November 30, 2004

The Upcoming Debate with Dave Hunt and a Busy Week Ahead

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341.

And now with today's topic, here is James White.

And welcome to The Dividing Line. It is Tuesday, the 30th of November. Getting ready to head to St. Louis this coming weekend. I leave Friday morning and get back, Lord willing, Sunday evening. Excuse me, where did that come from?

That just sort of snuck up on me. I was trying to say that I looked at the weather and it doesn't look that much colder in St. Louis than here, if you can believe that, at least the past couple of days.

In fact, it was pretty much the same. We got down to 34 last night, which for Phoenix, the outlying areas, it dipped into the upper 20s. And that's cold. And that's great. And that's why we had all Christmas music prior to the beginning of The Dividing Line today.

So anyway, 877 -753 -3341. We'll be there discussing the... Well, sort of continuing on with what's going to happen tomorrow afternoon, I have placed a link in the blog concerning the program with Dave Hunt tomorrow.

And my understanding is you should be able to listen. This is going to be on the Viewpoint program with Chuck Crismire tomorrow at 4 p .m. Eastern Time. And as I go here to the link, Listen to Viewpoint Now, that should give me...

Yeah, there's the broadcast link. So you should be able to listen live or even thereafter because they archive. They've got archived broadcasts. So you should be able to listen whatever time will allow you to listen tomorrow.

It's only an hour. And I don't know what the format's going to be. I've not received any contact from the folks. And some folks are sort of doing a little digging around, and they found some stuff about Charles Finney and a positive light from some of the folks associated with the program.

So that probably wouldn't indicate a reformed bias anyways. So we'll see what happens. But it'll be the first time since... Oh, wow, when was the last time? It's been a long time. What was the last...

Yeah, the last time literally was the KPXQ radio program in July of 2000, where we had the contact with Dave Hunt. And so it's, you know, obviously for those of you who maybe just started listening recently, wrote a book last year with Dave Hunt.

It's a debate book called Debating Calvinism. That is available from aomin .org. I have been reviewing it, started reviewing it again this morning, just to, you know, refresh my memory of the various and sundry issues that came up in our discussion and was pretty taken aback, actually.

In fact, let me... I don't want to knock anything over here, but let me get the book out. And I read my opening affirmation of Calvinism, and then I read Dave's beginning presentation. Here's the very first paragraph.

Never forget that the ultimate aim of Calvinism, as with all of James White's erudite arguments and references to original Greek and Hebrew, is to prove that God does not love everyone, is not merciful to all, and is pleased to damn billions.

If that is the God of the Bible, Calvinism is true. If that is not the God of the Bible, who is love, Calvinism is false. The central issue is God's love and character in relation to mankind as presented in scripture.

It sort of started off rather strongly. And then I have my opening statement on God's eternal decree and stuff, and Hunt's first words in response are, White begins his treatise with a ringing tribute to God's sovereignty.

The Calvinist knows little else. I just find that sort of humorous, or sad, but humorous anyways. So tomorrow could be really interesting. You never know. But make sure you've got that link from the blog, and we'll see what happens tomorrow.

I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. But much to do between now and then. I've got an article on Bible translations I need to get done by tomorrow. I have that to do by tomorrow. I've got PowerPoints I still need to put together before this weekend.

And so it's a busy, busy, busy time around the office here. No two ways about it. 877 -753 -3341. I've gotten some interesting responses to the article on the president of Fuller Seminary, Richard Mao's comments in Salt Lake City.

There has been quite a backlash to that. Some of it's been bad. I've seen some responses that really are just so outrageous, so over the top, calling for the firing of this person, and boycott Michael Card, and fire Chris Hazen, and all this stuff.

And I'm just like, at least when we responded, we responded to what was said, and responded to what was said with the information about what Mormonism has taught. And we recognize there are Mormons who believe what Millett believes, but in reality that's not representative of the teachings of the Church for the past 50 years.

And of course, obviously, if Mormonism abandons what has defined its core from the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, then her truth claims are abandoned as well. If Mormonism goes that way, great.

