Radio Free Geneva: Soteriology 101, God’s Glory, then the Unbelievable Panel on Theodicy and Grace

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00:17

You constantly hear people that are Calvinist harp on this. They just keep repeating it, and they repeat it so much you start to think it's a

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Biblical truth. Jesus stands outside the tomb of Lazarus, he says,

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Lazarus, come out, and Lazarus said, I can't, I'm dead. That's not what he did.

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Lazarus came out. You mean to tell me a dead person can respond to the command of Christ? You take lessons from Judas White and Jeff Durbin, it shows in this kind of sequential format.

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Do you really believe that it parallels the method of exegesis that we utilize to demonstrate those other things?

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Um, no. Some new

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Calvinists, even pastors, very openly smoke pipes and cigars just as they drink beer and wine.

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Even Jesus cannot override your unbelief. A verse like that to him, you know what it would sound like if he were listening to it?

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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah

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Uh, Layton Flowers, Soteriology 101, uh, posted a tweet.

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Evidently there is a article that underlies this, but sometimes when you express something succinctly you really lay out what you're really saying.

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Sometimes, uh, you're able to sort of soften the blow when you've got lots of words to use and then other times not.

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But the reality is that there are two fundamentally different ways of looking at salvation in the

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Christian scriptures. We have been saying this since we started Radio Free Geneva.

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I probably said this in the very first edition. I don't know when that was. We need to find out.

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Um, I wonder when, when we first started calling this

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Radio Free Geneva, because I remember I was responding to, oh, what was the Southern Baptist, um, big

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Southern Baptist guy. I think that was the first program we did where I went through someone who was really, really well known.

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Adrian Rogers. Yeah. Okay. So we're, we haven't quite gotten to two full decades, but we're not far away.

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We're, we're coming, coming at it fast, uh, Radio Free Geneva. And I, I would imagine in that program in 2003, 2004, somewhere on there, um,

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I specifically made reference to the reality that there are two, there is a theocentric and an anthropocentric way of looking at what the

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Bible teaches about salvation, a man -centered way and a God -centered way. And obviously there are many people who object to that because, well, that's, that's poisoning the well and gaslighting and all the rest of these phrases that are now used today by people who don't want to think seriously.

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Um, but the fact is that we see this over and over and over and over again.

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And if your central ordering principle, the lens through which you read scripture is

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God's self -glorification in the creation of this universe and the wrapping up of all things, the summing up of all things in Christ, if this is primarily about Him and His glorification and His vindication,

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Romans chapter three, then that lens is going to cause you to see ambiguous texts in a particular fashion.

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If however, you start with mankind, if you start with the idea that, uh, man is the central element of the biblical narrative, that what is going to happen with man and, uh, the, the centrality of rescuing man and give, providing to man opportunities and provisions and things like that, if, if that is central to your thinking, then those same ambiguous texts are going to be read in a different fashion.

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And you are going to either see or not see connections between various teachings in scripture.

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So if you are theocentric, then you are going to consider the internal harmony of the divine persons to be central, an absolutely overridingly important reality.

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If you're, if you're centered upon man, then man's free will is going to be significantly more important than how

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Jesus's role as high priest relates to the atonement. And so there are, there are two approaches.

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Now, I, I obviously believe that this is not, well, you just need to pick your, your approach and then run with it.

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I don't, I don't believe scripture allows that. I believe what we see, especially today, and I think this is extremely clear.

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When you see the anthropocentric, the man -centered position in predominance, then you are going to see a diminishment of emphasis upon certain aspects of the divine text.

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And so the, the texts in scripture that lay out

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God's aseity, God's uniqueness, how unlike man

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God is, how perfect he is in and of himself without the assistance of man, how

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God is sovereign over human affairs and that he frustrates man's plans and he hardens man's hearts, those types of texts that focus upon the sole glory of God and refer to man as a grasshopper are put off to the side.

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And therefore, those texts where God judges and wipes out entire people groups justly, those are going to be explained away.

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And that's what we, exactly what we see today. We see many people teaching that God did not command that an entire people group be wiped out, but it was just a certain group of people at that time, and it wasn't all of them, and this is all hyperbole and, and, you know, and the reason being that an anthropocentric focus is going to put

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God in the dock and say, well, what's most important, what's really, really, really most important is to defend

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God's honor and character. But the parameters of defending that character are not biblically derived.

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They're derived from mankind's understanding of what justice would be outside of biblical revelations of justice.

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So you have these external standards that you place upon God, and if God does things that violates that, well, we have to find a way around that.

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And that's exactly what we see today. This also explains why you can have incredibly intelligent men who, when it comes to this one subject, are completely inconsistent.

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So you'll have men who will recognize the importance of systematic theology, of how systematic theology is derived from a pan -canonical, all of Scripture, Sola Scriptura and Tota Scriptura, a pan -canonical view of Scripture, drawing concepts together consistently with one another to come up with the doctrines of Trinity, to come up with the deity of Christ, a hypostatic union, all the high revelations of who

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God is that we consider to be absolutely foundational to our faith. And then when it comes to salvation and the will of man, all of a sudden, no, you

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Calvinists are all wrong in thinking you need to have these overarching concepts, like the Trinity.

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You need to just look at individual texts that seem to speak against something like limited atonement.

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You can't be talking about how the Trinitarian persons have to be in harmony with one another, and you can't talk about the purpose of God and the incarnation and the atonement and the grand schemes of God's self -glorification.

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No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Individual texts that aren't even on that subject need to take priority over a pan -canonical understanding, and I just have to go, you are a

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Trinitarian, right? Have you ever thought through what the biblical evidence for that is?

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Because if you take the position that you're taking, you are fundamentally denying the foundation of the doctrine of Trinity, and I know they don't realize they're doing that, but it happens.

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It happens. Now, what I was referring to is this tweet from 947am.

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Is that in your receipt time, or I don't know. But sometime on the morning of December 27th, which

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I think was last Friday, Calvinism suggests that God's glory is best manifest by putting his own exaltation first, whereas the example of Christ reveals just the opposite.

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It is through giving up his glory by putting the needs of lowly, undeserving humans first that he is most abundantly glorified.

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Now, I want you to hear this.

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It is important that you hear this. Here, how's that?

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I've decided, let's make sure. Calvinism suggests that God's glory is best manifest by putting his own exaltation first, whereas the example of Christ reveals just the opposite.

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It is through giving up his glory by putting the needs of lowly, undeserving humans first that he is most abundantly glorified.

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So, Teriology 101, that is Leighton Flowers. Now, there were many, many, many responses to Dr.

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Flowers' statement, obviously. And for most of us, the initial response is just, really?

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Now, for many others, it's like, oh, that sounds nice. So, again, how you approach

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Scripture is going to sort of determine how you respond initially to a statement like this, but hopefully, most of us have, upon thinking about it, recognized what the real problem and the real issue here is.

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The real problem and the real issue here is that Dr. Flowers has placed

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God into the context and into the category of human exaltation.

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That's what he did. He has taken the example of Jesus in humility that Paul is presenting to us in Philippians chapter 2, and he is extrapolating from that, so the obedience of the

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Son, his humility of mind, he's taking that and he's extrapolating that out to an ultimate category into which the triune

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God as a whole is placed along with man. So, by putting the needs of lowly, undeserving humans first, so we're in the same category.

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Jesus was, but he was unique. He was the God -man. But the purposes of God, now, again,

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I don't get the feeling that there is any meaningful ground in Dr.

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Flowers' theology for any type of divine decree or intention from eternity past to begin with.

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But what you have here and what you should see as extremely problematic is the foundational assumption that is made.

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And we have had to over and over again emphasize on Radio Free Geneva, you must think clearly as a believer.

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God has given to us the capacity to reason and to think, and so you must think clearly as a believer and recognize the foundations of arguments.

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The foundation of this argument is flawed. It is making an inappropriate extrapolation and violating categories in the process.

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So, let me just remind you of some foundational truths from Scripture.

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God's, in speaking to his people Israel, in Isaiah, said in Isaiah 43 -25,

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I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions.

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What is that? Wiping out your transgressions. This is a soteriologically relevant statement.

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It's about salvation. It's about God acting in mercy. It's about God dealing with sin and human rebellion.

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I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for my own sake.

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And I will not remember your sins. For my own sake. He doesn't place himself in the category of his creatures and say, hey, let's sing kumbaya,

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I'm going to put you first, and you and me are buds. This is not the

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God that we read of in the Hebrew Scriptures. He even says,

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I have dealt with your transgressions. I will wipe them out for my own sake.

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Not for yours. Oh, you benefit, that's for sure. But as anyone who is the beneficiary of grace knows, you are always the debtor.

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You are always the one dependent upon the other. You are never in a position of equality in any way, shape, or form.

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And this comes out when you really listen to what the Scriptures say. Just as a reminder to all of us,

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I think all of us, we live in such a humanistic world, such a secular world, such a world that does everything in its power to diminish

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God and to exalt ourselves. Could we remind ourselves of this incredible text from Isaiah chapter 44?

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We have this divine sarcasm, and a lot of people use this as an excuse for them being constantly sarcastic, but God does it really well, and most of the time we don't.

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So listen to this divine sarcasm, beginning of verse 9, those who fashion a graven image are all of them futile, and their precious things are of no profit.

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Even their own witnesses fail to see or know, so they will be put to shame. Who has fashioned a god or cast an idol to no profit?

