DEBATE AUDIO: Does the Roman Catholic Church Deny the Gospel?

1 view

May 28, 2025

Here is the full audio from the 5/22/25 Debate between Pastor Allen S. Nelson and Catholic Priest Stephen Hart. There was a 3 minute intermission between the debate and the Q&A that was deleted. Everything else is the full recording. To see this on YouTube go here: https://www.youtube.com/live/-dgcJNWJH4E

00:00: moderator. I am the chair to which our debate pastors will direct their comments, their arguments and their questions instead of to each other.
00:11: Um, I actually left my phone in my car and I don't know how I'm going to get through the next two hours without tick tock, but I hope that these, uh, arguments are more intellectually stimulating than that.
00:23: And I want to thank you all for coming here tonight. Um, this isn't the Roman Coliseum.
00:29: These guys are going to have an academic debate. So I applaud you for being in the same space with each other, um, to observe and, uh, learn from that.
00:42: So, like I said, I left my phone in the car. Please silence your devices. If you need to leave your seat, the restrooms are in the back.
00:48: Please don't return to your seat until an appropriate break in the debate. Um, any intentional interruption of the proceedings will result.
00:57: We have wonderful security here in dismissal from the Rialto. Um, and I would like to also ask that we have applause at the beginning and the end when
01:07: I introduce, um, or when I hand over the stage and then at the end when they will shake hands after their closing remarks should be the only two appropriate times for applause.
01:18: Um, tonight's principle debate titled is the Roman Catholic Church a gospel denying church will last about an hour and a half with 30 minutes of questions from the audience afterwards.
01:30: As we go through the various sections, I will explain the format and we will begin it and provide additional information as necessary.
01:40: Arguing for the resolution is Pastor Alan S. Nelson, the fourth. He is pastor of Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, where he served since 2016.
01:51: He is a 2004 graduate of Perryville High School, a 2008 graduate of Arkansas Tech University and a 2021 graduate of Grace Bible Theological Seminary in Conway.
02:02: He and his wife, Stephanie, have been married since 2006 and they have six children. Arguing against tonight's resolution is
02:10: Father Stephen Hart, a native of Little Rock. He is a 2011 baccalaureate graduate of Cragdon University, holds a
02:17: Master of Catholic Philosophical Studies and a Master of Divinity from Saint Maynard Maynard Seminary, as well as a
02:24: Bachelor of Sacred Theology from Pontifical Saint Anselmo. He was ordained a priest of the
02:29: Diocese of Little Rock in 2017 and has been pastor of Sacred Heart in Moralton and Saint Elizabeth in Apollo for the past two years.
02:36: He is currently working towards a license in Sacred Theology from Mundelein Seminary and the
02:45: University of Saint Mary of the Lake. Welcome these wonderful pastors to the stage. Thank you.
02:59: And the participants would also like to thank all who made this evening possible, including the staff at the Rialto Jones Security Services, which
03:06: I mentioned earlier, the Conway County Sheriff's Office, Moralton Police Department, the administration of University of Arkansas Community College at Moralton, who facilitated the search for a moderator, as well as Mr.
03:17: Dalton Tyner, who served as the moderator pro temp for the last few weeks.
03:24: And the pastors would also like to encourage you to consider making donations to the
03:30: Moralton -based charities, Abundant Life and the Conway County Care Center.
03:37: The participants have agreed on a common code of conduct. Neither one shall directly address the other.
03:43: All comments shall be made to the chair with the title, Mr. Moderator. Neither one shall interrupt the other when it is not his turn to speak.
03:50: Neither one may make ad hominem remarks, that is, comments that are against the good character or the good intentions of the other side.
03:58: They have mutually agreed to call each other Pastor Nelson and Pastor Hart. The first section will be the opening remarks.
04:08: Each side will make opening remarks of up to 15 minutes in length. And before the debate, they agreed that because Pastor Hart will be going second, he may have the ability to reduce his time and save one extra minute for his closing remarks.
04:26: The rebuttals. The rebuttals at the rebuttals. The rebuttals, yes, immediately after.
04:32: Oh, that that'll be the second portion of the debate. So one minute less here.
04:38: One minute more there. A little bit of grace period. We're all going to be nice to each other. And now, sorry about that.
04:52: And now we will listen to Pastor Nelson's opening remarks. Thank you,
05:08: Mr. Moderator. I want to establish up front tonight that there will be two different gospels presented on this stage.
05:17: Both will use similar words, grace, faith, justification. Both will talk about Jesus, but the two gospels you will hear will have very different definitions of these terms.
05:29: We are essentially using two different dictionaries. Even in the first century, there were those wanting to distort the gospel.
05:36: So Paul writes in Galatians 1 .9, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
05:43: That word for accursed, Paul uses, is the Greek word anathema. It just means delivered up to the judicial wrath of God.
05:52: And so you need to know tonight that the positions put forward on this stage are irreconcilable. That is, they both cannot both be right, okay?
06:01: According to scripture, one of them is going to result in being under God's wrath for all eternity.
06:07: This is a quite serious matter. Mr. Moderator, this is why I'm here tonight.
06:12: I'm not here to win an argument. I'm here for the sake of this community, for the sake of souls, for the sake of all those who will listen to this debate.
06:19: I want, even up front, to show my love for Roman Catholic friends and neighbors.
06:25: I am simply here to present the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 143 verse 2,
06:31: David says, enter not into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.
06:38: And this is because David, a man after God's own heart, understands God's standard of righteousness.
06:44: David was a recipient of God's grace, but he understands if he's judged upon his own deeds and on his own merits, he's going to fail
06:53: God's standard. Romans 3 .10 says it this way, none is righteous, no not one.
06:59: So now the question becomes, how can we be justified in God's sight? And this brings us to the heart of the divide between the gospel of Christ and the teachings of Rome.
07:08: Being justified simply means just as if I, do you get that, just as if I'd always obeyed God perfectly.
07:15: And the question is, how do I get to the point where God says I've met that standard? Do I meet it through a process myself of cooperation with the grace of God?
07:25: Or is my condition such that I need God to judicially declare me righteous based solely on the finished work of Christ alone?
07:34: To be clear, the holiness of God demands personal, perpetual, and precise perfection to his law.
07:42: No slight, no faltering in any way, not an ounce, not one blessed ounce of misplaced motivation, bad attitude, bad actions, one slip up, won't do.
07:55: So to understand our predicament rightly, you need to understand God's holy law. Are we going to relax
08:01: God's law to let people get in on imperfect merit? Or are we going to uphold
08:06: God's law? And the only way in is if someone else meets it standard for us. James chapter two, verse 10 says, whoever keeps the whole law, but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.
08:19: Failing in one point, guilty of all of it. So any who have failed the law at a single point, even the smallest of sins is guilty of the entire law and is condemned.
08:30: So in this regard, to tell a white lie incurs as much guilt as adultery in terms of condemnation before a holy
08:39: God. This is God's perfect standard. Now, Mr. Moderator, I'm going to share with you the official teaching of Rome.
08:47: I understand that there'll be some in here, they may not personally affirm these teachings, but this is the official
08:52: Roman Catholic doctrine. So Rome says, paragraph 2010 in the Catholic Catechism, that God gives man initial grace, the initial grace of justification.
09:02: But then by this, we can merit for ourselves and others, the graces needed for the attainment of eternal life.
09:08: We can merit graces. Listen to that carefully. Okay? So to merit something, friends,
09:13: Mr. Moderator, it's not grace. If you give me a million dollars for cleaning your house, well, that's quite generous.
09:21: Guess what? I still earned it because I cleaned your house. Or the Council of Trent, session six, paragraph 16 says, life eternal is to be proposed to those working well until the end.
09:32: Or the Catholic Catechism, number 2068 says, all men may attain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments.
09:42: Now back to man's guilt. Rome puts forth a false gospel that says, here is grace.
09:49: Here is initial justification. But you must cooperate with this grace. You must keep it up.
09:55: Yet no man can meet God's standard through the law. That is, the commandments that Rome says that we can keep to attain salvation, you can do it.
10:04: So Trent, session six, canon 14 says, if anyone says that by faith alone, absolution and justification are effected, let him be anathema.
10:13: Same word we heard from Galatians 2 .16. What is Rome saying? They're saying it's not faith alone that brings you peace with God.
10:21: Your continued and final justification depends on you working with God and in obedience to Rome.
10:29: One must work well to the end. Well, Mr. Moderator, I would ask us to ask ourselves, how do
10:35: I know if I'm working well to the end? Is my priest supposed to tell me? And if my working well must meet
10:41: God's perfect standard of obedience, how can I ever have peace with God? I cannot.
10:48: This is, frankly, a hopeless hamster wheel. You will not and you cannot meet this standard.
10:55: The standard is, again, personal, precise, perpetual perfection to God's law. So what
11:01: Rome does is place you back into the Garden of Eden. Your slate is temporarily wiped clean.
11:06: You're now back in the place of Adam. Rome offers you a do -over. Original sin is erased.
11:12: But now salvation hinges on your lifelong participation in a man -made religious system containing sacraments, penance,
11:21: Mary, the saints, popes, priests, and then, of course, the catch -all of purgatory to get you finally ready for heaven.
11:27: And in all of this, Rome says in Trent, session six, paragraph nine, no one can know with a certainty that he has obtained the grace of God.
11:35: Mr. Moderator, instead of magnifying the glory of Christ, Rome's system turns the eyes upon human effort, sacramental rituals, a sacerdotal priesthood, even the idolatrous practices, frankly, of worshiping wafers and prayers to Mary.
11:52: One can go to mass every single day of his life and never meet God's standard. In fact, going to mass only puts you further away from God's standard.
12:03: This directly contradicts the Bible, which says, friends, in Galatians 2 .16,
12:10: yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
12:16: So we also have believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.
12:28: What Rome has put in the place of the Mosaic law bears the same exact point that Paul is making in that text.
12:36: They are affirming true things about Christ while adding man -made, invented works to attach to the gospel, thereby altering it.
12:45: One percent poison in your coffee is enough to kill you, and Rome has gone far above that in adding to the gospel.
12:53: Thus, this hopeless gospel is a false gospel, and Rome's gospel, according to Paul, is anathema.
13:00: It's not the gospel of the New Testament. And this is why I'm here tonight. I got a list long enough of people that don't like me.
13:07: I'm not here to make that list go longer. I'm here to shine forth light in the darkness. I'm here to say,
13:13: Mr. Moderator, that there is a way out. There is freedom. Nobody has to be enslaved to the papacy.
13:19: But what is this way out? It is the biblical gospel. Romans 4 .4 -8 says this, now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.
13:31: And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
13:38: Just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart from works, blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered, blessed is a man against whom the
13:49: Lord will not count his sin. Mr. Moderator, this passage teaches that all of our lawless deeds, past, present, future, can be covered.
14:00: The Lord is willing to not count our sins against us. The biblical gospel then can simply be summarized in one word, one word,
14:09: Christ, Christ, not Christ plus, but Christ alone.
14:15: All things necessary for man's salvation are in Jesus Christ. Colossians 1 .30
14:21: says, Christ Jesus became to us wisdom from God, righteousness, and sanctification and redemption.
14:27: The command and promise of God's perfect law is this, you do this and you will live. If you disobey at any point, thought, deed, attitude, motivation, action, you will die.
14:37: And your punishment, hell. Rome says, do your part in cooperating with God in this religious system and attain eternal life, but you'll never be sure about it until you die.
14:48: And if you die in the state of grace, and that's an internally significant if, if you die in the state of grace, well, you'll go to heaven after purgatory.
14:59: Mr. Moderator, I wonder who would want to hinge their eternity upon that word if, but here's the biblical gospel.
15:05: Jesus Christ has done it all. God sent forth his son born of the Virgin Mary and born under the law.
15:12: Jesus fulfilled perfect, personal, precise, obedience, perpetual to the law of God.
15:18: Then he went to the cross, not merely as a victim, but as Isaiah 53 shows us a willing substitute for sinners.
15:25: So the question, how can a righteous God not impute our sins to us? Because they were imputed to Christ.
15:33: He bore our sins, all of them in his body on the tree as our substitute.
15:39: And the wrath of God is propitiated by his death. He cries with his final breath.
15:45: John 19, 30 says it is finished. And in Romans 4, 25,
15:50: Paul says that Jesus was raised for our justification. That is, it is his resurrection from the dead that secures our justification, not his being represented in the
16:02: Eucharist, which is a falsehood. And so to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
16:13: The righteousness of Christ then is not infused into our souls. Rather, it's legally credited to our account.
16:20: It's imputed to our crown by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And Mr.
16:25: Moderator, one must be in Christ to go to heaven. And those who receive him by this way, grace alone, through faith alone, in his finished work alone, rejecting man -made systems, are in indissoluble union with Christ forever.