All the more power to anyone who wants to point out that this is not a religion of God, that it's not the truth of God in any way, shape, or form. But you're still going to find plenty of Mormons who are going to defend those things if you take the time to talk with believing Mormons, which evidently many people in the Academy don't bother doing because that's just not really a cool thing to do.

So anyway, we've gotten some interesting responses to that. One of them that's been really odd, well, not odd, it's actually very normal these days. Anytime you say anything apologetic, you will get these folks who will write to you, and let's say on the cruise, I reviewed and criticized Tony Campolo's book, Speaking My Mind.

I guess Rush Limbaugh had Tony Campolo for lunch yesterday, and that means literally. I didn't hear it, but I was told he just ripped and shredded him. But I said some negative things because obviously there's a lot of errors in the book and bad argumentation and so on and so forth.

And whenever you do something like that, now people have come up with the idea that Matthew 18, which is about what you do within the local congregation when there are difficulties between believers, and you take it to the church, and it's very clearly a personal thing where there's personal visitation, has nothing to do with people who are thousands of miles away.

It couldn't have had anything to do with people who are thousands of miles away. But now that's everybody. And that includes public speakers and teachers and professionals and authors. And so before you respond to heresy, for example, or before you respond to dangerous false teaching, if we want to use a less emotionally laden term, you're supposed to stop everything you're doing and travel across the United States or the world and track this person down and sit down and have a heart-to-heart, you know?

It's like, oh, yeah, that's interesting. But that's what people are saying. Well, did you contact Richard Mao before you said these things? Well, you know, I thought what Richard Mao said was personal.

It was not personal. It was public. He was speaking before the Mormons, and am I supposed to schedule a time next month to get together with Richard Mao while all this stuff just goes on and on and on and on so I can sit down and chat with him?

Is that really what Matthew 18 is all about? Is that how Paul handled Peter? He didn't handle Peter that way in Antioch, did he? Maybe that means Matthew 18 is not being used. Well, anyway, it's just very strange that the idea is that people's feelings are significantly more important than the Gospel itself.

A lot of folks, and, you know, I guess this is where a lot of this, you know, there's been a thread on the Reformed Baptist discussion list this week, post-Reformed, and another person has encountered mean, heartless Calvinists, and therefore they aren't a Calvinist anymore.

They're not Reformed.

They're post-Reformed, and I'm like, you know, I've encountered mean, nasty Calvinists, and I've encountered mean, nasty Arminians and mean, nasty people who don't know what the difference between the two is and mean, nasty Roman Catholics and mean, nasty King James Only people and mean, nasty Jehovah's Witnesses, and, you know, there's a lot of mean, nasty people out there.

I don't adopt a description of what I believe about who God is and how He is self-glorifying Himself through the creation and through redeeming the people of Jesus Christ based upon my personal experiences with other people.

I don't understand that. You know, I'm not saying, you know, believe me, I've had some people just treat me like dirt, okay? I fully understand the pain that comes from having somebody stab you in the back or, you know, drag your name through the mud, or believe me, I get a whole lot more of that than most folks do, but I'm not going to abandon the proper description of God's sovereignty.

I mean, that's just really short-sighted. That's just really looking at my experience and, well, you know, I put my experience in God's hands. If I've gone through this stuff, if God has put me in a situation where I've had to experience these painful things, there's probably a reason for it.

It's almost like I'm blaming God for that. Well, you put me amongst a bunch of nasty Calvinists, so I'm not going to call myself that. Well, why did you call yourself that in the first place? You know, I don't understand any of that stuff.

But anyway, it almost really is just how things are done these days. You don't want to offend anybody. Well, I don't want to offend, but truth offends. And the odd thing is, postmodernists, if you dare speak the truth and say, this is true and you were wrong,.

I'm offended.

And it's like, okay, you're offended. What's more important, the truth or your offense? It's like the truth is no longer relevant. It's no longer important. We don't see that God is glorified when His truth is proclaimed.

Any of that kind of stuff.

And I don't understand all of it. But anyway, that's what's going on. That's what we're experiencing. And does it get tiring after a while? Yeah, it gets tiring after a while. In fact, that's what we're going to start off with today as we wait for the flood of phone calls to come flying in here at 877 -753 -3341.