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Behold all his companions will be put to shame, for the craftsmen themselves are mere men.

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Let them all assemble themselves, let them stand up, let them tremble, let them together be put to shame. So you have these craftsmen who make idols, and of course this was the temptation being brought before the people of God.

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So listen to what God does. He also makes a god and worships it.

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He makes it a graven image and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over this half he eats meat as he roasts the roast and is satisfied.

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He also warms himself and says, aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire. But the rest of it he makes into a god, his graven image.

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He falls down before it and worships. He also prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my god.

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What an incredible picture. What an incredible picture of idolatry and the foolishness of man and how man can use the gifts of God, his ability to design and to form and to fashion and to use fire and tools and metallurgy and everything else, and doesn't recognize

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God, doesn't recognize where all of this is coming from. They do not know, nor do they understand, for he has smeared over their eyes they cannot see and their hearts they cannot comprehend.

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Oh, we want to skip that part. No one recalls, nor is there knowledge or understanding to say,

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I have burned half of it in the fire and also have baked bread over its coals. I roast meat and eat it, then

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I make the rest of it an abomination, a toevah. I fall down before a block of wood.

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He feeds on ashes. A deceived heart has turned him aside and he cannot deliver himself, nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand?

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He cannot deliver himself. Oh, that's one of those other texts that our provisionist friends don't want to look at, or they'll explain, well, that's just a situation where God's, that's just judgment in that one situation.

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It's not judgment in general. Remember these things, O Jacob, in Israel for you are my servant.

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When I have formed you, you are my servant. O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. I have wiped out your transgressions like a thick cloud and your sins like a heavy mist.

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Return to me for I have redeemed you. Shout for joys, O heaven, for Yahweh has done it. Shout joyfully, you lower parts of the earth.

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Break forth into a shout of joy, you mountains, O forest and every tree in it. For Yahweh has redeemed Jacob and in Israel he shows forth his glory.

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For thus says Yahweh, your Redeemer, the one who formed you from the womb. I am the maker, I, Yahweh, am the maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth all alone, causing the omens of boasters to fail, making fools out of diviners, causing wise men to draw back and turning their knowledge into foolishness, confirming the word of his servant and performing the purpose of his messengers.

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It is I who says to Jerusalem, she will be inhabited and the cities of Judah, they shall be built. And I will raise up her ruins again.

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It is I who says to the depth of the sea, be dried up and I will make your rivers dry. It is I who says to Cyrus, who didn't, wasn't alive yet.

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He is my shepherd and he will perform all my desire and he declares to Jerusalem, she will be built and of the temple your foundation will be laid.

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Thus says Yahweh to Cyrus his anointed, his anointed one, he was chosen, whom I have taken by the right hand to subdue nations before him, to loose the loins of kings, to open doors before him so the gates will not be shut.

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I will go before you and make the rough places smooth. I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through the iron bars. All this is about what

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God, God, God, God does. Not pretty much everything man does is, well, subservient to God.

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The boasting of, of, of the omen pronouncers is, is made empty by God.

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It's Psalm 33 all over again. Man plans, God frustrates their plans. God plans, man cannot do anything about it.

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The sovereign God of these scriptures, I say to you, is the

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God who stands behind every statement in the New Testament. And so if you take, if you start here, this is, if you start here, then it's going to be very difficult for you to all of a sudden shift gears and embrace the cultural emphasis upon the autonomy of man.

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But many people do not start there. They start with external,

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I believe, external sources and reference points. And then as a result, diminish, ignore entire passages, passages of scripture.

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We should, I think, you know, be aware of the reality that it's not that the

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New Testament does not plainly address this issue, it does. If you just simply allow the text to speak, we, we know that the apostle

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Paul laid out, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing and having places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him.

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In love, he predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself. Upon what basis?

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According to the kind intention of his will, for what purpose? To the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the beloved one.

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So, where do we get this equality? Where do we get this idea of putting the needs of lowly, undeserving humans first?

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The needs of human beings. That's not what Philippians 2 is about. That's not what

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Ephesians 1 is about. That's not what Isaiah 43 or 44 or 45 or anything else is about.

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That is humanism. Man's needs. Well, God knows what man's needs are because God is using man to bring about his own glory.

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And let's be honest, most provisionists don't really believe that.

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In fact, I would have to say most Christians do not really believe that.

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So, when you hear people say, hear it all the time, well, if you take that Calvinistic that you're a minority, yeah, you're right.

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And there's a reason for that. There's a reason revealed in Scripture. Who are you?

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A man who answers back to God. I mean, that's the clay in rebellion against the potter.

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So, the Scripture reveals this is how man thinks. We think from our perspective up toward God.

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That's natural for us to do. That doesn't make it right. It doesn't mean that it's not going to lead us into error.

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It will. But the reality is that God has done what he has done to the praise of the glory of his grace.

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He has not done it to meet human needs. And again, if you recognize what

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Ephesians 1 is saying, that from eternity past, God chose to do these things. And I just don't believe.

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I just don't believe. Most of my synergistic friends really take seriously the idea that God has a sovereign decree to accomplish his own glory.

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They have some vague idea that, well, yeah, you know, it's all going to be worked out and God's going to win in the end somehow.

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But the reality is the messy details in the middle, you know, we just don't know.

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God's doing his best. You push them on something like this, and you don't get the clarity that you get from Paul, that all things are being summed up in Christ and that there is this divine purpose and it's all to his praise and his glory and so on and so forth.

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You don't get that. You get a really ishy, squishy, mushy type thing.

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You don't get the type of clarity that you have here in the text of Scripture. And even the text that is behind Dr.

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Flower's statements, yeah, Jesus humbles himself by becoming obedient to him, to the

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Father. This is inter -Trinitarian obedience showing humility of mind.

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As the God man, he shows obedience and humility, yes. But what is the result of this?

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Is it the exaltation of man? For this reason, also God highly exalted him and bestowed him the name which is above every name so the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and of the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord to what? To the glory of God the Father. What is the purpose?

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The purpose is God's glorification. And you never show yourself more deeply infected by the humanism of our age when you find the glory of God to be something other than of utter prime importance, not only in the scriptural narrative but in your own heart and mind.

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I've said many times before when we read Romans 9 and Paul lays out for us, what if God, though willing to bear with patience the vessels of wrath prepared unto destruction, what if God was desirous of revealing his power, his strength in judgment?

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And I've asked people over and over again, where does that come in your thinking about God?

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Do you have any desire that God's power as holy judge be demonstrated?

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Once in a while we'll, you know, we'll see a particularly heinous event, a particularly heinous person and we'll go, yeah,

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I'd like to see it there. But the idea of God's holy wrath being made known, his power being demonstrated, his name being proclaimed through all the earth through the destruction of the

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Egyptian gods, the killing of the firstborn.

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If you were walking down the streets of Egypt in those days in the shadows of the pyramids and you heard the wailing of the mothers as their firstborn children, their firstborn sons have died, if you are first and foremost a primarily emotionally oriented person, you're going to go, nope, can't go there.

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Yet that's apostolic truth and revelation in the scripture, it's what it says.

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God was glorified in the destruction of the firstborn. Egypt was an idolatrous nation and even when faced with the clearest revelation of the supremacy of Yahweh, refused to repent in the person of their federal head,

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Pharaoh, whom God hardened so that the gods of Egypt could be spoiled.

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I don't believe the undergenerate person can say, yes, what

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God did was right. There will always be an element of rebellion there and I think there are regenerate people who have not yet reached a point of sanctification who likewise will say the same thing.

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But the real issue for me is, is there a willingness to bow and be obedient to God's revelation of the truth of these things?

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That's where the dividing line, pun intended, that's what the dividing line is, really is.

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So with that said, I'm just going audio, it's so much easier to use audio because you can click on stuff and stop stuff and so there is a video of this.

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There was a panel discussion, panel discussions, I've been on more of them than I can possibly count any longer and sometimes it goes really well.

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Sometimes there's a good chemistry and then sometimes it's just terrible and sometimes it's just boring and sometimes it was a total waste of time.

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You never can really tell. Sometimes I've gone to a panel going, oh, this has got the potential of being a real stinker and it ends up being really good, who knows?

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Part of it depends, a lot of it depends on who the moderator is. Justin Brierley is always a great moderator.

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He knows how to do a conversation, well, in England, you know, you've got to understand, give

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Justin his props. There are really, they have to be so careful about what they say and how they say things in the

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UK, maybe once Brexit takes place, but I don't know. I mean, the EU is all over stuff, but there's all sorts of folks in Britain that are just like the

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EU people, so they have to be very, very careful. He's walking a line that a lot of us don't really realize he's trying to walk.

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He's very good at it. That was that sound you heard in the background, was the man behind the glasses, he's really good at that.

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Yes, he is. So we give him props for that. But we also know, as we have noted on this program, when we did responses, we also know that on this particular subject,

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Justin is not on our side. And I've said to Justin, he and I need to do the program together.

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We can talk about this stuff, but he's like, no, no, no, no, I'm not. I can put myself in that position, but I'm open to it, you know, and just throw that out there.

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Be in London numerous times this year, anyway. The question was asked,

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I only cut out, this is a 14 minute and 53 second portion.

