The Mormon Problem With Omniscience, Penal Substitutionary Atonement

Greetings, welcome to the Dividing Line. We are on the road. I'm watching some big thunderheads developing. I noticed when I got here to where I'm staying tonight, I You know, I'm not afraid of mentioning where I'm staying, but weird things have happened in the past.

So it's probably best not to mention it. They got smacked last night. Mud all over the place and they and believe me we need more of that though. It would be better if it sort of came steadier when it Floods real fast most that just runs off.

It doesn't do any good anyway, but we might get hit. There's some good ones there. They're coming in from New Mexico. So well, it gives you some idea. Well, you know, I'm going to Colorado. So anyway We're on the road in the mobile command center.

Once again on our summer trip. This is our first stop. I have to start with something light-hearted though by The way just in passing I almost I almost wore my Lionel Messi jersey. I do have it with me for those of you not following and I think a lot a lot of Americans have started to follow the World Cup and and Now the final match this weekend.

You're you're I've mentioned I mentioned a few weeks ago we are watching two goats. There are two of the greatest of all time Active right now and it's pretty exciting. I think to see them. Tadej Pogacar is Dominating the Tour de France.

No one can even get close to him. He he caught one of the best in fact, I think Carapaz I Think Carapaz won the gold medal in the Olympics at some point a great cyclist but He had a 44 second lead on a climb Over Tadej Pogacar and I think they said it took Tadej Pogacar 892 meters to catch him and Just go blowing by him.

I mean it looked like he was on a tricycle. There's just nobody that can even come close to him and So, yeah, we're watching someone at their peak. Right now and then in football, which is what the rest of the world calls soccer.

You've got Lionel Messi and Everybody said England was a better team than Argentina. But and they and England scored first. But and Messi did not score the goals for Argentina, but he set them up and He set them up with such brilliance that I've read a number of really well-known Footballers Talking about this and they all say the same thing there isn't off.

When they watch him play, it's just like he knows where everybody on the field is. He can do things and no one else has ever been able to do and won't be able to do after he's gone because he's 39 and So, you know, he's gonna retire within a year probably.

Well, I don't know but I hope he doesn't do the Stick around and watch him collapse. That's always bugged me when people do that. But yeah pretty exciting stuff. To see, you know be able to tell your grandkids.

Oh, I remember tiny but gotcha. I remember Lionel Messi. If grandkids in the future care about what any of us saw it did. Anyway, I I wanted to do something a little bit lighter at the start here. We've got some heavy stuff to talk about but a Evidently, you know, maybe this is a Humor thing or something, but it's it's funny no matter what it's supposed to be from a Japanese person.

And I came to the United States probably for the world. He says in Texas they told me to stop at Bucky's for gas. I have been to shrines. I have stood in temples that took 200 years to build. I Was not prepared for the gas station.

There were 120 fuel pumps. I counted them because I did not believe it. A Man beside me was filling a truck the size of my first apartment. And he was not filling it because it was empty. He was filling it because he was here and Here is where a man fills things.

Inside was a hall so vast. I lost the horizon. A wall of jerky a wall of fudge. I did not know the country produced a brisket sandwich had to be by a man in a beaver costume and I want to be clear. The beaver is not a mascot.

The beaver is a saint. The people speak of him the way my grandmother spoke of the mountain behind her house and the bathrooms. I Had been warned about the bathrooms and I had dismissed the warning as the pride of allowed.

I Was wrong to dismiss it. The bathrooms are famous across the whole state and they have earned it. I have slept in worse hotels. I nearly bowed upon injury a Janitor was polishing the floor with the devotion of a man tending a garden.

He loved when I thanked him. He said welcome in which I have since learned is what Texas says instead of hello. And also instead of I'm glad you exist. I Went in for gas. I was inside for 90 minutes. I came out with fudge a Shirt printed with a joke.

I do not fully understand $40 of jerky and a feeling I can only describe as having been to church. I did not need any of it. I needed all of it. I have walked through the greatest cathedrals of the old world.

