Baptism Debate: Matt Slick vs AK Richardson

All right, so welcome everybody. I hope that we're gonna be having a lot of watchers, a lot of listeners on this debate.

And the debate is titled, is water baptism by immersion necessary for salvation?

And of course, I deny that it is. I believe in justification by faith through Christ and not through a bet and a ceremony, which baptism is definitely a ceremony.

But we'll get into that. Okay, so what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna,

I'll introduce myself and then we'll have him introduce himself for a little bit. We're gonna have a 15 minute opening each up to 15 minutes.

And then we're gonna have a 10 minute response up to 10 minutes each, then 10 minutes cross examination where we ask each other questions.

And then we're gonna have 10 minutes of closing statements each. After that, we'll probably take a little bit of a break here just a bit while our moderator

Ernie gets the questions. And if you have questions during the discussion, all you have to do is to just type them out either in Facebook or YouTube.

They will filter in here to our account. We're using StreamYard and then Ernie will collect them.

So you can do it during the debate and then he will provide those questions and they will probably, what the goal is to alternate where whoever gets one first, it doesn't matter.

If I get one first and I respond for two minutes to the question, then AK gets to respond for one minute to that.

Then we just go to the next question. And so it'll be long discussion. My name is

Matt Slick. I represent Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, CARM .org. I'm an ordained minister and a defender of the

Christian faith and I work against cults, false religious systems, secular systems and things like that.

My opponent is AK Richardson. Why don't you introduce yourself? Yeah, I'm a preacher for the

Church of Christ here in Cape City, Arkansas. Been preaching, been studying the Bible for about 20 years and I'm just trying to defend the one faith once delivered to the saints.

Just if you want some contact information, my email is akrichardson at zoho .com.

It's Z -O -H -O .com. You can check out my YouTube page. Just search up my name,

AK Richardson. You'll find a variety of videos. Right now, I got a lot on Calvinism there, but you can contact me if you wanna have questions or discussions, private or public.

We could do that. And I appreciate Matt for having me on here. Sure, if you wanna have some discussions on Calvinism, let me know.

I would love to do that. All right, so I'm getting this here.

Okay, just baptism, but debate. And there was one more thing I was gonna say and I can't remember what it was. Oh, you know,

I hate that when that happens. Oh yeah, I remember now. So while you're talking, what

I'm gonna do is mute myself and then I have a speech program and I talk.

My speech program transcribes. So if you see me talking during our discussion, it's not me being rude, it's just taking notes.

Okay, just let you know that. And I'll mute myself for that. And we both have the ability to do that kind of stuff.

So I think that's it, all right. And I'll tell you what, since you don't have to worry about time,

I'll do this at the timer for 15 minutes and I'll wave at you or something like that.

What I'll do is this, I'm gonna do this. No. I do have a timer. You can use yours.

I'll go ahead and start mine as well. Okay, that's good. Let's see, I could do that way.

Try it here, wait a second. There we go. Something like that, okay. You can see me waving or whatever it is.

I'm trying to make this right. Let's see. No, come on, get that right. Okay, floor is yours.

Okay, I'm gonna start my timer. All right, well, first of all, I appreciate everybody watching.

A lot of people have had an interest in this and I appreciate your interest. I gotta say once again, thanks to Matt for doing this and having me on.

Just a couple of things real quickly here before I begin. Now, I do believe Matt is a false teacher.

I believe he has a false understanding of the things we're talking about here this evening and I'm here to defend the truth, but it's important to understand that that's not a reflection of any animosity as I adamantly defend the truth.

Mr. Slick is a man made in the image of God. I care about him. I've been praying for Matt. I would love to see Matt in eternity.

It's just a matter of defending the truth. That's what I consider my job here. Okay, so water baptism by immersion is necessary for salvation.

The Bible absolutely teaches that. Now, and by that, I mean that an alien sinner must be as required by Christ and the apostles as seen in the

Theopneustos Scriptures, must be water baptized, immersed in order to be forgiven and justified by faith.

Now, the necessity of baptism is gonna be the emphasis on my part. Now, the mode will be secondary, but as you will see, the mode will be immersion.

But I really wanna stress the necessity of it. Okay, so, you know, from the beginning of the

New Testament to the end, and actually all the Bible, we see that salvation is by grace through faith.

Now, that's my position. I do believe that salvation is by grace through faith. And so as we see the rest of the

New Testament require baptism, it's just a matter of simple hermeneutics to see that that is a part of being saved through faith.

Now, this is gonna be important as you listen, because popular theology's primary arguments against the necessity of baptism, and including

Mr. Slick's primary arguments, is that we're justified by faith, therefore not baptism.

But it's just a simple matter of seeing that this is a part of being justified by faith, because that's my position, to be justified by faith, which includes baptism.

Okay, so let's start in Acts 2. Now, in Acts 2, Peter preaches to the crowd, convinces them with his sermon that they have killed their own

Messiah, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. And it says in verse 37, now, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, convicted of their sin, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do?

Peter said to them, repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Now, that establishes my position very clearly. Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins.

Friends, you cannot be saved without the forgiveness of sins. This contradicts Mr. Slick's position that you're saved before baptism.

You are not saved before the forgiveness of sins. Here it says, repent and be baptized. Now, both are necessary.

You have to repent, which even Mr. Slick doesn't even believe you have to repent in order to be saved, but it says both is for the forgiveness of sins.

Now, this verse is a problem for Mr. Slick. And as a matter of fact, on one of his articles and in one of his videos, he's teaching against the necessity of baptism.

He comes to Acts 2 .38 and he says, quote, this verse is a tough one. Well, it is a tough one for his theology because it blatantly contradicts it.

And in verse 40, Peter preaches more words and it says, be saved from this perverse generation.

And then it says, so then those who had received his word were baptized. It's the same pattern. The reaction of faith to receive the word is baptism.

So by the way, so we see that if we're saved through faith and here Peter is including repentance and baptism, that baptism and repentance is a part of being saved by faith.

It's just a matter of simple hermeneutics and faith is the expression in verse 41.

Now let's go to 1 Peter 3. Now it's the same apostle, same man in verse 38 who speaks.

Okay, Peter says, in reference to those of the flood, he says, the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark in which a few, that is eight persons were brought safely through the water.

I'm reading from the NASB and I believe that is a good translation of the Greek, brought safely through the water.

Corresponding to that, the water, baptism now saves you. Not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Once again, we have the statement. Baptism now saves you. Now you have to ask, what would the

New Testament have to say to teach that baptism was necessary for salvation if not the two things that we just read?

If these don't teach it, what would? Baptism saves you, which contradicts Mr. Slick's position and it affirms what

I'm trying to argue for here. Now it corresponds to the water. They were brought safely through the water.

Well, baptism, you're brought to salvation through the water. No power in the water. It is not the removal of dirt from the flesh.

There's no power in the water. This isn't Catholicism and it ain't magic water, as some people say, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In other words, it's an expression of faith. You see, I believe that we're justified by faith. It's an appeal to God for a good conscience.

The sinner, believing in the resurrection and believing that God will justify himself by or justify the sinner by grace, when he comes out of the water, he knows he's forgiven because he believes what

God says and he has a good conscience. So baptism is how the alien sinner expresses his faith to God. It's him saying by his act, save me by your grace.

And he can come out with a clean conscience. Remember those in Acts chapter two, they had the guilty conscience in verse 37, ask, what shall we do?

What are they gonna do about their guilty conscience? Peter said, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

That'll clear your conscience. It is an expression of faith. Okay, we must hurry on.

Romans chapter six. Now turn your Bibles there. In verse three, it says, or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death.

Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death. Now, before I go on, this language is the language of what some call federal headship, others call corporate solidarity.

It is the idea of being united under a representative. Jesus Christ is the representative for his people.

All the spiritual blessings that we see in the New Testament that are found in Christ Jesus or how we get into Christ is when our faith moves us to be baptized.

It is through baptism that he becomes your representative into Christ Jesus, baptized into his death.

And it says, we are buried with him through baptism into death. Now friends, you cannot be saved without being united in Christ.

If he is not your representative, you cannot be saved. And the way to get into Christ, so to speak, is baptism.

You cannot be saved before it. You cannot be saved without it. You cannot be saved as required by Christ and the apostles. So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, so we too might walk in newness of life, free from sin.

If we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, there's the language united. Certainly we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with him, baptized into his death.

When were you crucified with Christ? Well, it says into his death. This is through baptism. Now, you will also notice that the form, the mode of the baptism that is necessary is immersion.

It's a burial and a raising to life. Okay, in Ephesians 2, now this is something important.

Ephesians 2, it says, God, in verse five, made us alive together by grace you have been saved and raised us up with him.

So God is doing the uniting. He's raising us to new life. It's God who's doing this, but when does he do it?

In baptism, we just saw that. Colossians 2, 12, now pay special attention to this verse.

Having been buried with him, Christ, buried with Christ in baptism, in which, in baptism, you were also raised up with him, that's the new, sorry, that's the new life, raised up with him through faith.

You see, we're justified by faith. Baptism is an act of faith. Now, it's very clear.

The burial, the raising to new life, the unity, being united with Christ is in baptism when it is done through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead.

Now, compare this with 1 Peter 3, 21, by the way. Peter says, baptism now saves you. Paul says, in baptism, raising us to new life or up with him, that's the new life.

That's salvation. Peter says, an appeal to God for a good conscience.

That's an expression of faith. Paul says, through faith. Peter says, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Paul says, through faith in the working of God who raised him from the dead. They're teaching the same thing.

And by the way, when you see in Acts 2, which we read in the beginning, where they say, what shall we do?

Well, baptism is something you do. Now, it is unbiblical. Popular theology has this idea, and Mr.

Slick has said the same thing, that there's nothing you do to be saved. I would like to see that text that shows us there's nothing we do to be saved.

I wanna see that text. Now, I have an idea of some that people use, but I wanna see it because the

Bible doesn't teach that. Peter didn't deny that you do anything. He said, repent and be baptized, which is an expression of faith.

Now, let's go to Acts 22 in verse 16. Saul had been killing

Christians, and Jesus appears to him on the road to Damascus. Three days later, Ananias comes, and in verse 16 says, "'Now, why do you delay?

"'Get up and be baptized, and wash away your sins, "'calling on the name, or on his name.'"

Now, these are all in the Aorist tense. This is all happening at the same time. "'Be baptized and wash away your sins, "'calling on the name of the

Lord.'" Or here, calling on his name. Now, Paul had his sins still three days later.

Like Acts 2 38, we see the linkage of having your sins removed with baptism.

Now, in chapter nine, in verse nine, we saw that Paul was waiting for three days fasting.

He was fasting. And in verse 11 of chapter nine, we see that he was praying while waiting for Ananias. Now, so who was he praying to?

Well, he's not well aware that Jesus is God, Yahweh.

And no doubt he's praying to Jesus, but he still has his sins, because that's what you gotta do if you're an alien sinner.

Now, let's look at this term, calling on his name. This is from Epikaleo. And this is, calling on the name of the

Lord is from the Old Testament. It's linked to worship, prayer, service. It is a representative statement where it is those who's turning to the

Lord, calling on the name of the Yahweh, it means to look to him and submit to him for whatever he demands in the context.

For example, in Zephaniah three in verse nine, God says, for then I will give to the people purified lips, that all of them may call on the name of the

Lord to serve him shoulder to shoulder. So it's connected with service. To call upon the name of the

Lord in that context was to come to serve him. Interestingly, in Acts 25, in a legal context, where Paul says,

I appeal to Caesar, appeal is the same word, Epikaleo. And in order to have his case tried in the court of Caesar, he had to submit to whatever

Caesar, the legal system required, which here meant remaining in custody, going through the legal process, whatever it required.

It's the same idea. Now, Mr. Slick has a similar definition of what I'm telling you. I wanna quote from him and I have the source if anybody wants to know about it.

He says, Mr. Slick says, quote, to call upon the name of the Lord is to subject oneself to the majesty and holiness of the divinely sovereign

God of the universe. Unquote. Well, I agree with that 100%. It means in whatever context to submit yourself to the

Lord and whatever it means in context. And for the alien sinner, for Paul, it meant to be baptized and wash away his sins.

The expression of faith of baptism is calling upon the name of the Lord in that context for the alien sinner.

It's not merely just prayer. Interestingly, in Acts 2, now pay very special attention so we connect these dots.

It's really beautiful. Peter quoted from Joe in verse 21. He said, and it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord will be saved. Well, what did that mean? Well, they understood.

They said, what shall we do? How do they call upon the name of the Lord? Well, he says, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

That's what was told to Paul. That's how Paul called on the name of the Lord. And that's what he told them to do.

This is why, by the way, we see such an urgency of baptism in the New Testament. For example, like the Philippian jailer, he was baptized straight away at the same hour of the night.

So there's this urgency in the New Testament because it's significant, it's necessary for salvation.

So what we have seen is that baptism is an act of faith. I believe we're justified by faith because baptism is an act of faith.

That's what it says. An appeal to God for a good conscience, buried with him in baptism through faith.

That's what our text says. And I just wanna remind you once again that there is something the alien sinner has to do.

That's what Peter says, repent and be baptized. And so I just wanna know the text that would say otherwise.

It's an expression of faith. We have clear verses that say it saves us for the forgiveness of sins.

I have to ask, I asked it already. I'll ask it again. What in the world would the Bible have to say to teach it?

It is a simple matter of hermeneutics that if we're justified by faith and yet baptism is acquired, then that means baptism is an expression of faith.

God is the one uniting us. We're united in Christ in our baptism when it is done through faith.

And that's my time. Thank you. Okay, you're on mute.

Thank you. I'll start my timer as well here in a sec. All right. Okay. So as Mr.

Richardson said, no animosity, yet he is echoing the same thing

I'm saying. He's teaching a false gospel. And if you believe what he says, you're gonna be damned to eternal hell fire.

And the reason is, is because he is denying justification by faith. He's saying that justification by faith occurs when you do something.

And he's saying that you have to be doing something. He said, quote, the Bible does not teach we don't have to do anything to be saved unless I misheard him.

That's what he says. So we have to understand that Philippians 1 .29 says that God is the one who grants that we believe.

Philippians, that's Philippians 1 .29. And second Timothy 2 .25, God grants that we have repentance.

God is the one who grants both of these things to us. We don't have to do anything because Jesus did everything.