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I already cut out the first part of it. So, you know, maybe 13 minutes. The question was raised of the relationship of God to man, sin, theodicy,

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I'm not sure the term itself is used, and was thrown out to the people in the panel.

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Now, Mary Jo Sharp is the first one to speak. Brian Brodersen was on the channel. And we've done entire

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Radio Free Geneva's on Brian Brodersen and his comments on Calvinism.

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And then of course, John Lennox was on as well. And as I said, he's written a book called

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Determined to Believe. And in my opinion, what we see with John Lennox is the same thing that we saw with Norman Geisler almost 20 years ago.

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Someone who is primarily a philosopher, primarily impacted by philosophical categories of thought, decides to address what is in reality a fundamentally biblical and exegetical issue.

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And in the process demonstrates once again, the fact that you can be very, very smart and very, very good in other areas, but when it comes to this one area, just do really bad work.

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And we will see in looking at John Lennox's comments that once again, maybe you've never seen this program before.

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If you've seen it, you've heard this 47 ,000 times. I am reformed because I apply the same hermeneutic to this subject that I do to the

40:05

Trinity, the deity of Christ, the resurrection of Jesus, and the other key fundamental Christian doctrines.

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And when you do that, I don't see any other place to land.

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And in my experience, when people say, I'm not going there, you will rather easily be able to demonstrate on an exegetical level where their tradition ends up overthrowing their interpretation of scripture.

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And I'll illustrate that. It's something I've been wanting to do for over a year. However, when

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Lennox's book first came out, I forgot when it was, but it's been a while. And I just never got around to it.

40:51

There's always something going on. This gave a good opportunity. But let's start at the beginning. Let's listen.

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I will be playing at 1 .2 because we want to get done sometime today. That makes people sound smarter than me.

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That's okay, too. That's not difficult to do. Let's dive in. A kind of difficult theological question.

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Yeah. So this is a class that I teach at the university. You can go years and years and years on studying this, and we're just going to give you quick little quips on it.

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So let's enjoy that. But for me in struggling through this, what

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I have to look at is what God made and the way that he made it.

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So for me, in answering this question, looking at God's sovereignty and the free will of man, I have to consider, does

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God actually give—has he made humans in his own image with autonomy? Is that a real thing that he's done?

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Now, immediately. So the Imago Dei, from what she just said, involves autonomy.

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And I just immediately challenged that from a biblical perspective. Where do you get that biblically?

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The Imago Dei requires the ability to interact, but autonomy?

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I really, really struggle with how anyone can ever use the term autonomy of the human will.

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There are so many statements where God says, you ain't,

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I am. Just read the 33rd Psalm. Entire nations plan, and God says, nah, ain't happening.

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I plan. You can't stop me. Who's autonomous there? I mean, that's obvious.

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And that's not even taking into consideration the fallenness of the will of man. Once you take that into consideration, then the regular biblical teaching is man is not able, and God is.

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But again, hey, Norman Geisler could read John 6 and come up with the free will of man.

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So once that becomes your ordering principle, you'll find it everywhere. You end up making havoc of the text of Scripture, but you'll find it everywhere.

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But autonomy? I mean, do you know what autonomy means? Self -law. How can the

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Imago Dei involve autonomy unless what you're saying is the Imago Dei makes another God?

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There is one autonomous will in the universe, and it's God's. And if there are two autonomous wills in the universe, there are no autonomous wills in the universe.

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By the very meaning of the word, self -law. So no, I just have to go, nope.

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And I think he has. Like, our autonomy is not God's autonomy, but I believe there's a reflection of that in every human being.

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Our autonomy is not God's autonomy. Then it's not autonomy, is it?

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See, we can talk about creaturely freedom. We can talk about the creation of man within the realm of createdness, but that must be separated from uncreatedness.

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So why even use the term? I mean, self -law, let's just remember what self -law is.

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Can we talk about creaturely freedom? Can we talk about acting within the realm

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God has created us to act within without knowledge of future events? Can we talk about God holding us accountable for acting upon the desires of our wills based upon our knowledge?

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And His judgment is to be just and righteous because He knows exactly what we did and did not know and what our intentions and desires were?

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How about that? Because that fits with what's called compatibilism. But when you don't make that differentiation, you will end up limiting the exercise of God's will to the same realm as the exercise of man's will.

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And when it comes to this issue, evil, that's exactly where the issue lies.

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It's exactly where it lies. That He actually gave us real choice.

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So I actually... So notice again, real choice equals autonomy. Real choice cannot be just creaturely freedom.

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Real choice can't be in the realm of compatibility. If it's real choice, it's autonomy.

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And what's behind all this that isn't being said quite yet? There is no divine decree.

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And that's why if you start here, you're never going to get to the truth. Because you have to ask, you have to start with God, the

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Creator, to get to the truth of His creation. We start with the creation and try to get to the truth of the

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Creator and we always... There are many, many, many different roads.

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I just thought of this mainly because it was the most frightening experience of my life. But this past July, I think

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I may mention really quickly, two dear friends of mine, not realizing how terrified

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I am of heights, took me on a hike up Mount Evans. And there were...

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The beginning, there was fairly exposed plain where you're doing some rock scrambling. And once we got through that,

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I was like, guys, is it going to be like this? No, no, no. It flattens out. Well, the problem was it does flatten out and you'd go through this little ridge.

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And then the last two and a half kilometers or so is just rock scrambling with...

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You can just see thousands of feet down to a lake and it's just like, ah! And it was...

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I panicked and it was rough. It was the toughest thing I ever did, which is why two or three days later, I went back and did it by myself in an hour faster than I had done it before because I had to.

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It was just reality. The point is this. The path was lined out with these things,

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I forget what they called them, but these little piles of rocks. And there are a couple of times when you're just not sure.

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And there are a lot of different ways to scramble up these rocks, but some of them can get you into some real hairy places, real hairy positions.

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When we, as humans, try to scramble up to God, try to reason from where we are and get up to God, there's lots of different ways to go.

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But some of them are going to leave you hanging on the side of a cliff. Some of them are going to lead to destruction. We can't go from the bottom up.

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And as Christians, we don't need to. The path's been marked by divine revelation.

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And we can start with what God says about himself, make that our primary assertion.

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We have to start, you start with what God has revealed about himself, and then you reason down from that to mankind.

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If you go the other direction, and you see, these are all apologists, and so I get it.

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That is the most offensive thing you can do to the natural man. Most offensive thing you can do to the natural man is to say, you can't start with yourself, you've got to start with God.

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There's an instant submission. But from the Christian perspective, isn't that fundamentally obvious?

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There can't be an instant rebellion. You are either going to be in submission to the recognition that God is

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God and you are his creature, or you could be in rebellion against that, and if you're in rebellion against that, you're going to be placing

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God in the position of answering your objections. So for all those religious systems that do not see man as fundamentally in rebellion against God and fundamentally dead in sin, you're going to go a different perspective in a different way.

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Makes a huge difference as to what you're going to end up believing. No two ways about it.

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We believe in the free will of mankind, that we have real choice, and that makes sense to me because if we have real choice, then the consequence makes sense, that there's an actual consequence that happens because of what we have decided to do.

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And for me, that plays into the whole Christian story. That plays into the fall of mankind. He freely chose to not use his good gift of rationality in a way, he chose to abuse it rather than to use it for the goodness of knowing

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God and engaging in the world in the way that God had for him. Now there's always truth in what's being stated, and as far as that being a description of what man does and what man did, as far as that goes, that's true.

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But notice what the connection is being made. The connection is being made is, if there is a divine decree that formed the fabric of time, so that God has a purpose in that happening, then there can no longer be any moral culpability.

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So if God decreed to make this universe as he decreed to make it, there could be no moral culpability.

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People need to understand something. The necessary theological correlation of believing this is that the cross had to be a secondary thought in the mind of God.

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I'm going to stop for a second to let you think that through. I'm going to let Rich think that through, because I think

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Rich was looking at something on the computer there. What did I just say? And this is going to be

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Lennox's argument, this is Mary Jo Sharp's argument. If the argument is that without autonomous free will, there can be no moral culpability, if there is a divine decree, then there is no autonomous human free will, therefore there is no moral culpability.

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Therefore, the cross of Christ had to be a secondary thought in the mind of God. And for many people, it is.

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For many people, it is. You can't have a high view of God accomplishing his purposes in redemption when you have man as the center of all things.

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It's just God doing the best he can to patch things up. But why do I say that? Why did

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I say the cross had to be a secondary thought? Think about it. If God had always intended in creation to accomplish his self -glorification, the triune

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God in the eternal covenant of redemption chose to redeem himself through the awesome reality of the incarnation and the self -giving of Christ and the union of a specific people to the divine

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Son, so that his death becomes their death, his resurrection, their resurrection. If that was the eternal purpose of God, then if you argue that the divine decree destroys moral culpability, then it also destroys the resultant glory from the very action of Jesus Christ on the cross, because they're both the result of the divine decree.

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If the divine decree vitiates the one, it vitiates the other. If God had eternally chosen—and see, what's interesting is my

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Muslim friends make this an argument. They make this an argument. If Jesus knew that he was going to be resurrected, then what's the big deal?

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What's the problem? Missing the same point that my Christian friends miss. See, my

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Muslim friends miss the reality that Jesus gave himself voluntarily upon the cross, and that the prayer in the garden was not a fear of death.

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It was the sinless one looking at the reality of becoming sin for us.

