June 3, 2004

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.

The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the

United States, it's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. And good afternoon, welcome to The Dividing Line. It is a

Thursday afternoon, a mere 110 degrees in the desert southwest, at least at the

Arizona Science Center anyways. It's probably not that at Sky Harbor International Airport.

That's always just a couple degrees, let's see, oh 109, oh wow, big difference.

But, let's see, dew point 37 degrees, humidity 8 percent, giving a heat index of 104, 8 percent.

Does it ever get that low in Nolens? I bet you it doesn't get that low in Nolens down there. I could not survive that,

I'll tell you, unbelievable. But this is the dry time of the year, it'll get worse, but it's summer and I just walked over to,

I went and got some, for some reason someone got unhappy and I went and got some Mountain Dew, I like Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew's good.

Somebody else was getting a Dr. Pepper, I detest Dr. Pepper, it's horrible. But anyway,

I just realized I still haven't found that thing, I've got to write myself a note, I'm going to forget to look for something.

But anyhow, welcome to The Dividing Line, 877 -753 -3341. I sound like Rush Limbaugh, it's the beginning of a few programs where you can tell he wasn't quite ready for the microphone to start at that particular point in time.

And so, anyway, we've had a blog explosion today,

I've been very, very, very busy trying to catch up with the blog explosion, well, what do you mean catch up,

I'm the one producing the blog explosion, but I mean catch up with various sundry issues. And I was up late last night responding to Jimmy Akin's attempt to make a lot of hay out of three sentences, written 21 books, you'd think maybe, just maybe, it might be a better idea to look at the 21 books than three sentences, but hey, you know, when you can't deal with what's in the 21 books, you deal with the three sentences, that's easy.

But then we also posted a fairly lengthy response, second part in the

Reformed Catholicism stuff, and so we're opening the phones today, I haven't had time to dig out some of the

CDs that are laying around here, and various sermons from folks, and all that kind of stuff to create cuts and do stuff like that, and really, to be honest with you, most of the stuff, like all the stuff that we do and hear all the time in regards to, well, you know,

Jonah 2 .8 and the NIV, over against all of the translations and things like that, that seems to appear on certain programs, we've already dealt with a lot of stuff, you know, how many times can you say the same thing over and over again,

I don't know, but anyhow, 877 -753 -3341, you all have not had the opportunity of getting into the program and making your voice heard for a number of weeks now, and so now is your opportunity, please try to be clear in explaining what it is you wish to talk about so that the great board op of mind reading can let me know, and I can go,

I don't know, that doesn't make any sense, or why put somebody on the air when

I'm going to sit here and go, but hopefully it will be something relevant to Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholicism, the

Doctrines of Grace, Church History, the text of the New Testament, the translation of the Bible, Biblical Theology in general.

I have a question about 2 at the par bar, and 3 at the, what is it, Causeway, 2 at the par bar, no, 4 at the par bar, 2 at the

Causeway, and 2 at the par bar. Yes, yes, I'd like to know what that means. Those are locations, and they were, as I recall, were they

Levites or something, they were like guards or something. Yeah, but what does it mean in Hebrew? The same thing it means in English.

I always love that. Oh, I know. Yeah, what's this passage mean in Hebrew? Yeah, what does it mean in Greek, well, pretty much, that's why they translated it that way, and yeah,

I know. Does your voice floating into my headphones mean that no one has yet taken this up on the invitation?

The lights are dark, and I don't think it's because there's a problem with the phones. Oh, really? Yeah. Do you think it's a problem with the host?

It's, who knows? It's distinctly possible. Well, there's something I could do about that, you know.

Oh, great, yes, here it comes. Well, actually, you know, a friend of ours,

Jonathan Callahan, is going to jolly old England this next week, and so, in honor of that, maybe we could do this, eh?

Or perhaps I could take a moment and spare the audience, and explain that I'm working on the possibility of dealing with the

Straitgate situation, because Straitgate's... Went bye -bye, I mean, it's there, but no one's running it.

It's on autopilot. I think it's doing the V 'ger thing. Yes. V 'ger.

Oh, hey, an old Star Trek thing there. There you go. But in the meantime,

I'm going to be working on a project where, hopefully, with our MP3 site,

I can work this out and make this happen, where we can put the current program that we've got up there available, so that it follows the listen to our most recent program link.

I'm cleaning off my keyboard. Oh, okay. So, when folks click on that, they at least get the most recent program, and then, if they want to go back into the archives, they can go through the

MP3 site. Yeah, we're going to need to get our MP3 archives all... Is there a dog in here?

