God-Centered Gospel vs. Man-Centered Gospel

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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

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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.

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

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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

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

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James White. And welcome to Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning. I am here feeling surprisingly spry, given what

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I did yesterday, which started off in the morning by doing an edition of the unbelievable radio broadcast.

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Don't get all excited because it's going to be a little while until it airs.

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According to Justin, he told me after the program was over that they're recording a number of programs, probably to air right after the conference they're doing and stuff like that.

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So I've noticed he's done that in the past, maybe so he can have some time off or something because he put so much time into the conference they have coming up.

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I don't know. But anyway, I had a dialogue with,

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I believe, a Cambridge scholar, Tyndale House at Cambridge, as I recall. It might be Oxford.

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I think it's Cambridge. Anyway, can't keep all of those very snooty places straight. But, you know, it is a little bit of a bitch thing going on.

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But I did get a real chuckle. I told David Instone Brewer, the scholar

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I was dialoguing with, I told him that I listened to his book and I converted it to MP3.

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And he knew about how you can do that because he asked me, what voice did you use? And I said,

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I used Lawrence, the British voice. So I'd be all in the mood. He thought that was great that I had actually, and I did,

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I used a British voice with a British accent to render the book. And so anyway.

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You should do that more. Eventually you'll actually maybe adapt and get a British accent. You know, that was really uncalled for.

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That was really, really unkind and just very uncalled for.

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Which means I may have to do the rest of the program in my British accent, just simply because you said that.

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But I won't. I won't do that right now. Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, so he found it interesting that I had listened to the entirety of his book while riding 77 miles.

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77 miles would have been a very short thing yesterday because once I got done with that program, which started about 10 minutes late, so I didn't get out of here until about seven 20.

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And then I rode my bicycle home and then started the marathon. A total amount of time on the bike yesterday was 10 hours and 37 minutes, 186 .4

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miles, which if you are a metric person, you probably know is 300 kilometers exactly on the nose.

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And I don't know that I will ever do that again, especially since I had a 20 mile an hour wind to fight yesterday, which just anyway.

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So I was thinking I was going to be getting up this morning feeling less than spry. But actually,

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I don't hardly have any aches and pains or anything from from all of that, which really, really surprises me.

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And I'm very thankful. So LaShawn is asking in channel no, no accent. How did she get on the no

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British accent bandwagon? I think it's just I think it's I think it's terrible that she's already been infected with that.

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It's probably your fault. Actually, I can I think I think the the the main point here would be that we would like if you're going to do it, actually be a

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British accent. You just you guys don't know what you're listening to the Unbelievable Radio broadcast.

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Listen to Justin Brierley. You know, it's just a matter of knowing which which which vowels to elongate, where to put your pauses.

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You know, it's you know, but there's all sorts of different kinds of a good go. How many times have you been in London, dude?

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You have. OK, just just checking, just checking. Just checking. You know,

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I just saw David Murray tweet and David Murray said my Scottish accent was very good and he's from Scotland.

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What was the one guy that said you you sounded like a Pakistani doing the Scottish accent? That was

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Jim Handyside. That was past Jim Handyside. But Jim is that's just Jim. Jim is

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Jim loves to loves to zing you. It's just it's just great. Anyway, eight seven seven seven five three three three four one eight seven seven seven five three three three four one or dividing that line via Skype.

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I'm saying yes, no, maybe apparently that's great. Got my professional staff working out there.

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They're ready to go. Dividing that line via Skype. Every few minutes I'll get to see if we have any phone calls once the the computer decides to talk to my my computer.

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But starting about a week and a half ago, it decided this doesn't want to work anymore. So I really can't control those things.

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Can't really see who's queued up like that right now. It says connection failed and it's just staring at me and doing nothing at all.

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And there's nothing I can do about that. Eight seven seven seven five three three three four one is the phone number if you would like to call in.

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And we got a number of interesting responses, in my opinion, anyways, from last program that we did.

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And one of the statements that I saw repeated over and over and over again in Twitter as people listen to that program, well, here's one right now.

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I just happened to see one from Orlando Mario GD, I think is what it says.

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The issue of the Reformation, the issue of the Reformation focused on and the issue today is not the necessity of grace, but the sufficiency of grace.

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Now that is maybe it's been a long time since I have discussed these things on the program, though I would think it would be something that would be pretty regular.

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But see, that's that's something that's a drum that I have been beating on for a long, long time.

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I remember very, very clearly back when this program was on KPXQ in Phoenix, we we resurrected the show.

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We have been doing the show. Oh, we've done the show on KHEP and KXEG and all these, some of which don't even exist and most of them don't even exist anymore as Christian radio stations.

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And we had normally done on a Saturday or something like that because that was the cheapest radio time because nobody listens to radio on Saturday anyways.

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And we're poor and we'll always be poor. And so I had, you know, we had been doing that for a long, long time and we got back on KXEG and that's when the

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Internet had now come in. I mean, I mean, I was doing my first programs on Mormonism.