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They miss that part, and so they dismiss the reality of the sufferings of Christ on that basis.

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My Christian friends miss the biblical teaching found in Genesis 50, found in Isaiah 10, found in Acts 4, that God can sovereignly predestine and decree to do something and then hold the men accountable who are involved in those actions based upon their acting upon the desires of their hearts.

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It is a biblical principle. God acts upon it.

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The church confesses it in Scripture. We must accept this.

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If you don't, the system falls apart because this is giving us an understanding of why

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God has acted in the way that God has acted. It's right there.

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And it caused a whole mess. And for me, when you see Jesus going to the cross, he's acknowledging that we have made a mess of his good gifts.

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Now, again, that's partially true, but if you take that perspective, then again, the cross is just a makeup action rather than central to God's eternal purpose.

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Rather than that it had always been God's purpose to demonstrate his great mercy in the incarnation, bringing about the glorification of the triune

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God, now you've got it focused upon, well, man made a mess of things and so now we have the cross.

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So you have a partial truth, yeah, man did make a mess of things. And the cross is God's means of dealing with that.

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But that is a very, very, very, very, very reduced view of the cross.

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A very reduced view of the cross. That we have made a mess of that.

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And that there is a real consequence to what we've done so that it's not just... Notice there is a real consequence to what we have done.

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So if there is a divine decree that...

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So think about it, from Acts chapter 4, God predestined what Herod and Pilate and the

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Romans and the Jews would do. They did, they acted according to the predestined will of God in killing the innocent son of God, the greatest evil of all time.

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The only innocent person who was ever killed and innocent before the court of heaven, unfallen in Adam.

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So, they do exactly what God foreordained they were to do. So from this perspective, they had no guilt.

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It's as if they were innocent as the driven snow and God put a big, bad gun behind them and said, you do bad things, which of course is not the case.

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They acted... See, again, once you do not allow scripture to hold together the multidimensional truth, because it has to be multidimensional.

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We're talking about the eternal and time. How do they interface? It's that beautiful diamond that has to be seen from multiple perspectives.

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But what holds that together? What holds that together is TOTA SCRIPTURA and SOLA SCRIPTURA.

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That's what holds it together. You take that out, boom, collapses down into a simplistic two -dimensional.

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It's either this or that. It's either man's free or he's a puppet. There can't be anything more.

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You can't have this once you take out SOLA SCRIPTURA and TOTA SCRIPTURA. And when Christian apologists pretend to bring the categories of worldly wisdom into their construction of theology, which is going the wrong way, their apologetics should be formed by their theology and not the other way around.

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But when they do that, collapses, collapses. That's what happens.

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You've got to hear this, understand this, to be able to continue to appreciate the good things that many of these people say in other areas, but then to recognize, oh, they're getting into that one area where, well, you know, there's the tradition raising its ugly head.

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And yeah. Let me just stay on that train of thought so that there's a real consequence to what we've done. And it needs a real solution.

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It needs a real answer. So for me, that's what I see Jesus doing on the cross. He's providing a real answer to the abuse of our free will.

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A real answer to the abuse of our free will. Well, if all that's saying, which is not what it's saying, but if all that was saying is that part of what the cross deals with is the abuse of our creaturely freedom, that much would be true.

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But that is a minor element of what is being accomplished at the cross, where God's wisdom is being displayed to the entire created universe, where God's wrath is being displayed in his powers.

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It's all about God. And if your big focus is on, yeah, well, man messed up with his free will, his creaturely will.

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Yeah, that's a problem. You're missing something very, very, very, very, very important there. And the abuse of our free will ends in the destruction of life.

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It ends in death. So what do you see Jesus doing on the cross? He's taking on the consequence of our free choices and he's dying on the cross.

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Taking that on. And then what he does is he rises from the dead to reverse the effects of our evil.

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This is like, I said this in my talk, this is a productive treatment of the problem of evil. This is a productive treatment of the abuse of mankind's free will.

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All right, see, I'm getting going now. Yeah. So the other side of this coin though is... Now, is there a reversal of man's evil in the resurrection?

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Of course. But much more than that is the demonstration of the purpose of God in the salvation of a specific people in Jesus Christ.

01:00:02

Titus chapter 2. This has been God's purpose from the beginning. God is glorifying himself as the salvation of a specific people and then conforming them to the image of his son.

01:00:17

It's God's purpose. And again, either looking from below, you see it through the lens of man.

01:00:27

But scripture allows us to look at it from God's perspective. It's God's purpose being worked out.

01:00:32

So you have partial truths, but once they become disconnected from the overarching narrative of the whole revelation, which

01:00:40

I would argue, again, if you say, well, you

01:00:46

Calvinists, you've got all this highfalutin theology, I'm talking about how the

01:00:51

Trinity here brings about self -glorification. I'm talking about how

01:00:57

Christian theology as a whole has this beautiful coherence and consistency to it.

01:01:05

And I'm saying to you that when you approach it from an anthropocentric position, you destroy the coherence, beauty, and consistency of the

01:01:17

Christian message. That's really what we've been saying since the first Radio Free Geneva.

01:01:24

So that's the way God responds to the abuse of our freedom. But in what sense did

01:01:29

God always know we were going to do that? Is there a sense in which actually we're just sort of playing out a pre -written script in that sense?

01:01:37

Now we've done Radio Free Geneva's in response to Justin and this idea of this playing out of a pre -written script.

01:01:48

Again, that's this. Instead of this, that's this. Instead of allowing for the biblical revelation of the relationship of time and eternity seen, as I've said many times before, especially in the incarnation of Christ where the eternal enters into time, which means that the events in time are real and are important and are a part of what

01:02:19

God's purpose is. It's not just a script. That is this perspective.

01:02:26

That is the flattened out perspective that robs so much of scripture of its meaning.

01:02:34

When you allow all of it to speak, you have the multifaceted diamond. Squish it down, it's not very pretty anymore.

01:02:43

But this idea of merely a script, would that be an accurate description of when

01:02:53

Jesus says, Father, I am only speaking the words the Father has given to me?

01:02:59

Let's use his words elsewhere in John. Even use John 17. I've delivered the words. Was Jesus just simply reading a script?

01:03:08

Is there not something much, much more to this than that? Of course there is. Of course there is.

01:03:14

Tension comes to people. Is there a genuine freedom there? If God is sovereign, how does that work itself out in our own freedom?

01:03:20

For me, there's a conflation of the sovereignty of God knowing and his knowledge of what man would do given any set of circumstances.

01:03:29

Catch that? Where's Mary Jo Sharp on this subject? What man would do?

01:03:36

That's a Molinistic perspective. That's middle knowledge. What man would do? Whether she uses that terminology, whether she would embrace that,

01:03:47

I don't know. I don't know her. I know of her. I don't know her. But that's going to be her final idea, is that God knows what man would do and therefore is able to orchestrate it.

01:03:59

And that's Molinism. There's no attempt to substantiate the concept of middle knowledge, where this middle knowledge comes from.

01:04:06

How can God know what person

01:04:11

X is going to do before decreeing to create person X with all of the attributes of personhood and character that are a part of God's role as creator?

01:04:25

Molinism robs God of his right to create meaningfully.

01:04:34

It turns God into the supercomputer and no matter how a

01:04:40

Molinist tries, they cannot get around the reality that what they're saying is unless middle knowledge is derived from God's free action, then it becomes a constraint upon God's actions that comes from outside of him.

01:05:01

Where outside of him? We are not told. We are not told. ... circumstances versus determining what he's going to do, actually being the cause of mankind's choices.

01:05:10

Now, there is a conflation. Maybe it's because I'm on a panel,

01:05:17

I already talked about this before. Maybe there was something in her talk, I didn't listen, I don't know, that somehow substantiated the accusation that if there is a divine decree, that this becomes some sort of force, some sort of coercion of the will of man, whereas, of course, historically, the discussion of this subject has emphasized repeatedly that man acts in accordance with the desires of his heart.

01:05:47

That's what compatibilism is all about, but it's not brought out here.

01:05:53

I think you have to be careful with ascribing to God that he, because he knows what's going to happen, that he caused it to happen.

01:06:03

Again, caused in what way? First, second, third order, what do you mean?

01:06:10

Did God simply know that Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Romans and the Jews were going to do what they did to Jesus, or was that his predestined will?

01:06:21

That's the question I would like to ask. I wish someone had asked that question. My gut feeling is, well, in regards to the things of Jesus, maybe, but you can't extrapolate that out to the rest of mankind.

01:06:35

I guess in the actual accomplishment of salvation, then all of our system can be put off to the side, but it works the rest of the time.

01:06:43

I don't know. There's the distinction for me, is that he's not causing it, but he knows.

01:06:48

He has knowledge of what we would do. He has knowledge of what we would do.

01:06:54

I can't see how this is not just a smuggled -in Molinism that has not been given any meaningful foundation.

01:07:03

I haven't had Bobby come in on this yet, so do you have any kind of one -minute thought on this one,

01:07:09

Bobby? Well, you know, I used to be a five -point Calvinist. Now this was interesting because there's all sorts of folks who want to claim to have once been reformed.

01:07:23

I wish there was a certificate you had to get to where you not only had to say,

01:07:32

I checked the box in believing these things, but I've actually lived consistently in applying these things in real life for X number of years.