No, he's over here. He must be right next to the door, because I'm hearing ding -ding -ding -ding -ding -ding. I don't know what it is, it's very odd.

I think my gain might be up just a little bit here on my microphone. So, he's... You know, it's summertime, he's scratching.

I know. Poor Zeke. Poor Zeke. Jesuits do that during the summer. Yeah. The collar thing.

I'm sorry. Okay, back to the English accident. English accident?

Accident is more like it, yes. That would be more accurate. Oh, boy.

Thanks. I appreciate that. Actually, you think about it, it kind of sounds like an

Englishman has been in a car accident. Shortly thereafter. You know, I've never heard you try it. I'm not about to, either.

And verily, it became very quiet on that. Okay, well, thank you for letting us know about that.

We will work on getting the MP3 archive all... Yeah, obviously, what we need and maybe what we can get is a system that would sort of do some keyword searches.

And we have someone who's actually talking a little bit about doing some of that stuff. And so, that would be nice.

And then we could make the old MP3s available of the programming. We've been going on since 98 now.

Yeah. That's a lot of programs. Let me tell you. I know. I've been, you know, compressing these, archiving them.

In fact, there's a lot in the MP3 site that I have a lot of going back and redoing.

And I still have a lot of that work to do. Takes time. Yeah. We keep plugging away.

But, but, record time. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Go ahead. Record time.

The DVD, CD, and MP3s of The Great Debate 9, 2004, with Dr.

White and Gary Michuda on the Apocrypha, released on our website this morning. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And so, that is by far and away a new world's record. Oh, world's record.

They're keeping track of these things, huh? Well, somebody has to. I think my quickest turnaround before was three months.

So, that's pretty good. Two weeks to the day. I don't know. There was one you got out pretty quick, but I forget which one it was.

Yeah. Well, it's getting easier to do the DVDs now. You know how the program works and stuff like that. So, it doesn't take as long.

Well, I'll let you get back to the program. Yeah, well, I don't hear any phones ringing on the other side.

Maybe I should try the English accent. That'll light them up. Do we have Warren's number around here?

We can call Warren up and have him sing Elvis. That or the

FCC will ban us. One of the two, I'm not sure. Hmm. Hey, you know, given all the other wacky stuff going on in the world, especially federal judges taking over the federal kinglets and queenlets, that's what

I like to call them, have taken over the government of the United States. And I was reading someone in Channel saying that a judge in New Jersey had just, someone had started doing a ladies' night where ladies could eat for free, and so a guy sued, and the judge agreed, and they can't have ladies' night.

Why do people like Big Brother? I don't understand it. I guess the two things go together.

We no longer have the concept of personal responsibility, honor, duty, things like that.

So since we don't want to take care of ourselves, we want somebody else to take care of us. I guess that's why these people get away with doing the things they're getting away with doing.

That's all I can figure out. I just don't know what else to say. But yesterday, was it yesterday?

This woman judge, and I'm sorry, but this is clearly an example of God's judgment on this nation.

When people like this are in control, when people like this have authority, it's God's judgment, folks.

Same woman who ruled in San Francisco, that center of virtue and so on and so forth, that middle school students could be forced to participate in Muslim prayers in a class.

I think that got overturned, at least I hope so. Also yesterday overturned the partial birth abortion ban.

Yes, indeed, law and the legislature have been overturned.

They are now irrelevant, and we are under the control of kinglets and queenlets who have no authority above them.

Law is whatever they say it is. Something's got to be done, and I don't know what.

I don't know what it's going to be. I think they call it impeachment. Well, yeah, I hope so. None of our elected officials have the guts to do that, to stand up and do it.

It would be a huge fight. Oh, well, it's got to happen someday. Wow, 111. Anyway, it is a sad, sad, sad situation, but it is demonstrative of the decay of the moral fiber of the nation.

877 -753 -3341. There's three threes in a row. Did you ever notice that? I never noticed that before.

There's three sevens and three threes in a row, and the five in three is eight.

Oh, never mind. Okay, add that up. Put it in binary. Divide it by a hexadecimal and see what happens. I just thought that was cool.

877 -753 -3341. And four and one equals the five.

Look at that. Okay, we have colors now. That is amazing. That's really cool. Oh, there's another one coming in now. Why don't you get that one there,

Rich, and I'll go ahead and take these calls. 877 -753 -3341.

Let's talk to Josh in Casa Grande.