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I remember back about 1983, 84.

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So there was no such thing at that time, thanks to Al Gore having thought of it yet, called the

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Internet. And so, you know, you only had the audience that you had as far as the signal that radio station went.

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Well, once we went back on KXEG, the Internet was around and we very quickly discovered that almost all of our phone calls were coming from Internet listeners anyways.

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And so that's why we eventually left doing radio and just started doing webcasts and have had a significantly wider outreach as a result as far as the program is concerned.

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And yes, I realize that a large number of the listeners weren't around in 1983, 1984.

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Yes, there was life prior to the Internet, prior to smartphones. Don't get me started going down memory lane and talking about, you should have seen the first thing.

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I had a pager, man. And all it did was vibrate and put a number and you had to stop and find a pay phone and call somebody.

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I remember that was like, well, you should have seen my first Atari. You should have seen my first Trash 80, you know.

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And you just start talking about how, you know, what it was like not to have hard drives. And it just gets really boring after a while because everybody says the same thing.

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And it's just like, never mind. But anyhow, I remember we had a

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Saturday afternoon slot on KXIG, which was right after the Bible Answer Man. And I remember sitting there listening to the last few callers on an episode of the

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Bible Answer Man. And the guest was none other than Dr.

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Norman Geisler. Yes, Dr. Norman's PhD is from a Jesuit institution and who has been very deeply impacted by his study there.

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And a caller had called up and Geisler was going, well, obviously justification by faith is not the son of the gospel or there's nobody was saved before the

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Reformation, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. And I was listening to him talking about how you need to understand that the

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Roman Catholics, they emphasize the need for grace.

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We need to make sure that we emphasize the fact that Roman Catholics talk about grace.

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And I'm sitting there and I'm counting the cost because I know that if we open up the microphones and I start talking about what

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Norman Geisler has been saying, you know, but I remember very clearly emphasizing at the time, look, the reformers never, ever, ever talked about the necessity of grace as the issue.

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They didn't. The Council of Trent anathematized anyone who said you could be saved without God's grace.

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That's Pelagianism. They had always anathematized

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Pelagianism. It's just, it's a given to anyone who's read any of the reformers or anything like that at all.

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And I emphasize then, and this was a long time ago, the issue of the

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Reformation and the issue today is not the necessity of grace. It is the sufficiency of grace.

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If you want a dividing line, that's where it is. A few years later, a church in the valley, and I don't remember what,

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I don't, after about 15 to 20, details start slipping unless it was something that could come up in a debate again.

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For me, that's what transfers stuff immediately into long term memory is, could this come up in a debate?

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And if so, then you will remember it. Otherwise, it's just not enough room left in there.

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Too many brain cells dying past 40 years of age and diminished capacity. So anyway, we hooked up with this church in the valley.

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Well, in the sense that they asked me to come over and do a study on, I think it was

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Mormonism. I think they asked me to come over and meet with the guy's Bible study or something on the subject of Mormonism.

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Okay, cool. I'll do that. And so we, I went over and they got all excited and they thought it was great because I had a lot of practical stuff on how to witness to Mormons and all that kind of thing.

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And the general conference was coming up. In fact, we just missed general conference.

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It was last weekend. Right now is the Easter pageant. I sort of feel badly about the fact that I'm not out of Mesa every night this week or any nights this week.

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It's not going to work out to be there at all for me this week. But that's a shame. But those are things we used to do very, very, very regularly.

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And I had mentioned in talking about Mormonism that we go up to general. At that time, we were still going up to general conference.

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I think this was back in the early 90s, somewhere around there. And so they're all like, oh, this is this is cool.

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This is great. So they contact me and say, hey, could we could we come up with you? And we're like, well, we brought,

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I think one year we had 18 people that we drove up to Salt Lake. It's a pretty decent group. And so, yeah, it'd be great to have folks.

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But then they said, could we pass out our own tracks? And I'm like, hmm, why would you why would what's it?

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Well, you know, we really appreciate what you're doing, but we just we just come down in a different place than you when it comes to the issue of the will of man and the grace of God.

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Well, they were full blown Arminians. And this raised an issue.

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I mean, here they wanted to go all that stuff. But so you want to go up there and have us help you if you get in trouble.

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But you basically want to do this on your own. You want to distribute different literature or no, they actually wanted to go with us, be part of our group, but not pass out our literature.

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They'd pass out their own literature. So you want us as one group to have two different messages for the

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Mormons, especially on the issue of the sufficiency of God's grace.

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And we didn't work together. We didn't do it. And some of you say, oh, that's terrible. I'm to this day,

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I think it was the exact right thing to do. You have to have a united message.

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And especially when it comes to the very issue of God's grace. No, couldn't couldn't make that type of a compromise in any way.