I mentioned this a while back. And, yeah, I know we were listening to the Staples thing. But, you know, once we got to that one caller, there really wasn't a whole lot more interesting after that particular point in time.

Just the standard old, same old, same old repetitious type stuff. I had mentioned that a few weeks ago. I mean, was it before or after? I think it was before the cruise. But, yeah, it was probably before the cruise.

Anyway, I came into channel. And, see, my nick is always InChannel, but I'm not always sitting here, obviously. So I came in, and there was a fellow InChannel by the name of John. Now, that's not his name, of course.

He was coming through the PeteWeb JavaScript connection that we have. And so he was a visitor. And he had posted a URL to an MP3 recording of a fellow by the name of Kelly Powers responding to me on John644.

And so as soon as I said anything, I get this private message. Here's this URL. No commentary. And then John disappears. Poof. Gone. No discussion. No nothing. Just drop and run. Drive-by posting is what we call it.

And he did come back later. I don't think it was the same day. I think it was a couple days later. And what had happened is I had listened to the MP3 and had gone, okay, really nothing new here. But it's worth, you know, going back over these things.

For some reason, people, they like to hear an interaction going on, even if it's almost always I have to play with somebody else's doing and not have direct interaction. But they like to hear that. They like to hear how to respond to stuff because that's what people are doing.

They're out there. They're hearing these objections. They'd like to hear how I would respond to that particular objection, especially when it's an objection to something I myself have said, my own teaching, my own presentations.

And that's what this is on John644. And specifically, my statement, I have never seen a consistent response to this passage. And I have not. And I have studied oodles of them from all sorts of different perspectives.

And just over and over again, they only prove continuously the bankruptcy of a non-reformed reading of the passage. It's just the passage does not allow itself to fit into any other position. I've seen some pretty complicated attempts at it, too.

And we've discussed that over and over again over the years on the Dividing Line. So anyway, I contacted Mr. Powers and I said, Would you like to come on the Dividing Line and discuss what you said about John6?

We can discuss the exegesis and so on and so forth. And the responses just kept getting longer and longer. And I'm like, I'm asking a fairly simple question here.

Could we sort of keep this focused?

He said, No, let's do it on PalTalk because I want to use my headphone. I want to have my hands free. So let's do it on PalTalk. Now, some of you know my opinion of PalTalk. I think, did we once transmit the Dividing Line at the same time live on PalTalk or something?

I think we did a couple of times.

A couple of times? Yeah, okay. And then we had that wonderful debate that the one guy actually, I think, sells for like 15 bucks on his site, the edited version.

Yeah, Lou Rug.

Yeah, the Proverbs 129 man. That wasn't really much of a debate. But anyway, and I have said, in fact, someone just posted in channel, I have said in channel, PalTalk is the black hole of the Internet, the single greatest concentration of stupidity and heresy on the planet.

And that was the short version, the nice version.

I'm going to get letters with that one.

I don't care. I deleted the PalTalk software from my system and rejoiced at the liberation of my system from its grasp.

Mine runs better now.

Well, but you don't go into PalTalk.

Well, we had it so that we could stream it.

I know.

And everything does so much better now that it's gone.

Oh, yeah.

Well, it just PalTalk, unless you are willing to, you know, absolutely control everything. Still, no matter what, you've got people who come in that are that are just absolutely nutcase. Who's that guy with the bird in the background that just hammers on and on and on?

I mean, if you want to see the absolute worst of the worst out there, go to PalTalk. It's just great. I have no interest whatsoever in touching PalTalk.

Nothing.

No, thank you. Beyond that, there's no reason because we're talking about doing this on the phone. And, you know, you can use a headset on the phone. I do it all the time. I do radio constantly. I'll have a headset on tomorrow when I'm doing the radio program with Dave Hunt.

And my hands will be free. People know that, you know, I was on issues, et cetera, two Sunday nights ago. And people were listening in channel while I'm doing this national radio program. And I'm typing in channel at the same time.

You know, during breaks, sometimes even during the program itself, I'd make comments in channel. It's real easy, real easy to say.

Oh, OK.