What he is saying is that the blood of Christ and faith in Christ is not sufficient to save you of your sins. The question

I'm gonna be asking him later is are we justified by faith when we have faith? Are we not justified by faith when we have faith? The Bible says in Romans 5 .1,

having therefore been justified by faith. It doesn't say by faith in a ceremony, by faith in baptism.

It says by faith. Now the debate topic is this, is water baptism...

I don't know why my mic just muted, but it did. Okay, can you hear me? Okay. So the debate topic is, is water baptism by immersion necessary for salvation?

He says, yes. Logically speaking, that means you cannot be saved unless you're immersed in water for the forgiveness of your sins.

That's what he wants to say. You have to be baptized by immersion in water. That would mean that all babies who die in birth, during birth, right after birth and abortion go to hell.

It would mean that all the people who die on deathbeds, and I know I used to work at a hospital and it does happen.

People who have tubes in their throats. I've talked to the chaplain of the hospital who went to the same church as I, and I asked him, do people receive

Christ on their deathbeds? And he says, oh yes, they do. But you know what? Mr.

Richardson is gonna be saying, I'm sorry, but they have to go to hell. And the reason they have to go to hell is because they didn't perform the ceremony of baptism.

They didn't get baptized. They didn't get dunked in water. And so their faith in Christ is useless. Their faith in Christ does not save them.

They are not justified by faith, Romans 5 .1. No, they are going to hell.

Their faith in Christ is not enough. Now, in Acts chapter, excuse me, in Acts 16, 30, 31, the jailer said to Paul and Silas, sirs, what must

I do to be saved? They said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved, you and your household. That's what the answer was.

Was it, you have to get baptized? Nope. Paul said in Acts, in 1

Corinthians 1, that God sent him to preach the gospel, not to baptize. The gospel is what saves for 1

Corinthians 15, one through four. It's the gospel that saves us. The gospel is that Jesus did everything on the cross, died on the cross, rose from the dead three days later, and that we're justified by faith.

That's what it is. Now he went to Acts 2 .38. Now the problem with Acts 2 .38 is real simple.

It's not a formula for salvation because faith is not mentioned in there. Faith is not mentioned, nor is water mentioned.

Who says it's water baptism? That's a serious discussion to have later on. But the actual issue here is if it's a formula for salvation, we have two problems.

One, faith is not mentioned in there. And two, it says, and you will receive the gift of the

Holy Spirit. Well, what is the gift of the Holy Spirit? The gift of the Holy Spirit is the charismatic movement.

And we know that from Acts 10, 44 through 48, where it says that people were speaking in tongues and they were glorifying

God because the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon them. That's what the baptism with the

Holy Spirit is, pouring. It's pouring. Just as John the

Baptist baptized with water, pouring. So you'll be baptized with the

Holy Spirit. And it's always by pouring. It's always, that's how it's referred to. So in Acts 10, 44 through 48, the

Holy Spirit had been poured forth upon the Gentiles or speaking in tongues or glorifying God. And Peter says, can we refuse water for them to be baptized who have received the

Holy Spirit just as we have? But Mr. Richardson would be saying, no, they're still in a state of damnation.

They would die before they got baptized. They could be walking to the baptismal font to get immersed in water, trip, hit their head on a stone, die.

Sorry, you go to hell. Why? Because you're not justified by faith. Are you justified by faith when you have faith or when not have faith?

See, faith, when you're justified by faith, it's because you have faith. Not by faith in a ceremony, not by faith in baptism, not by faith and communion, not by faith and anything.

As all the cults teach and what Roman Catholicism teaches, and he's no different than Roman Catholics in that he's teaching that baptism is necessary for salvation.

Paragraph 2068 of the Catholic Catechism, that you obtain salvation by faith, baptism and the observance of the commandments.

So they require baptism there as he does. And I know since he's in Church of Christ, he will teach that you can lose your salvation.

Then we have another debate there. So Acts 2 .38, he went to 1

Peter 3 .21, which I always think is a very interesting verse. And I'm sure he's read my material and did not respond to my material on that, what

I actually said on it. But here's what it says here. Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you, not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God.

Corresponding to what? Now he said, it's the water. Well, let's look at this. Who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through the water.

Brought safely through what? The death. Water is what killed them. Water is what killed people.

It was the means of judgment. Now, so corresponding to what? What saved

Noah? Was it the water or was it the ark? Now remember, the ark had one door and they entered in through the door and that one door was closed.

Jesus says he is the door. They entered into the ark and they were saved from the judgment of God upon the unbelievers.

Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you. Corresponding to what? It's the ark, it's the issue of faith, which is why

Paul says, excuse me, why Peter says not the removal of dirt from the flesh, not this issue of the water on the body, but an appeal to God for a good conscience.

You see, that's how he's using the term baptism there. That's what's going on. And he needs to address this.

His idea that water is what it's referring to just doesn't work from the context because it's not the water that saved

Noah. It was obviously the ark that they entered by faith.

He says he wants to see a text where it says we don't have to do anything to be saved. I would think he'd know his

Bible better. He's dead seriously. Romans 4, 5, now to the one, as it says, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

To the one who does not work, but believes, his faith is credited as righteousness. There's 613 commandments in the

Old Testament. All kinds of commandments. There's judicial, there's legal, there's sacrificial, there's moral laws or requirements.

There's all kinds of stuff, including giving charity, including loving God and loving your neighbor. And all of these are summed up by Jesus in Matthew 22, 37 and 39, respectively, when he says, love

God and love your neighbor. This is the summation of the law, Matthew 22, 40. This is what he says.

Now this summarizes all the law of what has to be done, what you got to work, everything. And anything within it, because James 2, 10 says, if you keep the law and you stumble in one point, you're guilty of all.

And Deuteronomy 27, 26 says, you have to keep all of the law, which Paul reflects in Galatians 3, 10.

And if you don't, you're cursed. So when Paul talks, he says, the one who does not work, you're not doing anything.

To the one who does not work, but believes, his faith is credited as righteousness. Now notice what's going on here.

It's a critical verse. The one who does not work, but believes, doesn't do anything, but believes.

What is credited in his righteousness as his faith? So when I asked the question later, are we justified by faith when we have faith?

The answer according to Paul is, yeah, yeah. To the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

So the one who does not work, but believes, when you believe your faith is credited as righteousness, there's the proof right there from the word of God that water baptism by immersion is not necessary for salvation.

Incidentally, Jesus was sprinkled, that's another topic. Now, that's the verse he asked for.

That's the verse I showed. That's the verse he's gonna have to respond to later. He's gonna have to go to Romans chapter four, verse five, and demonstrate how that verse means, no, you have to get water baptized in order to be saved.

And how he has to say, because he said it's a work that you do. I'm not trying to misrepresent him. I hope that I got him right there.

That you have to do this thing in order to be saved. You have to be baptized by immersion, immersion in order to be saved.

You have to. In other words, you're not justified by faith. It's a clever twist of words to say, you're justified by faith when you do something.

Well, they're not justified by faith when you have faith, are you? That's what it means to be justified by faith. As Romans five, excuse me, four, five says, to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

That right there refutes his whole false, damnable, demonic doctrine that requires a ceremony and a work to be saved.

No different than the Mormons and the Jehovah's witnesses, the Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox. He's adding a work to salvation.

I don't hate him, but I hate the false gospel he's preaching and teaching because he puts a requirement upon you to be saved.

Again, Acts 16, 30, they ask, what must we do to be saved? What does Paul the apostle say?

Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you in your household, you'll be saved, you and your household. Believe, that's what he says you must do.

In fact, in Acts 10, 43, of him as Jesus, all the prophets bear witness that through his name, everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins.

Everyone who believes in him, everyone who believes. Well, then the man on the deathbed who has tubes in him,

I've seen it and he receives Christ, walk up, the chaplain walks up, sir, do you know you're a sinner?

He nods because that's all he can do. I have seen the fear of death in people's faces in hospitals.

And he says, do you wanna receive Christ? A man, this chaplain gives the gospel, who Jesus is, the Trinity, the hypostatic union, incarnation, whatever's necessary, gives a good presentation of the gospel.

So you wanna receive Christ, the man nods. You have faith in what Jesus did in the cross, the man's nods, it's all he can do.

So good, and not that a prayer, some formula of prayer is what saves us, but the idea is the man, the chaplain says, let's pray.

And this poor sinner, ready to meet the maker, receives

Christ by faith, then he dies. Mr.

Richardson would say he's damned to eternal hellfire because he didn't get dunked in water.

That would mean that faith in Christ is not enough to save you.

That would mean that believing the Lord Jesus and you will be saved is not true. It would mean that for the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

It would mean that his faith is not credited as righteousness. So he goes to various verses, Acts 22, 16, wash away your sins, be baptized.

Yeah, calling on the name of the Lord, which is a power of authority and prayer too in worship. You can go to Zechariah 13, nine,

Psalm 168, it's prayer to God, it's the appeal to God for who he is and what he can do.

This is why it's not an appeal, excuse me, it's an appeal of a clean conscience in first Peter 3, 21, not this being dunked in water that saves you.

What we have here is Mr. Richardson condemning people to eternal damnation who don't get dunked in water.

He's condemning people to hell, all infants who die because it's necessary.

Necessary means there is no exception. If he then says, no, there's an exception, then he's lost the debate.

He's conceded the title of the debate, which is that water baptism by immersion is necessary.

If it's necessary, there can be no exclusion. There can be no exception. That must mean that all babies who die go to hell and all people who die without being baptized go to hell, but then what mode of baptism?

Then he would also have to say that anybody on a deathbed who receives Christ and trust in Christ to be justified by faith and ask

Jesus to forgive him of his sins, doesn't get immersed in water, goes to eternal flame because his faith in Christ isn't enough.

His faith and his trust in Jesus isn't enough. No, he's gotta do something more. See, Jesus said in John 19, 30, it's finished.

He rose from the dead later, proving that what he said was true. He didn't say to come and be baptized in order to be forgiven of your sins and that you're not justified by faith, no.

I can go into other verses that even Jesus talked about this very clearly. But the issue here is, folks, are you gonna put your faith in a ceremony along with your faith in Christ to be saved or in Christ alone and everything in him alone?

Are you gonna put your trust in being dunked in water because that would be the thing then that saves you, not your faith in Christ?

Because if it's your faith in Christ that saves you, then you're saved by faith when you have faith in Christ.

What he's doing is denying the truth of the gospel. And he's preaching a false and damnable heresy.

And he needs to repent, and all who hold his position need to repent as well. All right, done.

Okay, for clarity, I think you may have said it, but people can be asking questions along the way.

Correct. Okay, just so people can hear. And then our moderator is supposed to record those questions.

If you have a question, say, for Matt or for A .K., and then our moderator,

Ernie, what he will do is he will record those. And then in the Q &A section, we may take a break before it, five -minute break or something like that.

Then he will feed the questions in the text chat. All right? Okay. Okay, people, so go ahead and ask your questions when you have one.

All right, let me start my timer. Okay, 10 minutes. I gotta be selective with what

I answer. That's the way of debates. Remember, you guys could always bring the issues back up in your questions.

Okay, what did we hear from Mr. Slick? Well, we heard a lot is you're justified by faith, therefore not baptism.

As a matter of fact, he said, he said you're saved by faith when you believe. That's called begging the question.

Because of course, he's assuming that baptism isn't necessary. That's what we're debating, of course. But the argument, well, you're saved by faith when you believe assumes the very thing we're here to prove.

In other words, if I can establish that in the New Testament, baptism was acquired, then you're not saved by faith before water baptism.

You're saved by faith when you believe. So you can't just keep saying, and he does, well, you're justified by faith.

If you gotta be baptized, you're not justified by faith. Begging the question, begging the question. Because I just demonstrated from the text that you're saved when you get baptized because that's what it says.

Okay, now, he said, I'm denying justification by faith. Well, again, you just hear him say that every time and you know he's begging the question.

He said that God grants faith, Philippians, and grants repentance as well.

Yeah, I believe that. But see, as a Calvinist, Mr. Slick is a Calvinist. When he says grants, he believes, he assumes that granting faith and repentance is an irresistible work that is done directly by changing the nature by the

Holy Spirit directly on the heart. Well, that's an assumption, of course. And I understand he makes that assumption. He's a Calvinist.

I believe that God grants faith and repentance. How does he grant repentance, by the way? We could use an example. You go to Acts 11, 18.

He said, God granted the Gentiles repentance to life. How did he do that? We don't see anything in the text ever about a irresistible work of the

Spirit on the heart by changing the nature so that they can believe. We see that Cornelius has brought the gospel by preachers.

The gospel, which saves, faith comes by hearing. You see, God grants faith. Romans 10 grants faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God.

He grants it by revealing the gospel, which reveals the person and work of Jesus Christ, which reveals that which is necessary for sanctification.

So you can't just say he grants us faith because Mr. Slake assumes that this irresistible work done directly with the heart change illumination of the

Spirit, but that's not the case. That's at least an assumption. Okay, he keeps saying faith is not sufficient.

Well, that's, I believe faith is sufficient. You're justified by faith when you believe. It's a matter of faith. Now, I wanna look at something here.

Now, in Acts 16, verse 31, this is what he said. Now, the Philippian jailer was told, believe in the

Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Well, I believe that. Again, baptism, expression of faith.

He says, it doesn't say believe and be baptized. Now, I find that very interesting. Now, 1 Peter 3, 21 doesn't mention faith, saves, it just mentions baptism.

Now, what if I make the argument that we're only saved by baptism and not faith because it doesn't mention it there? Well, that of course would be absurd.

Now, here's something interesting. You see that the Bible writers don't need to say everything explicitly.

It's a mistake of simple hermeneutics. I'm not trying to be mean, but he's making a basic mistake by not adding everything tota scriptura that the

Bible has to say. For example, in Acts 8, Philip is preaching to the eunuch.

Now, it says that beginning with this verse in Isaiah, he preached to him Jesus. That doesn't say anything explicit about what he preached about Jesus.

The very next reaction of the eunuch when they come to water is, here is water, what hinders me from being baptized? So, obviously preaching

Jesus includes, though not stated explicitly, Jesus teaching, preaching Jesus, teaching on baptism and obeying it.

Whatever you believe about the purpose. Even Mr. Slick believes that you must, you should be baptized, not to be saved, but it's a command, okay?