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And we've stuck with that. And I'd love to see the day when

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I can stand outside the gates of the temple in Salt Lake again and pass out tracks without all sorts of nasty folks running around yelling and screaming at the

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Mormons. But we'll see. I get a report each time

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I'll be interested to see. Did the street screechers show up again? You know, will they ever get tired of showing up, you know?

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And if the end of the cops ever just crack down on them, they'll have to crack down on everybody. And so nobody will have the opportunity of doing anything.

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So who knows? We will. We'll see what what happens with them. 877 -753 -3341 is the phone number dividing dot line via Skype.

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If you would like to to be involved. I was looking at some other articles.

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I've got some stuff queued up, sort of going to leave it up to you if you all want to comment on what was said.

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I realize, believe me, I realize that I put myself and this ministry and anybody else who would participate in my perspectives in a minority position.

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But, you know, it's interesting. I was while writing yesterday, at least for the first six hours after about six hours, I don't listen to books or stuff anymore because it's just it's almost like drawing fingernails down a chalkboard.

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Just the brain's like enough of that. Well, imagine a computer talking to you for six straight hours.

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OK, after a while, it's just like, no, thanks. And I turned it off.

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But I got through the majority of the Intolerance of Tolerance by D .A.

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Carson. I had listened to all of Dr. Wellum's fine faculty address at Southern Baptist Seminary on it was a fascinating paper he presented on the extent of the atonement and its relationship to Baptist ecclesiology.

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And it was really, really well done. I really it was it was really good. And the problem was

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I had to listen to it at double speed. So there were a couple of times there that he tends to his speaking cadences.

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He'll sort of be going along and all of a sudden he'll sort of make a real quick comment. And at double speed, it would be a very, very quick comment that sometimes

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I couldn't even catch. But anyways, I'd listen that first. Then I moved over to D .A.

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Carson's book and got almost all of it done. And listening to Carson talking about and exposing the double standards of our of our society,

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I'd highly recommend that book. Maybe I'll have Rich put it in the at least in the

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Amazon store if we don't carry it ourselves directly. But I would highly recommend it because one of the great frustrations that most people have, most

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Christians have in our society today is how to respond to the the rank double standards that are just part and parcel of the thinking of most of the people we're dealing with in our society.

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I think of what happened to Kirk Cameron. And one of the mainstream media that were interviewing him because of his comments on the

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Piers Morgan show about about the blasphemy and redefinition of marriage, which is the only way

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I can refer to it. She goes, she looks at Kirk and she she goes.

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Couldn't you be inciting hatred toward people with your stance now?

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How do you how do you respond to that? Now, I think Kirk did a fine job in responding to that.

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And. I have no no criticisms of how he did that, you know, and each one of us is going to have a slightly different way of doing it just depending on our personality and and what we can honestly say.

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You know, I'm you don't want to do one of these. Well, I'm going to sort of do the you know,

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I'm going to follow what what somebody else would. You should not try to model Kirk Cameron if you're not Kirk Cameron. You know, it's sort of like preachers who try to be a certain very famous preacher.

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Amongst Reformed Baptists is Al Martin. And this drives me crazy when another Reformed Baptist tries to preach like Al Martin.

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You ain't Al Martin, dude. Start. Stop trying to act like Al Martin. You can't do it.

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You can't pull it off. There's there's only one Al Martin, you know, don't don't try to. I know when you're younger, you tend to take your cues from folks.

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But please don't do not pretend to be Al Martin. Well, don't pretend you're Kirk Cameron either, because Kirk can smile and get away with stuff that that ugly

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Scottish guys like me can't get away with who have no hair. Anyway, how do you respond?

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When couldn't you be inciting hatred? And I think if I were to be asked that, I'd look at them and, well, couldn't you be inciting hatred toward me with that question and and go, what?

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Yeah, aren't you inciting hatred toward me by even asking the question, I might be inciting hatred toward someone else?

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Once you there is a foundational degradation of humanity that is part and parcel of that question, can you identified what it is?

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Before I tell you what it is, can you can you identify the the presupposition that is a part of that question that is fundamentally degrading to mankind?

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Now, it's perfectly consistent with secular humanism. But it is not consistent with the

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Christian worldview. And that's what we have to be literally practicing on. It is something we need to be praying that God would give us understanding to be able to to recognize is to recognize the the ungodly presuppositions that are part and parcel of today's cultural dialogue and discussion.

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What is the underlying, ungodly, anti degrading to man presupposition of the question that was asked of Kirk Cameron by that reporter?

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And it's this. The idea is.

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That by my mere expression of a viewpoint.

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Man is so shallow. My fellow citizens are so literally stupid.

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That by the mere expression of a viewpoint in their presence or in their hearing or in something they read or just merely exposing another human being to my perspective that I somehow.

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Can engender hatred in their heart as if they have nothing they can do about it.

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Oh, I heard someone express hatred. I'll have to hate like them. I'm a zombie.