16:42: Their whole salvation is wrapped up in Christ. God requires perfection by his holy standard.
16:49: I cannot give this, but Mr. Moderator, hear the good news. What God has required,
16:55: Christ alone has accomplished. When sinners put their faith in Christ alone, they are forever and completely, legally credited with the 100 % obedience of Jesus as their whole and only righteousness.
17:11: Forgiven of all sins, past, present, and future by Christ's sufficient work. In Rome's system,
17:17: Christ is necessary but not sufficient. Grace is necessary but not sufficient.
17:22: Paragraph 1996 of the Catholic Catechism says grace is a help.
17:28: I need more than a help because I'm not sick. I'm dead. The cooperative works of man become necessary in the
17:35: Roman system to secure dying in a state of grace. In the papal system, for example, one person is baptized, cooperates with grace, performs works, merits heaven.
17:47: Another person, baptized, they fail to cooperate and they go to hell. What is the final determining factor?
17:54: It's not grace and it's not Christ. It's human works. It's not Christ's sufficiency or grace's efficacy.
18:01: This is not the biblical gospel that points us to the sufficient work of Christ, whereby by his life, death, burial, and resurrection alone, we have peace with God by trusting him.
18:12: Romans 5, 1. This is why Rome will say in Trent, session 6, chapter 11, no one ought to flatter himself up with faith alone, fancying that by faith alone he is made an heir.
18:25: They're wrong because the Bible says in Romans 3, 28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
18:34: The Roman Catholic Church denies the gospel. God declares believers forever and completely justified based on the finished work of Christ alone.
18:52: That standard is hanging above every person's head. Every person, whether they've heard of Christ or not, every person's head, the standard is you must keep this law perfectly.
19:06: And the answer is God has done it in Christ. Mr. Moderator, I would ask us, are we looking tonight for wages or grace?
19:19: You see, the Bible says in Romans 6, 23, that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our
19:35: Lord. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you. The second section of tonight's debate.
19:41: Oh, thank you. And now Mr. Hart, or I should say Pastor Hart, as the party against the resolution makes his opening remarks up to 15 minutes, perhaps reserving one minute for the next portion.
19:53: He is reading from a prepared script and may not yet respond directly to Pastor Nelson's opening remarks.
20:00: Praised be Jesus Christ now and forever. Mr. Moderator, I'd like to express my thanks to all who made this evening possible, including
20:07: Pastor Nelson for accepting my invitation to this debate. It started on April 21st, the day
20:13: Pope Francis died. I received a snapshot of his Facebook post from a parishioner who was very upset by it.
20:20: And I advised the parishioner not to engage with it, but to offer a prayer for him instead. Later that day,
20:27: I sent the snapshot to a non -parishioner acquaintance of mine. But in listening to this acquaintance, who then explained that they once knew
20:36: Pastor Nelson very well, suddenly I had a mental image of this very occasion, an image
20:41: I could not shake. Anyone who is in leadership knows that before they cast the die in the public forum, as I did two days later, they must answer three questions.
20:53: Does this need saying? Does this need saying now? Does this need saying by me? I found myself saying yes to all three.
21:02: Before April, I never knew of Pastor Nelson, but in this last month, I have had people stop me in the store, at the gym, and on street corners.
21:09: I have received emails and letters from near and far. They do know him, they told me, some even since he was a child.
21:16: And so they have seen the way that he has grown and changed over the years. I'd like to repeat what
21:22: I mentioned on Facebook last month. I respect that Pastor Nelson has a conscience and the determination to speak his convictions.
21:29: Still, I find him incorrect on the resolution that the Catholic Church supposedly denies the gospel.
21:36: Mr. Moderator, in a criminal case, the prosecution, not the defense, has the burden of proof. Same with the plaintiff, not the defense in a civil case.
21:45: In tonight's debate, Pastor Nelson, as the party for the resolution, will have the burden of proof, and it's a whopper.
21:51: He has an hour and a half to do three things. Sorry, lost my place. First, he must tell us what the essence of the gospel is, and I have no doubt he will represent himself well.
22:03: Anyone who spends time in the pulpit weekly, as he does, or who preaches in the public square with a bullhorn, will have no sweat expressing just what they think.
22:12: Although there will be differences, I anticipate that the Catholic Church preaches many of the same things that he would.
22:17: That God created everything out of nothing, and that he created it good. That God created humanity very good, and in his own image, that is, with intellect and free will.
22:27: That through its sin, humanity fell from right relationship with God. That God did not wish humanity to leave humanity outside of right relationship with him, but revealed himself by a series of loving covenants to his chosen earthly people, the
22:41: Jews. That in the fullness of time, God himself, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us, our incarnate
22:48: Lord Jesus Christ. He who fulfilled all the prophecies and ancient types of the
22:53: Jewish covenants. That at the apex of his life, through his passion and resurrection,
22:59: Christ Jesus inaugurated a new and eternal covenant for the remission of our sins, for our restoration to the
23:05: Father's grace, and for new life by his Spirit. In a word, the gospel is that in Jesus Christ, God has visited his people, redeemed them, and leads them to salvation.
23:18: This is the heart of the gospel, and the Catholic Church does not deny it, but is proud to proclaim it.
23:24: Still, carrying the burden of proof, Pastor Nelson must do more than just tell us of the gospel.
23:30: He must do two more things, and they will be much more difficult. The second is that he must successfully demonstrate that his interpretation of the gospel is the only right one.
23:40: After all, he stated on Facebook that, quote, a partial gospel is not a gospel, unquote. And so he will abide no disagreement among Christians as to how
23:50: Christ redeemed and saves us. It's all or nothing. That is a heavy burden of proof indeed.
23:57: But he still must do a third thing. To prove that the Catholic Church denies the gospel, he must also demonstrate successfully that he is correctly interpreting
24:05: Catholic teaching. I am particularly pessimistic on that last point, Mr. Moderator.
24:10: You see, in his fervor to preach, Pastor Nelson has hardly let a comment on Facebook go by without feeling the need to respond.
24:18: And so even a cursory glance of some of his comments and videos shows that our audience need not hope to get a good education on Catholic teaching from him.
24:27: I do not want to use all of my time, but I will offer a few highlights, and I will note for the audience's benefit that any time
24:33: I am quoting him, I am supplying you with photographic evidence. In his April 25th apology video on his personal and publicly accessible
24:41: Facebook page at 5 minutes 40 seconds, Pastor Nelson states that it's possible that Pope Francis might have been spared from hell if he had repented, as Pastor Nelson sees it, by putting his faith in Christ and not, quote, not faith in Rome and not faith in Mary and not faith in the saints, unquote.
24:59: I'm not sure what he's referring to here, but it cannot be Catholic teaching. In several
25:05: Facebook quotes, posts, he quotes the texts of the Catholic Church's Council of Trent as his rationale for why the church supposedly rejects the gospel.
25:14: But can he here produce a relevant passage of Catholic teaching on this supposed faith in Rome, faith in Mary, faith in the saints?
25:22: He cannot, for no such teaching exists. In fact, in her catechism, the church makes clear that God alone is the object of faith.
25:31: Yes, there is the communion of saints and the honoring of saints, which Catholics hold together with all of the other ancient and apostolic churches, and even some
25:40: Protestant communions as well, but neither the Catholic Church nor any of these others place their faith in Mary or the other saints.
25:49: As for faith in Rome, I would wager he means the teaching authority of the church, but this gets us to another error earlier in the same video at exactly the four -minute mark, when he states that Catholics, quote, put the authority of the church on equal plane with the scriptures, unquote.
26:06: This common accusation of anti -Catholic rhetoric is false. In its dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, the church states that while the task of authentically interpreting the word of God belongs to the church's teaching authority, it also states that, quote, this teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, unquote.
26:28: I will offer a few more. On Facebook, he stated that the Catholic Church thinks that mortal or deadly sin is greater than Christ's atonement.
26:36: Wrong again. Calvinists believe that Christ only redeemed those he will save, and because the saved cannot resist
26:43: God's grace, those covered by Christ's atonement cannot be in mortal or deadly sin.
26:49: Catholics hold a view of atonement in which Christ died for all mankind, whether or not they will be saved.
26:56: By his grace, we can be in right relationship with him, but we still have the freedom to move out of relationship with him, just like with other relationships in our lives.
27:06: We are not robots that God makes do evil things, like in Calvinism. On another topic, he also falsely stated repeatedly that the
27:16: Catholic Church denies the headship of Christ in his body and bride, the church. Another unforced error.
27:22: Mr. Moderator, these are just a few examples of Pastor Nelson's erroneous understandings of Catholic teaching.
27:27: If he cannot grasp correctly Catholic teaching, how will he be able to say that the
27:32: Catholic Church rejects the gospel? It's a problem. In fact, however
27:38: Pastor Nelson might identify, I anticipate this evening that we will have from him many of the usual issues of fundamentalist methodologies.
27:46: There will be text, but will there be context? There will be quotations, but will they be set against their proper background, or will they be cherry -picked to make us gasp and clutch our pearls?
27:58: I certainly couldn't fault him for quoting Scripture or quoting the Catechism or quoting certain theologians, for I am prepared to do the same.
28:05: But while he will presumably have a good command of the Scriptures, will he have the same command of Catholic teaching, not just seeing the pieces but the integral whole, seeing not just the trees but the forest?
28:18: Whether it's the communion of saints, the Catholic doctrine of justification, the magisterium, the papacy, and more, will he interpret correctly?
28:26: This question of interpretation, Mr. Moderator, gets us back to the second thing Pastor Nelson must do this evening, which is to show that his interpretation of the gospel is the only one.
28:36: How do we know this? In one of his first replies to me on Facebook on April 23rd, he said, quote,
28:42: Friend, don't pick a fight that you're unwilling to finish. You deny the gospel because you deny salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, unquote.
28:53: Here we see what Pastor Nelson holds as the gospel, salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.
29:01: That's a lot of alones, but the important point here is not just that we catch a glimpse of his position, but also we can see that for him, anyone who does not hold to these alones, exactly as he does, is a gospel denier.
29:17: Pastor Nelson points to scripture itself as the reason for this. He is a proponent of the plain meaning interpretation of the
29:23: Bible. Scripture, he said on Facebook, is, quote, crystal clear, self -authenticating.
29:31: Mr. Moderator, if the meaning of scripture was always plain, as Luther inventively held, crystal clear and self -authenticating, we wouldn't have tens of thousands of Protestant denominations today.
29:44: Luther would never have had a beef in the mid -1520s with that Swiss upstart Zwingli, who was interpreting scripture differently and beginning to steal his limelight.
29:53: The two men meeting at Marburg in 1529 would have never left annoyed with each other that they couldn't agree on the
30:00: Lord's Supper. The first generation Lutherans would never have persecuted the Anabaptists. Calvin would never have disagreed with Luther and Zwingli on several topics.
30:09: The major Lutheran and Calvinist theologians of the early 1600s wouldn't have disagreed on the extra
30:15: Calvinisticum, an important question in Protestant theology on how Jesus is present in creation.
30:23: That's just the first hundred years. I could go on. You don't need to be a student of history to know this.
30:31: Anyone who has undergone the pain of seeing a church congregation split in two over the interpretation of scripture is aware that the meaning is not always plain.
30:43: It is no surprise that the question of justification, how we are saved by grace in Jesus Christ, is not an area of total agreement among Christian denominations.
30:53: My purpose this evening is not to convince our audience of the Catholic position on justification.
30:59: My responsibility is to deflect Pastor Nelson's championing the idea that the church denies the gospel.
31:05: Can he quote scripture? So can I. Can he make quotations, appeals to theologians, and more?
31:11: So can I. I cannot stress enough to our listeners how immense Pastor Nelson's burden of proof is.
31:18: I do not need to prove definitively the Catholic position. I only need to show that, one, doubts can be cast upon his understanding of the gospel's essence.
31:27: Two, that he probably does not know Catholicism so well as he thinks he does, and certainly not enough to be able to dismiss it as gospel denying.
31:35: With that, Mr. Moderator, I conclude my opening remarks and cede my time back to the chair. Thank you.
31:41: At 11 minutes and 40 seconds, the second portion of our debate will be the rebuttals.
31:49: The rebuttals will be up to 10 minutes in length. Pastor Nelson, as the party for the resolution, speaks first.
31:58: Thank you, Mr. Moderator, and I would extend my thanks to Pastor Hart. I am not sure how many
32:05: Bible verses were quoted in that, but I don't think it was many, if any. Just a simple man from south of the river, and forgive me for my lack of intellect, but when
32:17: I read things like this, every grace granted to men has three successive steps.
32:22: By God, it is communicated to Christ. From Christ, it passes to the Virgin, and from the Virgin, it descends to us.