01:07:45

We'd have a lot fewer former Calvinists, if that's how you had to do things, because it's one thing to say, okay, you know, limited atonement, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:56

But I remember the talk I gave back in North Carolina in September of, or was it

01:08:06

December? I think we had to move it, because I was supposed to do it around the weekend of September 11th, or shortly thereafter.

01:08:14

And because of what happened in 2001, we had to move it back. And I gave a talk way, way, way back then.

01:08:23

Five points is not enough. And it was about the reality that reformed theology has implications.

01:08:30

It has results. And in my experience, when

01:08:36

I listened to people who were once five -point Calvinists, quote unquote five -point Calvinists, when they explain their reasons as to why they left,

01:08:43

I go, wait a minute. Every five -point Calvinist I know already understands the issue that you say somehow you didn't understand as a five -point

01:08:54

Calvinist? How would you not have known of that objection? How would you not have known of the response to that objection?

01:09:00

That's going to be the case here, too. How would you not know that? So yeah, it's often somewhat frustrating.

01:09:09

But for years I was, and I was familiar with the teachings and was able to really understand how to articulate what the scriptures talk as it relates to being a five -point

01:09:18

Calvinist, not a hyper -Calvinist, but a five -point. And I read a book called Good God by David Baggett, who's a moral philosopher that I really appreciate.

01:09:26

And in the book, he really gave a perspective that helped me. He says, if A implies

01:09:32

I ought to believe, then B implies I can believe. So this is the standard ought implies ability argument.

01:09:41

So if God says, you ought to love me perfectly, then you must be able to love me perfectly.

01:09:48

And I'm like, and you found that compelling as a Calvinist? Had you ever read

01:09:55

Augustine and Pelagius? Had you ever dealt with the reality that God gives the prescriptive will of God and the decretive will of God?

01:10:07

These are basic things. And so once again, you hear this quote -unquote former.

01:10:12

Now I do want you to hear what he describes himself at the end. It sort of explains this. He calls himself a

01:10:18

Confusionist. Okay, if you call yourself a pan -millennialist, it'll all pan out in the end.

01:10:28

I would suggest you don't write a book on the subject of eschatology. At least admit openly that's probably not where you need to be.

01:10:37

Okay? Cool. But if A implies I ought to believe and B implies I can't believe, then how am

01:10:43

I morally culpable? And so when I was a Calvinist, and what I know about Calvinists is they want to celebrate the sovereignty of God.

01:10:50

And that's what I wanted to do as well. But what I realized is... You know, it's not so much celebration.

01:10:59

Every long -term Reformed believer I know can talk to me about the day that they truly understood in their soul that God was

01:11:10

God and they were a mere creature. And the realization that God can do with me as he sees fit and he remains righteous and just.

01:11:26

Every person that I know who has remained consistent over time can talk about that experience in the recognition that God's God, I'm not, and if God had left me in my sin, he would have been perfectly just and righteous to do so.

01:11:44

It's self -shattering. It destroys any sense of ego, free will, any sense of autonomy.

01:11:53

I am not autonomous. Every breath of my mouth, every beat of my heart comes from his hand. Yeah, that changes everything.

01:12:05

What if I've over -defined the term sovereignty to mean something more than it is intended to mean?

01:12:11

Or what if I, as a creature, have over -defined free will, autonomy?

01:12:19

Which is more likely? That I, as the creature, am going to inflate myself or that I, as a creature, am going to inflate

01:12:27

God? I think it's painfully obvious. The history of all the religions of mankind is that it is man's tendency to lower

01:12:39

God and exalt man. Isn't it? Is that not what scripture teaches?

01:12:44

It does. And so then, as it relates to me in the state of being a

01:12:49

Calvinist, I started to feel like it sounds a lot like Allahism, that is fatalism. Allahism.

01:12:55

Okay, that's the Norman Geister thing. And again, I'm sorry, if you called yourself

01:13:01

Five -Point Calvinist and you hadn't thought through what the sovereignty of God actually means, you were one lousy

01:13:08

Calvinist. That's just how I understood it. So how can I have a robust view of the sovereignty of God that recognizes that he is sovereign, which

01:13:17

I wanted to say as a Calvinist, but also realize that he's not on the hook for the responsibility of all the things that I've done?

01:13:26

And I think in some ways, if someone ought to believe A, then B, they have to be able to believe. They can believe.

01:13:33

And so I'd go out and I'd witness and I'd share, and as a Calvinist, say, oh, you know what? Everybody has the opportunity to believe, whosoever believes. And we say that as a

01:13:39

Calvinist, but if somebody's utterly dead in their trespasses and sins in the way that I understood that before, where they couldn't even respond.

01:13:46

And of course, once again, fundamental Calvinist failure. Can't even respond positively.

01:13:56

Yeah, they are dead in their trespasses and sins, resurrection must take place. You are dependent upon the spirit of God to bring anyone to obedience to Christ.

01:14:05

That's true. But they can respond in many different ways. They respond in rebellion, they respond in hatred, they respond in suppression, they respond in false faith.

01:14:15

There's all sorts of responses. The one response that the Bible plainly teaches is outside of their capacity is that which is pleasing to God.

01:14:25

Romans chapter eight, cannot submit to the law of God. God's law says repent.

01:14:31

The Bible says they cannot until they are made new, until they are born of the spirit.

01:14:37

Jesus says, they cannot come to me unless the father who sent me draws them. And the one he draws, he raises up on the last day.

01:14:45

Biblical teachings, biblical statements. Yeah, it's always interesting to listen to quote unquote former

01:14:52

Calvinists, because it gives you an idea of maybe where certain people are missing it.

01:14:59

But none of these things are subjects that we have not gone over dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of times here on Radio Free Geneva.

01:15:08

How can we say, number one, they're responsible, and number two, it starts looking like, how does God come out looking just on that?

01:15:14

And so that caused me to back off of that a little bit. Do we have a Calvinist on the panel? I'm a

01:15:19

Confucianist now. Did you catch that? I'm a Confucianist now. So Rich says he agrees with that description.

01:15:31

It's interesting because obviously I didn't set it up this way that there wouldn't actually be a potential Calvinist. I could be the

01:15:37

Calvinist. You'll be the Calvinist today, brother. In which case, can I chuck in another question that's kind of related? I don't know whether it was a follow -up question or whether it was sort of written before, but why does

01:15:46

God not choose everyone to be saved? Okay. Wow. So this is obviously, yeah, related.

01:15:52

I mean, that goes back to the sin issue, right? That goes back to the sin issue. No, it does not.

01:15:58

It goes back to the God issue, because there are many people who believe that God wants to save everybody, but he just can't.

01:16:11

He's doing his best, but he's failing daily as people die every minute that will go into eternity without Christ, and God did just as much to save them as he did anybody else.

01:16:26

That's certain people's perspectives. It's obviously not true, but that is certain people's perspectives, and that is a very good question.

01:16:36

It assumes that God can choose to save anyone, but can

01:16:43

God choose to save anyone? Has God chosen to attempt to save everyone equally?

01:16:57

Just ask yourself the question, are there not places in this world where the gospel has been significantly greater in abundance than other places?

01:17:09

Was that outside of God's control? Did he try to make it even? Was he under any obligation to do so, is the question.

01:17:19

That's the question. So, the Calvinist position is everyone's foreordained.

01:17:25

The non -Calvinist position is that God chooses based on foreknowledge. So God knows in advance the free choices that people will make, and he chooses those who will make the choice to be his people.

01:17:35

But that doesn't even make sense when you think about it. Even when you reduce

01:17:40

God's freedom to act on the basis of what mankind is going to do, and remove

01:17:48

God's decree, you're still left with the reality that there are all sorts of people who were never given that choice in the first place.

01:17:56

How can he foreknow what someone's going to do who wasn't put in that position, or who will only have one opportunity in life and somebody else has 25 opportunities in life?

01:18:06

What happens then? Approaching all of this without the decree of God just ends up, well, in philosophical speculation that has no answers and confusionism, which is what has already been professed.

01:18:23

And I think the important thing to always remember is scripture never uses the terms chosen or predestined or any of those terms in relation to unbelievers.

01:18:31

They're only used in the context of a believer. I didn't pull it up,

01:18:39

I might be able to really quickly here, but while that is relevantly true,

01:18:50

I'll look it up while I'm playing the next section, but there was a text that I think might militate directly against that, but we'll remember to go back to this one.

01:19:14

The foreordination or the predestination is always to something, it's to be conformed to the image of God's Son very specifically.

01:19:21

So when you put it in the realm of just salvation generally, then you come into that dilemma, well, why did

01:19:27

God choose some and not others? But I personally think that the conclusions that Calvinists draw are because of a misinterpretation of certain scriptures.

01:19:36

Probably the classic Calvin— Now, we're going to get into one here that's very, very important, but central to the argumentation is, well, you know, they misinterpreted those texts, but we can't get into the debate those texts were loved or money.

01:19:51

But especially when it comes to what was just stated, that once you go to Ephesians 1, well, that's what we're really saying.

01:20:02

And if you listened carefully to what he just said, I'm not exactly sure who that was that was speaking, whether that was Bobby or who it was, but in reference to what he just said, notice that there was a subtle shift.

01:20:16

And what he said was that God has chosen to conform to the image of Christ anyone who believes in Jesus.

01:20:25

So what they want to do is they want to say, well, God doesn't choose who's going to believe in Jesus.