It's real easy to do that kind of thing. So I write back and say, well, you know, maybe you don't understand. We're talking about our program. You could get a recording of it, MP3, you know, whatever, because he mentioned wanting to make it available.

You can do what you want with it, you know. You could be like Lou Rug and cut my part out and make it sound like you win. I didn't say that, but that's what Lou Rug did. And, you know, whatever. And you'd still have hands free, be able to use your computer, you know, whatever.

You know, just that we do it on the dividing line. We do the dividing line. We don't do PalTalk. I don't know if you really want to debate this, you'll do it on PalTalk. No, I'm not touching PalTalk. So nothing ever came of it.

So we're not going to get to have the interaction. I just will play his response and respond to it. And, you know, we'll go from there. And that's the best we can do. But, oh, I was going to say, the John guy came back in and said, well, what happened?

You know, why won't anything take place? I said, well, you know, we want to do it on our program. That's the whole reason. And he doesn't want to. He wants to do it on PalTalk. And so nothing's going to happen.

So you just want control. I was like, oh, so are you accusing me of needing to somehow turn him off or something because he's going to refute me? So that's what it sounds like. Remember back in March, we played that tape from Dave Hunt that had been recorded in late February where he spoke at a brethren church and said that I didn't want debating Calvinism in print and all the rest of that stuff.

You know, it's just amazing. People who have no idea who I am whatsoever will just immediately accuse me of, you know, every kind of dishonesty and everything else on the planet. Of course, John wouldn't stick around to discuss the theology of the passage.

He just, you know, hit and run type stuff. And he was sort of used to that kind of stuff. But anyways, so we have a recording here of Kelly Powers responding to me, mentions me by name and responds to the use of John 644.

And so we're going to provide a response and listen to what is said and vindicate once again the exegesis of the text and hopefully illustrate how tradition creates eisegesis in the reading of the text, even upon the part of folks who otherwise might use proper exegetical methodology.

And so if the great engineer man has the computer ready to go, let's listen to what Mr. Powers had to say.

Hey there, this is Kelly Powers coming to you again from Apologetics for Christians. Good to have you with us today. We are going to be looking at a very interesting text that is used by Calvinists to prove that only those who are of the elect can truly come to believe in Jesus Christ.

Today this is AFC Live where you are responding to an email that I was given recently by a guy named Tim. This is for you, Tim.

Some people call me Tim.

Hey there, this is Kelly Powers responding to an email that I was given recently by a guy named Tim. So this is for you, Tim. The email consists of information that he found on our website, very informative on different things.

Also notice that I had things in reference to both issues of James White, issues of Calvinism, and one of the questions that he wanted to be addressed that had to do with John 6, verse 44. For those of you who are not familiar with John 6, verse 44, let me read it out loud real fast here.

It says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day. Now this is Jesus speaking, and Tim asked a question here. He gives a comment. He says the verses that he cites, this is in reference to James White and other people who believe in Calvinism.

It says the verses that he cites for his doctrine come from verse 35 and the following, with emphasis on 37, 44, and 65, saying that all that the Father draws will be raised up the last day. He says that this drawing by the Father is only for the elect, because they are raised up on the last day according to those scripture verses.

He says, according to those verses, this cannot be a general drawing by the Father to everyone. All cannot be drawn, and some exercise free will to reject it, because that would contradict verse 44.

You know, I'm appreciative of Tim. I don't know if he blows things up randomly or not, as you know. But at least Tim has listened, and Tim understands what I'm trying to say. And that is, as I've explained many times before, John 6, 44, the him who is raised up on the last day is the him who is drawn by the Father to the Son.

Those aren't two different people. You don't have, no one can come to me unless the Father draws him. That's one him, and everybody gets drawn, and then you build a wall, and you somehow insert ten volumes of theology between that him and the next phrase, the same sentence, which says, and I will raise him up on the last day.

Being raised up on the last day in John 6 is to be raised up to eternal life. This is what Jesus is entrusted to do. He loses none of those that are given to him. He raises them up on the last day. And so, Tim has heard correctly that the text is saying that this drawing is specific to those who are given by the Father to the Son to the elect, and that no one can come to the Father except through this drawing by the Father to the Son.