32:29: That's Pope Leo XIII. The Catholic Church is always and with justice, but all her hope and trust in the mother of God, she who is associated with him in the work of man's salvation, has favor and power with her son greater than any other human or angelic creature has ever obtained or even can obtain.
32:49: That's also from Pope Leo XIII. On one hand, Mary is all -powerful with her divine son, who grants all graces to mankind through her.
32:58: On the other hand, she is by nature so good and so merciful that inclined to aid spontaneously those who suffer.
33:04: She's absolutely incapable of refusing her help to those who invoke her. That's from Pope Benedict XVI.
33:13: Yes, just a simple man reading those things. Mr. Moderator, surely you could understand how
33:21: I might be inclined to think that the Roman religion is idolatrous.
33:27: I have no problem going to the scriptures, and I'm going to Romans chapter 3 if you want to turn there in your
33:32: Bibles, but I will say this. The difference between Rome and the biblical gospel is that Rome has canonized heresy.
33:44: I'm willing to understand that there are people out there who don't understand everything that they believe.
33:49: They don't understand the fullness, but Rome has put it in writing, their rejection of the gospel.
33:56: Yes, they affirm creation. So does Mormonism. So does Jehovah's Witnesses. But neither of those, along with Roman Catholicism, do we put in the camp of the one holy apostolic
34:07: Catholic church. They've abandoned Christianity. So we'll turn for a minute to Romans chapter 3.
34:14: I'm not going to apologize that I go to the Bible. Romans chapter 3, well,
34:19: I mean, I don't know. I want to make a comment about Facebook, but I'm not. Romans chapter 3, verse 23.
34:27: For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom
34:37: God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show
34:42: God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance, He passed over former sins.
34:49: That word in the text justified grammatically there. It's a present passive participle. The key being passive.
34:55: Passive, you understand. Not something you do, something done to you. And it's a legal term. It's a courtroom word.
35:00: You are declared righteous. You don't make yourself righteous. So imagine you're in a courtroom and the judge pronounces you not guilty.
35:09: That's a legal declaration. It's final. It's objective. You don't become more not guilty over time.
35:16: You are simply declared not guilty. Case closed. And Paul says this declaration in the text is a gift.
35:22: Why is it a gift? Because you cannot earn it, nor can you increase it. It is a legal declaration applied to you based on the complete and finished work of Christ alone.
35:33: But Rome teaches otherwise. Yes, I quote the Council of Trent. Why? Because the Council of Trent is official
35:40: Roman doctrine. The Council of Trent, Session 6, Paragraph 10. Through the observance of the commandments of God and of the church, faith cooperating with good works, the justified increase in that justice which they have received and are still further justified.
36:00: Mr. Moderator, this is anti -gospel. And I'll give you two main reasons why. But first, you need to listen very carefully.
36:06: The Roman Catholic Church does not deny faith. I've never said that they did. They do believe in faith. They do believe in grace.
36:13: I said that in my opening statement. What they don't believe in is a sufficient grace, nor do they believe in faith alone.
36:19: Their teaching redefines justification because justification in Scripture is not an inward change.
36:26: It is a once -for -all declaration of righteousness based on Christ's merit, not mine.
36:32: That's why Romans 5, 1 says it this way. We, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.
36:40: Peace. It doesn't say we hope to be justified. It doesn't say we're gradually justified.
36:45: It says we have been justified and we have glorious gospel peace with God as a result.
36:51: It's only by what Christ has done and not me. So Rome confuses, and this is in their official teaching.
36:57: Even a simple Arkansan can understand it. They confuse justification with sanctification.
37:03: But biblically, sanctification flows from justification. It doesn't contribute to your justification, because if justification can be increased, then it's never complete.
37:14: And if it's not complete, then you haven't met God's standard. And if you haven't met God's standard, he's unjust and you lose the gospel.
37:21: If you can be more justified, then you were never fully justified to begin with.
37:27: So again, it lowers God's standard. That's the second reason. Rome essentially teaches, do your best, cooperate with grace, keep the commandments, and you'll make it as long as you don't commit mortal sin.
37:39: But you'll probably make it. That's a very similar system as Mormonism. And that's why
37:44: I lovingly say again, to make myself clear, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses are outside the
37:51: Christian faith because they deny the gospel of grace. You understand that the standard of God's law is not how sincere you are.
37:59: The standard of God's law is perfection. If God allows for your sins and imperfection to pass as perfect righteousness, he's unholy, he ceases to be
38:08: God, we're undone. If a person, think about this in your minds, if a person can increase in justice, as Trent says, the official
38:16: Catholic doctrine teaches, if you can be further justified, then at this point, you haven't met
38:22: God's standard because God's standard is perfection. You're not yet justified. And this is why our only recourse and hope is
38:29: Christ Jesus, that his righteousness would be credited to our account by grace alone through faith alone.
38:36: This is the only way. A child can understand it. A third issue I'll just mention this is
38:41: Rome has an improper view of sin. Okay, Rome teaches that mortal sin causes the loss of justifying grace.
38:50: The Catechism, 1861, says, by the way, you say, I don't understand. I don't understand. Okay, Mr. Moderator, I'm just quoting from the official teaching.
38:58: If mortal sin is not redeemed by repentance and God's forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ's kingdom and the eternal death of hell.
39:08: And then, paragraph 1863 says, even venial sins dispose us little by little toward mortal sin.
39:15: So here's the problem. Mr. Moderator, if justification can be lost, then
39:21: Christ's work is not sufficient. Mortal sin comes in. Here's the blood of Christ. It's been applied to you.
39:27: You've been justified. Mortal sin comes in and wipes it away. It says sin speaks a better word than Calvary because now the real determining factor isn't what
39:37: Christ has done. It's what I have done and whether I have managed to avoid sin well enough or do enough to recover grace.
39:47: But Romans 8 .1 says, there is now, therefore, no condemnation.
39:53: Zero, zip, zilch, nada. For those who are in Christ Jesus, the
40:04: Roman Catholic system would have you believe that you're no condemnation. There's condemnation, no condemnation.
40:11: There's condemnation. To me, it reminds me in my simple mind of the hokey pokey. You're in over here.
40:16: You're out over here. You're in over here. You're out over here. Condemnation, no condemnation. This is not the gospel,
40:22: Mr. Moderator. The gospel gives us sufficient work in Christ.
40:31: Good enough to save your unworthy soul and mind from the just condemnation of a holy
40:43: God. You may think he's being mean.
40:50: You know what would mean would be? Mean would be a doctor. You go to the doctor.
40:58: He knows you have cancer. He says to you, you're great.
41:05: Go on. Enjoy your life. We would all agree that's a terrible doctor.
41:11: I'm not here to tell you that you have a great life. Go on and enjoy it. I'm here to tell you that if you're trusting in the arm of the flesh, if you're trusting in the made up man -made system that Rome has built, and by the way, codified in 1546, you have no hope of Christ.
41:35: And you can quote me that on Facebook. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you.
41:41: And now Pastor Hart, the party against the resolution gives his rebuttal up to 11 minutes in length.
41:48: Pastor Nelson has attempted to educate us on the Catholic understanding of cooperation. He has attended to the decree on justification and some of its canons, but if he had also attended to canons one and two, he would see that his description of cooperation is
42:04: Pelagianism, which the church immediately in its canons and even at the beginning of the decree condemns.
42:11: When James in chapter two, verse 10 is talking about those guilty of infractions against the law, he's talking about the
42:20: Mosaic law. He is not talking about faith working through love. At the heart of the
42:26: Calvinist and Catholic disagreements on justification, Mr. Moderator, is a different understanding of anthropology, human nature, in light of the fall of Adam and Eve and the condition of original sin.
42:37: By sinning, says Calvin, humanity did not just lose its state of original justice or right relationship with God.
42:43: It lost the image of God completely, book two, chapter 1 .5. As such, there is no goodness at all left in man.
42:52: Our nature, quote, our nature is not only destitute and empty of good, but so fertile and fruitful of every evil that it cannot be idle.
43:00: The whole of man is of himself, nothing but concupiscence, book two, chapter 1 .9. For that reason,
43:06: God does not even, quote, recognize as his own handiwork, men defiled and corrupted by sin, book two, chapter 6 .1.
43:15: Additionally, Calvin thinks original sin is not an inherited condition of being out of right relationship with God.
43:22: Original sin is one's own personal guilt. Quote, even infants, he states, even though the fruits of their iniquity have not yet come forth, they have the seed enclosed within them.
43:33: Indeed, their whole nature is a seed of sin. Hence, it can only be hateful and abhorrent to God, book two, chapter 1 .8.
43:42: Even infants are hateful to God, thinks Calvin. From here, Calvin says that the only solution is that God would send his own son as the atonement of his blazing wrath, which we deserve by sin.
43:53: By killing his only begotten son, humanity somehow pacifies God's anger against us.
43:59: Taking on our condition of sin, though we remain sin ourselves, Christ Jesus may cover us with his perfect righteousness.
44:06: This is called forensic righteousness, and Calvin follows Luther here, where God simply declares us righteous before him and legally credits us with God's own,
44:18: Christ's own merit. Luther and Calvin affirm a reading, a certain reading of St.
44:24: Paul in the New Testament, in which all that is necessary for salvation is faith. The key is that humanity is only covered by Christ, but still evil in themselves, no intrinsic transformation.
44:37: True Calvinists delight in mentioning this over and over. The Catholic position is quite different.
44:45: Together with the Jewish tradition, which gave us Genesis, telling us of Adam and Eve's fall, we do not say that humanity was totally corrupted by original sin.
44:54: We lost our state of grace and our right relationship with him, that we did not lose his image in us.
45:00: We remain fundamentally good because God made us good, though we were marred by sin and unable to heal the rift.
45:08: We would indeed have been lost from God forever if he did not intervene. Hence, because God so loved the world, he sent his only begotten son.
45:17: He sent his son because he still loved us, not hated us as Calvin thought, loved us.
45:24: Christ Jesus then does indeed make atonement for our sin, but it is an atonement of perfect human obedience to the will of the
45:32: Father, not an atonement of wrath. An atonement of perfect human obedience to the will of the
45:38: Father, even to the point of shedding his blood and dying on the cross. In doing this,
45:44: Christ Jesus restored by his obedience what Adam ruined through disobedience. This is what
45:49: Paul is talking about in the whole middle section of his letter to the Romans. For all who join him then, he grants them forgiveness of sins by his passion and new life by his resurrection, not simply by covering us, but actually restoring our state of grace.
46:04: In the Catholic view, human nature is not covered over but transformed by grace.
46:10: We are not piles of dung covered by the snow of Christ's righteousness. Christ's grace transforms us and makes us ourselves righteous before the
46:20: Father. This is called intrinsic righteousness or infused righteousness or transformational righteousness.
46:28: Following a different reading of both the Old and the New Testament, the Catholic Church teaches that grace penetrates, purifies, and elevates our nature, washing away our sin, not simply covering it over or not accounting it to us as if God is a celestial accountant or attorney.
46:47: As David says in Psalm 51, his repentance after Bathsheba, thoroughly wash me of my guilt and of my sin, cleanse me.
46:57: Access to the new life that Christ offers does indeed come through the door of faith in him, but we believe as St.
47:03: Paul says in quote, faith working through love. That's in Galatians chapter 4.
47:09: When Paul speaks of works, he is speaking of works of the law, the Mosaic law, as he clearly states in Romans 3 .28.
47:18: He's talking about circumcision, the dietary restrictions, ritual washings, et cetera.
47:24: He is not talking about the works of love that the Lord is naming and commanding in Matthew 25.
47:30: I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. Indeed, those who are lost in Matthew 25 say,
47:40: Lord, when did we not see you? They call him Lord. They have faith, but they did not persevere in love.
47:47: Luther and Calvin following right behind him fundamentally misunderstand what Paul is saying about faith.
47:53: It is not faith cut off from every other virtue, including the virtue of love. Love, capital
48:00: L love, which God who saves us himself is. It is not faith apart from any other
48:06: Christian action, but the whole reality of faith in Christ apart from the necessity of following the
48:13: Mosaic law, which the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 says is no longer obligatory. Paul's preaching then follows what the council taught.
48:23: Again, Luther and Calvin fundamentally misunderstand Paul. Even much of 20th century
48:29: Protestant biblical scholarship came to realize this in something called the new perspective on Paul.
48:36: Paul is talking about the works of the Mosaic law, not the works of love, which the
48:41: Lord himself commands. After all, let's see what Jesus Christ himself has to say on the matter.
48:47: Not all who say to me, Lord, Lord, will inherit the kingdom of God, but only those who do the will of my heavenly father near the end of the sermon on the mount.
48:56: And what is the will of our heavenly father? That we should listen to his son's word. And his son gives us a new commandment, no longer simply to love others as we love ourselves, but to love others as he has loved us.
49:10: This faith must be proved by love. Behold, I am coming soon, Jesus says in Revelation, to repay each man according to his deeds.