Notice it's not Casa Grandi, which is what some people would say if they didn't actually live out here.

In fact, when we drove out here from Pennsylvania in 1974 to move here, all the way out we had a big debate as to whether you said saguaro or saguaro, and all of us were wrong because it's saguaro.

So anyway, let's talk with Josh. Hi, Josh. How are you doing, Dr. White? I'm doing all right. Actually, people in Casa Grande do say

Casa Grand. That's because the educational level in Casa Grande is not where it really needs to be.

That's probably very true. I'm a product of the public education system here, so I can attest to that.

I'm sorry. Yeah, me too. I have a question about debating Calvinism. Is that a book or something?

Yeah, it's a book that you and Dave Hunt wrote. Oh, yeah. You know, it's been a long time since I've heard about that book.

I mean, let's face it, when was the last time I talked about it on the air? I don't even remember. It was interesting that I got

Dave Hunt's electronic newsletter yesterday, and it was one of the first times

I saw any discussion of the subject. It was an interesting letter that had been sent to him.

They said it was a compilation of a number of them, but it basically said, Look, you've said enough about Calvinism. This shouldn't be what your ministry is about.

Move on. It was Dave Hunt's response to that, which was very interesting. I don't know if you get that particular thing, but anyhow.

I don't. I'm sorry? My question was from page 301. It's talking about regeneration and the new birth.

What, you think I actually keep these books nearby or something? I mean, come on. 301. Okay, I got it.

All right. And on the first paragraph, he says that Spurgeon said, A man who is regenerated, dot, dot, dot, is saved.

And I was wondering if he's quoting Spurgeon correctly, because I don't have that resource to look.

And then he says in the next sentence that MacArthur also equated salvation with being regenerated. And I was wondering if they do that or if –

Well – Because I know that he has misquoted Spurgeon before. Yeah. Let me –

I'm actually moving the microphone here. I'm wrestling papers.

I now have my CD in my hand. I'm opening a CD drive here. I'm just sort of describing these things to you so that you actually think

I'm doing something meaningful, and I'm sticking a CD in there. I will look it up for you specifically once the thing fires up here.

Of course, I wouldn't argue with either one. And the problem is that Dave doesn't understand or rejects the idea that when you discuss soteriology, there are various elements of soteriology that meaningful theological discussion recognizes and differentiates one another.

And he utilizes the idea, the argument, that salvation is equivalent to any subpart.

So, in other words, from his perspective, you can't differentiate between regeneration and justification, adoption, sanctification.

If anybody says you are saved in such and such a way, then you can interchange all those words. And it makes a mishmash.

And the fact of the matter is Dave doesn't read systematic theologies. He doesn't really respect any of the discussion that's gone on about systematic theology over the years.

And so when he will read somebody, he will read someone who's using those distinctions, but then he will reject those distinctions and thereby say, therefore, they mean

X, Y, or Z. And I tried to point that out. I tried to point out a number of times to him that in reality, he was missing what the person was saying.

Anyone who's read John MacArthur's material, for example, knows that he knows the difference in these issues, and he addresses those issues and so on and so forth.

So it's one of those issues that honestly has been the reason some people have really almost complained to me concerning the issue of the book itself.

Even though I told people from the very beginning that this book was going to have – how did

I say it? That the value of this book was primarily going to be within the context of looking at how you can address this issue with someone who doesn't want to have the issue fully addressed, in essence.

In other words, it was going to be a contrast in presentations. I never said that this is going to be some wonderful, excellent work as far as you're going to see things you've never seen before here.

And here's the quote. I found it. Wasn't that pretty good? I mean, I was still talking to you while looking it up. Was that impressive?

I'm impressed. Okay. Thank you very much. If I can impress someone from Casa Grande, that's – I've made – it's a good day.

It's a very good day. It's not that hard to do. I'm not going to say anything more about Casa Grande.

It's a wonderful place. It's a great place to stop between Phoenix and Tucson. It's hot. Yeah, I bet it's – what is it, about 113 down there right now?

Yep. I was guessing. You guys are normally – where I am is about two degrees warmer than the

Sky Harbor, and you guys are about two degrees warmer than we are. So you're about four degrees up. So you can get very warm.

This is from Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit. First, negatively, and here my first observation is that any other way of preaching the gospel warrant is absurd.

If I am to preach faith in Christ to a man who is regenerated, then the man being regenerated is saved already, and it is an unnecessary, ridiculous thing for me to preach

Christ to him and bid him to believe in order to be saved when he is saved already being regenerate. That's not really the point that's being made, is it?