He's heard correctly that that is what the text talks about, and therefore, we have at least, and this is unusual, we get to start on the right foot.

A grail?

Yeah, somebody on the channel knows what I'm talking about.

You're looking for a grail?

Yes, well, Tim, that's sort of, I don't think that's the same Tim. I think we need to differentiate between this Tim and that particular Tim. So, we continue on, anyways, with the right question.

So, this is for Tim and anyone else out there. John 6, verse 44 is a little bit of a hard verse.

It's a hard verse. Actually, it's not a hard verse. What would make a verse hard? Well, a verse might be hard because of textual variations, but there aren't any that impact the reading of the text. It might be hard because of syntax or grammar, but actually this is very, very straightforward all the way through.

And so, what would make a verse hard? Well, it would make a verse hard if it runs against our tradition, and that's really the only thing that's hard about John 6, verse 44.

Because, isolated by itself, it gives some problems.

Isolated by itself. Well, I've written a number of chapters, one full book, John by the Father, on the subject of John 6, verse 44, and I have never isolated John 6, verse 44, by itself. I have always exegeted John 6, verse 44, in the flow of the entirety of the sixth chapter of John.

I have always connected it with both what comes before and what comes after. So, generally when you hear someone saying something about isolating it, what their meaning is, and what they're eventually going to do, and that's what happens here, even though Mr. Powers knows better, he even says so in just a moment, he knows how exegesis is supposed to go, it's just tradition precludes you from doing proper exegesis in the text that contradict your tradition.

And so he's going to say, you don't isolate text, you don't isolate passages, he knows that you read it in context, but what he's going to do is he's going to say, well, it can't mean this because I believe this passage over here means this, and this passage over here means this, and you put them together, my traditional interpretation is this, and this verse would contradict that, so it can't mean that.

Which, of course, is exactly what Dave Hunt does in his writings and his speaking on this subject. This is the standard, eisegetical way of getting around those passages that run into your tradition, is to say, well, you're isolating it.

Obviously, my presentations, my published presentations, my presentations and debates have never isolated John 644, they've always placed it right in the middle of the context of the very presentation in the synagogue perineum that the Lord is presenting.

The reason I say it gives problems is because when we read the Bible, things that I've taught in the past, things I've shared with people in general, one of the fundamentals that we need to have when we look at Scripture is to interpret Scripture with Scripture.

Now, that's easier said than done at times. I know that sometimes someone can say, yeah, but that's your interpretation. Someone says, this is what it means to them, and someone else says, this is what it means to me.

How do we know which is right and which is not?

Correct. How do we know that? Well, we know that, of course, by the stringent, by the strict, by the consistent application of the same hermeneutical rules that we use in all of our interpretation. And when a person has to change the rules in midstream to make their system work, that is the world's greatest tradition detector.

That's when the red flags go up and you go, aha, here you've run into a place where a person is believing something, it's not biblical, it's not consistent with the Scriptures, and so we need to fit things in.

Some people are asking about the quality of the recording. I think part of it's probably due to the fact that this was recorded off PalTalk, I would assume. I mean, I don't know that, but it sounds like one of those cheapy-cheesy $9 .99 Fry's special microphone things.

And it just sounds horrible, and that's just the way it is, and that's the best quality. That's how we got it directly from the link that was provided to us. So we continue on.

There's a couple basic things that I like to do. Number one, of course, look at the immediate context. Look at the verses before it, look at the verses after it. Also look in the same book, other verses that will correlate with it.

Well, hold on now, we skipped a major area of exegesis there. The verses before and after, yes, but you also need to look at the discourse, at the specific train of thought that this verse is a part of, which, of course, is John 6 as a whole.

But especially the immediate context is the dialogue with the Jews in the synagogue pernium. You don't want to go leaving the context of John 6 looking for some way out of what John 6 is saying. There is absolutely no reason why you cannot come to a clear conclusion about what Jesus taught in the synagogue pernium based upon John 6.

If John 6 as a whole was found somewhere, without the rest of the gospel of John, could we understand what was being said here? Yes, you could. The text is not so obtuse and obscure that we cannot understand what it's saying.