49:20: Indeed, faith gives us the truth of Jesus Christ, he who is the way, the truth, and the life.
49:26: But the truth of faith must be followed by love. The apostle John makes this clear in his entire first letter in the
49:32: New Testament. He who says he loves God but hates his brother is a liar, and the truth is not to be found in him.
49:40: Without love, there is no truth, Jesus Christ. Even John's gospel, the entire first section of it is about faith in Christ.
49:49: But the second section is about the charity, the love of Christ. This is shown to us in his washing of the apostle's feet, in his command to love others as he has loved us, and of course, his putting love into action by his passion and glorious resurrection.
50:06: Faith working through love, then, Mr. Moderator, is what the apostle Peter is after in his letters in the
50:12: New Testament. He does not speak of us being covered by Christ's grace or covered by his nature as Luther and Calvin do, but becoming a partaker of the divine nature.
50:24: We are not simply covered, he actually washes us and makes us a partaker in his nature.
50:32: This does not mean that Catholics can earn salvation by love. Salvation is the sheer gift of God's grace.
50:39: The ability to have faith is purely an act of his goodness. Catholics do indeed affirm free will, but we acknowledge that everything begins and ends and is carried the whole way by grace.
50:53: With my remaining time, Mr. Moderator, I'd like to address a belief regarding from Pastor Nelson, which
50:59: I think is the most fanciful of all, when he stated on Facebook that justification by faith alone was the only known
51:05: Christian teaching for 1 ,500 years. Now, if that were true, we would see that the Eastern Orthodox and the
51:12: Oriental Orthodox churches also presume justification by faith alone, but they do not.
51:18: I'm going to go back to the early church, let's skip over the medieval period entirely, and look at what they had to say about not just faith, but love.
51:26: No one questions the necessity of faith. Athanasius, in his book on the incarnation, says that he,
51:34: Jesus, is to come and no longer to be judged, but to judge all, but why each has done in his body, whether good or evil.
51:43: Again, no one questions the necessity of faith, but faith of itself, if it does not persevere in the love that Lord has given us, is dead, as the
51:52: Apostle James says. Or let's go earlier, let's go to Justin the Martyr in 155.
51:59: Each man goes to everlasting punishment or salvation according to the value of his actions. Did he obey the word of the
52:06: Lord to love? Or let's go back even further to two letters near the end of the first century, 1
52:12: Clement and the Epistle of Barnabas. Take heed, beloved, lest his many kindnesses lead to the condemnation of us all.
52:19: For thus it must be, unless we walk worthy of him, and with one mind do these things which are good and well -pleasing in his sight.
52:26: It's what Paul is talking about in 1 Corinthians 9 .21, to work out his salvation with fear and trembling, lest he himself be disqualified.
52:36: Or the Epistle of Barnabas. The Lord will judge the world without respect to persons. Each will receive as he has done.
52:42: If he is righteous, his righteousness will precede him. If he is wicked, the reward of his wickedness is before him.
52:49: It is faith working through love. Mr. Moderator, I return my comments to your chair. Thank you.
52:56: The third section of tonight's debate is indirect questioning. This is akin to a cross -examination of the other participants' remarks, but the questions and responses must be directed to the chair.
53:10: Each participant may ask up to five questions. The questioner has 30 seconds to make his remarks and ask the question.
53:20: The responder has up to 60 seconds to provide an answer. Short, clarifying questions.
53:28: Pastor Nelson, the party for the resolution, will ask the first five questions. Thank you,
53:34: Mr. Moderator. I would ask Mr. Hart for clarification purposes. I am confused and I'm not understanding.
53:42: So, can he answer whether or not he perfectly keeps the Ten Commandments? And if not, how is he meeting
53:49: God's standard of righteousness? Mr. Moderator, what
53:54: I would respond is that this gets back to justification and the idea that being made partakers of the divine nature, we can be in basic right relationship with God, but we can also, like with any relationship, be more or less faithful to it.
54:08: Again, no one denies that this takes place by grace alone, by Christ's merit alone.
54:14: However, of course, I'm a sinner as anybody else is, but the idea that,
54:19: Mr. Moderator, that Christ does not actually make me transformed by his grace,
54:25: I don't understand how that is necessarily the case from the reading of the
54:30: New Testament. Mr.
54:38: Moderator, I appreciate Pastor Hart's answer, and it leads us to this. In the
54:44: Roman Catholic system, is it possible then for anyone in a state of grace to commit a mortal sin?
54:50: And if salvation can be lost by committing a mortal sin, doesn't that mean our standing before God depends not on Christ's finished work, but on our ability to cooperate with him in order to avoid serious sin?
55:02: That would not be grace alone, in my understanding. So that's my question. The Catholic Church does not exactly specify how grace is primary and free will remains, but the
55:15: Tridentine Council, whose decree Pastor Nelson loves to quote, Mr. Moderator, affirms that you cannot do without either one.
55:24: As Calvin himself likes to talk about constantly in the Institutes, we are dealing here with the very mysteries of God's providence.
55:31: So the Church affirms both free will and the necessity and primacy of grace.
55:37: Regarding those then who place themselves like with any relationship from a state of relationship to outside of state of relationship, don't our own human relationships show us some pattern of our relationship to God?
55:51: Isn't that what we say about human fatherhood, that it shows us something about God's divine fatherhood?
55:57: There are analogies indeed to be made between our relationships with each other, which can end by our own free will and our relationship with God.
56:08: Mr. Moderator, I'm not sure that that question was answered. I'll try to rephrase it.
56:13: My apologies. You take, I would ask Mr. Hart or Pastor Hart, forgive me. I would ask Pastor Hart, if there are two
56:21: Roman Catholics baptized into the Church, receiving the initial grace of justification, one perseveres to the end and they go to heaven.
56:31: The other at some point falls into mortal sin and goes to hell.
56:38: What is the determining factor that differentiates between those two? Since it can't be
56:43: Christ, they both received him. Can't be grace, they both received it. What is the determining factor? Grace is not a zero -sum game,
56:50: Mr. Moderator. The Catholic tradition, and it's impossible to go into all the details right now, distinguishes between different kinds of gifts that God gives.
56:58: There are different fruits and ministries, but the same spirit, as St. Paul says. In the same way, then, by the mystery of his providence,
57:05: God gives grace. If we go to heaven, yes, we cooperated, but God gets the credit.
57:10: If we go to hell, it's our own fault. That is the Catholic understanding, as best as I can understand the question and as best as I can explain it.
57:21: I really would extend much appreciation for Pastor Hart putting it that way.
57:27: I think that differentiates our points. Mr. Moderator, I would ask Pastor Hart, Rome teaches in the
57:34: Council of Trance, session six, paragraph nine, that no one can know with a certainty of faith which cannot be subject to error that he has obtained the grace of God.
57:45: Of course, Paul says we've already established since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
57:51: How can someone have peace with God if Rome teaches they cannot know with a certainty of faith that they have obtained the grace of God?
58:00: Mr. Moderator, the answer would get back to the very nature of what faith and hope are, which is trust in the
58:05: Lord's providence. When Trent teaches and condemns, and he's talking about it in chapter nine, and it also says about it in a few canons, it is because Luther had invented a doctrine that was unknown to Christianity before that, the necessity of being certain of one's salvation.
58:23: Hence, the Council of Trent is merely repeating what the entire tradition before it, not just in the
58:29: Latin West, but in the Greek East also held, trust in God. That's what the virtue of hope is.
58:38: Is this question five? Yes. Okay. All right. Mr. Moderator, I would ask
58:44: Pastor Hart, David says in Psalm 32 .1, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
58:52: According to Roman Catholic theology, how was David justified with no baptism, no sacraments, no
58:59: Mary? And if David is justified without baptism, without penance, without the Eucharist, solely by God's grace through faith, then how come the same grace through faith is sufficient for us today, is insufficient for us today, now that Christ has actually finished the work.
59:15: And if I need to restate that, I can, a little clunky there. Mr. Moderator, as I mentioned in my previous comments,
59:23: God first revealed himself by a series of covenants. And so the means that God established for the
59:28: Jewish people were indeed capable, some theologians in the Catholic tradition think that circumcision removed original sin.
59:35: What the church's continual tradition is, is that once Christ came and instituted the seven sacraments, then indeed he has provided us with new means of certainty of salvation.
59:47: Go forth and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So God provides at each stage of salvation for where people are at.
59:57: Christ's merits, because he is God, because he is God, is able to apply his merits both in the future and in the past.
01:00:08: All right. And now Pastor Hart will have five questions. Mr. Moderator, I'm glad that Pastor Nelson has brought up repeatedly the issue of certainty of salvation.
01:00:19: It was a particularly important point for Luther, who was so anxious about his salvation. And Calvin, in better language,
01:00:26: I believe, continues in that same train. I would ask Pastor Nelson if he is certain of his salvation.
01:00:36: I would say absolutely, because 1 John 5, 12, the
01:00:41: Apostle John writes to Christians and says, I write these things, not that you may guess that you have eternal life, not that you may wonder if you have eternal life.
01:00:51: Now you just keep wandering around and doing these things. And if you make it to the end, you have eternal life. He says, I write these things to you so that you may know you have eternal life.
01:01:03: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. The question of certainty of salvation gets to a sticky point in Reformed theology.
01:01:13: Again, my opinion is that Calvin was much more intelligent on anticipating the problems than Luther was. Calvin describes something called evanescent grace.
01:01:21: This is a Calvinist distinction. Evanescent grace is the seeming grace or the disappearing grace that is given to some people who are absolutely certain of their salvation, but in the end fall away.
01:01:34: The problem is that no one can be certain of their salvation about whether it's actual grace or evanescent grace.
01:01:42: And so I would ask Pastor Nelson, how is he not certain that his certainty is just evanescent grace?
01:01:50: I would say that I don't read Calvin. I have read him before.
01:01:56: You're talking about John Calvin? So Hebrews chapter three, verse 12.
01:02:02: I like what Calvin says. I mean, okay. Hebrews 3 .12. Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living
01:02:11: God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it's called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
01:02:16: Granted, sin deceives. Absolutely. You can be deceived, for sure. But God's given us a mechanism.
01:02:22: It's called the local church. Faithful brothers and sisters, faithful elders, the faithful means of grace.
01:02:29: Of course, deception is a reality. Some in this room, I would argue, are deceived, but you can have assurance.
01:02:36: God gives us the means of those assurance through the church, through the preaching of the word. I've probably exceeded my time, maybe, but anyway.
01:02:45: Yeah. Five seconds. Well, yes. Deception is a real thing, but God's given us means in order to be out of those deception and have true gospel assurance.
01:02:55: Thank you. Mr. Moderator, let me quote from Institutes book three, chapter 2 .11.
01:03:01: Experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes affected by almost the same feeling as the elect, so that even in their own judgment, they do not differ in any way from the elect.
01:03:11: Therefore, it is not at all absurd. Now, let me skip down. The Lord, to render them more convicted and inexcusable, steals into their minds to the extent that His goodness may be tasted without the spirit of adoption.
01:03:24: Calvin himself acknowledges that one can never truly be certain. It's only possible that it's just evanescent grace.
01:03:31: But on a different matter, I'd like to ask Pastor Nelson about baptism. Is baptism a man -made thing,
01:03:38: Mr. Moderator, or is it necessary for salvation? Well, baptism, if you're talking about infant baptism, well, that would be a contradiction.
01:03:50: There's no infant baptism in scripture, so that certainly would be made up by men, men made up that.
01:03:57: If you're talking about the ordinance of baptism that the scriptures teach, it's not necessary to justification.
01:04:05: It is a reality that baptism, that those who have come to Christ in faith will show forth their identification with Christ through the immersion of the whole body in water.
01:04:22: It's similar to Roman Catholicism in the sense that Roman Catholicism canonized heresy.
01:04:30: So, someone just steps up and says, I'm not doing that. I'm not getting baptized. Well, that's a big problem.
01:04:35: But there will be many people who have been saved, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, never baptized, who we will see in heaven.
01:04:42: And David's one of those people. Mr. Moderator, I will note that although we see baptism by immersion in the
01:04:51: New Testament, there is no single verse that mandates it must be so. But more to the point, why is it then that the
01:04:57: Lord commands baptism, stating, go forth and baptize all nations, or make disciples of all nations, baptizing them?
01:05:04: That's a participle. Baptism is the entrance then to discipleship. But Calvin and Luther think that it's just by faith and that if necessary, baptism plays no role in it.
01:05:15: Why then does the Lord institute baptism? Well, I would say we have a fundamental disagreement on what a disciple is.
01:05:24: A disciple is someone who's been regenerated by the grace of God and has come to Christ in faith and trusted him.
01:05:30: And the text explicitly says, we're to baptize disciples, not baptize people and their babies.