I lit no candle there. I lit no candle at Bucky's either. But I did fill the truck and I understand now that in Texas. This is the same thing. So, you know, maybe it maybe it's even AI. I don't know but It has been fun to see people responding to.

Seeing things in America that clearly do not exist anywhere else on the planet and Bucky's. It's definitely one of those things mainly because I Can't think of almost any place else on the planet would have enough room to build something that big just be a gas station, but There you go.

So they have fudge. I love I love good fudge. There's a little there's a little Country store at the top of Mount Lemmon outside of Tucson, Arizona. They've got really good fudge up there. I haven't been up there for a long time but Yeah, it's I used to drive up there.

In fact once I drove up there. I stayed in an Airbnb. Up in the little town up there at the top of Mount Lemmon and I Everested while I was up there. That's where you climb. The same height as Mount Everest.

That's a good place to do it even though it's high altitude so it was a tough Everest. But I went in there that was last time I got to buy their fudge. They had the chocolate mint fudge and the orange the orange.

Yeah orange chocolate fudge and oh, I Mean pure poison. I mean has no no nutritional value whatsoever, but it is. It's good for your soul. It tastes really good. Okay, um, I guess I'll start with start with this because it's right in front of me.

Um we've seen a number of statements from Mormon apologist Hayden Carroll recently and he responded to Frank Turek. Frank Turek. You know, I get the feeling his accounts monetized. You can sort of tell who has monetized accounts because they'll throw these questions out and They're just meant to get engagement.

They're getting you know, you get responses when you get responses engagement that's how you keep things working and and you notice I don't do that very often because we don't monetize our accounts and Turek had asked what's the difference between Christianity and Mormon theology and you know, there are a lot of Lot of ways that could be answered that are accurate and things like that.

But Hayden Carroll's response was Your God freely creates people. Knowing they will go to hell when he doesn't have to ours doesn't now. He may not be aware of the Turek plays with Molin ism. I don't get the feeling Hayden Carroll knows a lot about Molin ism and various viewpoints like that.

Or that Turek is very anti reformed, you know. He I have a thing queued up I I do want to get to it. But I want to do it on Radio Free Geneva where there's this six-minute clip of he and one of the guys from Trinity I think it was Pritchard.

Are talking about what's wrong with Calvinism? And it's all the same stuff. It's it never gets. It's a retread and for Turek. It's just rewarmed Geisler and Somebody really demonstrated that norm was wrong on that.

Oh, yeah, that was me. Okay, anyway During that Turek had specifically said that he rejects What he calls strong Calvinism again, that was you know Geisler did the moderate Calvinism thing again just changing terms that had no meaning it was he was Arminian but He said that he rejects strong Calvin because it makes Yahweh more like Allah.

Again that demonstrates gross ignorance of Islamic theology. What Cotter is how Cotter works What the Hadith say about these things and of course reformed theology as well and we Talked about that with Geisler.

So I don't know that Hayden Carroll knows all about that stuff. That's not really something that would necessarily be part of his area of study but anyway The Response though makes you makes you think your God freely creates people knowing they will go to hell when he doesn't have to ours doesn't.

Okay, so when you say the Mormon God doesn't do this. What does Mormonism believe about God's knowledge of future events? Well That's good question. And once again, you're faced with the fact that when you look at the early Mormon writings when I say early Mormon writings, I mean from 1829 to 1835 ish, you know up through the first edition the Doctrine and Covenants 1833 book of commandments Articles faith stuff like that, you know.

Before Joseph Smith starts getting totally loopy and Doing his polytheism stuff and all that kind of thing. You Can find plenty of references to God having all knowledge you know because this is what he would have picked up from his exposure to Presbyterianism which he detested because of what happened at Alvin's funeral.

And Methodism and both of those would have affirmed divine omniscience in the 1830s 1820s and 1830s so You can you can pull all that kind of stuff up and. And really that's what we're well the interesting things.