Nope. Not at all. So let's see. I think there were two hits, so let me get the second one here just in case.

Next. There it is. Here is an extraordinary thing.

An unconverted man who is regenerated, one who is an enemy of God, and yet he has in himself a new nature, has been born again, and yet is not converted to God.

Oh, what a regeneration that does not convert. A regeneration, in fact, that leaves men just where they were before.

Of course. That's not it, so it was the previous one. It sounded a little more like it.

It was identical because you could put dot, dot, dots in there. It seemed to me that he was saying that once you're saved, you can speak about being regenerated.

That's okay. I can say now from a saved perspective, I was regenerated. Yeah, you see, what

I had said, let me see if I can see exactly what

I was referring to here. Yeah, under complete misunderstanding on page 296,

I had talked about faith and the nature of faith and regeneration, and I said, quoting my statement that one cannot choose to do what is holy and righteous for God unless he or she is given a new nature and regeneration.

He says, of course, whoever does not seem to realize that saving faith is a holy and righteous thing, something pleasing to God, so he follows it up by stating he seems to forget that salvation is offered to sinners, not to doers of good works, spiritually pleasing to God.

This is a canard. Anyone even remotely familiar with my position knows I'm not talking about good works, so on and so forth.

All of it went back to the fact that he refuses to accept that distinction between the two, and certainly

Spurgeon here is not confusing them at all. He just recognizes you can't separate them, but he doesn't make regeneration the equal of salvation, this passage at all.

Let me give you the specific reference. What he had is not the same reference that you would necessarily see.

That's the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Volume 9, and in the

Ages Library CD -ROM here, which is what I'm looking at, it is page 667.

So you can jot that down and take a look at it. All right, thank you very much. Well, you stay cool down there in Casa Grande.

All right, thanks. We'll see you. Bye -bye. All righty, let's go over to Essex Falls, New Jersey, I bet.

Am I close on this one there, Steve? No, you're close in the person, but not in the location.

I don't live in Essex Falls. Where do you live? I go to church there. Oh, well, okay. All right. A little bit north of that.

Okay. I was hearing your lament on the Ninth Circuit Court out in California.

Fortunately, a lot of the people referred to them as the Ninth Circus. Oh, no kidding? Yeah. Oh, it's just ridiculous.

Yeah, because they have the most reversed court in the nation. Yeah, but how long is that going to be?

I mean, as long as people like that are allowed to continue doing these things, that's how they eventually move the society their direction.

It may take time, but that's how they do it. Of course. Of course. Man. But that's, unfortunately, the times we're living in.

Yeah, I know. But we've got to do something. Not that I'm suggesting political action as a

Christian activity, but I think, you know, Jesus told us to render unto Caesar that which is

Caesar's. And Caesar has given us the right to vote, so I think we should render that to Caesar. Well, I certainly will be voting in November, and I have very strong views in those areas.

And, man, if you want to see Christians, light up the boards and start talking about political issues. But there's no question of the fact, though, that so much of what we deal with today, in our society, we are being told that if you're a

Christian, you cannot allow your Christianity to influence your politics, because we have separation of church and state.

And that is the most ridiculous, ahistorical, irrational, circular type of reasoning you could ever have, but people get away with it.

Of course they do. Well, we'll challenge it, but it's in the media that they get away with it.

It's in the media where that is an accepted truism. It cannot possibly be rejected.

It's just, ah, I'm sorry. Getting back to the subject.

Yes, sir. And, by the way, when you spoke over at Calvary Free Church, Evangelical Free, we had an excellent, excellent response.

A lot of people have come up to me and they want to have you back. And a number of them have asked for the tape that we made.

Which, obviously, I... You spoke on the Trinity. I don't know that I gave you the

PowerPoint to that, though, did I? No. I probably need to do that, because if they get the tape of it, it would sort of help if they had the

PowerPoint to go along with it. But I'll have to try to do that. Okay. That can be done. I mean,

I sent you Chris Aronson's singing, didn't I? Yes, I did. No, I did. He did an excellent job with that. Oh, isn't he good?

Excellent. Funny. I mean, we've got so many new listeners. I should pop that into a music match and let everybody hear

Chris's stuff again. It's a little bit long for the channel, though.

Yes, just a little bit. Anyway, my question. Yes, sir. I was at the debate, and the

Tudor had made mention that several of the books were never mentioned by Christ.

Because you had mentioned they were the books... We know the books were laid up in the temple, and the

Apocrypha was never referred to as, Thus saith the Lord, or It is written.