01:05:36: We're to baptize disciples. That's a Baptist text, right? Like the whole
01:05:42: New Testament. But anyway, the point is that Jesus commands to baptize because baptism identifies with the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
01:05:53: And when we are baptized, we are publicly identifying with what Christ has done, and we are showing forth our allegiance to him.
01:06:01: As Romans 6, we've been baptized into his death. We've been raised to his life. The word baptism, by the way, you can't make it mean sprinkling.
01:06:09: It means immersion. And so yes, of course, every time baptism is used, you should say immersion. You should read immersion, not baptism.
01:06:16: That's actually a transliteration, by the way. Your last question?
01:06:22: Yes, thank you. Mr. Moderator, I would agree with Pastor Nelson that disciples are those who are regenerated, but there is a difference, as he noted, about how is one regenerated?
01:06:33: Is it by faith or is it faith through baptism? After all, Luther held to baptismal regeneration, unlike Pastor Nelson.
01:06:41: If I'm not mistaken, and I could be mistaken, Calvin also allowed for infant baptism. For that reason, then, because they are differing from Pastor Nelson, I would ask him, are
01:06:51: Luther and Calvin gospel deniers? I need to clear something up.
01:07:00: Luther and Calvin have no authority over me, right? I'm going to see them in heaven, but they don't have authority over me.
01:07:06: If Calvin believed this, Luther believed that, okay, great. I'll wear a t -shirt with their face on it, but I mean,
01:07:12: I'm not aligned to their beliefs. Titus chapter 3 says this, verse 5, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the
01:07:28: Holy Spirit. Not baptism. Baptism doesn't regenerate. The Holy Spirit of God regenerates. This is what
01:07:33: Jesus says in John 6, 63. It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all.
01:07:39: No, I do not think Luther and Calvin were gospel deniers because they're confused on this issue of infant baptism.
01:07:45: They'd been long held captive in the darkness of medieval theology, and they were coming out of that, and guess what?
01:07:51: They're Baptists now. Everyone in heaven is a Baptist now. That concludes that minute.
01:08:01: Thank you. Our next section is called the
01:08:06: Steel Man Comments. Now, when I first read this, I did not really understand steel man, but there are several logical fallacies that can be pitfalls for debaters, one of which is a straw man, which is characterizing your opponent's argument as a weaker fake argument that's not really what they mean, and then beating the straw man down.
01:08:31: So, we're not going to do that, I hope. I trust. I mean to say I trust.
01:08:37: And so, the fourth section of tonight's debate is steel man comments, and a participant will discuss what he believes are the best points that the other side has made, and then the debater will explain why he nevertheless still disagrees.
01:08:56: The purpose is to compel each participant to listen charitably to the other and show, which as they have done through this debate thus far, and show the audience that the participants are well -intentioned.
01:09:10: Each participant will have up to five minutes to offer his comments. Pastor Nelson, as the party for the resolution, will speak first.
01:09:21: Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Frankly, I appreciate this debate. I appreciate showing that two men can have opposing sides, and you can have these things, and we're not trying to hurt each other, harm each other.
01:09:33: This is what America—we should be able to have disagreements and live in this together. I'm appreciative of that, but frankly,
01:09:39: Pastor Hart has been all over the place in working through and talking about Calvin and Luther and even
01:09:44: Facebook. I feel like we've gotten way off topic, but if I can, if I can, I'll try to present,
01:09:50: I believe, his argument maybe better than he did, but Pastor Hart's position recognizes the necessity of grace.
01:10:05: Yes, Catholicism is not what we would call Pelagian. Of course, we reject that, so I'm grateful that he acknowledges grace.
01:10:12: I'm grateful that he's not a Pelagian. I'm grateful that he affirms, you heard it earlier, the doctrine of original sin, and that we are sinners in need of grace.
01:10:21: Of course, I would disagree about some of the things he said about the depravity of man. Rome does not believe,
01:10:29: Rome does not believe in justification or salvation separated from grace.
01:10:35: I'm not saying that. I want to be clear, and so let me try to put their argument this way. I understand
01:10:41: Rome's view of grace like a generous benefactor who comes to a poor, devastated town, and he offers every family $5 million to build the house of their dreams.
01:10:55: He offers the contractors and the laborers to assist in the building process. It's all by his benevolence.
01:11:02: Everyone is amazed, and no one who builds a house claims that they've done it or that they've earned the money.
01:11:09: Everyone acknowledges the generosity of the giver, and many begin building, and so this is why the
01:11:17: Catholic Catechism says in 2010, paragraph 2010, no one can merit the initial grace of forgiveness and justification at the beginning of conversion.
01:11:29: I'm quoting that positively. If we were just talking about that one line, well, there's much there that I would 100 % affirm.
01:11:37: Now, I don't like the word initial. I don't like the phrase beginning of conversion. I think it's a bit clunky, but nevertheless,
01:11:44: I, too, would absolutely say no one can merit God's grace.
01:11:50: That's what makes grace grace, and Titus 3, 7 says we are justified by grace, and Rome affirms that we are justified by grace, okay?
01:12:01: They affirm we're justified by grace. They affirm we're justified through faith, but then here's where the deal turns, because they deny that we are justified by grace alone through faith alone, so here is where the deal turns, so I would disagree.
01:12:19: The generous benefactor, back to the analogy, he had some fine print on his deal.
01:12:24: If you don't visit the benefactor weekly, let the hearer understand, you lose the house.
01:12:31: If you disobey any of the town's rules, well, you may lose the house, and in fact, many do lose the house.
01:12:37: Others, they never build at all. They just take the money. They go to Disney World instead. Some start the house, but they don't finish the house.
01:12:44: Some manage to maintain their home until the end, so what is the difference? They all received the same money.
01:12:51: They all received the same resources. They all received the same opportunities, or we might say it this way.
01:12:56: They all received initial grace, but only some cooperated to the end, and in the end, it wasn't grace that kept the house.
01:13:05: It was the people. Grace certainly made it possible, but it was not sufficient to bring it to completion.
01:13:12: Mr. Moderator, that's Rome's system. Grace is necessary, and I'm happy to say and be grateful that they affirm the necessity of grace, but it is not enough.
01:13:23: It's like a spiritual jump start, but the battery only stays charged if you keep it going through sacraments, obedience, penance, and more, and so at the end of the day, the deciding factor is not grace.
01:13:39: It's you, and that's why I must lovingly but firmly say this system obscures the sufficiency of Jesus Christ.
01:13:47: It turns a gift into a contract. It turns good news into a law. I'll give this syllogism.
01:13:54: Major premise, if the ultimate difference between salvation and condemnation is something I do, then grace is not sufficient.
01:14:02: In the Roman Catholic system, the ultimate difference between salvation and condemnation is cooperation with grace, what
01:14:09: I do. Conclusion, therefore, in the Roman Catholic system, grace is not sufficient for salvation.
01:14:17: I thank my opponent for presenting his views sincerely and with conviction, and I hope you'll hear mine in the same. Thank you, and now,
01:14:24: Pastor Hart, as the party against the resolution offers his comments up to five minutes in length.
01:14:32: Mr. Moderator, I think it's important for me to clarify right at the moment that my position this evening is not about laying out the entire
01:14:38: Catholic system and understanding of salvation. The proposition, the resolution before us is whether the
01:14:44: Catholic church is a gospel -denying church. Regarding my use of Facebook at the beginning in my opening remarks,
01:14:51: I was flying blind. I didn't have the opportunity to yet respond to Pastor Nelson's opening remarks, and so all
01:14:58: I could do was basically try to deflect and take up my responsibility and deflect what
01:15:03: I had already seen through the internet. I see two principal things that I particularly appreciate in Pastor Nelson's approach this evening.
01:15:10: One is his use of scripture, which is indeed the living word of God, and which pierces to joint and marrow.
01:15:18: However, when I constructed my remarks, I decided not to make this simply quoting verses back and forth against each other.
01:15:26: If you have two people who are on different branches of a tree, and each one keeps saying, you've got to come over here.
01:15:31: No, you've got to come over here. How is it that they actually get from one to the other? They've got to go back to the point of the fundamental disagreement.
01:15:40: And that's why I have used so much of my time to talk about whether or not, in what way then we are justified in the differences between the
01:15:49: Calvinist and the Catholic system. Another point is regarding Pastor Nelson's seeming confusion of what he calls works in the
01:15:58: Catholic system. We do not call those works. Again, works are things of the sacraments and the communion of saints as gifts of God's grace.
01:16:09: To an outsider, I understand that it might seem confusing, but much in the same way as it's difficult to understand calculus until you've gone through arithmetic or multiplication, it is much the same thing then with many of the things in Catholic Christian life.
01:16:25: Again, as I mentioned at the beginning, I admire Pastor Nelson's convictions.
01:16:31: I am appreciative that he's been very charitable this evening. And to be honest, my mind has been working so quick throughout this whole thing that those were what
01:16:41: I was able to get down and what I'm able to think about at the moment. So I thank him for the many good things that he's offered us tonight.
01:16:48: Thank you. The final section of tonight's principle debate is the concluding remarks.
01:16:55: Each participant has up to 10 minutes to summarize his own arguments. Pastor Nelson, as the party for the resolution, will speak first.
01:17:09: Why do I think that Roman Catholicism trust in works?
01:17:16: Joe Heschmeier, he's a Roman Catholic apologist on Catholic Answers, is a very popular Catholic website, writes, you don't earn justification anyway.
01:17:25: You do have to do things to maintain it and increase it. That's what he said.
01:17:32: And I've quoted several times, maybe to the chagrin of Pastor Hart, the Council of Trent, that says you have to increase your justification.
01:17:41: It's not enough when you get in, you have to increase it. If you don't increase it, there's a chance that you lose it.
01:17:47: You fall away and you're gone forever. Now we haven't gotten to the issue of authority. Maybe that will come up in the
01:17:53: Q &A, but these aren't two monkeys sitting in a tree, one saying, come over here, the other saying, come over here.
01:18:00: I'm the monkey saying, God says, come over here because I have an authority. My authority is what
01:18:05: God has said. The scriptures, that's the authority. So I quote the scriptures because that's better than man's words.
01:18:12: It's God's words. And it says to us what God has revealed about salvation. At the end of the day,
01:18:18: Pastor Hart, he may have this or that view of salvation. I've presented to you tonight, the
01:18:23: Roman Catholic position on salvation and shown to you how this position denies the sufficiency of grace in the life of the believer and therefore denies the gospel.
01:18:35: It's not a gospel that atones for sins fully and perfectly. It's a gospel that you must keep going, going, going.
01:18:42: We haven't even talked about other problems like purgatory, but maybe those things will come up later.
01:18:48: Let me just quote some more scripture. You don't want to hear from me. You want to hear from God. Ephesians 1 7.
01:18:55: In him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace.
01:19:00: Romans 5 19. For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners. So by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.
01:19:09: For God so loved the world, John 3 16, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
01:19:17: Romans 5 9. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
01:19:24: Second Corinthians 5 21. For our sake, he made him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
01:19:33: John 1 12 and 13. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God.
01:19:45: The biblical gospel magnifies the excellencies of the person and work of Jesus Christ.
01:19:52: It is attributed to the grace of God alone by faith alone in Christ alone, reason being so that no ounce of boasting may be in us, and that God would receive all the glory for his work in redeeming unworthy rebels.
01:20:07: One cooperates with God's grace and makes it to the end, and the other doesn't. The one who cooperates looks to the one who doesn't and says, you should have just cooperated like I did.
01:20:16: The glory is in man, not in God. Christ, by the sufficient work of Christ, whereby he obeyed the law of God perfectly, laid down his life as a substitute for sinners, shedding his blood as a wrath satisfying sacrifice.
01:20:33: First Peter 2 24. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree. What's happening on the cross?
01:20:39: God is exhausting his wrath against his people on the sun. The third day he rises again from the dead, and by this work alone we're justified.
01:20:49: We have been declared righteous based on the merits of Christ alone. We have peace with God. There's no more condemnation,
01:20:55: Romans 8 1. The moment a sinner places their faith in Christ, they are holy, completely, and forever justified before God, legally accounted righteous because of the sufficient and perfect work of King Jesus.
01:21:07: Oh, as you've seen him, well, it's kind of shady. I mean, it's just a lot of going around, a lot of just a scattergun approach, but I've tried to maintain consistency here.
01:21:16: Rome obscures this. Rome puts you back in a place that says, do this and you will live, and there is an irreconcilable difference between the gospel of Rome and the gospel of the scriptures.
01:21:28: Hey, but guess what? There's good news, Mr. Moderator. First, I mentioned this. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
01:21:35: Not baptism, but by the word of God. That's Romans 10 17. I'm not here tonight offering a man -made system.
01:21:42: I'm offering Christ. I'm saying to those tonight who have ears to hear, there's a way out of the trap.