Whatever it teaches about the purpose. We know, therefore, that preaching Jesus includes preaching baptism and obeying it, whatever the purpose of that may be.

Well, therefore, it stands to reason that the Philippian jailer is told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, while believing on the

Lord Jesus Christ will include believing the Lord's teaching on baptism and obeying it. And if I can establish that it's for forgiveness and that it saves you, that means believing on the

Lord Jesus Christ includes believing that baptism saves and that you gotta obey it to be forgiven.

It's a simple matter. Now, I find it interesting, though, that he says that. It doesn't say baptism. Well, when somebody brings up to Mr.

Slick, Mark 16, 16, and that's not an argument I brought up, but some people do in other discussions, which says, he that believes and is baptized will be saved.

It's interesting that he explains why that doesn't mean you have to be baptized. And yet, so what's the point of saying, well, it doesn't say and be baptized in Acts 16, 31?

Well, even if it did, Mr. Slick is not going to believe it. Because you see, it could say forgiveness of sins.

He doesn't believe it's for the forgiveness of sins. Peter can say that it now saves us. He's not gonna believe it now saves us. It could say and be baptized.

He's not gonna believe that because it doesn't matter what the text says or does not say. He's got a theology that does not allow it.

He's allowing his tradition to drive his theology. Now, something interesting is he demonstrates this in one of his discussions with a man named

Scott. I don't know how to pronounce his last name on the same thing. Mr. Slick refers to Acts 22, 16.

And he says this, and I got the documentation here in case anybody asks. Mr. Slick says, quote,

Acts 22, 16 is what he's talking about. What then do the words wash away your sins mean? Do they teach salvation comes by water baptism?

No, it can't. Because if salvation comes by water baptism, then we're not justified by faith, unquote.

So the idea, see, that's the point. He's admitting it can't mean that. So it doesn't matter what the text actually says about baptism.

It can't mean it because his theology won't allow it. So if I can demonstrate that being justified by faith does not exclude water baptism, his whole case just collapsed.

By the way, he mentioned I'm similar in this respect to Roman Catholicism.

So says the man who believes in sprinkling and baptizing infants. But as we know, just because you have something similar to somebody else that's part of a false theology does not make you wrong.

I do not believe anything about grace being infused or anything like that. Now, he said that, he mentioned pouring about the

Holy Spirit being poured on. Well, I have, well, let me go to 1 Peter 3 .21. Now this will be interesting.

Let me do this. Now, he mentioned that the water does not refer, baptism does not refer to the water.

Well, the Greek grammar doesn't allow that. The ark is feminine, water is neuter, and so is the relative pronoun.

Now, even in one of his articles on 1 Peter 3 .21, Mr. Slick says this, quote, now he's talking about 1

Peter 3 .21, and he made similar arguments to what he just said there. He said, quote, but to be fair, the

Greek seems to imply that baptism is referring to the water, not the ark. Well, I agree, it doesn't, it can't.

It's not a grammatically good argument. Now he said, but he did say that it refers to the ark.

Well, he said they enter the ark by faith. Okay, so they were saved physically by entering the ark by faith.

Entering the ark was a necessary condition required by God, but they were still saved by faith. That's what

Hebrews 11 says. And it was still by grace. Well, that's what my position is on baptism. You enter baptism by faith, it's a necessary condition like entering the ark, but you're still saved by grace and you're still saved by faith, spiritually.

They were saved physically, were saved spiritually. He just really made my case. You know, he said many other things that, you know,

Acts chapter 10 that I'll have to save for later. By the way, I'll address this real quickly.

Acts chapter two, he says it doesn't mention faith. Well, I've already established that baptism is an expression of faith.

Now in Genesis chapter six and verse 14, Noah is told to build an ark, but it doesn't say believe and build the ark.

It doesn't say anything about faith. And yet the Hebrew writers understands what Mr. Slick does not, because it says by faith,

Noah prepared the ark to the saving of his household. So it doesn't have to, because it's an expression of faith.

Okay, now I think this is very important. So let me address it. He mentions Romans four,

Abraham did not work. This is a complete misunderstanding of the context. Now it's very important that you guys understand this.

He mentions Romans four a lot with Abraham, and it says to him who believes, but does not work. What he's saying is this means there's nothing you do to be saved.

That's what he said explicitly. He said that, well, this is a reference to that. That's not the context.

He is reinterpreting the context. And I would love to go over this more throughout this debate. Okay, Romans three,

Romans one and two, Paul establishes that both Jew and Gentile have sinned and therefore need justification by some other way than through law.

He says, because they both have sinned. Then in verse nine, he says, all are under sin. Verse 20, he says, therefore, because by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified.

In context, that means you've sinned. Your works will not save you because they are not sufficient because they have sin.

It's not that you can't do anything or God can't require something to be saved. It's works can't save you because they're not sufficient because they got sin.

Now you still may be required to do something, baptism, but your works alone are not sufficient because you have sin.

And then he says in verse 22, for all have sinned. That's the point. The context is your works don't save you.

You can't be saved by works because they're not sufficient because they got sin in them. And therefore in verse chapter four, it says the one who works, now this is where he really misses it.

His wage is not credited as favor, but as what is due. See, that's earning it. That's the point.

Him who works, in other words, he that is justified by his works, not that he has to, he that is obeying a command required, it's he that is earning it by his works.

And I am out of time. All right, well, thank you.

Boy. As I like to say so much heresy, so little time.

All right, let's get into the 10 minutes. Okay. He said,

I was begging the question to say that we're justified by faith. Begging the question means to assume the thing you're trying to prove to be true.

Romans 4, 5, having therefore been justified by faith. He says that that's not a good thing for me to do, to assume that position that we're justified by faith.

I'm just quoting scripture, Romans 5, 1, therefore having been justified by faith. To beg the question, it's a fallacy on his part.

He misapplied the fallacy of logic there in a debate. He did not demonstrate the text that we need to be baptized in order to be saved.

He didn't demonstrate that. He's begging the question, assuming that he did. You see, begging the question deals with logic and presentation of logic and logical arguments.

He hasn't presented a logical argument for the necessity of water baptism. What he's done is taken some verses and then he's, you know,

Romans 2, 1 says, you're guilty of what you accuse others of doing. And what he's guilty of is reading into the text.

And we'll get to this Romans 4, 5 thing a little bit later when he just really butchered it, and he did.

And also, I'm just gonna let you know that he does not understand Calvinism as well as he thinks. I'd love to debate

Calvinism with him sometime. He failed to understand the proper issue of organic faith, regeneration, and what it means for irresistible grace and stuff like that.

I would suggest, Mr. Richardson, that you study that. You don't know what you're talking about in that, or you just simply misspoke in a rush, which is certainly possible.

So no, he did not demonstrate we have to be baptized in order to be saved. He didn't do that.

So he went to 1 Peter 3, 21. And as it clearly is stating there, that the baptism, the water is not what saved

Noah. The water is not what saved. It was a means of destruction. You can go to Matthew 24,

Luke 17. Two men in a field, one is taken, one is left. And the context there is it wasn't days of Noah's social, it'd be the coming of the

Son of Man. The waters was the means of destruction of the ungodly. If the ungodly were taken there, you can read the context.

Read all of it, and particularly in Luke 17. And Peter, in one of his other epistles, I've got the reference someplace, don't have it memorized, where Peter says the water was the means of destruction.

It's not, you know, the ark was the means of being saved from the water.

And he has to make it say that the water somehow saves them. But even

Peter says, that's not the issue. It's not the water from the dirt from the flesh washing the water. It's not the water on the body.

He says it right there. And when he quotes this verse, he continually, like everybody else who does that verse, they never quote the whole thing and look at the whole thing.

They just don't do it because it doesn't suit their theology. And so he's guilty of what he says

I'm doing. And to insert my theology in, okay, I formally challenge you to a debate on Calvinism.

Yeah, and we'll see if he wants to do that on let's say limited atonement, stuff like that, predestination election.

He said, I hope I'm getting him right. He said, I can't say that God grants his faith. I hope

I misrepresented him in this. I apologize that these kinds of things happen. But yes, I can actually say that the

Bible says we're granted faith because that's what it says in Philippians 1, 29, you've been granted to belief and belief and the word faith in English are the same

Greek word pistos and the Greek pistou. Oh, that's what it is. So he grants it. Dido mean the Greek, I believe it is to give and to grant.

He says, baptism is an expression of faith. Well, so is reading my Bible and so is prayer. But you see, just to say it's an expression of faith doesn't mean that that expression of faith is a thing that saves you.

Faith itself is the thing that saves us as the Bible says, Romans 5, 1, having therefore been justified by faith.

That's what the issue is. And he, I got a kick out of Romans 4, 5.

We can talk about that more. I've studied that very, very, you know, a lot. Romans 4, 5 is in the context of Romans 4 is one of my favorite areas of scripture actually.

And I noticed that what he did was he went back to Romans 1. I'm not complaining about looking at the broad context, but the danger of doing something like that is you miss topic changes, you miss conjunctions, you miss all kinds of stuff.

And to hopscotch around and say, this is what it really means over here, it's a problem. It's not a good exegetical technique.

And so what he's saying there, Paul, do we then nullify the law through faith?

It may never be. On the contrary, we establish the law. Verse one of chapter four, what then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, court of the flesh is found?

For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. Remember Abraham did what he did before the law was given.

So what works is he talking about? Anything he would do, including circumcision, which is a ceremony, but nevertheless.

For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God and it was credited him as righteousness.

What was credited to Abraham as righteousness? Was it circumcision? Was it picking up his family and moving?

No, it was belief. Abraham believed God and it was credited him as righteousness.

What was credited as righteousness? Faith. There you go. Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but what is due?

Okay, so Paul's simply saying that if you're gonna work, if you wanna do, then you've got a proper reward coming.

By something that you do, you've got a certain thing coming to you. So if you get baptized in water by immersion, now you have salvation coming to you.

This is what he's appealing to because what he's saying here is similar to, I think it's congruent merit in congruent or condign merit in Roman Catholicism, which says that God obligates himself and if you perform a certain thing, then he's obligated to save you based on that.

This is Roman Catholic theology. He does not understand how close he is to Roman Catholic theology. In soteriology, and that's what we're talking about.

And do you wanna talk about infant baptism sometime? We can talk about infant baptism sometime. I don't mind talking about that.

And the different forms of baptism, and I can show you from the Bible that Jesus was sprinkled and other stuff. You know, it's not that big a deal.

The issue here is the immersion of the thing. And Paul goes on and he says, but to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies you in godly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

What's credited as righteousness is faith in Romans chapter four, verse five and Romans chapter four, verse three.

Abraham believed God was credited him as righteousness. In order for him to hold his position of baptismal regeneration, baptism is necessary for salvation.

He's gonna have to deny verses three and five. Because if he affirms that we're justified by faith, then

Abraham was justified by faith without baptism, without circumcision, without doing anything. And Paul the apostle was reaching out to him and pulling him into the present context after baptism had been instituted, after Christ had been resurrected and went into heaven and said that to the one who does not work, but believes.

He uses Abraham before the law and he uses the issue of faith after the law to say that we're justified by faith.

He denies that we're justified by faith. And I know I was gonna say, no, I don't deny that we're justified by faith.

We're justified by faith, not when we have faith, but when we get baptized, that's denying justification by faith.

Because justification by faith means when you have faith, you're justified. Get this, justified by faith,

Romans 5, one, having therefore, let me go straight to it. Therefore, having been justified by faith, that's what it says.

When are you justified by faith? When you have faith, Romans 4, five, what does it say? It says to the one who does not work, his faith is credited as righteousness.

See, the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited.

It's belief that's credited. It's faith that's credited as righteousness. He denies that because he'll say that it's not credited to you as righteousness when you believe, but when you get baptized, you have to undergo a ceremony in order to be saved.

Now, maybe later in our discussion, our debate, he might address the issue of all babies going to hell because if he says they don't, he forfeits the debate.

If he says that people on their deathbeds who receive and trust in Christ and ask

Jesus to forgive them of their sins, they pray, Jesus, forgive me, and they die, sorry.

You go to hell, your faith in Christ is not enough. There's something you gotta do.

And if you teach that you have to do something in order to be saved, other than belief. Now, he doesn't understand what

Calvinism is. God grants us faith. He needs to talk about temporal priority versus logical priority and the nature of regeneration.

If he wants to understand, we discuss it. That's a little hint for later on, but he doesn't understand the position that I hold to.

That's clear. God grants that we believe. In fact, he moves the heart of the king where he wishes it to go,

Proverbs 21 .1. God is the one who opened the mind of Lydia to believe the gospel,

Acts 16 .14. This is what God does. He grants it to us. Do you think that when

God grants that we believe, when he works faith in us, John 6, 20, 29, what must we do to work the works of God?

This is the work of God that you believe on whom he has sent. Do you think that when God grants that you believe and works faith in you, that that's sufficient in and of itself or not?

Because if it is sufficient in and of itself being from God, then you're justified by faith. If not, then

God's work is not sufficient to save you. You have to perform a ceremony, which is baptism by immersion in order to be saved.

That's a false gospel. He's teaching a false gospel, and he's gonna lead you and others to damnation if you believe it.

Done. Okay, this is the

Q &A cross -examination? Yes, it is. Now, we're gonna do 10 minutes,

I think it is, right? Yeah, 10 minutes each. One person questions, the other answers.

Okay, and then you mind after that, we take a break because - Sure. I need to use the restroom after a while.

There's - You gotta go, you gotta go. That's right. All right, so let me start my timer.

I assume I'm asking the questions first, right? Go ahead. Okay, starting timer.

Okay, just a question of clarity. You said that I was begging the question by saying that you were making the argument that we're justified by faith.

Do you understand me to be saying that it's begging the question to say we're justified by faith?

To say the beg to question means that you're assuming the thing to be true, you're trying to prove. That's what begging the question means.

So we're both begging the question in the sense that I'm begging the question and that I believe and assume the position of justification by faith alone in Christ alone, and you don't.

You believe that you have to have baptism for it. Okay, but so you don't understand that when I say it's an assumption to say justification by faith means when you believe, you don't understand that that's what

I was saying and not that we're justified by faith. It means when you believe you're justified.

I'm trying to understand. I'm not gonna ask you questions, but are you telling, I mean, just, I'm not sure how to answer the question because I think you're contradicting yourself.