But some of the books that are considered the canon were never mentioned.

What would be a good way to respond to that? Well, I actually did start to respond to that at one point in the rebuttal phase, and that is that we have two collections of books here.

We have one where you have Josephus, and you have others that are referring to the 22 books, to this collection that the

Jewish people, the Pharisees, even the Sadducees, that's something I had a misconception in my own mind, corrected in the course of my research for this debate.

And that is, I had heard it stated a number of times, though when I started thinking about it,

I couldn't remember ever having seen it really documented, that the Sadducees had a different canon, that they only accepted the

Pentateuch, and I've even said that myself, and in reality that's not the case, it's a misreading of something that Josephus said.

But anyway, I pointed out that you have the 22 books of the

Hebrew Old Testament, you have them being utilized as a group, and then you have the

Apocrypha. And so to say, well, okay, yeah, you don't have the

Apocrypha books being cited with the Thus Sayeth the Lord, and you have people talking about the

Law, the Prophets, and the Writings, and he made some, I do not understand, and did not find to be a really compelling argument, that, well, they hadn't come up with a specific word for the

Writings. That's what they're called, it's called the Ketuvim, even today by the Jews, it's called the

Writings. It's the exact same thing that was back then. That one totally left me, and the distinction that he tried to make between inspired and canonical,

I didn't understand either. And again, it's just not a part of the normal discussion of the subject. But anyway, you have these two groups of books, and people are like, well, you know,

Jesus doesn't cite from the New Testament, he doesn't cite from the Apocrypha, but you don't have a citation of Esther either, and therefore, therefore what?

I mean, is there an actual parallel between these two, as if what you've actually just got is all these books, and they're just all equal with one another.

And therefore, if there's going to be any meaningful, any meaning attached to the citation, you have to cite every single one.

No, because they were in particular collections. The point is, one entire collection as a whole is not cited, the other is cited, and the idea is not,

I never made the argument, well, not every single one of the Apocrypha is cited. That would be the only parallel, is if I was trying to make the argument that every single book in the

Apocrypha had to be cited for the Apocrypha as a whole to be canonical, then you could make the argument, well, not every single book of the

Protestant Old Testament is cited. But that's not the argument I was making. Again, Mechuda has to prove the canonicity of all the

Apocryphal books. He assumed that, and then argued against any data that could be presented against the canonicity.

But you can't assume that. I mean, that's just not a part of what a debate is all about. So I tried to point that out, that what you've really got here are two completely different collections of books here, and you don't have to have a citation from every single one to recognize that that collection held authority.

When Paul says to Timothy, you've known the Scriptures, he doesn't have to then quote from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, to fill the term

Scriptures with meaning. We know what he meant by that, and we don't have any evidence whatsoever that what he meant by that is what

Rome means by that since April 8th, 1546. And hence the difference. Yeah, Mr.

Mechuda assumed a lot of things. Well, yeah, and from what he's written since then, I don't get the feeling that he actually recognizes that.

I don't get the feeling that he sees that, because he keeps saying, well, I argued as a Protestant. I'm sorry,

I don't believe that he did argue as a Protestant. I also found some of his responses somewhat novel, particularly when you pointed out the error, and he responded by saying that, well, that's the same question that a non -believer would ask, and I'm not going to answer it.

I was flabbergasted with that one. Everybody that I've talked to was flabbergasted by that, because in essence he said, well, you are, you know, by pointing out the many historical errors in the book of Judith, that somehow that was indicative of, on my part, acting like an atheist and attacking the canonical scriptures.

And so I asked him later on, can you show me anywhere in the canonical scriptures an error of a commensurate type to what is found here?

And he wouldn't even deal with those. Well, you've got to determine whether it's scripture first. If it's scripture, then it can't have real errors in it, and so on and so forth.

It was a very circular presentation at that point, and that's when I started hearing the audience a little bit, just a little bit, but I think a lot of folks are going, ah, come on.

That just doesn't work. But for a fairly technical subject, it was pretty good.

Well, the DVDs are out now. Oh, well, I'll get one. All right. Thanks, Steve.

Good. You going to send the PowerPoint presentation? I'll try to remind me and channel sometime. I'll do it for you.

Okay. I'll do that. Thanks. God bless. Bye -bye. 877 -753 -3341.

We will take our break and be back with Jeremy in Atlanta. And your phone calls, 877 -753 -3341.

Three sevens and three threes there in the phone number. We'll be right back. Under the guise of tolerance, modern culture grants alternative lifestyle status to homosexuality.