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It is such a degrading view of mankind.

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Such a degrading view of mankind. That it just it's amazing, and so you have to be able to identify those things and you have to be able to go to the real source.

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You know, I might say something along the lines of. Of well.

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If I were asked to ask that question, you know, one side would be one part of me wants to say, couldn't you be engendering hatred by your questions?

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Couldn't I mean, the very the way that the media approaches Christianity today, constantly accusing us of of intolerance.

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Isn't that intolerance on your part? You have to expose the inconsistencies.

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Though, to be honest with you, you also then have to explain he just that you actually have to explain to people today that being inconsistent is not a good thing.

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Because they're not taught how to think. They're taught what to think, not how to think, and people in our society today just don't get the idea that it's actually a bad thing to have double standards.

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I know a lot of my Muslim friends don't mind having double standards. But a lot of my secularist friends, they double standard.

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That's fine. That's OK. As long as it, you know, promotes our perspective. So anyway, it is something that we need to be thinking about, especially as we get closer and closer to an election and the issues that will be in the forefront.

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We'll be on the lips of many, and we have a choice to make. We can either become

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European Christians. Sorry to say that, but there's a lot of people who will identify themselves in that way, but they won't open their mouths and say anything.

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They will not express their worldview. They will not challenge the prevailing worldview.

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And most of the state, all the state churches, all, every state church in those nations has just completely abandoned the gospel and just whatever, you know, just become a model of the world.

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That's just the way it is. We either will have to be silent or we will have to learn how to speak up and we will have to learn how to express in an ever more rancorous cultural situation, our beliefs and to do so in such a way as to.

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Huh, why is this not working? Oh, OK, sorry,

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I just got it. Mine says it's working. I've got

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I've got a phone call up here. So and that the timer is still running on it.

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So if the if the timer stops running, then I figure it ain't working no more. My side says you're disconnected.

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So I have a doctor Oakley is disconnected on my side, too. But that happened afterwards.

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Yeah, but I'll have a reconnect. Oh, well, whatever. If it works, it works. So T .S .T.

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test. Did you see that? I'm here. I'm I'm I'm I'm alive. We have resuscitated the computer.

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Sorry, we're we're alive, but we let everybody else know what's going on, too. Eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one.

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Hopefully those few thoughts. Oh, as I said, eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one lost connection to server, which means it will come up in in a few minutes and say, would you like to reconnect?

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And and I will. But we need to figure out what's going on with this, because it's obviously something changed about two weeks ago.

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It's a Mac thing. No, it's not a Mac thing. Sorry. Wait a minute. Didn't you say that the screen was saying something about losing connection to the server last time?

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And that's not a Mac, is it? And that's connected directly to the computer, if I recall correctly.

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Anyways, false accusations against Macs. We will leave those we will leave those aside and start taking our phone calls at eight, seven, seven, seven, five, three, three, three, four, one.

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I have a screen long enough, hopefully, to put James on the air. Hello, James. Yes, hello, hi.

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Hi, how are you? Yes, I listen, I'm a Catholic and. I would just like to know, you do believe in the eternal security doctrine, right?

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I believe in the perseverance of the saints. What do you think eternal security is? Well, you don't believe that you can lose your salvation, right?

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I believe that the triune God has elected a particular people in the salvation and that the son will never fail to save all of those given to him by the father, which is why the saints persevere.

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So obviously, one of the differences is that we focus upon the fact that salvation is the work of God.

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And it's not like a lot of evangelicals put it, who believe in once saved, always saved.

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That is, you get your ticket punched and then you can just go live any way you want to. And all is well.

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That's a completely different perspective. There are people who deny the lordship of Jesus Christ and salvation.

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They do not believe that repentance is even a necessary aspect of salvation. And so they have a doctrine that they call eternal security.

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I would not believe anything even remotely like that by any stretch of the imagination. So that's why

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I have to differentiate them. So then you don't believe that. So then you do believe that someone who is justified can lose their salvation?

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No, not at all. Because justification is the work of God. It's a divine act. It is part of the entire act of regeneration.

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Only the elect are ever justified. And so. Oh, I see. Oh, I misunderstood you.

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OK, so then you believe that someone who is regenerated and therefore justified cannot lose their justification.

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No, that's right. I do not believe Jesus can fail in fulfilling the will of the father.

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That's correct. So if they die, they would receive salvation, correct? If they died, you mean if one of the elect who has been regenerated by the work of the spirit of God dies,

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Jesus will raise them to eternal life? Yes. That's Jesus' promise in John 6, 38 and 39.

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Right. Now, those who are justified, are they still able to commit sin?

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Do they commit sin? Even grave sins such as murder and adultery? Yes, I believe that the justified commit, they have abiding sin in their life, which is why we have an advocate before the father,

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Jesus Christ, the righteous. I do not believe, however, that there is a pattern of sin in their life to where they, as 1

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John says, the one who is born from God is not sinning using the present tense ongoing action.