We're seeing today. That's so challenging. I'm not sure why. Something's happening on the screen right now rich. Are you doing something? We have half of a accordion screen up and That's not supposed to look like that bro.

There you go. I'm not in control of stuff right now. We have it set up to where rich can do all this remotely. But you know when I'm talking he does other stuff. He's he's heard all this so many times he just goes.

You know that's why you've got Mouses nieces moving on screens over here and distracting me now. He just fight he just finds different ways to throw me off track and see if I can remember where I was.

I think it's just a somebody's paying him under the table to distract me anyway. I can't see that right out of my corner of my eyes. So if you start playing with stuff, then I will I will find out what's going on.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Yeah, I don't remember I was talking about actually. One of the challenges right now with this neo-mormon ism is People who will go back to those earlier sources. Because From the time that we started dealing with Mormonism There was a consistency.

The first presidency the General Authorities, you know taught Consistently and They they taught that God had progressed and become God and that there were gods before him and men can become gods and and this this was the I Mean.

I can't tell you how many thousands of Mormons I have talked to. Who said yeah, of course, that's exactly what we believe and here's why and so on so forth and. And they would read those earlier sources, but they would read them in the light of quote Latter-day Revelation and So they would Reinterpret the even Trinitarian language the monotheistic language of the first six seven years of Joseph Smith's Literary production if you can use that term.

In light of what came later what became orthodoxy. What's happening now is you've got the Blake Osler's of the world and Again, I've explained Starting, you know, 1999 2000 you start sending graduates of BYU out to get their PhDs at Ivy League schools and they come back and teach at BYU and they bring critical theory with them and Mormonism cannot survive critical theory.

The Book of Mormon cannot survive it. The Doctrine and Covenants kind of Joseph Smith cannot survive it. The historical development of Mormon theology cannot survive it and now we're seeing results a quarter of a century later with the disintegration of Mormon theology itself.

You're gonna have a church filled with prophets each one having their own individual take on these things and So that is one of the real challenges that we have now in dealing with Mormonism. So anyway back to Hayden Carroll.

You know, I I grabbed I happen to have Mormon doctrine with me in PDF format. And I looked at what it said about omniscience. It was a Short really short little thing and it did not address the issue of Future events it just said God has all knowledge.

It didn't say God has all knowledge of future events and Honestly, how could the Mormon God? Have knowledge of future events he himself is subject to time if if you Develop and evolve if you become exalted.

That took place over time and if Elohim lived on another planet and was faithful Married his many wives in the temple of that planet worshiped the exalted man who became a god that was his father. Did he know What his father was going to do from eternity past.

Of course not. Not any more than a Mormon can claim to know everything that Elohim has ever done or ever will do so You couldn't have knowledge of future events on The part of the Mormon God, there's no ground for it.

There's no. Once you say with Joseph Smith, we have imagined suppose that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea and take away the veils that you may see you have destroyed any logical foundation for omniscience including eternity.

You you may be able to come up with a way of saying that God has omniscience concerning That portion of the universe or you want to use universes. Oh so that universe that God's a control of if you want to say that he has all knowledge of what is in that universe or in the realm of his Organizing power.

That's one thing. That's not the same thing as saying he has all knowledge. That means he would have to have all knowledge of what all other gods are doing and there's an ever-increasing number of gods at least in classical LDS theology and You'd have to have knowledge of the gods before him before he himself was a god it's just no ground for there's no Joseph Smith.

I don't believe had any clue what he was Talking about he certainly never thought His system would end up being asked questions like this so anyway. So it doesn't seem to me so when when Hayden Carroll says ours doesn't is He just simply saying ours Doesn't know that they will go to hell.

Is that supposed to be better? But then again, it says your God freely creates people. He doesn't have a God that creates people. His God is an exalted man Who did not create other people he is one intelligence amongst many other intelligences and There is no creator of these intelligences if he holds the position that intelligences are eternal.

There is no creator. He's critiquing something that his own system Does not actually have the ability to affirm that is that God creates people in the first place. So Now and again, I'm not sure where he comes down this there are a lot of Mormons who?