Even more disturbing, some within the church attempt to revise and distort Christian teaching on this behavior.

In their book, The Same -Sex Controversy, James White and Jeff Neal write for all who want to better understand the

Bible's teaching on the subject, explaining and defending the foundational Bible passages that deal with homosexuality, including

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In a straightforward and loving manner, they appeal to those caught up in a homosexual lifestyle to repent and to return to God's plan for his people.

The Same -Sex Controversy, defending and clarifying the Bible's message about homosexuality. Get your copy in the bookstore at aomin .org.

Millions of petitioners from around the world are employing Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ, elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.

In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.

He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived, bodily assumed

Queen of Heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the

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Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.

You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at aomin .org.

This portion of the dividing line has been made possible by the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God. The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church.

The elders and people of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with them this coming

Lord's Day. The morning Bible study begins at 9 .30 a .m. and the worship service is at 10 .45.

Evening services are at 6 .30 p .m. on Sunday and the Wednesday night prayer meeting is at 7 .00.

The Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church is located at 3805 North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 602 -26 -GRACE

If you are unable to attend, you can still participate with your computer and real audio at prbc .org

where the ministry extends around the world through the archives of sermons and Bible study lessons available 24 hours a day.

And welcome back to the dividing line 877 -753 -3341 is the telephone number today just catching up on various and sundry things since the last time we had open phones on the dividing line which was quite some time ago three, four weeks, don't know but it wasn't nearly as hot back then as it is now let's go down south to the land of cotton where good times are not forgotten and that type of place

Atlanta, Georgia and Jeremy, hi Jeremy Hey Dr.

White I played all times there All times there Look away, look away I know the instrumental version of that because we play it in channel all the time but other than that Sorry I was a little worried there at the beginning

I thought maybe if it stayed real slow you might start playing some clips from the pastor of the big church here in Woodstock I just haven't

I know you sent those to me I just haven't had time to They all sound the same eventually

I mean, it's hard to say anything other than that they all end up sounding the same because they're borrowing from one another, aren't they?

I mean, he's borrowing from who was his mentor? Help me out here

Adrian Rogers Adrian Rogers, yeah so if we play Adrian Rogers then we're playing that so, anyway

I think actually Mark in Atlanta sent you that You probably got a couple copies I have two copies Yes, I do and that's why

John Mark in channel just said Jeremy? Yep, same one Yep, John Mark also sent

Dr. Oakley the same CDs That just showed up in the channel Oh, man Okay, hey, look

It's good to have open lines here again and just a quick question on I hear a lot about Well, I've always been taught,

I guess in evangelical churches that I've been a member of that, like Philippians 2, 5 -11 where the emptying or the humbling is a you hear pastors talk about laying aside certain divine prerogatives and things like that but what

I'm wondering is how, I mean doesn't that come close to like the canonic or tenosus heresy and I mean how is it orthodox what is an orthodox way to describe that emptying?

Is it as the man Christ Jesus humbling? Or, I mean how do you explain that without you know being guilty of the,

I guess, canonic heresy? Well, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by the canonic heresy I mean, kenosis is the term that is used in verse 7 of Philippians chapter 2 kenao means to empty and as I've addressed this subject a number of times there's a article maybe someone will be so kind as to track it down I think you have to use

Google because the regular search stuff doesn't grab it the way it should but there is an article on the

CRI website on Philippians 2, 5 -11 that I wrote a number of years ago and I don't know off the top of my head right now what the issue well, you know what?

I could find out what the issue date was I'm not sure if that helps anybody actually to track it down or not but if you look on my bio page there's under the articles you have

Summary Katrina where'd it go? Ah, there it is! Beyond the Veil of Eternity The Importance of Philippians 2, 5 -11 in Theology and Apologetics which is in volume 22, number 3 of the

CRI journal and I go into that particular issue of what the emptying means and I point out that first of all the one doing the action is

Christ himself there is a reflexive pronoun there and so this is something that he does it is a divine act

I also then look at the utilization there it is, thank you very much RH4JC there is a how did

I get this to you? basically it's equip .org slash free slash capital

C capital P 1207 .htm so that's free I can find it on Equip, that's fine actually

I'm not sure how oh, that one's written by Hank oh, never mind, that's not mine forget it!