That's why I can see. So in other words, just let me clarify what I did say then ask you about it. Okay, I had said that I believe in justification by faith, but when you say that we're justified, when you say that justification by faith means when you believe before baptism,

I said, that's an assumption. Do you understand the distinction and what

I'm saying that you're assuming? I think, yeah, I understand what you just clarified, but I don't understand what the issue, if you wanna go for the begging the question thing,

I define what it is. You can say that, look, we both are begging the question.

We had to prove our cases. That's what the debate's about. Right, okay, well, let me move on.

All right, so you say several times that if we're justified by faith, we're justified when we believe, is that right?

Yes. Okay, so Hebrews 11 and verse 30 says, the walls of Jericho fell down by faith.

Did they fall down when they believed? You're mixing the category of justification, which is satiriological and a historical event where they had faith in God.

So you're making a category error. Add that to the definition of what you need to study when it comes to begging the question, logical fallacies.

But my point is, if it can be said that something happens by faith, which it does, so the walls of Jericho fell down, does that imply necessarily that it happened when they believe?

Well, you're not being clear enough when they believe. When they believe the first microsecond of belief, the belief after seven days of continued belief, the question here is not clarified enough to be able to answer the question properly.

Let me ask this. Did they fall down by faith? I'm not sure what you mean by faith.

Is our faith a thing that caused it to fall? No, God caused it to fall because our faith was in God. I agree.

Okay, did he cause it to fall when they believed or when their faith led them to do what

God told them to do? Well, you mean, oh, I see what you're saying. So you're saying that when they first had belief, they weren't walking around and it hadn't happened yet.

They had to walk around and they did because God commanded that they walk around seven times. Incidentally, they'd been to Jericho and stood on those walls.

Yeah, so in other words, did they have to do something to get this gift? Yeah, they did.

They had what looks like, and I'm trying to remember the context, but it looks like they had to walk around seven times as God had specifically commanded in order for the victory to occur.

Yes. So it says that they fell down by faith, but it says after, so did, if something happens by faith, whatever it may be, salvation or something else, if something happens by faith, since this verse says it happened by faith, but after their faith led them to do something, as you just said, does that not negate your argument that being justified by faith necessarily, logically means it happens when you believe?

No, it doesn't negate it because Romans 4, 5 clearly tells us of many verses to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

It is very clear, it's a soteriological statement. What you're doing is going to the hall of faith, which summarizes some things, and then you're trying to mix the category and apply soteriologically.

You can't bridge that gap. You're making another logical mistake in doing this.

Okay, so what I'm trying to ask is, many times you just said, the Bible says we're justified by faith.

You mentioned the first verse in Romans, and you said, justified by faith. And you said, so we're justified when we believe, but does not the fact that Hebrews 11, 30 say that something happens by faith, does not necessarily mean that it happens when you believe, that it can be by faith when that faith leads you to do what

God says. In the context of the Old Testament thing back there, in that context, yes.

But that's not - I'm asking you about logic. In other words, logically speaking. Go ahead. Yeah, logically speaking, that is correct.

But just make sure you apply the conclusion properly. Okay, so, right. I mean, in other words, you can go to other scriptures for the sake of discussion, and you could show, well, this shows that baptism is also not included.

I understand that, that's what we're debating. But simply to say we're justified by faith means when we believe is to beg the question.

That's what I was saying. So, are you admitting, therefore, that to be justified by faith, that alone does not necessitate that it's when you believe?

No, I won't admit that, because the Bible says, having therefore been justified by faith, Romans 5, 1, and Romans 4, 5, says that when it does not work, but believes on him who justifies in godly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

I can't go against scripture. Well, like I said, I mean, it's one thing to say, well, this verse has no works.

Okay, assuming your interpretation is correct. Yeah, you could say, well, the Bible also says that you don't have to be baptized, there are no works.

I get it. But what I'm saying is logically, just to say we're justified by faith does not logically necessitate that we're saved by faith when we first believe.

I see what you're trying to say logically, but it's not a biblical case that you're making. Right, we could have the debate on what the

Bible teaches as a whole, but when, why then, okay, but that's fine. Okay, let me move on. Okay, let's go to Romans 4 and 5.

So, when it says, "'But to the one who does not work, but believes.'" Considering the fact that in context,

Paul has been talking about everybody having sinned, and since he uses the same word, works, in chapter three.

After making the case that both have sinned, Jew and Gentile, he says, "'Therefore, by the works of the law,' or because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified,' does that not demonstrate that when he says justified by works in context, that means sinless obedience to law?

Sinless obedience to law is what he's referring to? He says all have sinned in verse nine of chapter three, and then he says, it goes on the quote scripture to prove that, and then he says, "'Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified.'"

It says it right there in Romans three. If he says all are under sin, and then he says, "'Because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified,' does that not demonstrate that the context of works being justified by works means your works are sufficient because you do not have sin?"

And that's what it means. Is that not the case? I have no idea where you're getting that because the

Bible clearly says we have sinned and all have sinned, Romans 5, 12. And so when you say that, and then you're going against the scripture by saying it means that we work sinlessly, it's absolutely confusing to me.

Can I restate the question? Sure, please do. I'm not saying we are justified by works. I'm saying

Paul is denying, we both agree that Paul is denying justification by works. Okay, but what does he mean when he says justification by works?

In other words, contextually, is it not the case that the concept of the reason we cannot be justified by works, what that means is we cannot be justified by works because we have sinned?

We can't be justified by works because we've sinned? Yeah, Romans 3 - We should have a discussion on what the law really is as a reflection of the character of God, how it brings about the opposite of what it requires, how its perfection level is there.

Paul obviously understood that no one could do that. He wrote Romans 5, 12, all have sinned, all are short of the glory of God.

So, you know, I'm not trying to be difficult. In all seriousness, I don't understand where you're getting this from the scripture.

It seems to me that you're just reaching all over the place, pulling things together and ignoring the verses like Romans 3, 28, the very chapter you're saying there, which says we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

So I'm not sure what you're getting at, in all seriousness, I don't understand. I understand. Okay, so you have made the argument that because the

Bible says we're not saved by works, you've quoted Romans 4, that means there's nothing you do to be saved. What I'm asking about is, how do you get that from the context when the context shows that what

Paul means by a justification through works means the man whose works are perfect.

That's how you are justified by faith, according to context. That's the contextual meaning. How do you justify your interpretation, which is, well, you just don't do anything

God has commanded. You haven't justified your position. You haven't grounded it, that it's a fact that what

Paul's talking about is that the works have to be perfect. Does he not say - You have not stated that. Sorry, go ahead.

You haven't stated that at all. You haven't proved that. Okay, in context. Did I not read or quote to you

Romans 5, 12, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God? And doesn't that demonstrate that justification by works would mean not sinning?

I'm out of time. Justification by works means not sinning. Yeah, which is, yeah, that's what the cults, some of the cults teach.

All right, now before we get started on my 10 minutes,

I wanna apologize. You have to understand, I was not trying to be difficult. I was not trying to waste time or anything like that.

I honestly could not understand what you were getting at. So, you know, I apologize for that, but that's the truth, okay?

It wasn't making any sense what you were saying. All right. Okay, 10 minutes.

Hold on, let me clear my throat. Excuse me. All right.

Okay, here we go. So Romans 4, 5 is becoming a pretty critical verse.

And I do appreciate that. As I said, and I think you should really study it in more in depth for what verse 3 of Romans 4, what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God, it was credited him as righteousness. Do you affirm that Abraham's belief is what was credited as righteousness?

Yes. Okay, did Abraham have to do anything in the context here in order to be justified by faith?

There was no command that it was required as in baptism. That's what you mean?

I said, was it required for him to do anything in order to be justified or have his faith credited as righteousness?

He was required to obey God. That's what faith is. Now, what does the text says?

I asked you a specific question, you're not answering my question. Does the text say that he had to do anything in order for his belief to be credited as righteousness?

Oh, you mean in this text? In the text, what I'm saying, in the context. Okay, sorry, I apologize. No, it doesn't say in this text anything about what he did or did not have to do or it just says he was justified by faith.

Okay, so would you say he was justified by faith when he had faith? No, because the logic, as you agreed, when

I was asking you, the logic of being justified by faith does not necessitate that it was by faith when he first believed.

So that's my answer. Okay, so then when it says Abraham believed God and it, his belief, was credited as righteousness, in other words, it was not credited as righteousness.

That's what you're saying. No, again, you're doing the same thing I demonstrated in my questions. You're assuming that being justified by faith or having your faith credited to you as righteousness necessitates when he first believed before he may or may not had to do anything.

But you've already admitted that logically you cannot necessitate, logically that is not necessitated.

And I said it with a qualifier as well. Let me ask you a question. Can you define what a work is, please? Oh, I would say anything that you do.

Okay. Or submit to. Anything that you do. Did the

Jews walking around Jericho qualify as a work? Did that, that's certainly working.

It was a work. Okay, so then - It's not a work of law. Walking around is not a work of law, but it is a work.

You said anything they do, walking around seven days blowing trumpets is something they were doing. Okay, but this is the same definition you've given for work.

No, I asked you what work was. You just gave it to me. I'm working with what you said. I'm applying it to something you raised earlier.

And you said that at Jericho, that they weren't justified by faith when they had faith, they had to do something.

And then I just asked you, what's a work? Okay, you're not asking a question. I mean, you can make a statement, but ask a question when you do it.

Yeah, I will. And you said that a work is something that you have to do. I asked you, was what they were doing, walking a work?

The answer is what? Yes. So the Bible says in Romans 4, 5, the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies ungodly.

So would you say that they didn't have to walk around in order for it to be done, or they did have to for the walls to fall?

I'm sorry, I wanna make sure I understand the question. Ask that again. I think I'll forgo the question because it was, we'll go to something else.

I just wanted to make sure I understood it. Hold on, get my notes.

I've got three 27 -inch monitors, please hold on. Well, if I understood your question, yes, they had to do something.

They had to perform works for the walls to fall down by faith. For the walls to fall down by faith, they had to do works.

That's what you're saying. All right. As you did. I have a question for you. Now, do you say that our sins are canceled when we get baptized?

Our sins are removed when we get baptized? Yes. Okay. Colossians 2 .14,

I'm gonna read this to you. And verse 13 is very critical. Having forgiven us all of our transgressions, verse 14, having canceled the certificate of debt, consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, he had taken it out of the way, having nailed to the cross.

According to Colossians 2 .14, and I'll put it in the text here so you can see it. When is the sin debt canceled?

When you believe, when you get baptized, or when Christ died on the cross? The sin debt?

Well, it is canceled. You are, are you talking about forgiveness? I didn't say forgiveness. It says the certificate of debt, the

Greek word is chirographon, a handwritten IOU of legal indebtedness. Jesus equated sin with legal debt.

When he said our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. He said, forgive us our sins in Luke 11 .4.

In Matthew 6 .12, he said, forgive us our debts. Jesus equates sin with legal debt. Paul here says that Jesus, having canceled, that previous verse, verse 13, having forgiven us all our transgressions, that's our sins.

Verse 14, having canceled out the certificate of debt, consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us, he took it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Where does the text say that our sin debt's canceled? According to verse 14, it says that it is canceled at the cross.

But when we see - Okay, it is canceled at the cross, that was the question. So is it canceled when you get baptized?

Yeah, you're forgiven. That's what Acts 2 .38 says. I didn't say forgiven. Was the sin debt canceled?

Sin debt canceled, I'm not saying forgiven. Okay, this is particulars and exact precision and theological terminology.

The sin debt is canceled at the cross. Right. You said it was canceled when you get baptized.

I know, what I'm saying is you're forgiven of the sins. Strictly speaking, verse 14 says the -

I didn't ask you a question. So the thing is, it says here that the sin debt is canceled at the cross.

If it's, here's the question. If it's canceled at the cross, how then, as you said, is it canceled when you get baptized?

Because it's conditional upon faith. The work that Christ does on the cross is not applied to anybody until they believe.

So Colossians 2 .14, you mean he didn't cancel at the cross. It's canceled when you believe.

Yeah, it's, well, you understand, you connect the scriptural dots. If we're forgiven when we believe, even as you believe, then you understand that when it's canceled at the cross in this text means that by the work on the cross, the, what was necessary, the atonement, what was necessary for the forgiveness of sins was completed, but it is not applied clearly until a person believes.

I mean, you're not, your sins are not forgiven until you believe. So if you're gonna equate the sin debt with forgiveness, now you didn't say forgiveness.

If you're gonna equate it with what happens at faith, then the reality is you're not forgiven of those sins until you are baptized.

So you admitted the sin debt is canceled at the cross. Now, the

Bible says we're justified when we believe, but you also said that the sin debt is canceled when you get baptized.

Now you can retract that statement, which I will say, okay, you just misspoke. That happens in debates.

But if you wanna hold to both, it was canceled at the cross 2000 years ago. It's also canceled when you believe you can't have both because it was canceled by Jesus at the cross.

It's not left here for it to be canceled at your baptism. Can you please deal with that issue?

Yeah, it's canceled at the cross, but it's not applied until baptism. So in the sense of it is applied for the believer is in baptism.

It says you are forgiven of your sins when you are baptized. Okay, you're not forgiven until you have faith.

You can't be justified. What you're saying, what you're asking about, I heard your discussion with Jesse Murrell, it's incoherent.

You're trying to have something happens on the cross, but we're still not justified or forgiven even though it's been canceled.

It's canceled - Well, with respect, I'll say that you don't understand the theological issues here. This is why you hold this position.

You don't understand it. And we need to have a debate on this. You need to study Colossians 2 .14 in depth.

That sin date is canceled. That's not a question. Justification occurs. I'm helping you out for a later discussion.

Justification occurs when we believe. I deny that I don't understand. I think I'm showing that your argument is incoherent.

Now I would appreciate it if - The Bible says that he canceled the sin date at the cross.

If it's canceled, does it exist anymore? Does it exist?

Well - The sin date's gone. It's canceled. Does it exist? It's a concept. I mean, a sin date is not a tangible thing that's there.

Your sins are there. The work that is not... He didn't literally cancel out something by erasing it or actually nailing it to the cross.

What it means is the work of the cross was sufficient for him to forgive.

And that forgiveness is applied through faith as you yourself believe as a Calvinist.

You don't know what I believe as a Calvinist. You should be careful about going there. You're supposed to ask a question, not rebut me.