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So while there is the experience of sin, there is repentance of that sin. A person who loves sin and continues in that sin is a person who has no reason to have any confidence that they have, in fact, embraced

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Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Oh, OK. So you believe, as Catholics do, that repentance is necessary if they commit a grave sin in order to remain justified, right?

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No. No, I do not, because the Catholic places that all upon the concept of the free will of man acting in concert with grace that is doled out through sacraments.

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And I don't believe any of that. I do not believe God's grace is doled out in the form of sacraments.

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And I do not believe that the death of Jesus Christ is doled out through a sacrament of the—via transubstantiation in the mass to where you can approach the death of Christ 10 ,000 times in your life and still die impure.

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So I think you would have to recognize that when we talk about repentance, we see both repentance and faith as the gifts of God to the elect, and they are a part of the work of God in the elect person.

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And the reason that I continue to repent of my sin today is not because I'm better than someone else, but because the grace of God that brings about my salvation will continue that work and will do so until the day of Jesus Christ.

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So there is a fundamental difference in how we approach this issue. So if I understand you correctly, since you claim that someone who is justified can and does fall into grave sin, and they don't necessarily need to repent of that sin to remain justified, and they will, if they die, receive salvation because they remain justified—

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Now, you're noticing something, James? You're noticing—I'm hoping everybody in the audience is noticing this.

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Every time I talk about salvation, justification, my focus is on God, the triune

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God, accomplishing His purpose to His own glory. And when you respond, it's all focused on what man does.

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Man does this, and if man does that, and what if man does this? You and I have a fundamentally different way of approaching this issue.

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Mine's God -centered, and yours is man -centered. Have you noticed that? Well, I'm just trying to understand, you know, where you're coming from.

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And so if I'm correct in where you're coming from, you would—well, logically, if someone is justified, then they could fall into grave sin—you know, not continual sin, but grave sin.

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And let's say the grave sin is pedophilia. Let's say it's a 58 -year -old man, and he rapes a 5 -year -old boy, and then he murders that boy.

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Under your understanding, that man, since he was justified beforehand, he would remain justified, he doesn't have to repent of that sin, and he would receive salvation from heaven.

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Well, James, if you want to come up with the most absurd, ridiculous, outlandish examples to try to overthrow plain biblical teaching,

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I won't stop you, because that's what Rome does. But the fact of the matter is that what

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I've explained to you is that a person who is justified is a new creature in Christ.

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And the idea that that person is going to be a child -molesting murderer is about the farthest thing that can be considered from the reality of the

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Christian experience. But once again, I guess the question I'd have to ask you is, from the

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Roman Catholic perspective, you—do you know you're justified right now?

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Well, I would hope that I'm justified, and if I'm not, then the Lord puts me in that place.

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But you don't know that you're justified. So you can't look back upon your justification, because have you been re -justified in your experience, sacramentally?

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I believe that through repentance, if I sin, I need to repent of that sin, because through sin one can lose their justification.

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Okay, so you can lose your justification through the commission of a mortal sin.

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You don't lose it through the commission of a venial sin. Correct. So you've been justified more than once.

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So you've committed mortal sins in the past? I have. And these have been forgiven you by a priest?

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A Catholic priest, correct. A Roman Catholic priest, right. So, from your perspective, if you had not freely chosen to repent, then you would not be re -justified.

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Correct. One must repent of their sins, otherwise they would not be justified. Okay, so let me ask you to explain the words of the

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Inspired Scriptures in one or two places. First, in Romans chapter 8, the

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Apostle Paul says, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his

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Son, that he would be the firstborn of many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called.

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And these whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified.

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Now from your perspective, you can be justified, but not glorified, correct?

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Well, from my perspective, in order to receive salvation, one must be justified.

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And I think Scripture agrees with me. I mean, if you look at Matthew chapter 5, 29 -30, you'll see that the faithful believer can be cast into hell if they turn away from God.

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The faithful believer can be cast into hell. Well, let's stick with Romans 8 -30 for just a moment. We can get to that interesting interpretation in Matthew 5.

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But from your perspective, the chain of Romans 8 -30, called, justified, glorified, can be broken by your actions, right?

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Well, I'd have to read it in context. But also in Romans 11— You're not familiar with the context of Romans 8?

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But also, well, you aren't familiar with the context of Matthew 5— Oh, I am—no, no, I am fully familiar with the context of Matthew 5.

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I'm just—jumping from verse to verse isn't going to accomplish anything. Those whom he called, he also justified, and those whom he justified, he also glorified.

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So that chain is breaking. I believe through water baptism, one is justified. So if you read it in context with John 3 -5, you'll see that water baptism is a requirement in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven, and therefore in order to enter into the kingdom of heaven, you must be justified.

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Therefore, you have to take it in context. Oh, and the context where water baptism appears in Romans 8 is exactly where?