End up taking the position that In essence only a small number of people ever end up in hell and they're only apostate Mormons. And I think a lot of Mormons even avoid that anymore. And So there isn't a large number of people who end up under eternal punishment.

I mean, it'd be pretty easy to become a functional universal Within Mormonism, especially the three levels of heaven. So I mean if if Hitler is gonna get in the lower level of heaven. Pretty much everybody.

Oh, did I say Hitler? Oh, no. Now all of a sudden I Can think of people in Prescott, Texas, they're all gonna start talking about Mormonism. Um, anyway, uh. So you you could be a functional universalist within that system.

I Mean, I know what he's saying he is Saying your God is morally responsible For creating people that he knows are going to go to hell but part of that argumentation is my God's clueless. My God can't create my God can only organize my God's just an exalted man He doesn't know the future.

And so my God is free of any of these arguments because my God is just like me he's not really a God and so Mormon theodicy is The odyssey the justification of God in light of the existence of evil. Mormon theodicy is a mess.

It's non-existent. It's not even a theistic theodicy because they don't have a they are they don't have a God to defend. I Mean, how do you ask? How do you ask the question about God's existence in light of the existence of moral evil?

When God didn't bring that about and in fact if Elohim himself was an exalted man of the planet And Mormons argue about this. I don't see any reason why they would argue about this. Isn't it most probable that their God Was in a fallen state.

I think any logical Mormon who reads deeply Recognizes that in all probability Elohim was once a fallen man if they're gonna become a god Then Are they not in a fallen state right now? So if they become exalted and through the power of the priesthood and procreation are Worshipped by their offspring on another created world someday Wasn't the guy of that world in a fallen state.

So what would be wrong with Elohim being in a false? That does cause people Angst To have to affirm that their God was once a fallen man on another planet. I I get that. But That's what Mormons have believed for a long long time, you know, I'm glad that they're becoming Uncomfortable with that.

Oh, that's that's a good thing. But the only way to handle that is stop being a Mormon. Sort of how it works it should work anyways. And I'll never forget I'll go ahead and tell this story elder Hollywood.

It's funny rich and I were talking about our failing memories before the program started and He's probably forgotten. Um and It's funny how clear some memories are. Because this would have been Wow 86 87 88 at the latest.

That's 19. This is the last century for you young folks. That makes it sound so long ago, but It was like yesterday in many ways. Um, I remember the corner we were on we called it corner one back then.

It's no longer a relevant corner anymore really it was right across from Arby's Which isn't there anymore? Same corner I was standing at When I saw that Arby's roast beef sandwich in slow motion rotating through the air as it came and Hit me in the chest.

Somebody wasted. Well back then what? 195 maybe two bucks now, it's what see the reason they wouldn't throw roast beef sandwiches now is because they cost 12 bucks. It was cheap enough to go ahead and throw it the Christian guy.

Anyway, same corner we were Up the road a little bit not on Maine, but on Hobson. I was talking with this missionary who was significantly taller than I was. I Was looking toward the pageant, which means I was looking west.

He was standing in the grass facing me and He had this name badge on said elder Hollywood, well, it wasn't his name. He he was an interesting missionary. He you could tell all the other missionaries thought he was pretty cool and We got into it.

We we got into. No, I was lobbing some bombs at him and he was getting frustrated because he wasn't accustomed to that and He got so upset that at one point he got close to me I remember looking up at him he's looking down at me we're thin afoot of each other and Out loud and there's people standing around us listening to all this Out loud.

He looks down at me and he's gesturing at me and he says Someday, I'm gonna be a god and you are going to worship me. And I just remember it sort of got Sort of got quiet. It really did get quiet because I think even the Mormons standing around us were like Did he just yell that at that guy?

Yeah, he did and It's interesting that You know, I responded with a quotation from Isaiah Before me there was no God for him there shall be none after me. So no, that's not gonna happen. But The next night he came back.