01:20:32

Instead, he's going to choose what he's going to do for those who do believe in Jesus. So that election, which in Ephesians 1 is of us, personal, becomes an election of an action on God's part.

01:20:50

The action is, I elect to conform believers to the image of Jesus. That's a completely different assertion, completely different assertion, very, very common.

01:21:00

It's often smuggled in without you even catching it as it's going by, because you hear the terminology, you know, conform the image of Christ, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:21:09

And don't realize that there's a huge shift taking place in what's being said.

01:21:14

The passage on this issue is Romans 9, 16. It is not of the one who wills or runs, but of God who shows mercy.

01:21:22

Now we're not going to revisit Romans 9 today, but just keep in mind, go back over the debate, go back over everything else.

01:21:35

Realize how many different excuses have been offered by, you know, it's just about nations or it's actually about privileges and so on and so forth.

01:21:46

Just remember the question that's being asked. They're not all Israel who are

01:21:51

Israel. How come God has this people and only a certain number are believing?

01:21:59

And the biblical answer is, because that's always been the way it was, God's always had a lemma, a remnant, a remnant people.

01:22:08

And then he illustrates it. And that's not what you're going to hear here, but...

01:22:14

I think, personally, that the problem is they're interpreting that in a soteriological, a big salvation picture, when

01:22:23

Romans 9 is not talking about a big salvation picture, it's talking about Abraham being chosen by God for a specific purpose.

01:22:29

Which is why you have the discussion of the righteousness of God and why you have the objector and which is why you have vessels of wrath and you have vessels of mercy and oh please.

01:22:42

And Justin, last time I was in studio and we had, you had me do the thing with the guy in Romans 9, even he said it was soteriological.

01:22:52

So now you got someone, it's not even soteriological, it's about Abraham. It's just like, how many other excuses can we come up with?

01:22:59

And his descendants being chosen as well. So I think, gosh, if we could rewind the clock and go back to the

01:23:04

Reformation and get maybe a better understanding of Israel and, you know, because Romans 1 -8 is talking purely about personal salvation.

01:23:14

So yeah, so did you catch that? We need to fix the Reformation. The Reformation got it wrong.

01:23:21

See, you gotta understand, on the key issue of the Reformation, as laid out by Luther and Erasmus, these guys are on Erasmus' side.

01:23:29

They are on Rome's side, not Luther's side. They are! Let's just be honest.

01:23:38

Let's just, let's just be honest. When it comes to this issue, real simple, go read

01:23:44

The Bonage of the Will by Martin Luther. And if you disagree, then realize you're on Rome's side on that issue.

01:23:52

Doesn't mean you like the Pope, doesn't mean you like candles, incense, whatever, but you're on Rome's side when it comes to what

01:24:03

Luther himself identified as the hinge upon which it all turned, the key issue of the Reformation.

01:24:09

You're on Rome's side. Romans 9 -11 is not, Romans 9 -11 is talking about Israel being set aside and brought back

01:24:15

I think this, for me, was a big help, actually, and something I've certainly come to view that as Paul kind of changes from one thing to the other when he starts talking about God's purposes in choosing

01:24:25

Israel, and the Church, obviously, as well, in that sense. And that helps to put a different perspective on it. Anything to add to this,

01:24:30

John? I know that you wrote a whole book on this, so we'll have to have the short version. But for me, there is a kind of, often this is cast as just a kind of Christian issue, you know, different theological perspectives, but I think actually a lot of non -Christians want to know whether their actions make a difference, whether actually

01:24:48

God is a God who has decided in advance who is in and who is out, or whether actually we are genuinely free to choose or reject

01:24:54

God at some level. What's your perspective on that? It has intrigued me over the past years to realise that on the atheist side, there is a very strong streak of determinism in contemporary thinking.

01:25:08

Dawkins, Hawking, so on, they are all determinists. And interestingly, they take the logical conclusion of that, and they abolish morality.

01:25:20

You gave the example of Dawkins when you gave your talk, and you mentioned this as the major problem.

01:25:27

So that it seems to me there's an atheist determinism, which I call determinism from below.

01:25:35

That is, the atoms, the molecules, the laws of nature determine everything. Now, let's just note something.

01:25:41

This is John Lennox speaking, and when he is speaking now about determinism, he is speaking about a naturalistic determinism based upon the laws of physics and the laws of nature.

01:25:56

There is no logical or rational connection whatsoever between naturalistic determinism, your genes, evolution, and God's sovereign purpose in the glorification of the triune

01:26:12

God and the redemption of a specific people, and his creation of the universe to bring about that self -glorification.

01:26:17

That is a chasm that you cannot cross, you dare not cross, and if you do so, you're doing so for purposes that speak for themselves.

01:26:31

Speak for themselves. But then there's a theological determinism, which is determinism from above.

01:26:39

God does everything, and you don't play any role. Totally false from the start.

01:26:46

This is my problem when I started reading his book. In fact,

01:26:51

I was looking for it. Excuse me. And this is why

01:27:02

I couldn't find it, because it was already in the studio. When you're looking in your library for a book that is sitting in your studio, you will not find it.

01:27:11

When I started reading this, from the very start, there was a fundamental foundational misunderstanding.

01:27:22

Man may be a great philosopher, so was Norman Geisler, but Norman Geisler never understood

01:27:28

Reformed theology, and Dr. Lennox doesn't either. It's just reality.

01:27:33

We play no role. You mean we're not an equal, autonomous actor with God? Right. We play no role?

01:27:41

That's ridiculous. How do you read almost anyone in the history of Reformed theology and come up with play no role?

01:27:53

Dr. Lennox comes from a Brethren background, and the Brethren in England today, despite their history, at least their founder, are exceptionally anti -Reformed, and as a result, generally, do not invest much effort in listening to what the

01:28:16

Reformed say. There is a deep and strong prejudice, and I think there's a deep and strong prejudice illustrated in what we're going to hear.

01:28:24

The moral problem is identical for atheism as it is for Christianity.

01:28:31

That is utterly untrue. I would debate that in a second with Dr.

01:28:37

Lennox. That is utterly untrue. I don't even know how you can make that statement.

01:28:43

I really do not. But biblically, how can you defend such a statement in light of passages like Isaiah 10 or Genesis 50 or Isaiah 4 or any of those?

01:29:01

How do you do it? I just don't even know. Point two, we wouldn't be talking about this if the

01:29:08

Bible didn't seem to move in two simultaneous directions. That is, on the one hand, that God is in control of this universe, and on the other hand, that human beings are being held morally responsible.

01:29:23

That is an excellent observation. That's this. That's this.

01:29:30

And they're not opposite directions. That's the problem. When you assume they're opposite directions, then this is going to inevitably end up happening.

01:29:42

When you recognize that the one is determined by, supported by, and broadened into existence by the other, then you don't lose either one of them, and you maintain the multifaceted glory of what

01:29:57

God is doing in creation. But if you go other directions, that's going to be a problem. Therefore, to cut a very long story short, because I've been so concerned about the effect this has on the gospel, and I'm going to mention that because I meet many young people who say, don't talk to me about God.

01:30:18

A God who specifies and tells me that I am incapable of doing anything and then is going to judge me for not doing what

01:30:27

I cannot do is utterly immoral. I understand that, and that's why I wrote the book.

01:30:33

You do realize you just quoted Romans 9? Who are you?

01:30:41

Who is God to judge? It amazes me that people can't recognize, or they don't see, because they're traditions, that they are literally repeating the words of Scripture.

01:30:56

They are repeating the exact objections that were placed against Paul's theology and saying, we've got to do something about this, and so we're going to put all that stuff aside.

01:31:12

I'm like, wow, really? There are huge questions in there, and one of the great confusions arises from the concept that people are dead in trespasses and sins, and that is taken as a horse, if it's dead, it can't respond.

01:31:36

I simply say to that, who was the first person to be dead in trespasses and sins? Adam. And God said, where are you?

01:31:45

And Adam was so dead, of course, he couldn't respond. He couldn't hear what God said. But he did hear what

01:31:51

God said. I know,

01:31:56

I know, I had the exact same face -planting embarrassment for Norman Geisler when he can look at John 6 and come up with free will.

01:32:16

Jesus plainly teaches free will here, when he's saying, no one can come to me unless the Father sent me down.

01:32:23

And when you can so completely misunderstand, misrepresent, straw man,

01:32:29

I mean, where are my matches? I mean,

01:32:35

I'll, I need to find a source of these online so I can just send them to people.

01:32:46

I can find their addresses and just, they'll just get this box, this straw man, and yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:32:58

Um, no, um, yeah.

01:33:04

So, so Adam, Adam dies spiritually, but because he reacts by hiding himself, by covering his nakedness, by fleeing from the presence of God, um, well that, that means those

01:33:20

Calvinists are all wrong. That, that can only come from a person who has never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever seriously even tried to hear what the other side is saying.

01:33:31

I mean, that's just embarrassing for someone of such great intellect. And from what I understand, just a wonderful guy.

01:33:37

But you've got, you've got a prejudice here that is really, really, really bad.

01:33:44

Intellectually dead. Or would you say he was morally dead? Well, he blamed his wife and no man who blamed his wife as morally dead.

01:33:52

So what is it going about? You see, the very thing the Bible says is in the day you wait, you shall die.