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John 3 -5. John 3 -5 is the context of Romans 8. Okay, all right. Right, you have to take all of Scripture in context.

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You can't just read one verse out of context with the rest of Scripture. Well, James, it's very, very obvious that Paul never held your belief about the role of water baptism, because he doesn't say that there.

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And the problem is, you're not looking at what the Scripture says in context. You have an external context called the

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Teaching Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church that is keeping you from seeing that you are redefining justification and you're redefining what the teaching of the

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Scripture is at these points. But you yourself have admitted you don't even know that you're justified.

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And you know what? That is the Orthodox position, as Ludwig Ott explains in the

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Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, that you cannot know in this life whether you have fulfilled all the conditions which are necessary for attaining justification.

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That's why I asked Mitchell Pacwa many, many years ago how he could understand

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Romans 5 -1, because the Christian says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And I asked him—now, he's a scholar.

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He speaks 12 different languages. And he speaks Hebrew. And he knows that peace is the term shalom, and that a temporary ceasefire in a battle is not shalom.

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Shalom is a positive word. It speaks to a positive relationship that exists.

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And I said, now, if that's what peace is, and yet Roman Catholicism says that I can commit a mortal sin before my head hits the pillow tonight and be an enemy of God, how can that be described as peace?

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And that is the question that I have for any Roman Catholic, including you, James. How can you say you have peace with God?

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I'm not sure why he couldn't answer that, but I can answer that. After water baptism, one can have peace, because then one is justified.

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And also— And yet, James, you said you can commit a mortal sin and lose that grace of justification, right?

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If you let me finish, I'll explain why we can have peace. All right. And also, after confession, one also can have peace.

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John 20, 21 through 23, teaches confession to, you know, those in authority of the

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Church, namely the priests. Well, there were— So— James, there were no priests in the early Church, but that's another issue we can get to at another point.

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Well, the Twelve Apostles were the first Catholic priests. Well, that's historically ridiculous, but again, that's what you've been taught.

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That's not what the Bible teaches. There's no such thing as a Sacramental Christian priesthood anywhere in the New Testament.

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Well, I disagree with you, but— Well, you can't prove your point. I debated Mitch Packwell on that, too. I would invite anyone to listen to that.

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But go back to the issue of how you can have peace. You have peace, which means that—

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Well, my post -Judas lost his office, and Matthias took his place—he took his office.

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So apostolic succession does take place. It is biblical. And anyway, as I was saying, you can go ahead and have peace after confession, because what you're doing is you're repenting of that sin.

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Now, you told me that someone does not have to repent if they're justified, even if they rape a five -year -old—

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No, everybody listening to this program knows that now you're getting a little bit on the dishonest side, because I made it very, very clear,

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James. I made it very, very clear that not only had you used an absurd example, but I had likewise made it very, very clear that repentance and faith are the gifts of God given to His elect.

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They are part of the work of the Holy Spirit in their life, and that a person who does not want— James, please don't misrepresent what

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I'm saying. We're talking about holy things here, okay? Well, I understand, but earlier, when we first began our conversation, and I posed that example to you, you told me, and I asked you specifically, if someone needed to repent of that grave sin—

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You put that in the context of, so you agree with Roman Catholics, and I clearly expressed the vast difference between my statement of the necessity of repentance and your understanding of what repentance is.

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Now, you may not have heard that. Maybe you don't have the categories to understand that, but I clearly made that differentiation.

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And the difference is that repentance for the true believer does not add to what

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Christ has done upon the cross of Calvary for Him. It is not something that comes forth from my heart.

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It is, in fact, the gift of God. It is the result of the fact that I have a changed nature, and it is not something that is some external thing that I have to add to the perfect work of Jesus Christ in my place.

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It is the result of the perfect work of Jesus Christ in my place, which perfects me before God, which is why

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I look back upon one act of justification, which is by faith, not by being sprinkled with water, but I look back upon that one act of justification, and that's why

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I have peace, because you're telling me that even today, you could commit a mortal sin and be the enemy of God before the sun sets tonight, right?

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Well, I'm saying that the Catholic point of view is that if someone is justified, and let's say they commit a grave sin, let's say they rape that five -year -old and they murder that five -year -old, then the

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Catholic point of view, the Catholic teaching is that this individual will lose their justification, they will not go into heaven, they will not receive salvation unless they repent of that grave sin.

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So you could be at a state of war spiritually with God by tonight, yes or no?

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I'm saying anyone that commits mortal sin is at odds with God. Could you be the enemy of God by the time the sun sets tonight,

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James, yes or no? Commit a mortal sin, yes. God could cut me off.