It is right there in front of us. There is enough context given for us to have an understanding of what it was Jesus said to the men at Capernaum. Also keep something else in mind. Jesus was communicating with individuals.

And if we jump to chapter 12 or chapter 10 or chapter 8 or chapter 17 to try to get some necessary context for John 6, what does that mean? That means that people who originally heard what Jesus said could not have had a clue about what he was actually attempting to say.

And there's a lot of folks who don't have any problem with that kind of interpretation. They don't have any problem with saying, Yeah, Jesus, you know, look at the parables. They were meant to confuse people.

And of course this is a parable, but anyway, they don't have any problem whatsoever in saying, Hey, you bet, there's no reason whatsoever why I can't jump over to John 12 and grab a passage and read it back into John 6 and make it determinative.

Now please differentiate between the proper use of going to other passages to provide further illumination, further examples. Jesus used this language over here and this way and so on and so forth. But those are illustrations.

Those are expansions upon meaning. You have to be very careful in going to some other context, especially a later context chronologically in time, grabbing something and saying, This is determinative of the interpretation of something that came before, and no one who didn't have this could have understood what was said before.

That's a completely different way of doing things. And it requires that you provide a strong foundation for that kind of argument and saying this is what is necessary for us to do. And the vast majority of folks who use that kind of interpretation don't provide the very foundation that they need to provide at that point.

So we continue.

Say, for example, we're in the Gospel of John. All right, well, we're looking at John 6, but what about other chapters in the Gospel of John that relate to the subject at hand, right? And then, of course, other books by, say, John, say 1 John, 2 and 3, the Book of Revelation, if possible, right?

And then, after all that, because, see, I believe John interprets John because John knows what he wrote. And then after that, then we look at other scriptures that would relate to the subject at hand.

If you do this, I believe that when examining things, you will get the proper context because you're going with the author for the most part. And then when you're looking at things, of course, you can't just look at the who's, the what, the where's, the why's, the when and the how's, what's called inductive studying, where you can look at each verse, each different word, and break these things down so it makes sense.

I'm not exactly sure what that's supposed to mean, break these things down so that it makes sense. Extending as much charity as possible, I think I know what's being said, but obviously I would want to express it in saying you examine grammar, you examine lexicography, the meanings of terms, you examine the forms therein, you examine syntax, that's the relationship of words one to another.

You examine clauses, the relationship of clauses one to another. Discourse analysis, these are all standard terms used for the examination of ever-widening circles of context in the examination of language.

Okay, all of that hopefully is what was being referred to there, though I'm not certain that that's exactly what was being said, but let's extend charity and hope that it is.

What I want to do is I want to look at John chapter 6 here and share briefly verses before and verses after and kind of look at other scriptures in the Gospel of John that relate to this that will help this make a little bit more sense.

So let's go to the Lord in a word of prayer. Thank you, Lord, that your word is with them. Lord, I pray that John chapter 6...

Okay, let's get to John chapter 6 here.

Let's read a few things before this.

Oh, you're so unspiritual, you cut out the prayer. Yeah, we've only got so much time here.

To kind of get a perspective of what's going on and who Jesus is talking to. This is just after Jesus fed 5 ,000. Jesus walks on the water. And we pick it up, just verses 26 and on. Jesus answered them and said, Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on him the Father God has set his seal. And notice, they were seeking after him.

And Jesus didn't turn them away. Jesus said, continue on. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life.

Now, it is very interesting to note. Yes, they were seeking after him. And by the end of John chapter 6, they all walk away from him. But notice that Jesus is going to identify these seekers in verse 36 as unbelievers.

They are seeking after the physical. They're seeking after him because they saw the miracle. They're seeking after the bread, the fishes. They're not seeking after him as the source of spiritual life.

And it is his presentation of himself as the only source of spiritual life. If he presented himself as a source of spiritual life, that would not provide the kind of offense that Jesus' presentation does.

But he will not allow himself to be a co-savior. He will not allow himself to be a self-help methodology. He presents himself as the only source of eternal life, the bread that comes down from heaven.

And that is what causes so much of the offense that takes place. So it is interesting to hear that. Now, I think we're coming up on our first major straw man argument. So keep an eye out for it.