Yeah, you're not understanding what the text says. I really strongly recommend you study it.

The sin date is canceled at the cross. If it's canceled, it doesn't exist anymore. How then can it also be canceled at your baptism?

That's incoherent. It's a logical impossibility. If something canceled, it doesn't exist anymore. You're giving a rebuttal,

Mr. Slick. You're not asking a question. Well, we're out of time anyway. So... Oh, you got... All right.

I was just explaining. Now we are... Okay, at this point, what we have to do is if you don't mind,

I'll take a little bit of a break. We give others do the same, okay? That's fine. How about five minutes?

Is that okay? That's fine with me. Or three minutes. Three, yeah, don't make it too long for people. Three minutes, okay? Three minutes is just fine.

Okay, it'll give me time to use the restroom and check on my wife, all right? Okay. Try and be back in three minutes. And then we're gonna do 10 -minute closing statements.

Okay. Matt, I can put your questions in this box private, but I can type the other comments.

I can't type in the other comments here. I can put your questions in this box. AK, you hear me?

Can you hear me? Yes. Trying to make sure. Can you see the text where Ernie was typing on the right -hand side of the screen?

I can. Okay. All right. So Ernie, for those who don't know,

Ernie's kind of moderating. He's gonna help out with the questions and his mic isn't working and camera isn't working, but he can type.

So Ernie, are you saying then that you can paste the questions in there or type them in or like to AK and then the question and then

Matt, the question? You can do that? Okay. And are there questions? Because if there's not questions, maybe we could just have a little open discussion.

There are... Oh, he says, oh yeah. Okay. Good. Okay. All right.

Okay, well, we are doing our concluding speeches right now first, right? Yep. You wanna rotate?

Yes, you go back and forth. Doesn't matter who you go first with. You just pick at your discretion unless AK has a problem with that, but just pick whoever you want.

And okay. All right.

I'll go in line of time. Okay, good. Okay, that's good. That works. Okay. I guess we're ready for 10 minute closing.

I go first or you go first? I think I go first, don't I? I would go... I go first because I had the affirmative.

Okay, go for it whenever you're ready. And you'll see me typing or talking again, not to be rude, okay?

While I'm taking notes while you're talking. No, I understand. All right. All right, 10 minutes. Okay, once again, what

Matt Slick has presented and as I demonstrated in the Q &A cross -examination that when he says we're justified by faith, therefore not baptism, he has been begging the question and he conceded, although he seemed to walk it back, that logically that does not necessitate.

The fact that we're justified by faith does not necessitate. It's when we believe before baptism. I'm gonna address babies.

Now, here's the thing. What I have said in my opening, I defined what

I mean. Baptism is required by Jesus and the apostles for the forgiveness of sins. Now, babies do not have sin.

Now, he knows that I believe this. I think he's wanting to get it off into the doctrine of original sin. I do not agree with his understanding of the doctrine of original sin.

Now, we disagree, but that's not what the debate is about. It's necessary for those who are condemned in their sin.

It's necessary to be saved. Babies do not need to be saved. And by the way, if you read some of his articles on babies, he leaves it open for babies going to hell.

You just go and read his articles on his website. I do not believe babies go to hell. I do not believe young children go to hell because they do not have sin because they are innocent.

Now, I'm not gonna get into whether that's true or not because that's a different discussion. It's not necessary for those who do not have any sin.

That would be a contradiction. It's necessary for babies who do not have sin for the forgiveness of the sins that they do not have.

Does that make any sense? That's not my position. So no, that's not an exception because they don't have sins.

So it's not even an exception because it's not applicable. And by the way, Mr. Slick says, if it's necessary, there can be no exceptions.

Well, I don't agree with that. And if we wanna get into that later, we can. But I don't even believe that is an exception.

It's just not applicable. Babies don't go to hell. Those who die on their deathbed, well, friends, if the

Bible requires baptism, unless I see some revealed exception in the New Testament, I can't say that they go to heaven if they die on their deathbed without baptism.

What does the Bible teach? The only thing I know about salvation is what this Bible teaches. So if it teaches that baptism is required, then those on their deathbed are gonna have to be baptized.

Yeah, it's an emotional argument, but that's okay. Because what if someone's on their deathbed waiting to hear the gospel?

I wanna hear what God wants of me. Never heard of Jesus. A preacher's on his way, and as he gets in the door, he starts to preach, but the guy finally dies just as the guy gets in the door.

Is he gonna go to hell? Sure, because he doesn't do that, which is required, which is have faith. So that's my answer to the babies.

Now, again, he wants to compare me to a Roman Catholic. Again, I do not believe in what

Catholics believe about baptism. He has similarities, I have similarities. That's not an argument, it doesn't mean anything.

Now, he says I don't understand Calvinism. One thing that I know from my Calvinist friends,

I'll call Matt Slick my friend, he's not my enemy, is that they always accuse you of not representing them.

I'm more than confident that I have represented him well. Now, of course, it's true that as any particular

Calvinist might believe some things a little different here and there, but I know what Calvinism is, and I do not believe

I'm representing him, but they will always say that. He says, I do not believe that God grants faith.

That's not what I said. I didn't say, I said just the opposite. I said, God does grant faith, I believe it. It says it in Philippians 129.

He does not grant it irresistibly and by a supernatural work on the heart apart from the gospel.

It's the gospel which produces faith. That's how God does it. Now, I have to get to this because he says, once again, in Romans 4, he is not understanding the context.

He says, well, Abraham said, let me go to Romans 4. Romans 4, go there in your

Bible, okay? Now it says, to the one who works, the wage is not credited as favor, but as what is due.

And he said, quote, proper reward is coming. So if you have to be baptized, you say, well, I got salvation coming.

That is not the context. Friends, listen to the context. Mr. Slick's whole position falls on a misunderstanding of the context of what

Paul is saying. The one who works, like if I go to a job and I work, okay? I have a paycheck coming because I've earned it.

It's not, you can't earn forgiveness, but that's what he's talking about here is the one who works perfectly.

In other words, the one whose works are sinless. That's the context. Context is the killer of heresy, okay?

Context shows that what Paul means by justification by works and he negates that anybody can.

And what that means, how is a man justified by works? Context tells you, by not being a sinner.

If no man sins, his works will justify him. It has to because he's not a sinner. Every man has sinned, therefore by his works, no man can sin, it says it.

In Romans chapter three, he makes the point. Verse nine, all are under sin.

He uses an Old Testament quote to prove that. And then he says, because by the works of the law, no flesh will be justified.

He's explaining what he means. Matt Slick's interpretation of not being saved by works, popular theology's interpretation of not saved by works, like Ephesians two and Galatians.

His theology is, his interpretation is that means there's not a work that you perform as a condition required by God to get forgiveness.

That's not, no. The man justified by works, if there was such a man, the way Paul is defining it, is the man who does not have any sin.

He does not need forgiveness. What's being juxtaposed in Romans four and all these chapters? The man justified by works, he has not sinned.

That's what he says. He has not sinned, therefore he does not need forgiveness, does not need the atonement because his works are sufficient.

They are absolutely righteous. Juxtapose with the man who's not being justified by works because his works are insufficient.

You sin one time and you're insufficient. One sin will condemn you. You could do 99 good works.

Let's say you could do 99 ,999 good works in your lifetime and only sin once.

Therefore, your sins are insufficient because you are unrighteous. Because he says, what is he juxtaposing?

The man justified by works. And what is that? The man who is not under sin,

Romans 3, 9. When he says in Romans four, the one who works, his wage is credited as favor.

Or rather his wage is not credited as favor. In other words, it isn't grace. It isn't favor, it's something he's earned.

Well, that's not baptism. Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. Now friends, you cannot earn forgiveness. That's a contradiction.

You cannot merit forgiveness by the definition of the word. It says, but as what is due.

If you never sin, that's what Paul says in Romans 3. And by the way, if you go right after Romans 4, 4 and Romans 4, 5, that's what he keeps quoting.

What does he say in verse 15? I'm sorry, verse seven. Let me back up in verse six.

Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works.

Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven and whose sins have been covered.

And then verse 15 goes on to say, the law brings wrath. Where there is no law, there is no violation. You see, the point is the man whose sins are forgiven is juxtaposed against the man who does not have sin.

Romans 3, 9. And then Romans, the whole context. Two comparisons, two contrasts, or a contrast between two men.

A man who is justified by works, if there was, if such a man existed, and he's denying that it would be the case, but how does he interpret it?

The man who has not sinned. If you have no sins, your works are sufficient. This does not mean, when it says in Romans 5, to the one who does not work but believes, it does not mean, as Matt Slick says, if you have to do something, like if you have to be baptized for forgiveness, as I have said, that's not what it means.

The context means the one who earns it by his works. It says it in verse three.

The man who works, it's not a favor, it's what is due. The only way to earn justification or righteousness through your works is by never sinning, which is the context.

Matt Slick has completely misinterpreted the text out of its context, and therefore his whole position falls.

Boy, there's just not enough time. I will quickly go to Romans, or actually

Acts chapter 10. He said that they were baptized with the Spirit.

Well, it never says they were saved by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not save. They were baptized by the Spirit. Why?

It says, can any man forbid water that they should not be baptized? Romans 11, I'm sorry,

Acts 11, Acts 10, and Acts 15, if you read those, tell you why they were baptized with the

Spirit before, or baptized with the Spirit. What's the purpose? The purpose is to testify that the

Gentiles are acceptable to God as Gentiles. This says nothing about them being saved.

They're gonna be saved the same way the Jews were. Acts 2 .38 says, for the forgiveness of sins, and it's baptism.

Baptism is for the forgiveness of sins. Now, in 1 Peter 3 .21, he said it once again, it does not refer to the water, but his own words,

I quote it to you, say, the Greek seems to say that it refers to the water. I never said, now listen,

I never said that the water saved Noah. I didn't make that argument. Whatever it saved Noah, you could debate about it.

The question is, what does baptism do? Save us. I never said the water saves us,

God saves us, but he does it in baptism. Just like Matt Slick said, they entered the ark by faith, and we enter baptism by faith, but the ark was necessary.

Friends, if they didn't enter by faith, they weren't getting saved. That's my time. Thank you. You were on mute.

Sorry about that. After this, Ernie's gonna put questions in there.

Don't know if everybody can see the questions, but we'll figure it out as we go. All right. So let me start my timer.

Hold on. All right.

Babies don't have sin. You complained earlier about begging the question, that is begging the question of Rome.

Excuse me, Ephesians 2 .3, we are by nature children of wrath. That means our essence and our nature, we're children of damnation.

Romans 5 .12, Romans 3 .23, Romans 5 .12, no, Romans 3 .23, all men have sinned, fallen short of the glory of God.

We are by nature children of wrath, Ephesians 2 .3 says. You just made a statement, you just claimed it to be true.

No scriptural evidence for it, you just did that. And you're the one reading into the text and into your theological perspective in order to make the scriptures fit what you want.

So remember, the thing is, this is why you gotta pay attention to logic. The debate title is,

Water Baptism by Immersion Necessary for Salvation. So you're gonna say the babies are not immersed in water and yet they're saved, that contradicts the premise.

So you've admitted that you don't hold to the premise that it's necessary for salvation, that you're saying that babies can be saved without it.

That's what you're saying. That's what it is. And if you wanna dare say it's an exception, then you shoot yourself in the foot because then you're admitting that my case is the case.

Deathbed, yeah, it's a bit of an emotional argument, but it's also a true argument, a real argument. And it's an argument based upon a revelation of scripture having therefore been justified by faith.

Jesus says in John 14, 14, ask me anything in my name and I will do it.

So if a man asked Jesus to forgive him of his sins, is Jesus gonna forgive him of his sins? No, because he's not getting dunked in water and the man in deathbed goes to hell.

And this is just a denial of justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

And it's just a horrendous false teaching. No disrespect meant to him. We both treat each other respectfully, but it's the positions that we're dealing with.

He's teaching damnable heresy. And I just need to say that because that's the case. And let's see.

He said that, okay. And I apologize if I misrepresented you earlier about saying that God didn't grant faith.

As we're doing things, things sometimes get crossed, wires crossed. So I apologize for that if I said that and didn't quite represent you properly.

Never intend to misrepresent anybody, but you don't understand Calvinism as well as you think.

I've been defending it for probably 35 years. I have a master's of divinity from a Calvinist seminary.

I've written extensively on it and there's a lot we can go through, but that's another time.

He said, I don't understand the context of Romans. Well, saying that doesn't make the case. And to say that what is really talking about there is the idea of keeping the law.

Now sure, I understood him exactly. The idea of keeping the law to sinlessness and that's how you can be justified. And that's what he's talking about.

That's begging the question as well. It's not what the text says because Romans 3 .23 clearly says that all have sinned.

And Romans 3 .28, we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. And he goes in,

I've taught Romans in depth many times over the years, and I've never heard that explanation put into the text woven into it to make it fit a theological perspective.

What does the scripture say? Abraham believes God and it was credited in his righteousness. He said that the it was the faith and that when he had faith, it was credited in his righteousness.

He said that earlier. If that's the case, then we have righteousness when we believe, which is my position.

And it goes on to, you know, verse four, really interesting why he's gonna focus on verse four, because that's just what we call strict merit, that it's a necessary result of the action you've taken.

And that's a problem. Now, the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but what is due. In other words, God, well, if you want to talk about this issue, you can get into more depth, but if you've got to make a mistake, be careful here, if you want to say that you do a certain something and therefore a guaranteed result is the case.

So if you have faith and you get baptized, the guaranteed result now is your salvation. See, now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but what is due.

The one who gets baptized, his faith is not credited as a favor, but what is due. His salvation is what is due because he performed the ceremony.

And of course, Romans four, five works against that. Then he went to Romans six, which is great. God, you know, just as David also speaks of the blessing on whom to whom

God credits righteousness apart from works, apart from works, apart from anything you do. He said, works, anything you do.

Baptism is something you do. Therefore, by his definition, baptism's a work. I mean, he's going to have to, you know, shore up his arguments here to get around this problem.

And let's see, Acts 10, 40, four through 48, doesn't say they were saved. You're right, it doesn't say the words that they were saved.

You're right, it doesn't say that, but it does say that they were speaking in tongues and glorifying God and received the Holy Spirit. And I guess

Mr. Richardson would have to be saying, yeah, they're still in a state of damnation. Wow.