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Okay, that's not a position of peace. But the Bible says that. The Bible says in Romans chapter 11—

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I just quoted your Romans 5 .1. I just quoted your Romans 5 .1. If you commit a sin today,

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James, will it be imputed to you? If I commit a mortal sin,

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I will lose my justification before God. I will be cut off, just as the Bible says. Then who's—then what's the

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Bible talking about when it says, Just as David also speaks the blessing of the one to whom

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God counts righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

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Who is the blessed man, James, who's the blessed man of Romans 4 .8? You have to go ahead and you have to take

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Scripture in context with whatever verse you're reading. I just did. Can you explain Romans 4 .8?

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Obviously, anyone that commits sin, they must repent of that sin in order to receive justification.

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Now, the justification comes from Jesus Christ alone. Okay, I would agree with you at that point.

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It comes from Jesus when we receive His grace, when it's offered to us. But when man rejects

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His grace by being disobedient, committing mortal sin, then he is no longer sanctified.

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He loses his justification before God, and he is cut off. James, who is the blessed man of Romans 4 .8?

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Well, I would say that the blessed man is Jesus Christ. Really? So, Jesus Christ is blessed because God won't hold

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His sin against Him? Really? I thought He was the sinless Son of God. Well, He is the sinless

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Son of God. Blessed is the man, James. Would you please stop talking and listen to the

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Word of God? Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin.

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Who is that, James? This is in the middle of Paul's explanation of the

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Gospel. Okay, okay, I'm sorry. The blessed man is the individual that repents of their sins, but they're doing it through Jesus Christ's sacrifice.

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So ultimately, it is Jesus Christ, because of what He's done, whereby the blessed man is able to be forgiven and receive justification after he repents of whatever grave sin it is that he committed.

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Okay, James, think with me a moment. Are you the blessed man?

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Only if I repent of sin, mortal sin. All right. So, you said before...

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I'm not in a state of mortal sin, because I'm cut off. You have to take it in context.

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James, you keep talking about context, and you introduce concepts like mortal sin and venial sin and sacraments and everything else, which has nothing to do with the context of Romans, because you don't listen to the

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Bible, you listen to it based upon what Rome has taught you. James, every single

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Christian, man, woman, and child, is the blessed man, and listen to what the promise of Scripture is.

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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. You said that God will count your sin against you, which is why you then have to go through sacramental forgiveness again to receive justification.

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That means you're not the blessed man. But you just made an error just now, because you said everyone.

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Well, not everyone, because there are individuals that go to hell, so it's not everyone. Obviously, we're talking about believers here.

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Everyone who is in Christ Jesus is the blessed man. You don't have a category for someone to whom sin is not imputed.

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If you commit a venial sin, is it imputed to you, yes or no? Well, Romans 11 .22

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speaks with you. It says, speaking to the believers, and it's saying that they can be cut off if they do not continue.

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It's speaking to the Gentiles in comparison to those who would boast against the

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Jews. Read the context, James. Let's read the context.

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You just left Romans 4, because you have no answer for Romans 4, because in Roman Catholicism there is no blessed man.

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If you commit a venial sin, it's imputed to you. And if you do not confess that sin and do penance for that sin, you will suffer for it, undergoing satis passio in purgatory.

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If you commit a mortal sin, it is imputed to you. You lose the grace of justification. You have to be re -justified through the sacrament of penance.

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You have no blessed man in your theology, do you?

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Well, I would say that Catholics, or the blessed man, Catholics that are living their faith and are justified, in other words, they either were immediately water baptized and they're in a state of justification, or they went to confession and they're in a state of justification.

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They had to go to confession because their sins were imputed to them, and therefore you have no blessed man, according to Romans 4, 8, right?

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Well, I disagree with you. Okay, then give me a positive contextual interpretation of what

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Romans 4, 8 says. Makarios aner hu umei la gesetai kurios hamartion.

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What does it mean to not have your sins imputed to you? Yes, well, again, when you get water baptized, your sins get washed away.

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Okay, James, James, from the text, my friend, from the text, leave your Romanism to the side, answer from Romans chapter 4.

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Follow the argument. Show me your beliefs. If your beliefs are actually apostolic, then the

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Apostle Paul represented them. There's a consistent way to see it. Show me where that is in Romans 4.

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Without using terminology, it's not there. Well, with all due respect, what I'm telling you is this.

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I'm telling you that through the Church, the understanding of the Church, see, the Church is what interprets

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Scripture, and I don't interpret it on my own. Through the Church, confession and water baptism is the way by which someone is made a blessed man, because they were made justified.

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So you can't actually answer the question from the Bible. You have to say, well, the Church interprets it.

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But the problem is, James, show me anywhere where the Roman Catholic Church has infallibly interpreted

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Romans 4, 8. I've pointed to several verses already that you're not willing to take up.

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No, I'm not willing to allow you to run from the text, as you've run from Romans 8 and Romans 4 so far.

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But I haven't run, because I've pointed out what the Church interprets it to be, and I go by what the

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Church interprets it to be. So you have illustrated for us, James, thank you very, very much, you have illustrated for us very clearly the difference between Roman Catholicism and biblical

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Christianity. And one of us goes to the Bible, and when the other is shown the

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Bible, says, well, I believe that, but I believe what the Church says. Thank you very much for that.