He apologized. He did say hey, I lost my cool last night. Sorry. He actually took some documentation I brought About The Adam God stuff because for some reason the Adam God stuff came along came up at some point and That was last I heard from for about 10 years and then I Think I was on the north side of the temple somewhere toward the members entrance During general conference and he comes walking up to me.

And he says you remember me and I had to look at him had been 10 years. You know and he had been a I was a teenager or maybe a 20 year old at most when we had met so he had changed and I Was like Did we talk and like in Mesa?

Yeah. Yeah, I Name badge elder Hollywood. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we sort of got into it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How you doing? Hey, I'm doing fine. It wasn't a Mormon anymore. He had he had left the left the church not because of what I had said to him.

He wasn't a Christian either. But he he had left Mormonism, that's not unusual back then if I recall 60 of returned LDS missionaries went inactive for a period of at least six months after they returned from their mission.

They're burned out. They had been immersed in all of that 24 hours a day and they just. You know and it's during that time that stuff that they heard on their mission can sort of come back up in their thinking.

That's one of the reasons I've always Felt that it is appropriate to engage them even when they don't feel like they're listening. It doesn't feel to you like they're listening because They're under it.

They're in a pressure cooker on those missions. They can't even show signs of independent thought. They're being watched constantly. But they're not going to be in that situation forever and when that pressure comes off.

Things can change and you can hope for Lord's work in their life anyway. So. Yeah, that's what Mormons have defended for a long long time. So I'm not sure what Hayden Carroll is Defending these days. But he doesn't have a God who freely creates people in the first place.

His God is a people. I Don't think his God knows what's gonna happen to even those that he organizes or begets in the spiritual pre-existence. So it seems a strange thing. I mean, I get it you you hate the sovereign God you hate the Potter you're a pot that hates the Potter.

I get it. But doesn't it strike you Hayden that your entire theology? Screams at the incoherence of your own arguments. It's pretty obvious pretty straightforward, but there you go. Um. Okay, I Watched a bit.

I'm not gonna play the video. There may be a reason for this. We'll see what comes of it. Maybe I can tell you about later. But I watched about 45 minutes. Oh, hey, by the way, do y 'all notice rich change something?

There's a microphone same microphone actually rich says it's a better microphone than the one we have in the Main studio not the big studio. I still wear a lapel mic in there. But he got tired of my messing around.

I liked That that especially we are in the Redwood. That was a really good microphone system. I hope we keep it around. Because there are contexts in which that's a. I think we used it we were up in Prescott a few weeks ago.

It's a nice microphone system. That was a good find on his part. Rich finds a lot of good stuff. By the way, by the way, by the way before I jump into this, by the way. If you haven't looked at the let's church Website recently.

Let's church is the when you go to the transcripts tab at a Oman org that takes to the let's church. Ken powers runs that and It is astonishing the stuff he's doing with that website. Bible programs and commentaries and AI.

I mean the guy's an AI genius. If you're not taking advantage of that you really should your church might be able to take advantage. He needs all the support you can get obviously, but it's just amazing the stuff that he's doing.

He told me this morning that The system he's installed you can ask. It was it was like as I recall it was a question about my granddaughter Talking to like a Jehovah's Witness or something and what he was what he was thinking of was when my granddaughter was talking to a Mormon cop and the system Figured out what it was and then would gently correct you as to your memory of it and still take you to that discussion.

I mean, that's. That's a lot better than I can do these days people come to all time. Remember when you said and I go I don't have a clue what you're talking you know, and eventually they they, you know, maybe bring it up or you know online or Give me enough information.

I go. Oh, okay, you know. Um, but I I couldn't do it this system does and Be able to come up with the accurate recollection. It's uh, it's impressive. So let's church Doing great work. I want to mention I was thinking about that while driving today.

Um, So, let me see here in fact that oh, that's interesting there's Ken right there asking a question Similarly related to AI stuff large language models LLMs and things like that anyway, so I'm watching this video, okay, and There are two guys and They are attacking penal substitutionary atonement, which is Sort of the attack du jour has been for few decades now really a lot of Christians aren't aware of this um.