And they'd already received the Holy Spirit just as Peter had. And so the gift of the Holy Spirit is for the church.

You can go to Acts, excuse me, first Corinthians 14, Romans chapter 12. It talks about the charismatic gifts that are for the church that is given to the bride.

I can teach on this for quite a while. It's clearly something for the church, for the Christians, for the eclecto, for the called ones.

And they have this possession before they get baptized. And in Acts 2, 38, they have the baptism of the

Holy Spirit after they get baptized. If you want to say that Acts 2, 38 requires that it's baptism, means you have to be baptized for forgiveness of your sins.

We have problems because there are verses that say that repentance for the forgiveness of your sins. That means you got to repent in order to be saved.

Oh, about something earlier. Repentance is and is not necessary for salvation depending on the sense in which it is understood.

And that's something for another topic later on. I just saw my notes, Luke 24, 47, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name.

If he wants to say out of Acts 2, 38, that baptism for the forgiveness of sins, that baptism is what gets you forgiveness of sins, then repentance for the forgiveness of your sins.

Repentance is what gives you forgiveness of sins because it's the same kind of a construction. And that will be a problem because repentance doesn't give us sins unless you want to be a

Muslim. That's Muslim soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. He did not respond to Colossians 2, 13 and 14 adequately at all.

Now, I'm gonna focus on this a little bit because Colossians 2, 13 and 14 is very critical.

There's a difference between the canceling of the debt and justification. There's a difference between the two.

This is what Colossians 2, 13 says. When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive together with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled the certificate of debt, consisting of decrees against us, which were false to us, he's taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

It was taken out of the way, it was canceled at the cross. Now, the question remains, if the sin debt is canceled at the cross, how could it also be canceled when you get baptized?

It's a problem. It's a problem for him and his theology because he does not have a deep theological perspective on the nature of election predestination and the truth nature of the penal substitutionary atoning work of Christ.

Now, it says here, the certificate of debt, and he agreed it's the sin debt.

If I go to a restaurant with Mr. Richardson, and we're politely disagreeing, and I forget my wallet because I said

I was gonna buy him dinner, and he's a gracious guy, and I'm sure he would be, he'd say, look, I'll pay for it.

Well, he's taken my debt, and he pays for it. Is the debt existing anymore? No, it's canceled.

Can I be held responsible for the debt? No, if a debt is canceled, the debt doesn't exist.

It does not exist. For him to say that it's canceled at the cross, and it's also canceled at baptism makes no sense.

It's a logical impossibility because that which is canceled doesn't have any existence. He fails to understand that the canceling of the debt can only be for the elect.

It can't be for everybody ever lived because that would require universalism. Justification occurs when

God grants that we believe Philippians 129, and then we're imputed with the righteousness of God, Philippians 3 .9,

a righteousness that's not our own, that is achieved through the act of obedience of Christ who committed all things properly and never sinned, 1

Peter 2 .22. This verse right here in Colossians 2 .14 is a killer verse. I use it all the time in all kinds of topics and all kinds of arguments.

It refutes Roman Catholicism, Mormonism. It refutes all kinds of issues, and it refutes baptismal regeneration.

Now, he's not prepared for it, and I understand that, but he needs to be prepared for it because if we're gonna discuss anything regarding Calvinism, I'm gonna go to this verse, and trust me,

I've been debating it for years. I'd love to discuss it. Having canceled the certificate of debt, it's not canceled when you get baptized.

You're justified when you get baptized. The righteousness of Christ is imputed to you when you get baptized, but the sin debt is canceled at the cross.

God doesn't make any mistakes in his salvation work. Oh, okay, that's good enough.

30 seconds to go, but that's good. No, I mean, you can take all the time. You can take the rest of your time.

My alarm went off. I didn't realize it was on. That's all right, that's all right, no problem. Made my point good enough.

Don't wanna rehash it. So let's see, we're gonna have now,

Ernie is gonna do Q &A. He's gonna put in questions. Maybe for, just so everybody knows, if anybody tuned in late, we'll go ahead and tell them again that they could ask questions.

Of course, he's already been collecting questions, but through YouTube, if you have an account, but you could also go to Matt's page that I posted on my

Facebook and anybody can ask questions there, so. Yeah, and if you post any questions on YouTube and or Facebook, they will be filtered into here in StreamYard and we can see them.

It takes an extra five or 10 seconds, but that's not a big deal. We have a ton.

Won't be able to get to the new ones. Okay, pick who you wanna go for.

Starting with Matt, all right? Starting with me. So just before we do it, so I'm gonna respond for, how are we gonna do this?

We talked before we started. I'll respond for, I'll answer for two and then you one, is that what we're gonna do?

Or you wanna just do one in one? Yeah, I'll have to keep switching my timer if I can remember to do that or I'm gonna be answering on the other.

How about if we just do one in one? You wanna do that? I think we could both do that pretty, I mean, there's advantages to it.

I'm gonna put the timer on one minute and if we go over a few seconds, whatever, and that way we can just kind of get it going back and forth, okay?

Sounds good. All right. Oh, for me, sorry, I hit the timer.

Okay, what's the question? And then I'll hit the timer. Okay, ready, let's see.

Matt, isn't baptism because of remission of sins and baptism picture that? I don't understand the question.

I think he means, isn't it for the remission of sins?

I assume. Well, if that's what he's meaning, Act 238, then what does it mean for the forgiveness?

Because for the forgiveness is associated with repentance in other scriptures, Luke 24. So, it's just, so anyway, you just go to the next question because for AK.

Okay, ready? Go ahead. Oh, you will read it first and then when you start answering, I'll hit the timer. Okay. Okay.

What if someone is stranded in a desert or place without water, but wants to get saved?

And what if he dies in the desert before he finds water to be baptized? Or what if they find enough water to be sprinkled and not immersed?

Okay. Okay. If baptism is required, if it is required by scripture, by theopneustos scripture, then you're gonna have to be baptized.

Okay. And if that's problematic, then you have to take the problem to God. I don't know of any revealed exceptions in the

New Testament of being saved without water baptism, because it's for the remission of sins. It's equivalent to asking, it's equivalent to asking, can you be forgiven your sins without that which gets your sins forgiven?

Can you be saved without water baptism, which saves? And no, you cannot. I mean, if the scripture requires it, then no.

That's the answer. Cancel and start rebuttal.

And so that would be a demonstration of the failure of his theology to be able to account for the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ.

Justification by faith in Christ would not be sufficient. And when he asked Jesus to forgive him of his sins, that wouldn't work either.

That's a problem. And he says there's no place where people are getting saved without water baptism. The thief on the cross is a good example of that.

The thief died in the New Covenant because according to Romans 9, verses 15 and 16, that the death of Christ brings in the

New Covenant, the New Testament. That's when the Old Testament's abrogated. So he would have had to have been baptized in order to be saved.

There's no record of that at all. What we do have in scripture is a kind of a man being justified before God without being baptized.

So he got that wrong. Okay. Oh, for me.

Okay, ready? I'll read it, then hit the button. You can time me too if you want. Oops. I just gave myself 10 minutes.

Hold on a sec. Okay. All right. Psalm 106 through 31 was

Phinehas reckoned righteous when he intervened, when he believed to intervene.

Well, I'm gonna tell you right now, I would have to go to those verses, look up the verses, read the context, see what's going on in order to answer the question.

And one minute does not allow me enough time to be able to do that. I'm not familiar enough with that text to be able to adequately respond to the question.

So I'm sorry, but I got a little bit of time. Let me just kind of look at it maybe.

Psalm 106, 30. And Phinehas stood up and interposed so the plague would stay, that it was reckoned for him as righteousness to all generations.

Yeah, I'd have to read the context. For one thing, it's poetry, it's a song, and I just don't have time to analyze it.

Sorry, I just don't have time. So go ahead. Okay. Well, the text says, just what it reads, he stood up and interposed, means he did something, and obviously he did it out of faith.

And it says, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness to all generations forever. Now, in James chapter two, it says that you cannot be saved by faith if it is separate and apart from works.

That's what the text says. It actually denies mass exposition. Exactly. Your faith is a faith that leads to something, and you're justified by a working faith.

And that's what the text says. It was reckoned to him for righteousness. Why? He stood up and interposed.

So especially if you read it in light of James chapter two, that says we're not justified by faith if it's apart from works, then it makes sense, and it establishes exactly what

I've been arguing. Next question is for you,

AK. Okay. Okay. Mr. Richardson, did the thief on the cross go to paradise or was

Jesus lying to him? Okay. He went to paradise because Jesus said it. Now, what

I said in the beginning of my speech was that Jesus and the apostles, according to the scriptures, require it for the alien sinner.

Jesus and the apostles did not require it at that time. It was required in the Great Commission and onward. So they didn't require the baptism into the name of Jesus Christ for the thief.

It was never said. It was never commanded of him. And so how can he need it? How can he need to be baptized by something that was not required of him?

It wasn't required. Okay. What I said was it was required by Jesus and the apostles, and that happened in the

Great Commission forward. So it would simply be senseless to say he was required to do something that was required after he even died.

Okay. So it was required afterward and onward. All of you and myself are during the time since it's been required.

It wasn't required of him. Well, here's another exception that you've got to the requirements.

The water baptism by immersion is necessary for salvation. And that's an exception. You're saying it wasn't required because the

Great Commission hadn't been instituted. Well, actually you need to study the issue of covenant theology.

The covenant is changed with the death of the testator. When Christ died, that's when the new covenant was in effect.

In the new covenant, the commission is given baptism and all these things are in there. In the new covenant, takes time to be able to explain them and give them out in real time.

So the thief died, was justified by faith inside the new covenant without being baptized.

And you just forfeited again because you said baptism is necessary and you're just showing me it's not.

Okay. All right. Or Matt Slick. Oh yeah, yeah, okay. If all

Panta refers to the whole scope of sanctification following conversion, why is baptism not included? Therefore make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, teaching them the truth, the will, the commandment, the law, and with you always, even at the end of the age. If, okay, let me get a start.

If all refers to the whole scope of sanctification, therefore make of all nations, all there in the context is referring to nations, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, or that all, you're probably observe all, then they should observe.

You're supposed to do what Christ said. Why is baptism not included? I don't understand the question really.

I don't see the significance of the question because sanctification is an issue that occurs with your relationship with Christ, become more like him.

Why is baptism not included? I don't understand the question. Sorry, this often happens where people,

I'm very precise and so I need precise questions. I'm sorry, that's not a very good question for me to be able to respond to.

I don't understand the question. It doesn't quite make sense. Go ahead. Me? One minute. Okay.

Well, I'm not sure I exactly understand it the way it's worded, but concerning Matthew 28, 19 verses 20 or 19 through 20, it says, baptizing them into the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. You know what this is? You're baptizing them into a relationship, okay?

God's name throughout all the Bible, especially the Old Testament is put for being one of his people, being under his protection and in his covenant.

You're being baptized into a relationship, just like Romans 6 says, you can't be saved without being united under Christ.

And it says you're baptized into his death, baptized into a Christ. That's what the text means. You have to be baptized into this relationship with the

God of Israel, which is Jesus. And it is done, Romans 6, Colossians 2, 12, it's done through faith in baptism.

Okay, you ready for me? Yep. If a strand of hair from someone's head doesn't go under the water in baptism, are they damned to hell?

Does full and incomplete immersion count only? Okay, well, this is also a question for Slick.

I'm just saying, I'm not saying he's got a, well, okay, so he says, he quotes, Mr. Slick quotes

Romans 6 and he says, notice that baptism is equated with being buried in Christ and raised with him.

In baptism, a person is buried under the water by full immersion. That's his quotes.

Those are his words, by full immersions. No, because I don't believe there's power in the water.

I don't believe it's magic water. I don't believe, well, a strand of hair was coming up because water, since it's what saves you itself, therefore you weren't saved.

No, I believe God saves you. It's an appeal to a good conscience. You obey the act, you get immersed. But if one strand, well, the fact is that it's not as if there's a power in the water, it's

God saving you. You come out of the water and you have a clear conscience because you've been forgiven of your sins because that's what

Acts 2 38 says. There's no power in the water, it's God saving you. He didn't answer the question of one strand.

Are you just saved of it or not? The answer is yes or no. So full immersion, if you were to say no,

I think a strand of hair, what if your kneecap doesn't go under? What if your foot doesn't quite make it under? If a full immersion is a formula of necessity, then they would be damned.

Sorry, the ceremony wasn't done properly. And here's the thing, it's a ceremony.

Baptism is a ceremony. Think about this. Let's say that the person baptizing, and I've done baptisms, they dunked them down and basically their face doesn't get underneath all the water and they come back up.

That's not full immersion, they're gonna go to hell. That would mean that there has to be a necessary formula of how the ceremony must specifically be done in order to result in a spiritual necessity.

We call that sorcery. It's what sorcery is exactly. And he's getting very, very close to it.

All right, next question. In James 2 19 through 20, does

James teach that faith is faith and that you're either saved by faith or you aren't? James 2, I know the context, well,

I've written an article on it, debated it many times. You gotta start at verse 14. And if a man says he has faith in that faith, but he doesn't have any works, can that faith save him?

Roman, excuse me, James 2 18 says, you show me your faith by your works, I'll show you my faith by my works.

And the faith that's being talked about here is on the horizontal. It's not about before God, not justification before God. So that's what the context is right there.

And I've taught it, debated it many times. Does James teach that faith is faith? Not sure if you mean by faith is faith, because that's the first law of logic, law of identity.

You know, A is A, faith is faith. That's just what it is. And you're either saved by faith or you aren't.

We're justified by faith, Romans 5 1. That's justification before God. And the vertical James is talking about justification before people on the horizontal, that's proved in verse 18, go ahead.

Okay, Mr. Slick says the justification in James 2 is horizontal.

In other words, you're justified before men. Well, what does the text say? James verse 14, what use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith, but he has no works, can faith save him?

Now friends, salvation is not horizontal, it is vertical. Now notice the parallels.

He says, can that faith save him? Verse 17, even so faith if it has no works is dead being by itself.

He's saying the same thing. Verse 20, but you are willing to recognize you foolish fellow that faith without works is useless.

So it can't save him, it's dead, it's useless. He's not changing points. And then he says, you see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.

It's the same, the works he's talking about is the same thing he's been saying. It's the justification of salvation of verse 14.