01:34:02

He did not die physically in that day. So the analogy that says a dead horse can't respond is completely wrong because it's concentrating on physical death and it doesn't realize they're the other.

01:34:16

So that's the end of that objection. As far as I'm concerned, it's a confusion.

01:34:21

As far as I'm concerned, Dr. Lennox, you do not understand. You do not understand

01:34:28

Reformed anthropology at all. Sir, you are burning a straw man. You have not read

01:34:34

Edwards. You have not read Calvin. You have not read Hodge. You have not read Turretin. You have not. I mean, the list is very, very, very long.

01:34:41

And if you have, I am frightened for you. If you have read them and did not hear what they were saying, what does that say?

01:34:50

Not even close. Not even. Sir, you have to understand how those of us who have labored in this field and attempted to be consistent for decades, you come along and you make this kind of criticism.

01:35:04

It's just sort of like, how do you take this seriously? It is that poor, sir.

01:35:13

And the second thing, and this is the bottom line for me, there's going to be a judgment.

01:35:21

What are we going to be judged for? For not believing according to the

01:35:28

Lord himself many times over in John's gospel. And if we're going to be judged for not believing, we must have the capacity to believe.

01:35:38

And the mistake of theological determinists is quite simply to think that if we had the capacity to believe, it would mean we were earning salvation.

01:35:49

This is a very common misunderstanding. Very, very common misunderstanding.

01:35:55

They are conflating different objections. Very, very common misunderstanding. The assertion is that in the fallen state, as fallen sons and daughters of Adam, we are not able to do that which is pleasing to God.

01:36:09

We are rebel sinners. The incapacity is not incapacity to act. It is an incapacity to act in holiness and obedience to God.

01:36:18

That is the incapacity that we have. This is laid out in Romans chapter 8.

01:36:23

This is laid out in Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 3, there is none who seek after God.

01:36:29

This is laid out in Jesus' own words. When, for example, in John chapter 8, he's in the same gospel of John.

01:36:35

He says, why do you not hear what I'm saying to you? Because you can't. You're not of God. You're not of God.

01:36:44

Why do you not believe? Because you're not of God. Your answer would be different to that. I don't know how you answer those questions.

01:36:51

But your answer wouldn't be Jesus' answer at that point. When Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the

01:36:59

Father sent me to draw him. No one has that ability. No one has that capacity. You are saying that is fundamentally in error.

01:37:07

No. You just need to listen to more of what Jesus said. And judgment upon those who've heard the message?

01:37:16

Yes. Rejection of that is a sin. No question about it. But there are many people who did not hear.

01:37:23

For what will they be judged? Not for not believing. Not believing that God exists in general revelation, sure.

01:37:32

But are you saying there is no... Maybe he does hold the idea. That there is no specific judgment for specific sins because all sins have been forgiven already.

01:37:41

He may hold that position. I don't know. I don't know. And yet Paul has an entire treatise, the letter to the

01:37:49

Romans, to explain that trusting God, having faith in God, is not a work.

01:37:55

Yeah, we're not saying... When... The objection he has heard is that when we say, why does one person...

01:38:04

Why is one person saved and another person is not saved? Two people, same gospel presentation. One accepts, one does not.

01:38:11

If God's attempting to save all men equally, then the one who is saved has done something better than the one who is not.

01:38:18

Okay, that's the objection. This is the same stuff that Mike Winger has gone after and a number of other people have gone after.

01:38:25

They're hearing one objection but then conflating it with another objection and with another position.

01:38:33

And that position is man's incapacity to do, to submit to the law of God.

01:38:40

The law of God says to repent. Romans chapter 8 says those who are going to flesh cannot do so.

01:38:47

They cannot submit to the law of God. Not even capable of doing so. They can't do it. Man is not able.

01:38:53

That's the statement. Deal with it. I know it messes your philosophy up but you've got to deal with it.

01:39:01

And you deal with it consistently by the recognition of the work of the spirit of God in regeneration.

01:39:07

That frees man from the bondage of sin. That's the bondage of sin that Jesus talked about in Romans chapter 8.

01:39:13

Those who sin, plays the sin. You're basically saying, nah, not really.

01:39:19

Slave, nah, not really. You can just choose to be unslaved by yourself. In an autonomous act of the will.

01:39:25

No. So once you clear that up, I would put it this way.

01:39:31

The greatest gift that God has given to you and me is the capacity to trust. We use it in everyday life.

01:39:39

I often say to people who are determinists, do you think a person is capable of trusting their wife? And they get into a huge confusion about this, obviously.

01:39:48

God has given us that capacity. The central issue of the Christian message is this.

01:39:53

Are you prepared to use that capacity in your response to God and trust him?

01:39:59

Because you're going to be judged for it. So you must be able to do it.

01:40:04

But if you want to read more, there's a book called Determined to Believe. So there you go.

01:40:13

So let's... I've already gone much longer than I intended to go.

01:40:22

But let me give you an example from Determined to Believe. Let me...

01:40:27

this actually... I wonder if the Kindle thing in this will sync up. It doesn't always.

01:40:35

And... no, it doesn't. Says Paige. And not even close.

01:40:43

Not even... I love Kindle.

01:40:48

Because you can find stuff. But not even close.

01:40:54

It is the same book. Oh, well. Yes? You had the microphone up?

01:41:02

Actually, it was just kind of sitting there. Oh, okay. No big deal. You intrigued me at the beginning of the show.

01:41:10

So while you're looking for that, let me mention something here. You mentioned when the first Radio Free Geneva was, and I found it.

01:41:18

You did? I found it. And it was not Adrian Rogers. Adrian Rogers came after as Radio Free Geneva.

01:41:25

The very first Radio Free Geneva was on March 14, 2005.

01:41:31

Oh, really? And it was in response, and here's how you described it. I am collecting, quote, the worst of the worst, unquote.

01:41:39

I am going to start responding to them tomorrow in a special dividing line that will go an extra 15 minutes as well, because we can cram that onto a single

01:41:49

CD. Worst of what? The worst of anti -Calvinism. I was handed a stack of tapes this past week and made the mistake of starting to listen to them.

01:41:59

Tapes! So since I head to England on Wednesdays. Do we have to explain these?

01:42:05

Do we have to explain this to ZGen? Tapes and CDs. What is a tape? I will try to get in two dividing lines this week.

01:42:12

Tomorrow will be special. No calls. All reply to Pastor Danny O 'Guinn of the Tower Grove Baptist Church in St.

01:42:19

Louis, Missouri. He preached a sermon titled, as far as I can tell, The Five Points of Calvinism Exposed and Exploded.

01:42:26

I would dearly like to know when this sermon was preached, blah, blah, blah. And you go on. But that is the very first Radio Free Geneva.

01:42:34

And its purpose, from its inception, is to reply to the worst of the worst in anti -Calvinism.

01:42:42

So here we are. But we did expand that out later to deal with the best of the best, too. So it's just all the objections.

01:42:49

Yeah, we just want to be able to go there. Okay. All right.

01:42:56

Let's look at... This says page 93. It's not page 93. It's 23%. Sorry about that.

01:43:02

I wish there was a direct one -to -one correspondence between what Kindle says and what printed books are.

01:43:08

But we're still at the beginning of these things. Then we have instances in Scripture where God's sovereignty and human responsibility are brought directly together.

01:43:17

In his speech at Pentecost, Peter says of Jesus, This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

01:43:25

The crucifixion was therefore foreknown by God and occurred according to his set purpose. And yet the men who put him to death were wicked and therefore morally responsible.

01:43:34

Totally agree. Again, Jesus encourages people to come to him. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry.

01:43:41

And he who believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6 .35 He laments those who refuse to come. You diligently study the

01:43:46

Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

01:43:53

John 5 .39 -40 And on the other hand, he says, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me withdraws him, and I raise him up to the last stage.

01:44:00

John 6 .44 Thus we can see that two things hold. God takes the initiative. People are responsible to come to Jesus and capable of doing it or refusing to do so.

01:44:10

What? Um, God takes the initiative? And then people are responsible to come to Jesus, yes, and capable of doing it or refusing to do so.

01:44:23

You mean apart from supernatural grace? Hmm.

01:44:28

Um, that's a difficult question. Um, well, that's a question that actually needs to be looked at.

01:44:36

Um, I need to find... Oops. Um, I had this.

01:44:44

Why is it saying no... Zero matches found? Um... Okay, I'll just go with this.

01:44:53

There's got to be those matches. Uh, then we have... Um, I'll just jump down to this one.

01:45:04

I had another section, but for some reason, since I looked another book up in Kindle, now I've lost where it was.

01:45:10

Uh, let's just go with, uh... He's dealing with Carson here.

01:45:19

And what I... Well, that's not what I... I... Okay, here we go. John 6 is universally regarded as a key chapter in connection with the debate about determinism, and in it...

01:45:30

See, I wouldn't even say determinism. I would say in regards to God's sovereign grace. And in it, there is further detailed discussion of what coming to Christ involves.

01:45:39

Christ miraculously feeds 5 ,000, withdraws, and crosses the Lake of Galilee. He is followed by large crowds and expresses suspicion of their motives.

01:45:48

Um, John 6, 26 -29. Jesus points them away from physical bread to a spiritual source of eternal life and tells them to work for it.

01:45:56

They're inquiring what that means. He replies that the work of God is to believe in the one he has sent. They profess to be interested in doing what

01:46:01

God requires. What God requires is they believe in Christ. This provokes the crowd to challenge him to do a sign, even though they had already seen the spectacular miracle of feeding the large crowd.