You may be encountering more of it. Because the ortho bros are out there and they're be getting louder and louder. It's still very small group, but they're very loud group. So they sound like there's more of them there really are anyway they detest ill substitutionary atonement though, there's actually a Tradition within orthodoxy that does not did Decry, you know substitutionary atonement.

But again orthodoxy is not a monolithic thing. They pretend they are but they're not. They know that in their more honest discussions and they talk about their disagreement. We're not just talking old calendar new calendar that kind of stuff or Moscow versus Ukraine or any of that kind of stuff.

We're really talking historically in the traditions of Eastern orthodoxy anyway. So most people are not aware of just how vicious Opponents of penal substitution penal substitution atonement and some Christians don't even know what that language is about but if you sing before the throne of God above You're singing about penal substitution atonement that Jesus takes The penalty of our sin upon himself and for most evangelicals it's sort of like that's just the gospel.

Well There are a lot of people who call themselves Christians that would say otherwise and historically. The doctrine of the atonement When you look at it from a historical perspective is fascinating.

Um. There were there have been many theories and one of the things I really dislike is When we talk about the subject of the atonement, it's always feel substitutionary theory. Recapitulation theory Christus victus theory.

It's almost just a big theory in the most and most of the Dialogue and discussion that that you have theological and that that almost makes it sound like It's a particularly weak area of divine revelation or something like that, which I I reject but anyway Most evangelicals don't know Anselm Abelard any of the Developments in Western theology and that those didn't necessarily have a whole lot of impact in Eastern theology things like that and when you talk about Irenaeus is recapitulation theory that No, why did Irenaeus believe that Jesus had to be lived old age?

Well because Jesus had to live through all the ages of man to Redeem all the ages of man to recapitulate all the ages of man to redeem all the ages and so. That's not the kind of stuff you get in most sermons in most churches.

You might get in a Bible study or something like that, but even then Most people don't Know how popular the ransom to Satan theory was the Jesus death was a ransom paid to Satan To free us because our sin enslaved us to Satan's power.

And so his death frees us from Satan's power. So it's a ransom to Satan or a ransom to God or a ransom to the governing powers and you know, there's a lot of Variations on the on the theme. Most people have never given any that any consideration at all and that's why Armenians can sing songs like before the throne of God above which presents feel substitutionary atonement and not recognize the incoherence between their own theology and what they're singing about.

Because they Redefine terms in a way that they should never be redefined, but they do it anyway. So anyway I'm listening to these guys Going after penal substitution and I just wanted to make comment for everybody if you encounter this and the chances of you encountering this if you are active in seeking to Bring the gospel to bear on social issues or anything else.

You're probably gonna run into it. There are a couple of real basic things to keep in mind because one of these guys has even written a book relatively short book, but a book against penal substitution or Haven't gotten it yet.

I'm gonna have to I guess but given what I listened to in this video I'm gonna have to keep a fire extinguisher nearby for all the straw men because he certainly was lighting them up during this interview anyway.

So The thing to keep in mind is this these sometimes these guys Insufferably arrogant I and they don't even seem to know it. They just Wow They One of the main things is they do not feel any obligation whatsoever to steal man the other side to give the best strongest Statement of the other side so they will constantly Refer to penal substitution atonement as if it's God the Father versus Jesus.

God the Father is abusing Jesus child abuse a Split-in-the-godhead between God and Jesus. Anybody who says any of that is either grossly dishonest or Grossly ignorant. As I was watching the video I was thinking man The debate I had with Shabir Ali in the Abu Bakr Siddique mosque in 2013 down in South Africa I hope they didn't see it because it would drive them insane the entire gospel presentation was based on Penal substitutionary atonement imputed righteous Christ and They The big thing that I emphasized in response to the Muslims because they make the same arguments the Muslims That this is an act of perfect harmony and unity between the father and the son the son gives himself voluntarily He's not being forced to do this.