I had one there anyway you never played well, it's possible,

I don't know I was kidding I'll check it out anyways just to see if it's yeah, there's a thing on the kenosis of Christ but it's not it's just a short little statement but somewhere around there on the

Equip website and if someone finds it I'll let you know we found it I go into it and one of the things that I mentioned is that when

Paul utilizes kanao in his writings that he never uses it in a literal sense he utilizes it always in the sense of becoming vain or in this sense that's why

I like the translation of the even the King James made himself no repute made himself no reputation is

I think the best way and I think the best way to understand what is being referred to by the

Apostle here is to notice that in the next two phrases you have two participles that describe what is involved in kenosis and that is he took the form of a bondservant and he was made in the likeness of men and so it is in reality when you think about it it is a positive action that is it is in reference to the incarnation he does not cease to be

God but he makes himself no repute by taking the form of a bondservant rather than being in the exalted glorious form that the angels bowed down before in Isaiah chapter 6 which

John tells us in John 12, 41 was when Isaiah saw the glory of Christ and then being made in the likeness of men that is the essence of what is being referred to by Paul here being made of no reputation and so it is actually not a removal of anything but it is a taking of that true human nature which would then involve a veiling of the glory and when people talk about a laying aside of divine prerogatives what they are talking about is living in the in a way that is consistent with being the

God man rather than anything else and so I think that would be the best way to approach it from an exegetical perspective a lot of folks are looking at the equip site the last time someone tracked those down like my article on Nicene and stuff they googled it they tracked it down by using

Google to grab it so anyway that would be the way to understand the kana 'o there is to look at it in regards to the positive incarnation rather than a deprivation of anything from the divine nature that would be referred to in Philippians 2 .6

that is an excellent answer I appreciate that it is not laying aside necessarily any divine attributes but it is more of a positive action with the actual incarnation act itself well it is a positive action it is proper to refer to a non -exercise of divine attributes so that the taking on of the human attributes is a meaningful action

I mean if the glory for example we know for certain that only upon the mount of transfiguration does

Christ's true glory manifest itself and so there was a laying aside or a veiling of that glory in the incarnation but really to understand the mechanism of kana 'o we need to follow

Paul's lead and look at the two participles that he uses to explain that and to illustrate that and the reason

I said kana 'o there is a present day

Presbyterian theologian that referred to that as far as like 19th century liberalism being like losing omniscience and omnipotence which would not apply there has been a lot of discussion over the years of the

I even mentioned that and I believe when I wrote on the subject in the forgotten trinity

I noted that I had to read things like that when I was in seminary so alrighty sir we'll try to make you not be a stranger here and come back to Georgia sometime alrighty we'll do that thanks a lot god bless bye bye 877 -753 -3341

I guess we could not find that article they used to be there I know they were because I pulled them up and I think the

Nicaea one was still there just a few weeks ago anyways but the links are slowly being removed and I imagine eventually the files will be removed as well

I don't know why maybe it's just a matter of redoing the website and you know space is always an issue even though space keeps getting bigger and bigger it's mainly taken up by audio and video and graphics files anymore on websites text of course is not all that big but oh well that's the way it is

I don't see any indication of yep okay so I suppose while those of you who have lost your telephones are seeking to find them you're recharging your portable handsets putting a new battery in your cell phone so that you can call in I mentioned earlier a wonderful song written by well written but created yes we have now answered all theological questions there and I'm left outside of eschatology and anybody knows

I'm not going to argue about that anyway so written created by Chris Arnzen now you hear me talking about Chris, Chris is the fellow who went through the

Mormon temple with me and as I mentioned on Tuesday it was probably best I went through with the Chris and not with the

Mike because Chris doesn't know a lot about Mormonism and so I was just able to point to things and still as it was

I had to tell Chris to behave because Chris could have a lot of fun with with certain things in the

Mormon temple but anyway he a few years ago in honor of the great debates performed some songs he likes to take old tracks karaoke tracks and come up with new words to songs and so this is the oh great now he calls he's just going to have to wait a second this is

Chris Arnzen's I hope I have the right one here and I hope the computer is turned up so people can hear it but since we have a lot of new listeners

I thought I'd go ahead and play this one and help to make Chris as famous as Chris truly should be oh yeah

I'm the great reformer reforming the

I made my oh yeah

I'm the great reforming the feed me to the papal palace puppy dogs but I'll bet you that in the 21st century that I'm yes indeed yes indeed that is

Chris Arnzen who at request can still do most of the comedy routines he's done prior to the great debates this year his

I didn't do a very long one but he did mention that he was looking for someone to moderate the debates initially who was completely neutral had no passionate beliefs about anything had no position on anything could hold any position whatsoever however