01:46:10

Then you have John 6, 30 -34, where Jesus talks about, uh... Uh, the bread coming down from heaven.

01:46:18

And Jesus is quick to correct the mistake. It is not Moses, but my father. He is the father's son. And the major emphasis in this course that follows is to get his listeners to make the connection between him and his father,

01:46:27

God, the God in whom they profess belief. That connection is profound. It is the key to understanding receiving salvation.

01:46:33

Christ is the bread that is given by the Father for the life of the world. So far, so good. His audience professes they want the bread of God.

01:46:40

Now Jesus explains how they can possess it. Then Jesus declared, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry.

01:46:45

He who believes in me will never be thirsty. John 6, 35. In order to have their hunger and thirst for life assuaged, they must come to him.

01:46:53

They must believe in him. The two terms come and believe are clearly synonymous. Quite right. Yet there is a problem.

01:46:59

John 6, 35. But as I told you, you have seen me and still do not believe.

01:47:06

John 6, 36. The sad thing is they have seen Jesus. They have seen his wonderful acts. Indeed, they have been fed by his supernatural power.

01:47:12

And in spite of all that, many still did not believe. He is clearly suggesting to them that they have had enough evidence on which to base the step of faith in him.

01:47:23

What of those who do come? Jesus says. Now, notice immediately the distinction that Dr.

01:47:32

Lennox introduces. Instead of seeing the connection between 36 and 37, now he shifts the topic.

01:47:40

So, what Jesus actually says is, you have seen me and you have not believed.

01:47:45

All the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. So, did you catch this?

01:47:54

This is important. I know it has been a long program. I'm sorry I didn't intend to go two hours. But there is an insertion of a concept here.

01:48:04

That man in of himself has this ability to come. That Jesus is going to actually rebuke and say is an error.

01:48:14

But Jesus is explaining their unbelief. You have seen me and you have not believed. All that the

01:48:20

Father gives me comes. Those are the next words. And there was no insertion of, but what of those who do come?

01:48:29

You see what he has done? Because the giving of the Father determines who is going to come to the

01:48:36

Son. So, the sovereignty of God in the giving of a certain people to the

01:48:41

Son is done away with by sticking one, one, two, three, four, five, six word sentence in between to change its interpretation.

01:48:52

But what of those who do come? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Just let the text say what the text says. You don't believe.

01:49:00

All that the Father gives me will come to me. See how that works?

01:49:05

Now, am I sitting here saying that Dr. Lennox purposely sat around going, I got to get around this text.

01:49:11

I got to find a way to... No, but what I am saying is that that is a, even if inadvertent, disruption of the flow of the text.

01:49:21

It inverts Jesus's own order. All that the

01:49:27

Father gives me will come to me. Which action precedes the other?

01:49:33

There is no question logically or linguistically. The giving of the Father determines the coming of the

01:49:38

Son. That is not even questionable. But when you introduce it by emphasizing the coming and skipping the giving, why are you doing that?

01:49:48

Because you have a tradition you are trying to avoid. All that the Father gives me will come to me.

01:49:54

And whoever comes to me, I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but the will of Him who sent me.

01:50:00

This is the will of Him who sent me. That of all He has given me, I lose nothing, but raise Him up at the last day.

01:50:06

My Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day.

01:50:14

Lennox says, how are we to understand this? Does this mean that their failure to come to Jesus is explained by their not having been chosen by the

01:50:22

Father? It should be given by the Father. That is the terminology of the text. With the implication that unless the

01:50:27

Father decides to do so, they will never come? Answer? Yes! Exactly!

01:50:34

Bingo! Right on top! That's problematic because that means

01:50:40

Dr. Lennox does know what the text is saying. So how does he respond?

01:50:46

Such an interpretation of the phrase taken on its own, in other words, in its natural context, in its natural language, is superficially plausible.

01:51:00

However, if such is the case, now folks, we've seen this, this has been done before.

01:51:06

Love you, Michael, but this is what Michael Brown did in our first debate on this. Here it is again. However, if such is the case, then what we read in the previous chapter of John seems disingenuous.

01:51:19

There, Jesus said, you refuse to come to me to have life. John 5, 40. So, what you do, get out of the context because superficially, if you follow the argument, if you follow the words, if you follow the logic, that's exactly what it's saying.

01:51:38

That the reason you're not coming to me is because the Father did not give you to me. And he's going to say in John 6, 44, all the

01:51:44

Father gives me, he said here, all the Father gives you to come to me, and unless no one can come to me, unless the

01:51:51

Father who sent me draws him, I'll raise him by the last day. You have consistency all the way through this section.

01:51:57

But no, no, no, no, no. That teaches something that goes against our tradition. So, we're going to jump someplace else to a different topic.

01:52:05

And we're going to take a phrase that is descriptive. You refuse to come to me to have life. Now, is there any

01:52:10

Calvinist on the planet that has any problem with John 5, 40? Of course not. You refuse to come to me so you might have life.

01:52:20

They will not submit to God. They are rebels against God. It's an absolutely accurate description.

01:52:27

But what he's doing is he is taking that and he is implying that what that means is since they refuse to do so, that means they have the capacity to do otherwise.

01:52:38

There is no divine decree. There is no necessity of regeneration. And therefore, we're going to take that and we're going to shoehorn that back into John 6.

01:52:47

That is eisegesis based upon philosophical commitment, philosophical pre -commitment.

01:52:53

Right there on the page with John Lennox. Quote, whatever it means to be given by the

01:53:01

Father, whatever it means, who can know? Even though it determines who comes to Jesus, all the

01:53:11

Father gives me will come to me. Whatever it means to be given by the

01:53:18

Father, we cannot argue that it eliminates human responsibility.

01:53:23

We don't argue that it eliminates human responsibility. We argue that it eliminates human autonomy.

01:53:30

They are not the same thing. Because responsibility is determined by the Creator who will be the judge.

01:53:37

It doesn't eliminate human responsibility. But it does eliminate human autonomy. Since such responsibility is exactly what

01:53:46

Christ affirms three sentences earlier and as we have seen, it is not good enough simply to assert that humans are responsible, not if we then proceed to portray

01:53:56

God as holding people responsible for something they did not have the power to do. So what is

01:54:02

Lennox's overriding exegetical mechanism? It's not what the text says.

01:54:08

It's plausible. It's just a plot. It's not what the text says. It is a philosophical conclusion that there cannot be compatibilism.

01:54:17

God cannot hold someone accountable unless he gives them the capacity.

01:54:23

There can be no federal headship. The brethren are not big on that type of stuff. They reject that type of stuff.

01:54:28

There can be no federal headship. You cannot have fallen in Adam. I have to wonder. Let me look here.

01:54:35

Let me look here. Yeah, there is some section here.

01:54:46

Let me see. That's sort of applying to something else.

01:54:52

I'm going to take a look at this because I want to see where he attempts to go on the subject of Romans 5 and Original Sin.

01:55:08

I really want to see where that goes. You throw all that stuff out and you can end up making the statement.

01:55:16

You know what you're hearing here? It can't mean that it can't mean that even though Jesus goes on to say right then and there.

01:55:31

Let's see if I can go back before that disappears. No. Why does it do that?

01:55:43

I do not like the I do not like the form of There we go.

01:55:56

There we go. Was there something were you wanting to say something?

01:56:01

I was just going to pop in. That's what we always hear. You go to these texts,

01:56:07

John 6, 37 -45. You go to Romans 9 and what do we hear? Argument after argument after argument of what it doesn't say.

01:56:17

It can't mean this and it can't mean that. All day long you can go back and forth about what it doesn't say, but yet do we ever hear them just simply walk through it start to finish let it speak for itself and here's what it does say.

01:56:33

Because when you do that you turn your whole it doesn't say argument on its head.

01:56:39

Yeah. I'm not going to pass two hours. There is enough here on John 6 to keep going.

01:56:51

I'd like to do that because you know we're going to be doing Romans 8 in response to Dr.

01:56:57

Allen going even more in depth than we have in the past which is a good thing.

01:57:04

It's a positive thing. Expanding out to other portions of Romans 8 to demonstrate some of the problems that Dr.

01:57:12

Allen's interpretation presents, but John 6 is another one of those places where I am just absolutely convinced that the other side cannot walk through the text and do so consistently applying proper rules, hermeneutics things like that.

01:57:31

So we'll do that. We've gone half an hour longer than I had planned anyways. Most folks are getting ready to go stop, stop.

01:57:42

I would like to continue I'm not sure when. I'm not saying we're going to do this in the next program or whatever because there's other things to be dealing with but I want to continue with the statements and this is actually this says page 172.

01:57:57

I don't know where that comes from, but I'll try to figure out where the printed page and Kindle differ from one another in the future but we'll continue looking at what

01:58:06

Dr. Lennox says about John 6 illustrating the utilization of philosophical categories to overthrow fundamental exegetical realities but thank you for listening to the program today

01:58:20

I hope that it has ended your 2019 for those of you, somebody tweeted a picture of people jumping up and down a cage waiting for Radio Free Geneva.

01:58:35

That was a little scary, but thank you for doing that and we will be back sometime later this week

01:58:41

Thursday, probably probably on Thursday Thursday sounds good. We'll see you then. God bless.