That's a common argument that Muslims make. How could Allah have forced an innocent man blah blah blah and that they will literally and they did in this interview Literally quote the texts from you know Ezekiel Jeremiah You only you only pay for your own sins and not the sins of another as if this denies voluntary substitution on behalf of somebody else and They just they have they have no concern whatsoever about accurately representing the position that they're attacking so in in almost every single situation that I've encountered there is a Abysmal either lack of understanding or lack of honesty so always be aware that In all probability, you're going to be dealing with misrepresentation and you need to be able to respond to it fairly quickly.

But the next thing that I think is really important Is that What they do is They try to make it sound like If you hold appeal substitutionary atonement, you're saying that there is no truth in any other Observation about atonement language in the Bible.

So for example Christus Victor Christ as Victor over God's enemies Celestial powers power of sin obviously Satan and the demons this idea of Christ victory. They will try to contrast that with PSA. It's not a contract if you hold appeal substitution atonement.

You're not saying that there's there's no truth that Christ is not Victor. No Christ is Victor. You're not saying that there isn't Any kind of truth in various forms of recapitulation though, I think most forms of recapitulation are taken way way too, but You are Simply saying that the central organizing biblical definition of the purpose of the atonement is penal substitutionary atonement and That that all those other truths are still true.

They're just subordinate to the central purpose. Most of them however Will glom on to one or two of those theories say this is it and there's no place For penal substitutionary atonement. It's out. It's bad.

It's child abuse and all the rest is kind of stupidity so I can look at Um Christus Victor language in the New Testament and it is in no way contradictory to penal substitutionary atonement. No problem with an adult.

But they can't do that in reverse so be aware of the fact that they will try to set up this false dichotomy Where it's either this or that. When our perspective is this is the central predominant Revelation that then determines where these other truths Go in looking at the full work of the atonement so just some thoughts I was having while suffering through that 45 minutes of that video which was really really bad.

I Just don't understand the motivations of folks like that, but anyways okay, um What am I gonna do here? I have the next section of dos Sitheus Cued up, but it's 616. We've got well 617. We got 13 minutes.

We could start getting through something, but I also have Isaiah 53 here and I was going to read through this in regards to the Substitutionary atonement thing that would probably be more enjoyable the next section of dos Sitheus is really important because it's where they They demonstrate that the The impetus behind provisionism Has been around for a long time now of course 1672 Is post-reformation so there have been?

Anti-reformed folks from every perspective at the same time you've got the Jesuit counter-reformation going on and and You've got dos Sitheus, and now you got the revisionist just to point out that the provisionists are On the side of the Jesuits and the Eastern Orthodox not the reformers just need to understand that they're not reformed.

They're not heirs the Reformation. They are attackers of the Reformation. Um they might want to try to Hide from that obvious reality, but it is a reality nonetheless. But yeah, I think I'm just gonna go ahead and Close up with Isaiah 53.

I think that's More enjoyable than jumping into this dos Sitheus right now, and and then maybe next time around and I The way Rich has got this all set up now. It's Really especially once I get some place where I'm gonna be for a few days I can just see I can just leave everything the way it is and it's real easy to jump in here and Fire it up and go so we might be able to sneak another program in even this week.

Once I get to where I'm gonna be for four or five days Before I then head up to Grand Junction and then over to Denver and Golden actually anyway You You know at PRBC Back in the day when I was there we would always read Isaiah 53 or Psalm 22 prior to the the night of the Lord's Supper and And So just just remember That the Orthodox some of the Orthodox most of the Orthodox today.

It is the majority. Not all Orthodox, but some of the Orthodox Really attack the concept of substitution but Isaiah 53 is all about substitution. Even the Jewish interpretations of the suffering servant our substitutionary and But it's Israel substituting for the world so think about what it said he was despised and forsaken of men a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and Like one from whom men hide their face.

He was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore and And our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken smitten of God and afflicted, but he was pierced through for our transgressions.