He even quotes Abraham that faith was reckoned to him as righteousness. The justification in context is the justification of righteousness.

Then he says, you see that a man is justified, it's that righteousness by works and not by faith alone.

It's justification of salvation. Okay. Wow, man.

Okay. Who's this? Oh, this is for AK? Okay.

For me? Yep, I'll start the timer after you start talking because you got to read it first.

Okay, there's a follow -up. Okay. If people were told in the Old Testament that all who call on the name of the

Lord will be saved, did they have no idea what that was and how it would be accomplished until Acts 2?

Why do we read so many times in the Old Testament that saints were calling on the name of the Lord and clearly no water baptism was involved?

Okay. Every man has always been saved by faith. Anybody that was ever saved was saved by faith.

I did not say baptism has always been required. Now, Mr. Slick keeps saying, well, it's an exception.

You just forfeited the position. It's very simple to understand that when I say we are saved or it is necessary for salvation,

I said required by Christ and the apostles. It was not required for them in the Old Testament. That's a simple matter and I think everybody can understand that.

They didn't have to be baptized because it wasn't required of them. Yes, they could call upon the name of the Lord. They did not have to be water baptized.

By the way, they didn't have to believe in the resurrection even though we do because you see, there are some things that are in the

New Testament that had not occurred yet, like the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They didn't believe Jesus was raised from the dead in the

Old Testament, but they did put their faith in God and because of the resurrection, that would come later, he justified them. Well, they weren't required to believe in a resurrection that haven't even happened yet and they weren't required to be baptized.

It's a simple matter. It's not an exception because it wasn't required. I didn't say that baptism applied to the

Old Testament saints, but it would be part and parcel. Our context, of course, in the

New Testament, and I let that go. You said the resurrection had to happen.

You're right because the death had to happen first and with the death of Christ, the new covenant is in.

I agree with you. With the resurrection had to happen, the new covenant was in at his death. The thief on the cross was justified without being baptized inside the new covenant.

The new covenant has certain requirements. The requirements in the new covenant, all covenants have requirements and stipulations.

And if you're gonna say that the new covenant requirement is baptism for salvation, that'd be part of the new covenant requirement.

Then you have to say that the thief on the cross went to hell, but you can't contradict Jesus. So you have to believe what

Jesus says, which contradicts what your position is. So either way, you don't have a leg to stand on in this argument.

You've lost that one. All right, this is for me.

Okay, let me read it and I'll hit start. In Galatians 3, 26, 27, does the word, why do

I keep doing this? Gar connects to the previous sentence. We are sons of God through faith in Jesus is because we're baptized into Christ.

Okay, let me go look at the context. So it's gonna have to happen. Let me hit the button, get it going here.

Waiting for that program to load. Come on.

All right, 3, 26, 27. Let me start my timer, see if I can get it done here in a minute.

We're all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all of you were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourself with Christ.

You gotta understand the context about this. Look at verse 24, the law has become a tutor. The clothing of this, it's a cultural issue and it has a lot of bearing on the meaning of the text.

In the household of slavery, there was usually a predominant slave who was the tutor and he would be in charge of the children of the master.

And when the children had grown and they had reached a certain level of training, they were given a robe because it meant that they had passed and matured.

That's the context. You're no longer under a tutor. Verse 25, we're all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus for you all who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

It's just talking about this issue of having, not that baptism is what saves you or anything, it's talking about this issue as it relates to having progressed and have gone on because baptism is what you do out of obedience, not the thing that saves you.

And I can't run out of time. I could talk about that more, sorry. It says, for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ.

Whatever the clothing is, and I don't disagree with him on really what he explained it as, but it happens when you're baptized because that's how you get into Christ.

You're not in Christ until you've been baptized. And what it also shows is that baptism is an expression of faith.

So every time Slick has said, and he says it over and over, well, you're justified by faith, not baptism. Baptism is an expression of faith.

He's assuming it's excluded when it is an expression and it's language of federal headship, like in Romans 6, you are baptized into Christ, Colossians 2 .12,

through faith. You're not buried in Christ and risen with him before baptism because it says it happens in baptism and it is through faith.

It's an expression of faith, according to Galatians 3 .27. And it is when you get into Christ, it's when you clothe yourself, thus demonstrating that it is necessary.

Okay, for me, when was your sin debt canceled? Okay, this is based, now

I'm assuming this is repeating what Mr. Slick asked. This is based upon a misunderstanding of the text.

It was canceled in the sense, when it says it was canceled, there wasn't anything literally, or I know I would say physically written out or canceled.

What it means is it was canceled in the sense, it's just like when we say, he nailed my sins to the cross.

What we mean is the work of the cross, as it was completed, was what was necessary and it was done for sins to be forgiven.

But it makes it clear in the New Testament is conditional. Yes, in that sense, it was canceled at the cross in a sense that what was necessary to do it happened and was completed and was fulfilled, but it is conditional.

Mr. Slick is conflating the conditional nature of it with the work.

See, it was done at the cross, but it is not applied because it is conditioned upon faith. Even he believes you're forgiven when you believe.

You're on mute. Thank you, sorry about that. Mr. Richardson does not understand the text and it's obvious.

The sin that was canceled at the cross, that's what it says. The answer should be, as he already said, it's canceled at the cross.

You should just answer the question, when was your sin that canceled at the cross? It still is true that it's canceled at the cross.

The reason we know it is is because that's what the text says. And if it's canceled at the cross, it doesn't exist anymore.

If you canceled it for everybody, then everybody has to go to heaven. You cannot be held responsible for a debt that doesn't exist. And if God sends people to hell for a debt that does not exist, then he's unrighteous.

And there's all kinds of problems with other people's theology because of this verse and other verses like it. Baptism is not where sin that's canceled.

Instead, baptism is a covenant sign. We can get into that some other time. But the fact is that the sin that is canceled at the cross, if it's canceled at the cross, it cannot be again canceled at baptism.

This falsifies his position. It proves his position is false, flat out. Oh, for me.

Was Agrippus saved since he believed? There's debate on that within theological corners.

And I'm not gonna say he was or wasn't because they don't know to what level of belief he had.

But if he believed in the true gospel, then yeah, he was saved. If he believed in the true gospel of Jesus Christ and was justified by faith.

But if he didn't believe in that, then he wouldn't be. That's just a standard answer. And we have to look to see to what extent he might be there.

It's not as easy of a text to determine as you might think, but he was justified by faith if he had faith and that would be it.

So if he did believe truly in Christ, then yes, he would have been saved. If he didn't really truly believe in Christ, who he was and what his work was, then no, he wouldn't have been.

Go ahead. Well, I don't necessarily disagree with anything

Matt just said, except we have to make sure that we understand just as he conceded in the cross -examination that to say somebody is saved by faith does not necessitate logically that when they first believe before they obey the gospel.

As it says in 2 Thessalonians 1, you have to obey the gospel. So in the sense that anybody believes and are saved, it's that they believe and that they repent and be baptized because that's what

Acts 2 .38 says in explicit terms. And I have to say again, what does the

Bible have to say to teach that baptism is necessary if not those texts? But just once again, even

I believe, I concede that a person is saved and justified by faith. That does not mean before his faith leads him to do what he's got to do as Matt Slick conceded with Hebrews 11 and 30.

You're up, AK. Okay. Where is the scripture where the disciples were baptized?

Well, that's kind of a vague question. We see many of them were coming to John's baptism. If you mean in the scriptures for the

New Testament baptism, well, it isn't as far as the apostles. Well, there's lots of people where it doesn't say, you know, you can go to the letter of the

Galatians and you don't read where every individual was baptized in the New Testament. Now, I believe that they were already saved, the apostles that is, and the early disciples when the day of Pentecost came, that they were already saved and forgiven.

And since you do not have sins being saved, you don't need to be re -saved, you don't have any danger that you're in.

So personally, and you can have a debate about it, I don't believe that they were re -baptized when the

New Testament baptism was required. You could have a debate about that, but I don't believe that they had to be.

And it's not an exception if you're not needing to be saved. You're very expressive,

Mr. Slick. Yeah, sorry about that. I was just, sorry, my apologies. Yeah, there's no place where it says disciples, all the disciples were baptized.

You'd think that that would be a pretty important thing if that was part of the gospel, that it'd be recorded, the necessity of baptism.

Of course, it's not recorded in several places, Acts 16, 32, 31, when it's specifically stated, what must we do to be saved?

And the answer is believe, not believe and be baptized. And so we have specific statements of what is necessary for salvation and justification by faith.

We have specific statements saying that it's without any works. He's already said that works are anything you do.

Baptism is something you do. So there, hence, if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C, we'll have a proper inference.

Then he would say that baptism is a work, but we're not justified by faith and works. So he's got some clarification to do in his argument, as well as the application of logic.

Go ahead, next. Sorry, I thought he was gonna go.

Was Jesus' baptism from heaven or from men? Jesus' baptism was according to the

Old Testament law. Romans, I mean, Matthew 3, 15, he said he had to be baptized to fulfill righteousness.

So that requirement is, if you go to Leviticus chapter eight, Numbers chapter four,

Exodus 29, you'll see that the requirements for his baptism were it had to be 30 years of age, he had to be anointed with oil, a verbal blessing given, and sprinkled with water.

This is the requirement of the baptism that he had to go through according to the law. No place was the priest, and he's a high priest after the order of Melchizedek, Hebrews 6, 20,

Hebrews 7, 25, there's no place in the Old Testament where the requirements, because it was still under the

Old Testament law, no place for the requirement for entering into that priesthood, which is what he was doing at his baptism, necessitated immersion, it was by sprinkling.

So baptism was from heaven in the sense that it was ordained by God eternally from that sense fulfilling scripture.

Go ahead. Yeah, I believe also that it was from heaven, ordained by God.

Now, this idea of Jesus being baptized or by sprinkling because of Leviticus eight,

Leviticus eight is about the Old Testament regulation about the Aaronic priesthood and the priest, the sons of Aaron, which

Jesus was never a son, or never a priest after being a son of Aaron or the tribe of Levi, okay?

It has nothing to do with the Melchizedek priesthood. The Old Testament law never regulated the Melchizedek priesthood. And so it's a complete assumption to say, well, this applies to Jesus.

He had to be sprinkled. The other things that the text says in Leviticus, like putting garments on him, anointing with oil, those didn't happen.

So Jesus was not being sprinkled according to Leviticus eight. I believe he was immersed, but the point is you can't use

Leviticus eight to prove that he wasn't a priest after the son of Aaron, the Aaronic priesthood and the

Levitical priesthood. That's my answer. Okay.

So since you said that baptism always refers to a literal baptism, how do you interpret

John the Baptist saying that Jesus will baptize some in fire, Matthew 3 11? Okay, I never said that it was always,

I never made the statement that every reference to baptism was always a literal water. I think that's what he means.

I don't believe that. I believe there is a baptism by fire, which is figurative use.

I believe there is a baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is not water. I believe the baptism in the sense of, the problems that you enter into,

I'll be baptized in the sense of the crucifixion, the baptism of turmoil and of persecution.

So I never said that every reference to baptism was in reference to water. I would agree.

Finally, we agree on something. I would suggest that those who wanna do research on this go to Hebrews 9, verse 10.

The Greek word there is baptismos. So we have actor, actors, actresses, actors. Actress is called a cognate.

And so baptismos is the washings, baptism, baptism, okay?

Look at the context and you'll see it refers to the Old Testament sprinklings. Just go check, just go check.

We haven't even gotten into the issue what it means to baptize 3 ,000 people by immersion and the logistical problem that would be.

I affirm baptism by immersion. I affirm it by sprinkling. I affirm it by pouring. I believe that the scripture support all of those.

And Hebrews 9, 10, various washings. The word is baptismos. Read the context before and after.

Old Testament sprinklings is exactly what it's referring to. So that's just something for study for later on.

All right, who's next? For me, okay. If justification by faith means you don't have to do anything, then why did

Noah bother building an ark after receiving God's grace? Because he had to do that in order to be saved from the destruction that was gonna come on the world because God had commanded him to do that.

But it was not the ark that justified him before God. Justification is said to be without works, without anything that we do because that's what the

Bible teaches. You can go to Galatians 2 .16, 2 .21, Romans 3 .28, Romans 4 .5,

Romans... I can go on with all kinds of verses. You see all the cults and false religious systems, all of them without exception teach that the cross is not sufficient, that the cross is not sufficient and that your faith in Christ is not sufficient, but you must do something to complete it.

And because you must do something to complete it, you can also lose it because you keep your salvation by being good in one form or another.

So are we justified by faith? Are we kept by faith? No, not according to my opponent. No, but we are justified by faith according to the word of God.

Romans 4 .5 clearly teaches that in spite of the misunderstanding about that text of my opponent. Okay, he missed the point of the question.

The question demonstrates or is asking about if the argument is if you do something by faith, like being justified, then that necessarily means you don't do anything to be justified.

But that's already been refuted in the cross examination. The walls of Jericho fell by faith, but it wasn't until after their faith led them to do something, which he admitted.

You have to prepare the ark and enter into it. According to Mr. Slick, they entered by faith. Well, they had to do it. Well, they had to do something and yet it was still by faith.

So doing something out of faith that is necessary does not mean you're not saved by faith.

It says by faith, Noah, being warned by God about things yet to come or not seen in reverence, prepared an ark.

So his physical salvation was by faith, just like our spiritual salvation is by faith.

His physical salvation was conditioned upon a work, a lot of work, preparing an ark.

He had to do it. And yet he was still saved physically by faith and by grace.

Okay. In context of the Hebrews Jericho question, was Abraham justified before or after circumcision?

He was justified before circumcision because circumcision was not required to be justified.

Circumcision came later. The New Testament demonstrates that. Okay, so the point is, the difference between circumcision and baptism is baptism is required according to the

New Testament for initial salvation. In other words, it must be, you must obey it for the forgiveness of sins, something that is never said of circumcision.

So the necessity of circumcision in the Old Testament for the Hebrews and for Abraham was never said to be for forgiveness, for justification, for salvation.

It was not required to be justified, but the New Testament says, and I don't know what other way you would have to say it, for the forgiveness of sins.

It now saves you. That's the difference. Abraham was justified before circumcision.

And as Paul clearly stated that his faith was credited him as righteousness.

So what saved him? What was it? Was it faith? Yeah, it was without the law.