01:21:48: Consider more words of God. Isaiah 1 18. Come now, let us reason together, says the
01:21:53: Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
01:22:00: Jeremiah 29 13. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Isaiah 45 22.
01:22:06: Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. Romans 10 13.
01:22:11: For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Acts 16 31. Believe on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
01:22:18: Revelation 22 17. The spirit and the bride say, come, come, and let the one who hears say, come, and let the one who is thirsty come.
01:22:26: Let the one who desires take the water of life without price. Matthew 11 28 says through 30.
01:22:32: Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I'm gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
01:22:40: For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Mark 1 15. The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.
01:22:47: Repent and believe in the gospel. I don't care if I have a microphone, a bullhorn, or Facebook, or if it's in the pulpit.
01:22:54: This is the good news of Jesus Christ, and I give it to you tonight upon the authority of the word of the living
01:22:59: God, that you do not have to be enslaved to any system, whether it's potpourri, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Christian nominalism, whatever the case may be.
01:23:10: I'm not here tonight because I disdain Roman Catholics. I do not. I'm here tonight because I love you, and I am repulsed at the institution of Rome, and I need you to understand tonight that we can hate the false gospel of Rome, even as we love those who are caught up in this unbiblical system, and I would go so far as to say demonically influenced system.
01:23:31: Why? Because Rome shuts the door. Thank you for your kindness.
01:23:38: Rome shuts the door of salvation in the face of billions. I'm not ashamed at all to say
01:23:44: Pope Leo XIV is Antichrist. He doesn't stand for peace, or hope, or love, or unity.
01:23:50: He stands opposed to the blessed gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, but tonight
01:23:56: I proclaim to you what God has said, Hebrews 9, 27, 28, and just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes justice, judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
01:24:12: So I'm saying, Mr. Moderator, that all those within the sound of my voice, which even includes you,
01:24:18: Mr. Moderator, and Pastor Hart, there is a way out of darkness. There's a way out of bondage. There's a way out of this never -ending devious treadmill that is the man -made religion of Roman Catholicism, but that way is only
01:24:30: Christ alone. He is our only suitable and all -sufficient Savior. I'm telling you tonight, standing between you and Christ is no one.
01:24:40: It's not the saints. It's not Mary. It's not a priest. All that separates you and Christ is your unwillingness to trust his mercy.
01:24:49: From his mouth, the Bible says, comes a sharp sword in which he will strike down the nations, and that includes
01:24:56: Marlton, Arkansas, and it includes Perryville, Arkansas. He will crush these places in his fury, but tonight, oh tonight, the mercy of Christ reigns in the free offer of the gospel to poor and needy sinners.
01:25:12: You must cast yourself upon the mercy that you hear, turning from tradition, turning from family pride, turning from trust in yourself, turning from trust in the
01:25:22: Eucharist where you would say you worship a wafer. This is paganism. Turn from these things and turn from the idolatry of Mary.
01:25:31: Turn, my friends, from these things and turn to Christ. He will save you. He will justify you tonight even by his sovereign grace and undeserving mercy.
01:25:42: He is a glorious and wonderful savior. Turn to Jesus, who is King of kings and Lord of lords, finding him the all -sufficiency of your salvation.
01:25:51: I'm not offering you grace to get you started and then you make it to the end. I'm offering you grace that brings you home.
01:26:00: Find in Christ a righteousness that is not yours, but his and the righteousness that he is willing to give to your account that meets
01:26:10: God's perfect standard perfectly. Trust the Holy Spirit's working in your heart even now and yield to Christ.
01:26:17: I came tonight because I believe in the power of the gospel and I know that as many as are appointed to eternal life,
01:26:24: Acts 13, 48, will believe. Maybe not tonight, but God's going to get you. Will it be easy?
01:26:31: Well, depending on how long you've been steeped in a false gospel, it may be difficult.
01:26:37: Maybe you'll lose friends. Maybe you'll lose family. Maybe you'll lose reputation. But I hold out to you the unparalleled joy of salvation and peace with God, not by anything that you can do, but only by Christ.
01:26:53: Receive the gift of salvation by the grace of God alone, through faith in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.
01:27:06: Thank you. And now Pastor Hart, as the party against the resolution, offers his concluding remarks up to 10 minutes in length.
01:27:14: Mr. Moderator, I'd like to begin my concluding remarks this evening by sharing a story. One of my former parishes is in a wonderful small town here in Arkansas, but it's the kind of place where people still gasp if they find out you're a
01:27:26: Catholic. One day, about two years ago, while shopping at the local big box store, I was approached by an elderly man who asked if I was a
01:27:34: Catholic priest. And when I responded that I was, he said, you know you're going to hell for being a Catholic.
01:27:40: Believe it or not, fourth generation Arkansan Catholic here, it was the first time in my life that someone had looked me in the eye and had said anything like that.
01:27:49: I checked my watch and told him, I've only got 10 minutes, but for now you have my undivided attention.
01:27:55: The man began to list his reasons for thinking as he did. Well, I think that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.
01:28:01: So far so good, I said. Oh, well, don't y 'all believe something about Mary? We recognize that Jesus has established a communion of saints and Mary's position in it, but Mary herself has no ability to save us.
01:28:15: Oh, I guess I wasn't aware. Point after point, I was able to show him how he was mistaken in his understanding of Catholic teaching.
01:28:23: Oh, I guess I wasn't aware. Yes, I would add, there's a lot of bad information out there.
01:28:28: And I told him that he should be careful where he gets his information on Catholic teaching from and that it should be from Catholic sources and not anti -Catholic ones.
01:28:37: I have thought about this story often in these last two years, all the more so now in this last month. When I first offered this debate to Pastor Nelson, I was prepared if he didn't accept to offer a presentation called
01:28:48: The Usual Suspects of Anti -Catholic Rhetoric. The most common suspect is disinformation.
01:28:55: Many people who rail against Catholics are not bad people. They are simply misinformed. In fact, many of them act not out of malice, but out of good conscience.
01:29:03: When I spoke with that man in the store, everything happened so fast and my heart was racing. But later on, after reflection,
01:29:09: I recalled that when he approached me, he was not smug or arrogant. On the contrary, he was shaking like a leaf, which means he approached me out of a sense of moral obligation, perhaps concerned that he would have to answer to Jesus Christ at his judgment if he didn't warn that young buck
01:29:25: Catholic priest to abandon his so -called popish ways. I use this story,
01:29:30: Mr. Moderator, as the way to frame my hopes for this evening's debate, and they've been many. Not only have
01:29:35: I hoped that this debate, as an exchange of views, might be educational for our hearers, not only have
01:29:41: I hoped that it might prove a model in our local community for respectful discourse on differences in an age of outrage,
01:29:47: I have also hoped that it may clear the air a bit on Catholic teaching. To the non -Catholics who are listening,
01:29:53: I ask, when it comes to Catholic things, have the humility to ask questions instead of making assumptions.
01:30:00: Six months ago at a wedding, I had a wonderful conversation with a theologically astute young Baptist woman who, instead of making accusations, said she valued the opportunity to learn.
01:30:11: We discussed purgatory. What was eye -opening for both her and for me is that we realized that the difference is not so much one of bandying about different scripture passages, which we could have done this evening, but we got to get to the root.
01:30:23: The fundamental difference is one of imputational forensic righteousness versus intrinsic transformational righteousness.
01:30:30: If one believes in forensic righteousness, purgatory makes no sense. If one believes in intrinsic righteousness, it makes perfect sense.
01:30:38: All this because she had the humility to ask instead of accuse. As such, if you have concerns about Catholic teaching, go to Catholic sources to learn.
01:30:47: Don't go to those who from their youth have been trained to oppose the Catholic Church with all their might, for they cannot think clearly on the topic.
01:30:55: Even if you go to Catholic sources, don't seek guidance from those who from their youth have been trained to oppose the
01:31:01: Catholic Church with all their might, for they cannot think clearly on the topic. Find a knowledgeable Catholic person instead.
01:31:08: There are so many great resources online, and as the local pastor, I am always happy to help answer questions as well.
01:31:15: Another hope I had this evening, Mr. Moderator, pertains to our listeners who are Catholic, and I address them now.
01:31:21: The seriousness of Pastor Nelson's charge must awaken us to take our faith seriously. We Catholics have a tendency, even if we come to weekly
01:31:28: Mass, to just waltz through life with our faith, being one of merely going through the motions, rather than turning to the
01:31:35: Lord with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of our strength. Dear Catholics, wake up.
01:31:42: Stay awake, Jesus says. You know not the day nor the hour. Many people in the Catholic community bristled at Pastor Nelson's original
01:31:49: Facebook post in April, and rightly so, but what good is it to defend the tribe, so to speak, of our local
01:31:55: Catholic Christian community, if we do not value it ourselves, neglecting to pick up our cross daily and follow the
01:32:01: Lord Jesus? Additionally, dear Catholics, we must have thick skin and learn to not go into a rage when people assault the faith.
01:32:10: Don't get mad, get glad. Really, show that it bemuses you, and don't be afraid to ask questions instead of getting on the defense.
01:32:19: You're going to hell for being a Catholic. Oh, really, you might respond. How do you figure?
01:32:26: Questions are disarming because they force the other side to keep producing something. They have to show their knowledge, and from there, you can help guide the conversation and correct errors.
01:32:36: Another hope, Mr. Moderator, is that this evening may have awakened all in our local community to where they are in their faith life.
01:32:43: We know the statistics. Even in a place like Arkansas, faith life was already in decline, but the pandemic of five years ago only accelerated that.
01:32:52: Nevertheless, the desire for God never goes away from the human heart, and I have noted since the COVID rebound that people are spiritually hungry more than ever, and they are searching.
01:33:01: To all hearers, then, where are you in your faith life, and what can I do to help you?
01:33:07: Again, Mr. Moderator, more than anything else, I have hoped that I have helped clear the air a bit on Catholic teaching, and this gets us back to the evening's resolution.
01:33:16: As I said at the beginning, my purpose has not been to convince everyone here of every Catholic teaching. My responsibility has only been simply to show that doubts can be cast on Pastor Nelson's narrow, ultra -Calvinist understanding of the gospel and his quoting of the
01:33:31: New Testament, and to show that he still has much to learn about Catholic teaching, and certainly not a broad enough knowledge to dismiss it as gospel -denying.
01:33:39: This does not mean that I hold anything personally against him. On the contrary, I would hereby like to invite him and a friend of his choosing, alongside a friend of my choosing, to break bread together sometime soon.
01:33:50: Still, much as I admire his conviction, the fact remains, I find him mistaken on the idea that the
01:33:55: Catholic Church denies the gospel, and I do not think that he has sufficiently met his whopper of a burden of proof.
01:34:01: The Catholic Church proclaims the gospel and does not deny it. Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life.
01:34:07: He is the stone rejected by the builders that has become the cornerstone. There is no other name under heaven given to the human race by which we are to be saved.
01:34:17: All who come to him with trust and contrite hearts receive forgiveness of sins and new life by his
01:34:24: Spirit. This is the gospel, and Pastor Nelson has not shown sufficiently that the
01:34:31: Church denies it. Though without malice, I do not find sufficient his representation of Catholic teaching.
01:34:40: The root of this goes back to his understanding of the plain meaning of Scripture. If the meaning of all
01:34:45: Scriptures Banteid about were plain, as he says, then everyone in the world would be Reformed Baptists.
01:34:53: I would also like to point out in my final minutes that his understanding of the gospel excludes not just Catholics, but the
01:35:00: Orthodox Eastern and Oriental Churches, and it excludes most of all
01:35:05: Protestant Communions. If the Catholic Church is indeed a gospel -denying Church, as he purports, and if it's got to be exactly by the way that he interprets those alones, as I said at the beginning, faith alone, grace alone,
01:35:17: Christ alone, to the glory of God alone, etc., then indeed, probably 95 % of Christianity is also gospel denying.
01:35:26: In which case, then, I wonder, Mr. Moderator, why is it that he focuses on Catholics so much to the exclusion of other gospel deniers?
01:35:34: For these and many other reasons, Mr. Moderator, it is clear tonight that Pastor Nelson, despite his good faith efforts, has not succeeded in proving the resolution.
01:35:45: All glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
01:35:54: Amen. I would like to thank both of the pastors who came tonight in a spirit of collegiality, and I would like to thank all of you who came to listen side by side.
01:36:07: I will invite them to shake hands as you offer your applause for the entire event. Thank you.
01:36:15: Our final section of the debate tonight is our question and answer section.
01:36:21: The audience is reminded of a few rules for this section. No question may be an ad hominem attack.
01:36:28: That is, do not attack the good character or the good intention of either participant.
01:36:33: Nor may a question be a cover to sing the praises of one participant or to degrade another.
01:36:42: The purpose of this section is to ask substantive questions that pertain to the points of tonight's debate.
01:36:52: So we will have you line up on, and I think it says on the left side, over here, is this the left side?
01:37:00: It's in front of the person you want to ask the question to. Okay, thank you for clarifying that. I'm not sure which left is the right left.
01:37:07: So please, Nelson, over here, right over here. Yes. If you would like to ask questions to Pastor Nelson, please line up in front of him and someone will receive your question there.
01:37:17: I will offer you a microphone. And if you would like to ask questions of Pastor Hart, please line up here.
01:37:26: I will walk across with the microphone to offer you a microphone. Test, test.
01:37:32: Okay. So I will just bring us back into session now. Each participant will be summarizing their questions to these co -moderators who will be at each end.
01:37:47: Because 30 seconds to ask your question, it's both more time than you think it is and less time than you think it is.
01:37:54: And we do only have 30 minutes for our question and answer session. So think of a good way to put it.
01:38:01: If you'd like to practice it with the co -moderator, that's a good idea. And they will have 60 seconds.
01:38:08: Neither participant may, please, I will, generally the question is directed to the person who will answer it.
01:38:16: There may be some rare cases where the question will be for both or where someone will want to add a brief response.
01:38:23: And I will allow 40 seconds for a brief response. And so let's have about 30 minutes for you guys to add some perspective.
01:38:36: And I should say, okay. Okay. So Pastor Nelson, the party for the resolution shall speak first.
01:38:49: Okay. Thank you, Pastor Nelson for tonight for joining us. I have kind of a twofold question.
01:38:56: In your opening remarks, you spoke about a judge. And then once the judge says you're not guilty, you're kind of good to go after that.
01:39:04: But do you have rededication ceremonies at your church? And if so, what would draw someone to that?
01:39:12: Are they now questioning whether they were guilty or not guilty or not?
01:39:18: And what would be the reason in regards to justification, someone would need to come back and rededicate their life to Christ if they've been good to go since the very beginning?
01:39:28: Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that question. I'll answer it twofold. One is the easiest, we don't believe in rededication.
01:39:34: So that's the easiest way to answer that. But I do understand what you're asking. And so I would say, and I've counseled many people who have come back to church.
01:39:44: And one of the things that happens is either A, and really in central
01:39:49: Arkansas, this is a big problem. They were never converted. They never heard the true gospel.
01:39:55: And so they never believed upon Christ. And so they kind of wonder back in and what needs to happen there is they need to repent and believe the gospel and come to Christ.
01:40:04: And then there, yes, they were, yes. And then there are some who they do wonder, but, but then, you know, all true believers will come back and be repentant.
01:40:16: That's our position. So, you know, but, but we don't believe as far as like, maybe you hear about someone rededicating their life.
01:40:22: We don't, we don't do that. Thank you. And for Pastor Hart. Oh, so Pastor Hart, you said that we agree on this foundational truth on the creation narrative, uh, that God created us in his image and what
01:40:38: God has created is good. And you said, so therefore we are good. So you believe that we are inherently good.
01:40:45: That's what I take that you believe. So I believe this is a gospel issue. If you are inherently good, why do we need the salvation of Christ?
01:40:54: Because Romans 3, 10, 11 says, no one is righteous. No, not one. No one understands and no one seeks for God.
01:41:02: Yes. Thank you, sir, for your question. I would say that this gets back to some of the differences on justification. We, we are indeed made good because God has made us so, and our ability to sin is not greater than God's ability to sustain us in his creation.
01:41:15: And so this also is a difference though in Calvinist systems. In Calvin, the idea of righteousness was something natural to Adam and Eve.
01:41:22: So when they sinned, their sin nature, as oftentimes as used in Calvinism was the fact we would say as Catholics, that their righteousness, even in Eden was a foretaste, a supernatural foretaste.
01:41:34: So the nature of man was not, um, we, we didn't stop being human. But what I would say is, is that we need
01:41:40: God's grace because we were out of right relationship with him. If you and I are in right relationship with each other and I, through my own sin, break off the connection, we have to get back in connection.
01:41:49: Now, the difference here is that in Catholicism or in really in all of Christianity, when it comes to God, only
01:41:55: God can cross that chasm, that divide. So that's the best I can do is if I'm understanding your question correctly.
01:42:01: Thank you. Hi, Pastor Nelson. You said that the gospel is so simple.
01:42:08: A child can understand it, that salvation by grace through faith, not effort, and that the Catholic church preaches a false gospel.
01:42:13: But I want to ask something based on real experience. I grew up seeing people in Baptist churches come forward again and again to be saved, not rededicated.
01:42:21: And they were baptized again, not because they rejected Jesus, but because they didn't really mean it the first time, weren't sincere enough, didn't fully understand the gospel or weren't presented in truth.
01:42:31: If salvation isn't based on works, how can it be done wrong? And if it's by grace, not performance, then why does someone's emotional maturity or clarity determine whether they were truly saved?
01:42:42: Because from where I stand, doesn't sound like assurance. It sounds like the very thing you accuse Catholics of, hinging salvation on performance and outward signs.
01:42:51: Yeah. Thank you for the question. Okay. A couple of things. One, he was mentioned tonight that there are tens of thousands of Protestant denominations.
01:42:58: That is a false claim. Grok it. Okay. That's false. Secondly, to answer your question,
01:43:06: I need to say this, I do not answer to any other church. So as a
01:43:11: Baptist, I believe that, uh, in the, uh, supremacy of one local church, like I'm not accountable to another church.
01:43:19: So if another church does things wrong, well, they shouldn't and they should repent, but that's not on me.
01:43:26: And so I would actually agree with you. I'd be on the same side with you. There's too many churches around here that aren't preaching the gospel.
01:43:34: And then they get people saved or resaved or whatever their theology is. I have no idea, but I'm just telling you, that's not, that's not biblical.
01:43:42: And they're not doing that biblically that's on them. So the problem is not with, uh, the sufficiency of grace or the, or the authority of the scriptures.
01:43:51: The problem is with the sinfulness of man. Uh, I w I would say to what pastor Hart said earlier, that this proves that mankind is depraved and sinful and constantly rejecting
01:44:00: God and trying to do things on their own works at the root. Okay. Sorry. Oh, sorry.
01:44:08: Uh, good evening. Uh, thank you for taking my question. Um, so I, most of my, uh, immediate family, we are, uh, in the
01:44:19: Protestant denomination, but I do have someone very dear to me. My husband's grandmother,
01:44:25: Mimi, she's actually 99 and a half years old, and she has been a dedicated
01:44:30: Roman Catholic her entire life. She would say she was raised Roman Catholic, um, being almost a hundred years old.
01:44:38: And she's, um, she's going to die probably very soon.
01:44:46: And one thing that I've noticed is that she is very anxious about that. Um, from your position, it seems like you can't offer her some assurance.
01:44:54: So how would you, um, counsel a Roman Catholic who feels afraid to die or is unassured of their salvation?
01:45:03: That's a beautiful question. Thank you. I'm very happy to answer that. A lot of times, because of, um, the way that our psychology works, um, especially when it comes to religion and Catholics are oftentimes, uh, falling into this is the idea of scrupulosity, right?
01:45:17: Um, and scrupulosity becomes a functional Pelagianism in which one is having trouble, truly trusting in the
01:45:23: Lord and in his mercy. And so some, some of it also may be given her age is that the brain is beginning to break down at a rapid rate.
01:45:29: And so her ability to maintain emotional control, um, coming from the more command centers of her brain is not as strong as say the deeper parts of her brain that govern emotion.
01:45:39: So we leave that in the Lord's hands. I would encourage you to continue telling her to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ in his mercy and his love through faith, hope, and charity.
01:45:49: And as she keeps having that, um, anxiety, continue assuring her, it may very well not be her fault.
01:45:55: Again, you know, we, we, we lose 2 % of our brain mass every year after 30. So you can imagine at 99, the situation that one's brain is oftentimes with the elderly, it's not their fault.
01:46:06: It's not their fault. But in the rules, am I allowed to respond? No. Yeah.
01:46:12: Yeah. I think, I think only if you invite him to, which I'm fine with. Importantly, if you invite him to. Okay. I don't need 40 seconds.
01:46:19: Just the council of trance says assurance. You can't have assurance and that's your own document.
01:46:26: So I, I'm just saying like you're, you, you're being inconsistent with the official teaching of the
01:46:33: Roman Catholic Church. Address the chair. Pastor Hart's being inconsistent with the Roman Catholic Church doctrine.
01:46:45: What's our next question? People, come on. I'd like to know just what, how you understand
01:46:52: Hebrews 10, 26 to 31, especially verse 29, but you could just comment on it.
01:46:59: Sure. So Hebrews 10, 26, you're saying you said, let me get to the point real quick.
01:47:05: You said particularly verse 31. Oh, 29. Okay. How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has spurned the son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified in his outrageous spirit of grace.
01:47:17: Okay. So here's, here's the reality that actually, number one, I understand that as apostasy, not a person who was saved and then got lost.
01:47:26: I understand that as a person who was around the things of God, around the church, and then they turned away.
01:47:31: Now that actually disproves the re -justification of teaching of Roman Catholicism, the second plank theology that actually disproves it because according to this, they can't be re -justified.
01:47:46: And I would argue the point is apostasy is a thing. And the text is teaching on apostasy.
01:47:52: Thank you. Mr. Moderator, might I also at this point offer a 10, 10 second. Thank you.
01:47:58: It's very convenient within Calvinist doctrine to always put forth an a posteriori that is after the fact presentation of whether faith was real or not.
01:48:08: This gets us back to evanescent grace. In evanescent grace, you can never be certain either you never are certain whether it's actually the grace of election or whether it's just a seeming grace meant to fool you to make all the surprise nastier when you go to your judgment, as Calvin thought.
01:48:25: You mentioned earlier that you did not have time to fully explain the
01:48:30: Catholic church's teaching on salvation. But since the debate question is, is the
01:48:36: Catholic church a gospel denying church? I believe it is imperative for you to do so.
01:48:42: And I would ask that you answer this question because you have admitted, or at least you said, that you believe that the scripture supersedes the
01:48:51: Catholic church. I want you to answer this question by using the holy scripture and not
01:48:56: Catholic tradition. Sir, I can't exactly specify my question to your specifications.
01:49:03: That's not actually what I quoted. I quoted the dogmatic constitution on divine revelation, which states at the magisterium, the teaching authority of the church serves the scripture.
01:49:11: But I would point that scripture itself talks about, like, as we see Paul say, hold on to the tradition that has been handed on to you, whether written or orally.
01:49:20: And so even Paul himself is talking about the apostolic authority to interpret scripture. Pastor Nelson, good evening.
01:49:38: I just wanted to ask a question about the Lord's Supper, whether it's a symbolic memorial or salvific reality.
01:49:47: In the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith, which your church adheres to, it says the supper,
01:49:55: I think section 30, paragraph one, subsection seven, I believe. Hello?
01:50:01: The supper is a, quote, perpetual remembrance, not a sacrifice.
01:50:07: Communicants feed on Christ spiritually alone or only. The Gospel of John, chapter six, verses 53 through 54, unless you eat the flesh of the
01:50:19: Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. In the first letter of St.
01:50:25: Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 11, verses 29 through 30, anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body and drinks judgment upon himself.
01:50:34: That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. Thank you for that question.
01:50:39: It's excellent. I'm going to talk fast because I really do want to answer this question and be able to get all in that I want to be able to get in.
01:50:45: First of all, when Jesus says to the disciples at the Last Supper, where he says, this is my body, take, eat, all of it.
01:50:52: This blood is a new covenant, or this cup is a new covenant of my blood. Nobody in that room would have thought that that was the blood and body of the
01:50:59: Lord Jesus Christ, because Deuteronomy 17 says, if you drink blood, you're in sin. Jesus didn't sin.
01:51:05: So we know that wasn't the body and the blood, and we know no one in there understood that as the body and blood. In John six, it's a beautiful passage that you brought up.
01:51:11: We also know that Jesus is speaking spiritually because in John 6, 63, just a few verses later, he says, it is the spirit who gives life.
01:51:17: The flesh is no help at all. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and life.
01:51:23: So he's speaking spiritually. We spiritually must put our faith in the finished work of Christ. We're reminded in the
01:51:29: Lord's Supper of the broken body and shed blood of what Christ has done. It is a preaching of the gospel when we do the
01:51:36: Lord's Supper, because it points to symbolically what he has finished for his people on the cross.
01:51:42: Thank you for the question. Mr. Hart, I believe you're familiar with Genesis 3, 15.
01:51:51: And for years, and since I was a kid, I've been in a public school
01:51:57: Catholic back there in Peru. And I've been taught that this text points to Mary as the one who crashed the serpent's head.
01:52:16: When I read the original Hebrew, I realized that it's he, not she.
01:52:25: And this is since the time of Jerome translated the Bible to Latin. So does the
01:52:32: Catholic Church change that position? Because, I mean, for a thousand years, the
01:52:39: Catholic Church believed that Mary crashed the serpent's head. Thank you, sir.
01:52:46: I would challenge you to find an exact magisterial teaching that defines that. Throughout the ages, the verse that the gentleman quotes in question is,
01:52:55: I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will strike at your head while you strike at his heel.
01:53:02: I'm not a student of Hebrew, but what I understand is that the pronoun is ambiguous, and it probably is masculine.
01:53:07: So what you're dealing with here, perhaps in your background in Peru, is a specific opinion and not necessarily the official magisterial position.
01:53:23: Pastor, I have a question about a specific scripture. In James 2, verse 14, it says,
01:53:29: What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?
01:53:36: If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, Go in peace, keep warm, and eat your fill, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs.
01:53:45: What good is that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. Some will say,
01:53:51: You have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from works, and I, by my works, will show you my faith.
01:53:58: You believe that God is... Okay. Yeah. Thank you. No, we actually believe that passage.
01:54:05: And so if you notice in verse 14, it says, What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
01:54:11: Can that faith save him? Now, in the original, the word that is not there. It's actually the article. So can the faith save him?
01:54:17: What faith is he talking about? Can the faith that does not produce works, is that justifying faith?
01:54:23: And so what James is addressing there, and there's different opinions on this, but my take is this. James is addressing the true nature of saving faith.
01:54:31: So we don't believe that you have faith, and then you run off and live on an island, and drink beer the rest of your life or whatever, and sleep with women, and it's just, you're saved.
01:54:41: No, no, no. True saving faith is what justifies you. And apart from justification, that saving faith is going to produce works.
01:54:49: So this is the root and fruit of justification. The root of justification is faith alone.
01:54:55: And that faith is going to show and be evident in your life. So James is addressing there, the nature of saving faith.
01:55:02: Thank you for the question. Mr. Moderator, may I offer 10 seconds? The way that Pastor Nelson has just put it is more or less the
01:55:09: Catholic position on what faith working through love is. Thank you for your applause.
01:55:17: Please hold your applause for the end. That's not true according to your own teaching. According to your own teaching.
01:55:24: Thank you for your comments. Please reserve your comments for your own questions. I'll give you a comment back. Pastor Hart, Romans 5, verse 1 says,
01:55:33: Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
01:55:38: Lord Jesus Christ. What is this peace that Paul is speaking about? The peace that Paul is speaking about is the possession of the spirit that comes by grace.
01:55:48: And so when Paul is talking about that we receive by faith, again, he's not talking about faith cut off from every other virtue.
01:55:55: He's talking about all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, all of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, generosity, patience, meekness, kindness, all of those things.
01:56:04: So the peace is basically the presence of the Holy Spirit within the one who has been regenerated by grace.
01:56:19: All right, Pastor Nelson, Father Hart, thank you. It's been a fun night. My question, Pastor Nelson, it seems that an underlying premise of your presentation was something that the
01:56:30: Reformation called it the covenant of works. It's the idea that you cannot be righteous before God. You cannot be declared righteous before God by your behavior.
01:56:38: My question is, how do we reconcile the covenant of works with the biblical description of various men as righteous?
01:56:45: I'm thinking Noah in the Old Testament, Cornelius in the New, and even John's exhortation to us in 1
01:56:51: John 3, 7, that if we do what is right, then we can be righteous just as he is right.
01:56:57: Yeah, that's great. And so that's a great question. Thank you for it. So Noah found favor in the eyes of the
01:57:03: Lord. He found grace in the eyes of the Lord. That's why he was righteous. He found grace. Grace produces righteousness.
01:57:10: So everybody that you see in the Bible that's talking about being of a righteous character, it's not talking about perfect righteousness.
01:57:16: Otherwise, how could Paul say, none is righteous, no, not one. How could David say in Psalm 143, verse 2,
01:57:23: I don't want to stand before God's judgment based on my own righteousness. Now, Pastor Hart, let's finish with that.
01:57:30: Pastor Hart, you mentioned that you'd give me a comment. I'd like to make that comment. Sure, go ahead. Absolutely. Um, no, it's not.
01:57:36: No, we don't believe that. What you said, I'm going to, by the way, maybe you don't understand this, but this is what you believe if you're a
01:57:43: Roman Catholic. So I'm going to read from 2008, paragraph 2008 of your catechism. The fatherly action of God is first on his own initiative and then follows man's free acting through his collaboration to that the merit of good works is to be attributed in the first place to the grace of God, then to the faithful, right?
01:58:02: So you understand that when we say that faith produces good works, that doesn't merit anything before God.
01:58:09: Even the best of our works call for his condemnation. Thank you. So just clear, we ain't the same.
01:58:18: Just trying to maybe simplify the conversation a little bit. Just with a simple question, how, um, how can
01:58:25: I go to heaven? You know, how, how am I going to get from here to heaven? And I was, I was asking that in light of you, you mentioned several times, we need to get to the root.
01:58:35: You talked about the difference. Yes. Yeah. The root of the difference of this. And so asking that in light of what
01:58:40: I was hearing was love and many things there. Is there a standard of what a final standard of this is how
01:58:50: I'm getting to heaven? It's not my position to try to divine how
01:59:06: God is going to judge, right? The, uh, the position of the church together with all
01:59:12: Christians is that Jesus Christ is the only name given under the heaven to the human race by which we are to be saved. That's what
01:59:17: Peter says to the Sanhedrin. But God alone is the one who knows human hearts. Paul talks in Romans two about how the intentions of human hearts will be revealed.
01:59:26: I have no interest in trying to judge people. I have no interest in that. And so I would rather just point people toward Jesus Christ and what the scripture says and what the church teaches regarding that, that he is the way, the truth and the life.
01:59:39: But as for judging people or trying to prognosticate, I leave them in God's hands. It doesn't do anything for me or my ministry to my people.
01:59:47: Please hold your applause for the end. Please hold your applause for the end. Thank you for your answer to that question. Um, that's close.
01:59:56: Baptists as a whole espouse that baptism, as you've reiterated tonight, is not necessary for forgiveness of sins and that salvation is apart from baptism, but that instead is an outward expression of faith or already a saved creation.
02:00:11: That in Acts two 38, when I can send one of the biggest, oh, crap moments in history, we killed the
02:00:16: Messiah. And they asked Peter, what do we need to do to be saved? He says, believe and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.
02:00:24: Paul, Ananias told Paul after he had met Jesus on the road that arise and wash away your sins and be baptized.
02:00:32: And Jesus in the red letter said, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Yeah. Sure.
02:00:40: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that question.
02:00:45: Very good. So first, let me just say this in case it's not known. Baptists value baptism so much we put it in our name.
02:00:52: So we think a lot of baptism. Acts two 38. It's great. It says, uh,
02:00:58: I'll read it. Turn there anticipating your question. Acts two 38.
02:01:03: And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the
02:01:09: Holy spirit in the, in Acts. This is all connected very closely because baptism is connected closely to salvation, but baptism is not the mechanism.
02:01:18: So I, um, wear a coat for the cold weather, but my coat doesn't make it cold outside.
02:01:24: Right. You understand the use of the word for there. Okay. Secondarily, if you just got to go over the next chapter, acts oftentimes you just read the
02:01:32: Bible in context, helpful acts chapter three, verse 19, repent therefore, and turn again that your sins may be blotted out.
02:01:37: No baptism there. That's because we understand that baptism is a beautiful sign that points to an inward reality.
02:01:45: We think baptism is quite important, but it's not the, uh, it's not what brings about the forgiveness of sins.
02:01:51: Thank you. Thank you. Hey, gentlemen, thank you both for being here. It's been a wonderful night. How great is it that we have a room full of people that care this much about Jesus to, to be here.
02:02:00: So, um, wanted to inquire about your posture toward the unsaved, uh, how are we, and this is for both of you guys, um, how, how are we called to love those who are actively living in sin without the desire for repentance?
02:02:15: Could you provide examples from Jesus's life or words that demonstrate how he modeled this kind of love?
02:02:21: And as the questioner said, this is a question for both participants. So I'll give each participant one full minute.
02:02:30: Um, do you want me to go first? You want him to go? Okay, very good. So we should look at the way that Jesus treats tax collectors and prostitutes, right?
02:02:37: A lot of people like to use this to say that, that, you know, the sin doesn't really matter, but Jesus didn't, um, break bread with them while they were tax colluding, tax collecting and prostituting, right?
02:02:47: He, he broke bread with them at neutral moments in which he could, as Paul would later say, profess the truth in love.
02:02:53: That's one of my favorite lines from Ephesians chapter four, let us profess the truth in love. And so for those who are far from the
02:02:59: Lord's grace at opportune moments, let us use our words, uh, but let us also just use our actions as Jesus himself did.
02:03:05: He uses both words and actions. You and pastor Nelson.
02:03:11: Yeah. Two things. One, Matthew four 17. From that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
02:03:19: How did Jesus deal with those in sin? He called them to repentance.
02:03:24: Now there's no one in the history of the world that was more intolerant on how you go to heaven than the
02:03:30: Lord Jesus Christ, because he says in John 14, six, as pastor Hart quoted, I am the way, the truth, the life.
02:03:39: No one comes to the father, but by me. So Jesus preached exclusivity and it is the height of human love and compassion to tell people that they are in their sins, but God has made a way through the mercy of Christ.
02:03:53: If they will repent and believe the gospel. Funny. You should mention the gospel pastor.
02:04:06: Um, Jesus said repeatedly, unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will have no life in you.
02:04:17: You have stood up there and made fun of the cookie that the
02:04:22: Catholics seem to find so valuable. Okay. And it was also mentioned that, uh,
02:04:36: Johnny, what is your question? I would, I would like to just, yes. How can you stand up there and say that and say that you're all about the gospel?
02:04:46: Yes, sir. Thank you for your question. And I'd like to interject here that, um, this is a collegial debate and our answers and questions are given in a spirit of curiosity and, um, respect.
02:05:03: Sir, do you want to speak to it? Yeah, I do want to speak to it. I want to say I respect a man of conviction.
02:05:09: I respect that you have such conviction that you would come up here and you would ask that. And so I respect that, sir.
02:05:15: And I thank you for asking that question. And I'm not trying to be disrespectful about saying that you worship a cookie, but the reality is you do worship a wafer.
02:05:27: Okay. And that can be hard to hear, but I tell it to you in love. Jesus didn't say multiple times about eating his flesh and drinking his blood.
02:05:36: You're talking about from John six. And I've already addressed that, sir. He's speaking spiritually. It's the spirit.
02:05:41: John six 63. It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all.
02:05:48: No, Johnny, stop. Thank you. Thank you. Um, is this question over?
02:05:55: Um, I'm fine. I'm fine. Yeah. I would have been good with disallowing the question given the way it was asked. Thank you for that.
02:06:02: That would have been a good idea. I'm sorry. Well, I asked him if he wanted to answer it and he said he did. So good evening,
02:06:08: Mr. Um, from listening to you, uh, debate, I didn't hear much of speaking and referencing the
02:06:15: Bible itself, the word of God. And I just want clarity through the word of God on your opinion in this.
02:06:22: And this is, might be like a twofold question. So I apologize in that. Um, um,
02:06:27: Ephesians two, um, verses eight and nine, both say, let me get to there. Sorry. Okay.
02:06:33: I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you. For by grace, you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing.
02:06:40: It is a gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast. So from my reading and understanding of that, it says that there is no works involved.
02:06:50: So it is a full gift of God and how we are saved works is not a part of that.
02:06:56: But my understanding and what you believe is that you do need works and that works are crucial.
02:07:03: Excellent. Final question for the evening, as we have come to the end of our 30 minutes, and it does in many ways, summarize the topic of tonight's debate.
02:07:14: Sir, thank you for your question. Ephesians is a Pauline letter. Paul is writing it.
02:07:20: When Paul says works, he is talking about the works of the Mosaic law, which people would boast about their ability to keep the
02:07:27: Mosaic law. This is something that Jesus criticizes the Pharisees over and over again. When Paul talks about grace through faith, he is contrasting it with those who are the
02:07:37: Judaizing Christians who think that the circumcision and the dietary restrictions and the ritual washings will save them.
02:07:43: He means by faith, the entire system of Christ and following him. He's not talking about the virtue of faith cut off from all the other gifts and fruits of the spirit.
02:07:53: I would like to thank everyone who came out here tonight and listened to this debate respectfully, and I hope learned something or at least gained some perspective.
02:08:06: And I would like to thank our two pastors for coming together to put on this debate, and I'd like to invite them also to shake hands again as we leave.
02:08:15: I'd also like to just say, if you didn't get enough drama, the community theater is putting on Little Shop of Horrors.