John Kerry was not available and so no place and even he commented to me we must only attract political conservatives of both the

Protestant and Catholic persuasions because everybody got a laugh out of that one you didn't hear any booze you didn't hear anything like that I don't think there were a whole lot of John Kerry fans in the in the audience in the debate on the apocrypha at that particular point so it was it was funny he has another song but we do have a have a caller so we'll hold off on that one for another time even that may cause people to throw rocks at Mike in New Jersey but I don't think rocks are legal in New Jersey and therefore he's probably safe because everyone in New Jersey is peaceful and harmonious because they live in the great socialist state where all of man's problems and his difficulties with sin have been dealt with by the government isn't that right

Mike? it's delightful here at the East we just prance around the honeysuckle all day holding hands and feeling very tolerant right that's how the story goes anyway well

I was able to get out of fairyland to drop a call in I'm curious about what you would make of the claims that the gospel is essentially that God is lord over the creation and not

Caesar so to speak that basically the gospel message the proclamation

I suppose just a narrative and I'm not really sure how to accurately phrase this because I don't think people have filled in the blanks yet but basically it's that the gospel is either the lordship of Christ or sometimes reduced to the trinity but basically it's something set over against paganism whereas you know like general unconverted people or what have you would just hold to the sovereignty of the government the gospel says that we have a god and that he is sovereign that he is causing everything but it seems to me that somebody can believe that there is a god and he is sovereign he is causing everything and not be converted even if they're true in that profession you still have the demons who believe that much and tremble a major portion of this within what calls itself reform catholicism day is coming directly from the writings of N .T.

Wright he I have mentioned many times before that there is in essence a monochrome unidimensional aspect to the doctrine of justification in Wright and that's what you're referring to here because he says in his conclusions to what

St. Paul really said that the gospel proclamation is in essence the lordship of Christ Christ is lord over all of creation and that is the primary substance to what is being proclaimed it's not so much what

Christ has done in the cross or in the concept of faith or repentance or things like that but it's in the lordship of Christ and so what you've got is yet one aspect of the truth because it is true that part of the proclamation of the gospel is the lordship of Christ that the

Jewish Messiah is in fact the creator of all things and is lord of all things and has all authority and all power and has been set apart by the father as the

Messiah through his death burial and resurrection all those things are completely true but what goes on here in fact

I used the terminology myself in a article that I put on the blog today actually linked to the blog today is that there seems to be almost a docetic division between the elements of the gospel in a lot of this thinking to where you can somehow have the proclamation of Christ's lordship that does not along with it have an accurate understanding or see the relevant connection of what it means to trust only in him rather than upon meritorious works or upon anything else in the process and so that's where a lot of the confusion is coming from in the case of N .T.

Wright you have this forcing of one particular meaning of the righteousness of God as God's covenant faithfulness forcing in context it just doesn't fit it doesn't fit in 2

Corinthians 5 .21 it doesn't fit in Philippians 3 .9 but that's got to be what he believed he had to have been a certain kind of Jew who had a certain kind of political background hence he would have understood the covenant in a certain way and therefore every time he uses this it has to mean this and I find that odd I mean there's so many places where Paul or anybody else will use a term in more than one way depending upon the context but in this one thing this has got to be what he believed and so you force it in there and the result then becomes that the gospel becomes narrowed down and squished down into this monochrome idea that you can summarize in that and that's why you can also say at the end of what

St. Paul really said that there were people at Galatia who were justified by faith even though they didn't believe in justification by faith in other words even though they went ahead and did what

Paul said they shouldn't do they went ahead and they were circumcised and they were trusting in that that because they believed they were still justified despite the fact they did these other things even though Paul himself says that Christ would be of no benefit to you if you're circumcised

Righteous basically says not really this is the conclusion justification by faith is the great ecumenical doctrine that we should all be sitting at the table together and that becomes the issue so the content of the gospel does suffer in that process as a result because all that stuff that Paul talks about gets squished down to a nice little easy compacted package and that's how it works

There was something posted on a blog where it basically said that the gospel is not a get out of hell free card and I would certainly not phrase it that way either but God has asserted his supremacy or sovereignty or what have you before the coming of Christ I would think that would be the whole purpose of Moses' interaction with Pharaoh and many other circumstances in the

Old Testament Hey Mike I'm afraid we are completely and totally out of time we'll have to continue this conversation next time around thanks for your phone call and everybody else's phone calls here on the dividing line, see you next

Tuesday God bless, bye bye www .min

.org where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates and tracks