It was without circumcision, it was without baptism. And it clearly demonstrates my position that I'm teaching.

This is why Paul refers to Abraham to make the case, justification without any works. And he just said, you've got to do one thing.

He said, and I have a time note here. He said, you have to do something to be justified.

Well, that's not what the Bible's teaching. He's teaching a heresy. You have to do something to be justified.

What we do is believe, but that's God granting it to us. We don't do any works to believe. And by the way, circumcision is related to baptism as a covenant sign in Colossians 2, 11 and 12.

I didn't even discuss the issue of what baptism is in the new covenant arrangement. That's worth a discussion later on out of time.

For me, okay, here we go, start. If you say there's nothing we must do except believe, must one repent and confess to be saved?

This is a very good question. You must repent, but God grants you repent, 2 Timothy 2 .25.

But you got to understand that repentance is compliant with the law. And in the sense of anybody who says, you must comply with the law in order to be saved, that's not a true gospel.

It's a false gospel. So if someone's lying and committing adultery and someone says, you have to stop doing those, obey the law in order to be saved, then that would be a heresy, a false teaching.

What he's basically saying here is that repentance, a turning from sin, which is concomitant with the issue of regeneration, belief and justification, all of this all works together.

So in that sense, yeah, of course you're supposed to repent, but it's not our repentance that brings us salvation.

It's faith in Christ that brings us salvation, not our stopping and doing something bad or continuing to do something good that would be an issue of the law.

This is really worth an expanded discussion, but that's the synopsis. Okay, he said it's not repentance that brings us salvation because salvation comes by faith.

That once again assumes that repentance is something separate and apart from faith, but repentance comes from faith.

It's a product of faith. Now, if repentance is compliance with the law, which

I believe that it is, you're turning back to God's law. But once again, in Romans, he's interpreting justification through the law as you gotta do something according to the law to be saved.

It's not the context. And by the way, earlier in his concluding speech, he said that when

I said it's according to context, he said, I didn't prove it. Who's the one that walked through the context of the previous chapters of Romans 4?

He's been citing for Romans 4, but which one of the two of us has been walking through the text? Who cited from the context?

And yet he says, I didn't prove it. Romans 4 is not just about doing a work to get forgiveness.

It's about being justified by 100 % sinless works, which he denies anybody can be.

Okay, me first. Okay, what is the biblical definition of faith?

Okay, if you mean a explicit definition given in the

Bible, well, it says in Hebrews 11 one, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

And interestingly, having given that definition, Hebrews goes on in this whole chapter to show that faith is something that leads people to do something necessary.

Even Matt Slick conceded that Noah had to prepare the ark and even enter into it by faith.

So the faith that is defined in verse one is this faith that leads people to do what is necessary.

And only when the faith leads them to do what is necessary, like encircle the city walls or build the ark and then enter it according to Mr.

Slick, only then do you get the result of faith, whether it's salvation, physically, spiritually, or the walls falling down.

It defines it in Hebrews one, and then shows you that it's a faith that leads you to do what is necessary.

So was it the walls falling, that they're walking that justified them before God? They're doing something?

Was it Abraham moving to one country, to another country? That's what justified him.

See, the mistake he's making is saying that the kind of faith he's talking about has to have a work with it.

And that's the nature of true faith. That's what James is talking about. But Romans is clearly telling us that justifications by faith without the works of the law,

Romans 3 .28. And just for him saying that he went through the context, no, no.

Quoting a couple of verses rapid fire doesn't mean that the context has been established. His presentation was at best confusing.

And as I said earlier, nothing I'd ever heard of before in my 40 years of doing apologetics and studying the

Bible. It's new to me, his position there. I don't believe it was correct according to the scripture. Let's see, okay.

Okay, for me, if the sin debt is canceled at the cross, then why do we have to believe?

Because that's when we're justified. Because I believe in reformed theology, the elect were given by God the

Father to the Son from the eternal covenant, Hebrews 13 .20. And Jesus came to save those who were given to him,

John 6 .37 -40. He canceled the sin debt of the ones given to him by the Father, Colossians 2 .14.

Then when we believe, because he grants we believe Philippians 1 .29, our believing is the work of God, John 6 .28

-29. Because we were in Christ and predestined from the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1 .4 and 5.

That is why we have to be granted the act of believing. And we are granted the act of believing Philippians 1 .29.

As it says in Acts 13 .48, as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.

And so they believed and therefore they're justified. So the elect are justified by the faith that God grants and the faith is in Christ Jesus.

It all makes perfect sense. I would love to debate this with Mr. Richardson if he's so inclined to do so.

Go ahead. When we say Jesus nailed our sins to the cross, none of us mean, and that's something we do say, and we can understand what we mean when we say that.

What we mean is the work that was done on the cross was sufficient and that work was what was necessary and it was accomplished for the forgiveness of sins.

But it is only applied when we believe, repent, and be baptized. In other words, it's conditional.

New Testament teaches it's conditional. He's misunderstanding that. And there is a debate on the sin debt that it talks about in Colossians 2 .13

-14 there. Some people say it's the Old Testament law. There's a debate. I tend towards what Mr. Solis is talking about, the debt of our sins.

But again, it was accomplished and therefore in that sense, it was canceled. But the Bible is very clear that we're justified by faith and repentance and baptism.

So it is applied. It is conditional. Mr. Slick just simply doesn't understand that it is conditional upon faith.

Okay. What washed away sin from the world in 1

Peter 3 .20, water or the ark? Well, in the way the question is asked, if you mean the sinful people or the sins, other, you know, the sinful people, then it was the water.

I just remind you that what Mr. Slick himself has said, that the

Greek refers to the water, not the ark. And yet he argues it refers to the ark.

You can have a discussion on what exactly he means by the comparison to Noah's flood.

But the one thing that is not even questionable because it's stated is that baptism saves us. They came through the water safely.

Well, we come through baptism to salvation. It says the baptism saves you.

And it says in explicit terms, but he's never going to believe it because his theology and his false implications of logic that he keeps making will not allow him to accept it.

But that's what it says. Logic is not one of your areas of expertise.

I would suggest that you go read 1 Peter 3 .21 article when I talk about this issue and state that the water is referenced to, or the correspondent of that, the

Greek word antitupon is, as I say, refers to the ark. It's the ark that saved them.

It was not the water. The question is what washed away the sin of the world. The flood didn't wash away the sin of the world.

It killed a bunch of bad people. And why was the flood necessary? Well, that gets into the issue of Genesis 6, the

Nephilim, who they were, demonic breeding program, one theory. There's all kinds of stuff that goes into it.

You can cross -reference it with Genesis 6, 9, and I'll tell you this, Daniel 2 .43,

which is very interesting. But it's not an issue of washing away sin. It's an issue of killing those who are ungodly and against the truth of who

God was. Because Noah and all the rest of them in the ark were still sinners. So it didn't kill the sin.

Go ahead. Oh, let me say, how much longer you want to go?

Well, I mean, I personally can go for a long time, but maybe nobody else does. So I'm still willing to continue on.

I think it's good. Good. I'm willing to go too. Can you please excuse me for another bathroom break?

Sure. You got to go. You got to go. I've been drinking a lot of water because it's hot. And I'll be back in.

Okay. So the next question is for me, or is that the one?

Okay. Ready? Yeah. Can you hear me? Yes, I can.

All right. I think we should do like a minute and 15 or a minute and 10 because we got to read the questions.

But I thought you were starting the timer after the question was read. Yeah. That's correct.

That's how it works. Can you please explain why James mentions works and not faith only?

If that's a horizontal proof to man, then why does James mention the example of Abraham?

Because Abraham's work demonstrated his faith on the horizontal as well.

What James is talking about, and I suggest you just go to CARM and read up the article on this.

I go through it. And what Paul, what James is talking about is what's called the difference between essentia and fiducia, mental ascent and true trusting faith.

There's a difference. In James 2 .19, you believe the devil does too. And he trembles. And James 2 .18,

we have the issue of, show me your faith, I'll show you mine. So true faith has a manifestation.

And that's all that James is talking about. And so Abraham was not justified by his works because the

Bible clearly says to the contrary in Romans 4 .1 -5. And James is talking about the horizontal where Romans 4 is talking about the vertical.

Go ahead. Verse 14 says, if someone says he has faith and has no works, can that faith save him?

Okay, salvation is not horizontal, it is vertical. Now, I don't know if they can see the screen. It looks too small on mine.

So I'll just read it. Okay, he's saying the same thing. All you gotta do is follow the flow of thought. First, he says in verse 14, if it has no works, can faith save him?

Verse 17, if it have no works is dead. He's saying the same thing in different ways. Verse 20, if it have no works is useless.

Has he changed points? No, he's still talking about salvation. And verse 24, justified by works and not faith alone.

Justification is the same thing he's been talking about. It's the flow of thought. It's the justification of salvation.

And then he says, faith without works is dead. He mentions Abraham being credited as righteous and then says, a man is justified.

What justification is it except the righteousness that it just mentioned? That's the flow of thought.

It's not horizontal. It's vertical. You're gonna give us another question,

Ernie? Okay, last question. Last question. All right, last question for Matt. That means you can't answer. So I'm gonna attack you.

At least he smiled. That's good. All right. All right.

You asserted that the ark was an instrument of salvation in first Peter three, but that clearly contradicts verse 20, which says that they were saved through the water.

Comment. Corresponding to that, baptism now saved you. The question I would ask you simply is this.

What saved Noah from the destruction? Was it the water that saved them?

No, it was the ark that saved them. That's what it said. That's my position.

That's what I've written. That's what it is on Qoram, first Peter three 21. Spiros Otiates says the same thing.

And it goes into that. So that's my position. It's saved through the water.

Doesn't say saved by the means of water. Did water save Noah? Did the destruction, did the killing of the people, is that what saved

Noah? It doesn't make any sense to say that. No, the ark represented Christ and they were in the ark.

And that's how they're saved just as being in Christ. Ephesians one, four and five talks about. This is a broader theological issue that one minute just cannot get to the end.

Okay, you got the last word, go for it. Okay, okay, I'm a little confused.

We talked about keep on going, but this is the end. He said last question. So I guess it's the last question.

If you wanna have a little, you know, 15 or 20 minute little just free for all afterwards, I'm game for that. Well, all right, we'll just, that's fine.

We'll make it the last question. I'm sure people are tired. Okay, so let's start my timer.

He says it refers to the ark. Well, I'm gonna read you his own words. Once again, in an article called

Baptism of 1 Peter 3 .21 on his website, he says, he makes the same argument that he just did. And then he says, quote, but to be fair, the

Greek seems to imply that the baptism is referring to the water, not the ark. And the point is, it is not a matter of what saved

Noah. He keeps saying, did the water save Noah? Well, again, what is not unclear is that baptism saves us.

You may have a debate over what saved Noah, but the question is pretty clear or the answer is pretty clear that it's baptism that saves us.

It's not baptism saving us that's in dispute. When he says, what saved Noah? Well, you could, we could answer that.

We can go back and forth. But the real question is what saves us? According to the text, it's baptism.

That's what the text says. He's contradicting his own position and his own words from his own article. Baptism saves us.

That's what Peter says. So that ends it.

Do you want to debate me on Calvinism sometime? Well, I'll tell you what, let's talk about it. If you want to talk through email, see one of the difficulties

I had is, I know you're busy, I'm not criticizing you, but you didn't communicate too much through email.

So I was kind of a little unsure about some of the points. And I understand you're busy. So if you want, we can talk about it.

Maybe I can give you my phone number or we can talk about it. Yeah, I'd be glad to debate you on the finer points of Calvinism.

And if you're interested, total depravity, limited atonement, perseverance of the saints.

Yeah. So anyway, I want to thank you for the debate. And maybe we can do it again sometime with some other topic.

Hey, I enjoyed it. Can I say some contact information again? Is that all right? Sure, go for it.

All right. Well, once again, my email, if anybody else wants to have discussions, private or public, akrichardson at zoho .com.

You can check out my YouTube page, search up AK Richardson. It's got a variety of topics of videos.

And well, so once again, Mr. Slick, we disagree, but I appreciate you. No hard feelings.

I didn't take anything you said personally. That's the way debate is. And I appreciate the fact, and here's what

I do appreciate. You'll speak clearly on what you think. And I appreciate that kind of thing.

No beating around the bush. We know where we stand. I appreciate it. You know, I appreciate the same thing about you.

Okay. So yeah, if I, you know, I'd buy you coffee, you know, and the whole bit, tell you jokes and probably insult you to your face, like I do all my friends.

But, you know, as we both will say to each other that we believe we're preaching a false gospel. And so we'll leave it at that.

Okay. Okay. Now do I press stop cam to win this whole thing? If you were to do that, it'll end.

Okay. And I usually stay in and talk if you want to do that as well. Cause I just do a lot of times.

But what I could do is, cause I want to be fair, you know, if you weren't here and I were to continue to talk, it wouldn't be a fair representation of you.

I could end this for now. And then what I could do is if people are interested, they could let me know here, I could open up another room and we could just have an after party discussion, which

I do frequently when I have discussions like this. If people want to do that, just type that in there, say after party, yes.

And I'll put the link up on Facebook. And if you're not interested, no big deal. Cause I, you know, do it that way.

All right. Well, I'll tell you what, I'll just, we can go ahead and end this and you can do your thing. Now, I tell you what, you may appreciate this.

We can maybe pick up this once again. We'll talk over email or whatever. And I will, if you're interested in that kind of thing,

I will continue on my YouTube to post videos and maybe I will talk about your review. I mean, I'm sure you'll have reviews for the debate, but let's go ahead and end this.

Sure. So. Okay. Well, people are saying after party. And what I'll do is I'll just put up a little thing up on Facebook for anybody who wants to jump in and just have a little discussion and stuff like that afterwards.

Not a big deal. And I won't trash you, Richard. It'll just be the issues I've already said where I think you failed.

If you were to do the same thing, you seem like an honorable person. And you know, if you're discussing about me, probably the same basic kind of things.

Okay. No, I appreciate it. I understand. All right. Good night. All right. I'm gonna shut it down and I'm gonna,

I'll put up a link here in less than a minute or so on Facebook, Karm Facebook for those who want to do an after party.

Okay. Okay. I'll let you end it. I won't press anything. Yeah. I end it. I think I end it. End broadcast.

That's right. There you go. All right. Talk to you guys later. God bless everybody. See ya.