a false God. He is not the

01:17:20

Jesus of Scripture. The true Jesus is not Lucifer's brother. He's the creator of Lucifer.

01:17:26

You follow the Mormon Jesus, you will perish. You will die and you will go to hell. If you have a false

01:17:32

Gospel, you will go to hell. You will not have a righteousness that will avail before a holy God. You need a perfect righteousness that provides perfect peace with the

01:17:39

Father. And you need the true God. And that is not found in Joseph Smith's false revelation of God.

01:17:45

And so turn to Christ and live, the true Christ, the true God. Final words? Amen. Unless you believe that Ego Emi, you will die in your sins.

01:17:54

That's right. Can you just give a quick thing with that? Why would you say that? Because everyone needs to hear that in the context of this discussion of Mormonism.

01:18:02

Ego Emi, that He is the eternal God. Right. Well the point that you just made is if you have the wrong God, the false God, He can't save you.

01:18:08

So unless you believe that Jesus is in Himself, eternally God, He can't forgive your sins.

01:18:14

You're gonna die, you're gonna perish in your transgression and your iniquity because you need a perfect Savior.

01:18:21

You need God Himself to be the one that doesn't count your sins against you ever again and counts you righteous in His sight.

01:18:27

That's right. You need a true God, the God that can save you. The Mormon Jesus will not save you. He is a false

01:18:33

God. Without question. Joy? I agree.

01:18:38

Right on. She does speak. Good, good, good. Does she talk? She does. She certainly does. Hey, we love you guys and we're so thankful for all of you.

01:18:45

Thank you for watching Apologia Radio and encourage all of our new viewers and listeners to go to ApologiaStudios .com.

01:18:53

Guys, there are like 300 radio and podcast episodes there that I think will really bless you.

01:18:58

If you haven't gone there yet, please go to ApologiaStudios .com. Don't forget to subscribe to Apologia Radio on iTunes.

01:19:06

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01:19:12

YouTube channel, Apologia Studios on YouTube. We have countless hours of discussions, lectures, sermons, and dialogues with actual

01:19:19

Mormons on the street, atheists, Jehovah's Witnesses, all of that. So thank you all for watching.

01:19:25

Please be in prayer for our ministry. Lots of big things that God is doing right now at Apologia Church. Please keep us in prayer.

01:19:30

Pray ahead of time also for our conferences in Australia and New Zealand. We're trying to equip the church out there to go preach the gospel in the context of abortion to save lives and to end abortion now.