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The problem is, he doesn't know what the Church says on that, because there is no infallible interpretation of Romans 4, 8.

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And there you had it. There you had it. There you had, you know, wow.

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It is, yes, it is frustrating, but it is so frustrating to be sitting there handling the very message of God and saying, do you see what it's saying?

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The blessedness of the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.

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And there's no ears to hear. There's no ears to hear. There's no ears to hear.

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It's so sad to hear that. Well, but the

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Church says, listen to the Scriptures, and listen to what it's, it's fantastic message that you can have true peace with God, not this treadmill of sacraments.

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Oh, it's just, it's just so sad. There's an illustration, folks. We didn't ask for it.

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We didn't, you know, we did not ask for someone to call in to give an illustration of exactly why we spent 45 minutes on the last program talking about this very thing.

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But there it was. But there it was. Every time we went to a text of Scripture, what did you hear?

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Did you hear a desire to hear what that text was saying or to simply make that text fit under the authority of Rome?

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We've got a lot of other people calling in, and we've only got a few minutes left in the program today. So let's really quickly try to get to Justin.

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Hi, Justin. Hi, Dr. Wright. How are you? Doing pretty good. Well, not to get back on the subject of people relying on extra -biblical sources, but I called a while back, and I let you know that I was meeting with some

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Mormon missionaries, and we were going to go through letters to a Mormon elder. Okay.

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I wanted to call and let you know the outcome of that. Okay. Well, it was rather short -lived.

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I'm shocked. Well, I'm shocked. I'm just, let me get something to drink here.

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I'm sorry. It was short -lived. They all got a copy of it, which they returned to me within a month.

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Well, at least they didn't burn them. I've had missionaries burn them before, so that's better than nothing. Well, we were meeting in my house, and that would have been a problem for me.

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But they pointed out numerous things that they didn't like. You know, first of all, it wasn't an actual, it was an official account.

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Shocking, shocking. I couldn't get a Mormon to do that. Yeah, right, okay. Yeah, yeah. And then one of them, the youngest one, actually pointed out that on the back cover,

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Joseph Smith is actually Joseph Smith. And he's like, I wouldn't want to read anything like that anyways.

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So there's a typo on the back cover of the new edition? Is that it? Yeah. Oh, wow, okay.

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There's a good reason to not read something. There you go. And actually, as I had them over,

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I was going through the history of the Joseph Smith vision as it's couched in the

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Second Great Awakening, and telling them why he could not possibly be a prophet.

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And in the middle of that, they're like, they interrupted me, and they just wanted me to get to the point.

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And then they wanted to discuss doctrine. So it was rather short -lived, and I hope there was a seed planted somewhere.

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There was an older, I say older, he was probably 20, the oldest of the missionaries that were there.

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The ancient missionary, huh? Yeah, yeah. He was actually really interested.

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Very good eye contact. If you've had any exposure to reading body language and judging how comfortable people are,

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I even gave them something to drink, and he drank the most. So he was very comfortable, and his attention level was there, and he was very interested in what

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I had to say. So I hope something got through. Yeah, you never know. It can be very, very frustrating when you cannot clearly see an open heart or an open mind as we just experienced, unfortunately.

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But you don't know what the Lord's going to do with that, and you don't know.

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It could even be the missionary you think is not paying much attention. I mean, I met with some missionaries at Rich's house once, many, many moons ago, and me and this one missionary are just going back and forth, and we're really interested, and all of a sudden you hear, and we look over, and the other missionary is out.

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He's gone. He's asleep on the other end of the couch, and he's just totally bored by whatever we were doing.

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So I don't think we made much of an impact on him, but you never know. You see these young guys, and from my perspective, now they're just kids.

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When I first met with them, they were older than me, but now they're just children.

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And you feel for them, and you want to try to plant a seed, because you know that returned missionaries, about 60 percent of them go inactive for a period of two years after they get back.

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They're just burned out. And during that time, maybe the words you spoke or a question that was raised comes back into the mind, and the

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Lord uses it in that way. So press on, Justin. We appreciate it. Well, I actually have a much greater mission field to press on in, because I was in New York last time

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I called you. Through some of life's circumstances, I've moved out to Idaho. Oh, yes.

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You have a huge population. You get lots of Mormons to talk to up there in Idaho.

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Hey, thanks, Justin. Thanks for your call today. We've got to run. Thanks for your call. Thanks for the report. All right. God bless.

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All right. Keep an eye on the blog in case

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I try to work something out for Friday morning. I will be in Cincinnati this weekend.

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There's something on the blog about it. Take a look at it. We might try to find a way to do a Skype program Friday morning. If not, we'll see you next week.

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God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless.

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God bless. God bless. God bless.

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God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless.