June 21, 2005

Webcasting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us.

Yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence. Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is James White.

And welcome to The Dividing Line on this, I think it's Tuesday, isn't it? Yep, I think it's Tuesday. It's good to be back. I feel wonderful. I just can't walk at the moment. I've done something to my hip and it's not good.

It's a bad thing. But when I sit down, I'm fine. So I actually rode this morning. I rode my bike. And rode real well. Fastest speed I've had so far. Just getting off of it is sort of embarrassing. Look at that guy.

Wow, he's flying.

Oh, he's stopping.

Oh, wow, he's 97 years old. That's what it looks like. It's pretty sad. Anyway, 1 -877 -753 -3341. I've got some clips to play here. And then we'll take your calls if there are any. I don't see any little flashing lights as yet.

Oh, thanks a lot, Centurion. I appreciate that. It has nothing to do with that, actually. I just totally blew my left hip out. I'm not sure exactly how I did it, but it happens. So we will get it fixed up and press on.

I may have to get my son out of bed early in the morning. To, in essence, sort of shove the bike under me. Just so I can keep going. I'm not going to give up.

I'm going to keep going.

Oh, by the way, for those of you in other parts of the country. I just got back from the east and I was talking about the humidity back there. It's just terrible. But what you don't have is what we had this morning.

There were places, it hit 113 .2 in my backyard yesterday afternoon. And there were a couple places in the valley that reported 117 yesterday. The official, I think, was 114 or 112 or something like that.

But very hot, heading for at least 110 today. So the low in the morning. I got up early this morning. The sun was rising. Because when you're riding a bike, you don't want to be doing it in the middle of the day out here.

And it was still, the temperature while I rode today was 88. That was the low this morning at my house was 88 degrees. And once the humidity does hit, then you get the lows of 93, 94, even as high as 96.

As your low temperature before the sun rises. And, well, I'll tell you something. Then it gets a tad bit on the warm side riding one of those bikes. But we're doing it again. And maybe I'll tell you a little bit later as to why we're doing that.

But anyhow, I have a recording here. It is not a really good recording.

All right.

It's the best I've got. But especially the first, looking at the waveform here, the first 15 and a half minutes just stinks. That's just all there is to it. That's the only way to put it. I've run that 15 minutes through filters.

I've tried to take the pops out. I've amplified it 400%. I've done everything I can possibly do to make it. It is listenable. You can understand it. It's really good for about a minute and then it just goes bleh.

You can understand. You're going to have to focus in on it. My understanding is that this was a college Bible study. And Adrian Rogers, a well-known Southern Baptist leader, was leading a college Bible study on Reformed Theology.

And once again, we encounter one of those situations where you have an individual who is obviously very intelligent, individual who in many areas, remember a few years ago, was it 2003? I think it was 2003, Adrian Rogers was preaching through Romans and he hit Romans 9.

And we took the time to listen to the sermons. We'd start and stop them. And we very fairly, and I think rather thoroughly, interacted with what he had to say. And here is a further example of the fact that in essence, in my experience, what happens is these type of gentlemen who go into the ministry, and I think this is endemic of many people, and it's maybe something we can learn from.

Maybe we can all learn something from this. But it seems that for many people, their theology freezes in place when they enter the ministry. Theological growth, theological challenge, theological reading ends at the end of seminary, ends when you enter into the ministry.

And I think it's especially problematic amongst Southern Baptists because the fact that for so many of them, the emphasis is upon meeting these goals. The idea of the pastorate in many Southern Baptist churches is the CEO, the chief executive officer, who's in charge of this program and that program.

And that's why you get a staff where you have a staff person in charge of this element and that element and yada yada yada. And yet the pastor is still the buck stops here. And so even if he has a music minister, he still is ultimately responsible for that and all these things.

And so I think part of the reason why there is this just stop in theological development is due to that. And so you have people, they are taught a certain way of understanding things in seminary. And as a result, from that point on, and it doesn't matter how many times people respond to them, it doesn't matter how many times people challenge them to consider what they're saying, to consider biblical facts, historical facts, theological facts, tries to challenge them to think what this means in regards to the church, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

They don't listen. It's like no one is responding to them. Or if they are, they're just doing the fingers in the ear routine. La la la la la la. I don't hear you. La la la la la la. I mean, it almost seems childish.

But see, for many of them, their their mind was made up a long time ago. That's just it. They're not going in any way, shape or form to be challenged. They're not going to think about it. And it all boils down to, look, I learned this in Bible college.

That's it. And I'm sticking with it. And besides that, this Calvinism stuff causes divisions. And then that's it. And there's no more discussion of it. And so we're going to be listening to what Adrian Rogers had to say.

And, you know, as we normally do, starting, stopping and responding and pointing things out as we go along and recognizing, once again, here's a situation where you have, you know, an individual. Who is, you know, we're not, quote unquote, picking on it on him as you know, like we haven't picked on others, like we haven't taken the time to listen to what others have said.

But you have someone here who, quite honestly, should know better, should know. And at times gives evidence of at least having heard, but just, you know, it does get frustrating. There's no two ways about it.

That's that's how it is. But this is what's being taught. And when you hear the same arguments being presented over and over and over again, there is a reason why those arguments, even if they are bad arguments, keep resurfacing.

And that's because they keep getting repeated by folks who are in a high profile position and yet do not feel like they're under any obligation to, in reality, respond in a proper fashion to the challenges against them.

So we're going to do our best to try to make this sound good. You'll probably hear it varying some, like I said, about the first minute's fine. And then it goes. And in fact, I just realized there's a section here that I didn't end up fixing.

In fact, on the fly, we're going to put a little there now. It's a little bit better than it was before. We just aren't waveforms. Wonderful.

Isn't this amazing what you can do? This is going to be fun to do over here.

I'm well, hey, you're. How many times have I heard you say I'm good, you know,. And you've got a rack full of expensive electronic equipment in front of you.

So today is the day the Lord humbles me once again.

Is that what you're telling me?

Yeah, he's got away with doing that fairly regularly, hasn't he?

Yes, he does.

Okay, anyways, here we go. Let's start things off here and see if we can make this understandable.

Rob and Vicki, thank you for letting me come. It's a good crowd tonight. And I'm grateful to be here and a little nervous. I'm not used to crowds like this, but it is really, really, I really do love you.

And I want to apologize for not coming sooner. And I do want to come back real soon because I'd like to talk about some other things other than Reformed theology. But we'll talk about that tonight. Bellevue Baptist Church exists for the purpose of what?

Magnifying Jesus through worship in the Word. And then what? Moving believers in Jesus to maturity in ministry. And then last of all, making Jesus known to our neighbors and the nation. So that's what I want to talk to you a little bit.

And my life's verse is, well, I wouldn't say my life's verse, but my life is wrapped up around the verse that you all know. And it's Matthew chapter 28, beginning of verse 18. And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All powers given unto me in heaven and in earth, go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

And, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world or the end of the age. My life since Jesus Satan is a teenage boy, about 15 years of age, has been to share the gospel, to be a soul.

It clears up in a second. Hold on.

Do I believe in Reformed theology? Well, am I a Calvinist? I don't call myself a Calvinist. I believe some of the things that Calvin believed. But I don't think that we have to call ourselves Armenian or Calvinistic or even Baptist for that matter.

As a matter of fact, the name Baptist was given to us to ridicule us, to make fun of us. The name, first of all, was Anabaptist.

Let me stop it just there for a moment. There's about a minute and a half here where it looks really foggy, and then it clears up. And what you're going to hear mainly is some of the background noise, but then there's going to be some popping.

Like I said, it's the first 15 minutes, and after that, whoever it was, and boy, do we understand this, whoever it was that was recording went, uh-oh, oh, I didn't have this right. And you can just sort of tell, everything just sort of clears up.

So you do have to concentrate a little bit, but I can certainly understand what he's saying right now. He's talking about using names of Armenian Calvinists. I am not sure, but it sounded to me like he said Armenian rather than Armenian.

I don't know if that's just the southern accent or if that is a common error that is made,.

Not knowing the difference between Armenian and Armenian.

But anyway, that's where we are at the moment.

B-A-P-T-I-S-P, which means rebaptized. And they said, oh, that bunch of folks who want to baptize you by immersion after you get saved, those rebaptizers, those Anabaptists. And then after a while, they dropped the prefix A-N-A, just said those old Baptists.

And it's really not a name the Baptists chose. It's sort of a nickname, kind of like calling a fat man Skinny or a bald man Curly. It was just a name given in ridicule. But I'm not interested really in a name given to a theology or being called a Calvinist or a Baptist or whatever.

I am committed to what the Bible teaches. You know, if we have any Baptist doctrine, we need to get rid of it. And if we have any Presbyterian doctrine or Methodist doctrine, we need to get rid of it.

We need to see what the Bible teaches and just zero in on the Word of God.

And again, I don't have, you know, many people would criticize him for saying that. And I'm not comfortable with that type of statement. I mean, if you're a Baptist and you hold Baptist theology, it's because you've studied it and you believe it is biblical.

If you're a Presbyterian, you hold a Presbyterian theology because you believe it's biblical. I guess what he's trying to say there, obviously, is that for everyone, sola scriptura, the Scripture should be the final infallible rule of faith in regards to what we believe.

No question about that. And at least, thankfully, we will get into some Scripture passages in the discussion of quote-unquote Calvinism here.

I want to say at the outset, I believe in the sovereignty of God. A man doesn't believe in the sovereignty of God, he's a sheer fool. And I believe not a blade of grass moves without God's permission.

I believe he knows the name of every star and he put them all there. He is almighty.

And again, every time we've listened to presentations over the past number of years, where we have responded to everyone from Norman Geiser to Dave Hunt to Herb Revis and all the individuals in between that we have listened to, they will all say this.

But the question is, do you apply in a meaningful fashion the end result of what your statement is? If not, a blade of grass moves without God's knowledge. Is that passive knowledge? Is that his sovereign knowledge?

Is that his will that is involved there? These are all the issues that really need to be addressed to really have any meaningful discussion here whatsoever.

I believe in coordination. I believe in predestination. I believe in calling. I believe in elections. I believe in all of that. Why do I believe that? Because I can read the Bible. Anybody who can read the Bible has to believe all of that because it's right there, black print on white paper.

And you can just sit down and read that and have no difficulty with that. But I want to talk to you about Calvinism in its extreme form and tell you why I'm not a five-point Calvinist.

Okay, now notice there's first indication. Calvinism in its extreme form. Why. I'm not a five-point Calvinist. So what is a non-extreme form? Once again, the idea of redefining what Calvinism is so as to identify its natural form or its full form as what is extreme because no one wants to be extreme.

Now, there are five points in historic extreme Calvinism. Some call it hyper-Calvinism.

There you go. First major error. Extreme Calvinism, hyper-Calvinism, five-point Calvinism, all the same thing. If this is the first time you've heard us responding to someone like this, you're a little bit surprised.

We would be, quote, unquote, picking on somebody. We're not picking on anyone. We are looking for accurate representation. And here's the first error and error we've heard many people make, and that is that five-point Calvinism is hyper-Calvinism.

That is untrue. That is a misrepresentation, and you can't possibly have seriously sat down with meaningful books. And there are many, and I'm not referring to just my own. I know I've written a number of them, but R .C. Sproul has written a bunch, and Boyce wrote a bunch, and you can go back and Spurgeon and all that.

You can't have sat down with those works and seriously interacted with them at all and make that kind of a statement. It's not just an error of mind. It is an error of tradition. It is, this is what I'm going to tell people, and I don't care how many times people correct me.

I'm going to keep telling them this because they don't have the right to define this. I'm going to call this hyper-Calvinism. It's just simply wrong.

And there are five points. You know they spell what? Two of them. And that's the little memory device, and the T stands for total depravity. And that means we are just about as bad as we can get. Total depravity.

To be depraved means to be evil. The U stands for unconditional election.

Now let me stop with the total depravity. Nothing there about ability. Nothing there about the entirety of man's being influenced, touched by sin. And it's not that you're as bad as you can be. That's, again, not the definition.

That's just not an accurate identification of what the issue really is.

That is that salvation begins from the heart and mind of God. And it is without any conditions whatsoever. God determines it. Unconditional election. God just simply elects some individual to be saved.

Again, very, very shallow. Yes, it's true. It's unconditional. Why is it unconditional? Because there can be no fulfillment of a condition within the creature that can determine God's actions. That means God's actions in time become determined by the actions of creatures in time.

And now you've got all sorts of problems with the eternality of God and the relationship of God to time and all these other things that should be brought in but aren't even mentioned.

The next thing is the L, which is limited atonement. These people believe that Jesus Christ did not die for all. He died for the elect. So the atonement is limited to the elect. It's limited atonement.

And, of course, one would like to think that someday you'd hear someone say, Now, of course, we limit the atonement as well. We do not limit its scope. We do not limit its intention. We do not limit its purpose.

But we do limit its effect. That is, that the atonement is limited and that it is only meant to make salvation a possibility, but it is not intended to save anyone. That would be nice to hear. I am despairing after many years of ever hearing anyone that honest about the issue.

And, you know, if you listen, if you'll take the time, for example, to listen to the presentations I make at the Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church and the Sunday School lessons, when I present someone else's viewpoint or when I know someone has a specific response to my own viewpoint, I do tell people exactly what is being said by other individuals.

I try to prepare my folks. I realize if I, for example, if I, this last Sunday, was talking a little bit about John Dominick Crossan, the man that I'm debating in September, end of August, September, the debate in the Cruz in Seattle.

It's right there on the website. You need to take a look at that. If you've been holding things off, don't hold them off any longer. And I was trying to explain to folks, because a lot of folks just, you know, you see these guys on TV.

They say these odd things, and you're left going, why in the world are they saying this? And you don't know why. And I was trying to explain, given that we were studying the Synoptic Gospels anyways in Sunday School, the relationship between the background material that I had provided when we had first started a number of years ago and what Crossan and others are saying.

And I was trying to present his position as he presents it in one of the books that I was passing around, letting people read or take a look at. Now, if I just give one side, or if I grossly misrepresent, give a very, very shallow view, inaccurate view, a view that even Crossan himself would not recognize of his perspective to my people, I might be able to make myself look a lot better.

In fact, I could probably prejudice their thinking to such a point they will never listen to what he has to say. I could probably do that. But I would have to sacrifice my view of truth to do that. I would have to be dishonest.

And what's more, while I might be, through prejudice, protecting, from my perspective, a large portion of them by poisoning their minds against ever listening to what he or anyone like him would ever say, there's another percentage of individuals sitting in front of me who hear what I have to say and they may well interact with a John Dominic Crossan or with someone who knows John Dominic Crossan.

And if I have given them an inaccurate representation, a false representation, am I not so much more putting them in danger because they may go, well, wait a minute, you know, White told me this, but now I sit down and I read his book, or now I sit down and I talk with this professor and that's not what he said.

Why couldn't he accurately represent what Crossan was saying? Maybe there's something going on here. And it seems that the decision, whether it has been a purposeful decision or not, it seems that the decision of the large portion of Southern Baptist leaders has been, you know what, we're going to lose a certain percentage to Calvinism.

We are not going to view this as actually something that needs to be discussed. We're not going to view it as something that is, you know, part of our own history. We're not going to put forth the best arguments here.

We don't want a dialogue taking place, and we've heard people like that. We're just going to view this as the enemy, and we are going to take our losses. There's going to be a certain percentage of high school guys especially who are just going to insist on going and reading those books, and there's nothing we can do about it.

And so you know what? We're not going to worry about accurately representing it. We're not going to worry about the fact that people are going to be able to document that we are attacking a straw man.

We're going to take the straw man perspective. We're going to attack the straw man, and we're going to play the percentages here. The larger percentage of our congregations are going to hear this. They're going to be poisoned in their mind against anyone who would even sound like they're saying this, and therefore we're going to give up the percentage.

How else can it be interpreted? Maybe they haven't sat down in some room someplace and said, what are we going to do about Calvinism? Well, I think we just go ahead and lose the 5 and just go from there.

Okay, that's what we'll do. I don't think that's really necessarily how it worked, but that seems to be how it works out in time. That seems to be how it works out on a practical level, and this is how you see it working out in this type of presentation.

And then the I stands for irresistible grace. If God is going to save you, there's nothing you can do about it. I mean, his Holy Spirit is going to zap you, and you're gone.

His Holy Spirit is going to zap you. But, yeah, I start getting a little bit on the worked-up side when I hear Norman Geisler describing regeneration as being rewired, as being given a new brain, the Holy Spirit zapping you.

Yeah, I do find that highly offensive when you consider the glory of the subject that is being discussed. We are talking about resurrection here. Did Jesus just zap Lazarus? Is that really how... And you know what?

I do not believe that Adrian Rogers would ever use that language in that context. He wouldn't do it. He would never show disrespect for the Son of God in raising Lazarus to life by saying Jesus zapped Lazarus.

But when it comes to resurrection in the spiritual sense, to regeneration, well, then we can mock it by using terms like, you get zapped and there's nothing you can do about it. And that bothers me too.

That is irresistible. There's no way that you can resist the Holy Spirit of God. And so if you're one of the elect, you're going to be saved. There's nothing you can do about it. And if you're not one of the elect, there's nothing you can do about that either.

And here again, I would love if they would be just so kind as to say, and you would never want it any other way. If you are not one of the elect, you're a God-hater. God is constantly extending common grace to you.

God is giving you life. God is doing all these things, and you hate him, and you spit in his face, and you use his gifts to your own selfish ends. But they don't say that part. That wouldn't really help you make the presentation now, would it?

And so that is irresistible grace. And then the last is the perseverance. P stands for the perseverance of the saints. Once you're saved, then you persevere and you go on to heaven. Now that's two of them.

Of course, it would be nice if the right emphasis was there, which it rarely is, and that is the reason you persevere is because it's a divine work. The faith that you have is the work of the Holy Spirit within you.

It's the result of regeneration. It's all a whole, but you don't want to tell people it's all one whole like that because then they start seeing how everything's related to one another, and that doesn't help your presentation either.

The Hitler Road has two ditches. On the one side, I think it's hyper-Calvinism. On the other side is Armenianism. Armenians taught that you could be saved and lose your salvation, and so I guess rather than Tulip, it was kind of a daisy.

He loves me. He loves me not. So either way, you don't have to wreck the car on either road. You just stay on the road, which is the Bible road. I want to tell you tonight, then I'll try to answer some questions, why I am not a five-point Calvinist.

Let's take, first of all, total depravity. I believe that a man is a sinner. I believe a sinner by birth, a sinner by choice, a sinner by nature, a sinner under condemnation, a sinner deserving hell, totally depraved.

But I do not believe what some Reformed theologians believe and some hyper-Calvinists believe, and that is that a man in that condition cannot hear God until he's first regenerated. They say it's like speaking to a dead man.

A dead man has to have life before he can hear. And so some people get themselves in the position of saying that somebody is regenerated before they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, that's getting it back.

Okay, so here you have his argumentation. I see people in the channel, the wind's blowing. Nope, just bad recording, folks. We've still got about, looking at it, about seven and a half, eight minutes before it cleans up and it sounds just fine, and we'll get there over time.

Until then, quit your whining. Anyways, here we have the great issue, issue that came up over and over again in the book Debating Calvinism. Here's the big issue. What is the relationship of faith and repentance, faith and regeneration?

Can a spiritually dead person, you had the affirmation, every man's a sinner. Well, what does that mean? What does the Bible say about not the capacities of the unregenerate man, but the incapacities of the unregenerate man?

And has Dr. Rogers taken the time, and is he willing to take the time to consider what is being said? From the other side, the other side of the ditch, the hyper-Calvinist, ha-ha, that is the regular, plain old Calvinist.

If you're expecting to hear some new insights there, I'm sorry, it's not going to happen. I've just not heard that. Once I find it, I'll play it for you, but I don't get it. I don't hear it. That's the way it is.

Hey, I just realized it's 1131. That means we need to take a break, and we'll continue on with Dr. Rogers' examination of the five points of hyper-Calvinism.

Oh, goodness.

When we come back, we'll be right back.

Save your soul from death. It's all worth righteousness, you know. Can I manufacture grace? Myself denied in some religious place. By weeping hard on your face, or saying prayers to some dead saint, you know.

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And welcome back to Dividing Line. We are listening to a Bible study led by Adrian Rogers in his own church. He has every right to do whatever he does. I just happen to think that if you're going to represent what other people believe, you might want to do so in an accurate way.

The sound quality will not be good for another seven minutes of the recording, which we may not even get to today because we do have some calls, but a call so far, which happens to be on the same subject, so that will be good.

But we will continue on, press on.

They say, well, a dead man cannot hear. Of course a dead man can hear. Of course a dead man can hear. When Adam sinned, was he dead and trespassed in sin? Of course he was. He was dead and trespassed in sin.

Actually, what's being said there was, can a dead man hear? Well, we're talking about spiritually here. We're talking about capacity and ability. We're talking about the very, I mean, what a wonderful study it is to study the word hear in the Gospel of John.

Jesus said there were those who could not hear. In John chapter 6, why did the disciples walk away? Because of the fact that Jesus had difficult words and they said, Who is able to hear? Akuo them. Akuoin, the infinitive.

Who is able to hear them? It's a common phrase. So, again, it amazes me that especially in a college Bible study, because in a college Bible study you're going to have these young people who are inquisitive.

They've got some time on their hands. They might do some reading and go, wow, what he's presenting is very shallow. It doesn't really represent the other side. And if it's that shallow, maybe, maybe for some reason, that shallowness is hiding something.

I really don't consider that an overly overwhelming refutation of the Reformed position. Specifically, since God comes walking in the garden and says, Adam, where are you? And Adam heard him, that that means that Adam has had the ability to spiritually hear as a spiritually dead man.

Something tells me that that's not exactly the point of the discussion. But if you're expecting him to switch over now to an insightful discussion of John chapter 6 or something, that's not really going to happen.

The problem comes when we talk about death. They say, well, you know, what can a dead man do? Well, a dead man can do a lot of things. You need to understand what death is in the Bible. There are three kinds of deaths that are mentioned in the Bible.

For example, in Luke chapter 16, you might put these scriptures down. I'm not turning to them unless it's necessary. Sometimes I'm turning to them. But in Luke chapter 16, it talks about a rich man who died.

And in hell, he lifted up his eyes, being in torment. He said, Father Abraham, send water. Then Lazarus said, my fist, tip of his finger, and water into my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. He was dead, but he was not annihilated.

He was still conscious. Again, you could read in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 6. And the Bible speaks there of a woman who is living in sin. And the Bible says that she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she lives.

Now, she might be walking around the city of Memphis tonight. She's dead, but she can certainly hear. She can certainly talk. She can certainly feel. She can certainly think.

Now, of course, up to this point, nothing that he said is relevant to any meaningful presentation of Reformed theology. It is only relevant to a straw man. It is not relevant to the issue of can a spiritually dead person apprehend spiritual truths?

Can a spiritually dead person exercise saving faith? Can a spiritually dead person exercise repentance, things that are pleasing to God? Can those who are spiritually dead do what is pleasing to God? Nothing relevant to that point so far.

But again, remember, if you're in a college Bible study, Adrian Rogers is your pastor. And he comes to teach that Bible. I've been in very, very, very, very, very large Southern Baptist churches. And when the big guy, the guy that you almost never actually meet, you know, you only see him when he's preaching.